This fic is for the event JJ Style Week, for the fifth prompt: Charity. Title comes from "Theme of King JJ." Apologies for the lateness.
At least once a season, someone asks JJ about his charity work. He buries himself in it during the off-season, whenever he's not practicing his skating. People find it endearing, and JJ knows it adds to his fan base, but that's not why he does it.
This is why he does it.
Jean-Jacques is six years old the first time his mother doesn't take him right home after church. She's holding his hand tightly, even though Jean's pretty sure that six is old enough for him to walk by himself. Still, he's not going to complain if it means spending extra time with his mother. He hasn't been able to do many things with her since his baby sister Hélène was born a year and a half before, and he knows that his mother is going to have another baby in a few months, and then she'll have to deal with that baby too. Any time he gets alone with his mother is definitely not something to complain about.
"Where are we going, Mama?" he asks curiously when she starts leading him in the opposite direction they usually go.
"There's a place nearby called a soup kitchen," his mother tells him. "Do you know what that means?"
"No."
"A soup kitchen is a place where people can get free food if they don't have any of their own," his mother explains.
Jean frowns. "But don't they have food in their refrigerators like we do?"
"No, honey," his mother replies. "Some people don't have food, or refrigerators, or even homes. But if they're hungry, they can go to the soup kitchen to get food there."
Jean considers this. It's never occurred to him that there might be people who don't have refrigerators full of food. The thought that some people don't even have homes at all is even more shocking.
"So are we gonna help them, Mama?" he asks. "If they don't have refrigerators, I bet they're really hungry."
His mother smiles at him and kisses the top of his head. "We are going to help them, honey. Today, we're going to help out at the soup kitchen."
Helping out at the soup kitchen, Jean learns, means wearing plastic gloves that are too big for his little hands and passing people rolls when they stop in front of him. A lot of the people are quiet, but some of them smile, and one even tousles Jean's hair and calls him cute. All of the other helpers know his mother and welcome him with open arms. One of them promises to get gloves that'll fit him better for next time.
"Do you want to do this again?" his mother asks.
Jean nods solemnly. Everyone was very nice, and he liked handing out the rolls. One of the other helpers says he might even be able to help with cooking when he's a little older, and Jean thinks that sounds awesome.
Jean and his mother go to the soup kitchen every Sunday until his mother is too pregnant to go. After that, Jean goes with his father a few times, but most of the time, his father has to stay with his mother. Once his little brother Louis is born, both his parents have to stay back with him. Jean begs to go back to the soup kitchen until his grandmother agrees to take him on Sundays. Together, they hand out food, Jean now wearing gloves that fit his hands much better, and Jean decides he's going to do this every Sunday for the rest of his life.
When Jean - although he's thinking about calling himself JJ instead - is eleven and struggling with finding a coach, the soup kitchen becomes a refuge. He can't always go, since he's been traveling a lot to try and find the perfect coach for him, but he always tries to find soup kitchens in his area whenever he stays somewhere else. It doesn't always work. Sometimes, he goes weeks or even months without volunteering at all. He hates those times.
But now he's back home, between coaches, and he goes to the soup kitchen with an almost religious fervor. He asks his parents if he can go more often, a few times a week instead of just every Sunday, and they agree, as long as he doesn't let it interfere with his school or his skating. He starts by adding just one extra day a week, and then he adds another, and before he knows it he's going every other day.
At eleven, Jean does far more at the soup kitchen than just pass out rolls like he used to. He helps cook, although he tends to just end up stirring things. He ladles out soup and, when someone else is keeping a close eye on him, sometimes even gets to help cut up ingredients.
It's one of those times - Jean is peeling potatoes and carefully cutting them into cubes - that Marie, an older volunteer who's been there as long as Jean remembers, gives him a look and asks him what's going on.
"What do you mean?" Jean asks, focusing on keeping his fingers away from the knife as he slides it through the potato. He's not very fast at chopping, but he's fast at peeling, so it evens out.
"I mean, what's wrong?" Marie says. She's chopping potatoes much more quickly than Jean is, her long white hair pulled up in a bun. "Something's bothering you, chéri. What is it?"
Jean shrugs. "Nothing, really. I'm just having trouble finding a coach."
Marie hums. "For your ice skating?"
"Yeah. I just… All of the coaches want me to do stuff their way, but it's not how I want to do it."
"Then why don't you do things how you want to?"
Jean looks at Marie in surprise. "Because they're my coaches," he replies, stunned that Marie would even suggest such a thing. "If they say I have to do things a certain way, I have to do them like they say. They're like teachers."
"Hmm. Maybe my English is lacking, but I believe that teaching and coaching are different things, yes?"
Jean frowns. "I mean, I guess."
"Teaching is when you tell someone how to do something," Marie says. "And coaching is guiding someone. If you are looking for a coach, you are looking for a guide."
"I guess."
"So if your guide is not taking you where you want to go, they are not a very good guide, no?" Marie looks at Jean with a twinkle in her eye. "If this is the case, you might want to find a better guide."
It's not how Jean's ever thought of it before, but he has to admit, Marie does have a point. Still, there's a hole in her plan. "But I've already tried a lot of different coaches, and none of them worked!"
"Did you tell them where you wanted them to take you?" Marie asks.
Jean blinks. "Well, not really…"
"Well, a guide can only take you where you want to go if he knows where you want to go," Marie replies. She shrugs. "Finish those potatoes, chéri. We'll have people coming in for lunch soon."
Jean looks down and nods. He cuts the potatoes carefully, making little even cubes. Marie tosses them into the pot when he's done.
Later, when people start coming in and Jean serves them the soup he helped make, he thinks about what Marie said. His coaches can't teach him what he wants to know if he never tells them what he wants to know. He thinks about his problems in relation to the problems of the people who come in every day for food. He might be struggling with finding a coach, but he's much better off than they are. They're still trying, he knows that. If they're still trying, then he has no excuse to stop.
When Jean goes home, he tells his parents that he wants to try to find another coach.
Isabella finds him in the back of the kitchen, chopping up carrots and dumping them into the soup pot. JJ blinks in surprise when she comes up next to him, her hair tied up and an apron around her waist.
"Your parents said I would find you here," she explains, picking up a carrot and starting to peel it. "Your mom said you come here every week."
"Every Sunday, when I can," JJ replies. "I've been doing it since I was a kid."
"All your interviews weren't kidding about the amount of charity work you do," Isabella remarks. "Between this and volunteering at the animal shelter when you have time, and donating so much money to all those different charities…"
"I have the money," JJ replies with a shrug. "I have the time. I might as well use it to help people."
"And that's why I love you," Isabella says, handing him the peeled carrot and starting on another one.
"It's a good place to think," JJ adds after a moment. "The kitchen, I mean. And then, when I'm out there serving food to people… It makes them happy. It makes a difference. I feel like I'm actually doing something that matters." He shrugs. "And my problems don't seem so big in comparison, you know. At least I have food and a home and money."
"What you do does matter," Isabella tells him softly. "Your skating touches people, JJ. And it's okay to have problems, even if they don't seem as big as other people's."
JJ shrugs again, still chopping the carrots that Isabella hands him. "I like it here."
Isabella looks around. "I think I like it too," she replies. "If you don't mind, that is."
"You mean you want to come here with me?" JJ asks, surprised.
"I don't have to, if you want this to be something you do alone," Isabella replies. "But I'd like to come with you, if that's okay."
"I want you to come with me," JJ tells her immediately. "I always want you with me." He taps the engagement ring on Isabella's finger. "That means we're going to be together forever, and that's what I want."
Isabella smiles at him, and JJ feels wonderfully warm. "Then I'll come with you," she tells him simply.
"I look forward to it," JJ replies.
Later, they stand next to each other, JJ ladling out the soup while Isabella hands out rolls. It's the job that JJ used to do when he was little, back when he first started volunteering. He realizes he wants to do it again.
"Wanna swap?" he asks.
"If you want to."
Isabella takes over ladling the soup, and JJ puts on plastic gloves that are still a little too big for his hands. He passes out the rolls to everyone who goes by. Some people are quiet, but a lot of them know him by now. People smile. One woman tousles his hair the same way she has since he first started volunteering at the soup kitchen.
JJ hands out rolls, and he feels at peace.