Work Text:
Florent was living on this island for a while now. Sure, it was a quiet impulsive decision to just leave France and move to an island on the other side of the world at 26, but if he was honest, he made the right decision. He needed to get as far away as he could, from a really bad break up and from his family that always treated him as the looser of the three brothers, just because his Biathlon didn't skyrocketed like Fabien's did, hell his little brother reached the world cup the year before he left.
And he? He failed to make it out of the early junior stages. The same junior stages his youngest brother was dominating, gold in the junior Olympics and so much more gold in the junior world championships, when he left. He couldn't take it anymore, the looks from his parents mourning what could have been their oldest son's career, without actually looking out for how he was doing and his brothers triumphant looks when they talked about their latest achievement.
Flo loved his brothers and he was so, so happy for them, but he always felt like the odd one out and they pushed that feeling on him too.
Sure running away and cutting contact was probably not the right thing to do, but Flo couldn't do it. He needed to put his life on full stop. So he did. He packed his backs and moved to the other side of the world. He wanted to get away from Biathlon from everything.
And that's how he ended up as the owner and bar tender of a small bar on Bora Bora, one of the most exclusive islands and travel destinations in the world. He called it home. In his first month there, he got more love, more support from complete strangers, than he felt from his family for years.
It had been six years since he left and he was still confident, that he made the right decision. Six years without his parent's pittying expression. Six years without having talked to his brothers. Of course, he missed them but it had also been six years without the impending feeling that he was a failure. It had been six years ago, that he watched Biathlon for the last time.
He watched the summer Olympics, but religiously stayed away from from any wintersport, which wasn't too hard considering that he lived on a little island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Nobody was really interested in wintersports.
What they were interested though, was the amount of tourists they got each month. Only wealthy people, influencers, models and maybe some athletes were actually able to pay for the vacation. And Flo knew everything about those by now.
Having his little beach bar had its perks. A lot of tourists stopped by for a drink when they were at the beach and a lot of them had completely lost touch about spending money. More often than not, the just tips they left were enough to ensure food for the next month.
Florent was happy. He had his business, he had a nice little house close to the beach and people he called his friends.
On the other hand the beach bar meant he had to deal with people who treated him and his employees like shit, because they were "just service personnel". As if the fact they didn't have millions in their bank account made them less human.
Florent despised it, the egos of some of the people coming to his bar. How they acted like the world was spinning just around them. As if their every wish was the most important thing in the world. But he kept his smile up, even when he felt more like water boarding them with their drink and the napkin, than actually serving them.
The worst always were groups of young men. Most of the time they hadn't achieved anything by themselves and just lived of Daddy's money drinking and partying without a care or a grip on reality.
Even worse when it was a bachelor party. More often then not those would end with Florent having to mop vomit of the floor, or shoveling it out of the sand into a bag to put it in the trash. Whenever one of those things happened, he took the liberty to charge them fifty dollars on top. Most didn't even notice and those that did mostly waved it off when Florent said it was for the cleaning. What were fifty dollars to those people anyway?
So when a group of four men came in, two about his age and two looking a bit younger, one Thursday evening, Florent wasn't particularly looking forward to serving them.
They were all wearing swimming trunks and Hawaiian shirts and it was pretty obvious that they just came out of the water, judging by the slightly wet hair.
The group sat down at a table in one of the corners and Florent was looking over to them every now and then, while he kept cleaning glasses behind the bar.
He only waited to be called over rudely by one of the guys, so he was really surprised when one of them, blonde hair, blue eyes, kinda (very) cute was suddenly standing in front of the bar, when he looked up the next time.
"Hi, I was wondering if we could get some of the drinks here without alcohol?", the handsome stranger asked.
"Uh", Flo needed to get a grip, for god sake, this was a customer. "Yeah, sure, all of our cocktails can be ordered non-alcoholic."
"Did I just hear non-alcoholic? Jesper, are you trying to fool us?", one of the friends of the handsome stranger, of Jesper, yelled.
"You know it would be better. For all of us, if you wouldn't drink. And dance on the table again. Or the bar. Or with Ponsi, which would just end with you two making out again", Jesper shot back.
So the guy who turned bright red at the mention of the name had to be Ponsi. Florent tried to remember that info for later.
"Yeah anyways", Jesper turned back and read his name tag, "Florent", a bright smile lighting up his face, "I would like a non-alcoholic Sex on the Beach and they want, what do you want boys?"
After Florent took and made their orders, he served the cocktails to the table. All but the one for Jesper, which he gave him directly over the bar. He expected for the blonde to jump up from the barstool and go back to his friends, but he kept sitting in front of him.
This pattern continued for the next few days, the group of young men coming into his bar and Jesper sitting down at the bar to talk with him rather than sitting with his friends.
They talked about everything and nothing and Florent found himself really enjoying the others company. It never felt like they didn't have something to talk about, be it the beach, the island, or just life in general.
Whenever Jesper came in, Flo already started with the non-alcoholic Sex on the Beach Jesper drank everytime. Over time, Florent dared to start flirting with him and Jesper flirted right back. Just one topic, Florent didn't talk about. Family. But Jesper didn't seem to notice, that he redirected the conversation whenever it got to that topic.
Some evenings Jesper even stayed after closing and enjoyed the sunset on the beach with Florent or went for a late night swim. At some point they even exchanged phone numbers. The whole night was spent texting after that, still they never really talked about life outside of the island. And Florent was kind of glad about it.
When Jesper and his friends came in on Monday, he instantly sat down at the bar again, while his friends took a table. The rest of the group didn't seem to mind too much, especially since a group of six more guys had just arrived.
Some of their faces seemed oddly familiar, when he took their order, but Florent saw a lot of faces everyday, so it made sense, that he believed to recognise someone. He chackled it up to his brain putting together a lot of different faces to make the illusion of knowing someone.
When he returned to the bar to start on the group's order, Jesper was still sitting at the bar, like always.
"So where are you from?", Florent asked, looking up from cutting up some limes. He figured, that Jesper wouldn't stay here forever and by now, he got accustomed to him enough to maybe even trust him with his family stuff. He was ready to talk about 'home'
"Sweden. Like Ponsi, Sebbe and Peppe. The other six guys are from Norway", Jesper explained.
"Oh, beautiful. I haven't been in Sweden for so many years", Florent responded.
"You've been to Sweden before? Where?", Jesper asked intrigued.
"Östersund", Florent answered. He didn't want to say more, afraid of giving away too much of his past life too soon. While he was ready to maybe give a brief family history, he still would like to avoid to talk about biathlon.
Jesper's blue eyes on him felt like they could look directly into his soul and made him want to pour out its contents.
"Oh, Östersund! I'm going there a lot actually. It's beautiful. But it's quite the trip, isn't it, from this island all the way to Sweden?", Jesper wanted to know.
"Well I was still living in France, when I went to Sweden for the last time", Florent answered matter-of-factly.
Jesper looked at him confused for a second before catching on: "Ahhh, I see, you are actually from France?"
Florent nodded and started to concentrate on making the drinks again. He didn't talk about home in so long. He caught himself hoping Jesper would drop the subject, but he had no such luck.
"So how often do you visit home?"
"Not at all actually. I haven't been in France since I first moved here when I was 26. That's six years now."
Jesper gaped at him. "I'm already missing home terribly, even though I'm only gone for half of the year, I can't imagine not being home for that long", the Swede murmured more to himself then to Flo.
"Well, home, for me is here. This island. The people here."
"That's cool. You really built yourself something up here. The bar is really nice", Jesper seemed to finally caught on that Flo was a bit weird about the subject.
"Thank you, I've worked really hard for this. I came here with basically nothing and now look at me, I'm making fancy drinks for fancy people", Flo winked at Jesper, "and of course pretty drinks for pretty people", he added, before placing the non-alcoholic Sex on the Beach with a beautiful colour gradient in front of the now blushing Swede, like he had done all the days before.
With that he set off to serve the drinks to the group, smiling to himself. He hadn't flirted like he had with Jesper for a long time. He didn't have a customer this nice in a while. He was already thinking about what to say next, when he saw another group arriving at the beach.
"Hey, the French are there!", one of the Norwegians called, he was young and sitting next to the guy that seemed so familiar to him. He was definitely the oldest from everyone there and stared at him, as if he was expecting some reaction out of him. Florent was creeped out by it for a second, but soon enough he was standing behind the bar and looking at Jesper again, instinctively smiling.
"So how do you all know eachother? Norwegians, Swedes and now a French group, seems like an interesting combination", Florent picked up the conversation again, while drying the glasses that came straight from the dishwasher.
"We are all athletes, we are competing in the same sport and we also, mostly, are all friends", Jesper answered, without giving up to much information.
An athlete, yeah that fitted Jesper's trained body. Florent was just about to comment on the career path, when he saw another group of six enter the bar. Those had to be "The French". Florent almost dropped the glass he was currently holding. He recognised them. Well, two of them. How could he not. After all those years, they were still his brothers.
"Fab? Emil?", he whispered in shock. He sat the glass down with a loud 'clink', did a 180° turn and bolted for the back door.
Jesper called after him confused and Flo just shouted back something about having to go, not caring for anything other than getting away before his brothers saw him.
Wow, it really happened. He literally ran away.
______________________
Jesper couldn't remember being so confused ever before in his life. He was just flirting with the hot bartender, when he all of the sudden bolted out of the back door of his own bar, when the French team entered.
He was so confused, he couldn't do anything but stare into the now empty space, where Florent was just standing and back to the French team. Back into the empty space, back to Fabien Claude, back to the empty space, back to Emilien Claude, back to the empty space, back to the two Claude brothers.
And it hit him. Florent and those two, they looked so similar to eachother. Like brother's.
He was just about to go and ask Fabien about it, when Tarjei went up to him. Jesper had felt the oldest Norwegian looking over to them for quite a while, so he figured he had seen it happen.
"The barkeeper's name, is it Florent?", Tarjei asked.
"How do you know?", Jesper asked confused.
"I competed against him in the very early junior stages. He is the-", Tarjei was cut of by Jesper.
"...third Claude brother, yeah, I figured. I never knew there was a third one", he finished the Norwegians sentence.
"Well they don't talk about him. You can basically only know him, if you competed with or against him. I don't know the details, but I think he went no contact with them, for whatever reason and disappeared from the face of earth."
"Hey, were did the bartender go?", asked Sebastian confused. "He was just flirting with Jesper and now he's gone!"
Suddenly all eyes were on Jesper, the Swede looking like a deer in headlights, not sure what to say. Luckily, Tarjei was there and stepped in.
"He had to leave, but said, that someone else would take over for him soon."
While that was a complete lie and the two of them could online pray for it to be true, everybody seemed to be happy with that explanation and turned back to their respective conversations.
Tarjei and Jesper were looking at eachother trying to think what to do next. "I'm going to talk to them", Jesper announced and Tarjei gave him a nod of approval.
Jesper went over to the group and asked: "Can I borrow the Claude brothers for a second?"
The both of them seemed slightly confused, since neither of them had ever really talked to Jesper more than the usual, "hi!", "what's up?", "congrats.", neither of them had the slightest idea what the Swede could want, still they went with him to a quieter corner.
"What's up?", Emil asked, always curious.
"I need to talk to you about your brother."
"Fabien? What did he do?", he asked confused, turning to his brother he added: "What did you do?"
"I didn't do anything! Jesper what is this about?", Fabien defended himself.
"It's not about you Fabien. It's about Florent."
"How do you know about Flo?", Emilien asked suddenly looking almost hurt.
"It's a very sensitive subject for us. Why do you need to bring it up now? This is supposed to be a party", Fabien added.
"It's really relevant, I bring it up because-", Jesper was cut short by Emil: "Yeah, now I'm intrigued, why would you bring up our dead brother? Tell me Jesper."
"What? Florent is not dead!", Jesper exclaimed.
"Of course he is. He died in a car crash 2017", Fabien looked like he had just been hit by a truck.
"No, he is not! He owns this bar. He was the bartender, that just bolted out. He whispered your names and ran away. He's alive", Jesper explained.
Emilien looked like he was about to cry and Fabien stared at him as if he feared that Jesper was going crazy.
"This is not funny. Our brother is dead. Why would you do this?", Emilien asked anger mixed with tears in his eyes. He said that louder than he had intended, which lead to Tarjei overhearing him and coming over.
"Florent isn't dead. We just saw him. Jesper is right. You know I competed with him, I would recognise him", Tarjei backed up Jesper.
"No. No, that's not possible. Our parents told us he was dead. Why would they do this if it wasn't true?", Emilien sounded desperate, he really couldn't grasp the implications of that.
"Our brother, is truly alive?", Fabien asked slowly.
"Yeah", Tarjei and Jesper answered at the same time.
"I think, we are going to go back to the hotel. We need some time processing."
"I understand, I'm sorry to have shocked you like that", Jesper apologized, before squeezing their hands.
The brothers got up and left like they were walking in trance. They weren't looking left or right, just some disbelieving glances between them every now and then.
"So what now? From what I gathered you seem to be close to Florent?", Tarjei said, nudging Jesper, basically shaking him up out of his staring.
"I think I'm going to call him and check up on him", Jesper said more to himself than to Tarjei.
The older smiled at him encouraging, before he went back to his table.
Jesper stepped outside, dialing the number and putting the phone to his ear.
"Jesper?", was the first thing the Swede heard when the call was picked up.
"Yeah", the addressed answered softly.
"Can you come over?", Florent asked, voice breaking.
"Sure, just give me the address."
He headed back into the bar to tell his friends that he was going, they waved him good bye a bit confused but Tarjei leaned over to explain and nobody really knew what to say after he had explained.
That part, Jesper didn't even notice anymore though, because he was already on the way flagging down a taxi to take him to the address he was given. It was in walking distance, but Jesper didn't fancy getting lost and he trusted the taxi driver more than his own navigation skills.
Five minutes later he was knocking at the door of a little house, with a nice garden. The door opened and opposite of him was standing Florent, with tearstained cheeks and red puffy eyes. Jesper immediately got the urge to hug him and so he did.
Florent basically melted into him, letting Jesper support his whole weight. They stood there like that for what felt like hours, the Swede holding the other in his arms, drawing circles into his back with his finger tips to calm him.
Eventually they actually moved inside and sat down on the couch. Jesper looked around the room, it was furnished really nice and he could see Florent living here. It fit him. He still had one of his arms slung around the older, Florent's head was on his shoulder and Jesper placed his head on top of Flo's.
"My brothers were there. Little brothers. I haven't seen them in all those years. How? Why are they here all of the sudden?", Florent cried and questioned.
"I know. The moment you stormed out I realised how similar you look. I know Fabien and Emil. But may I ask why you didn't stay in contact with them?", Jesper asked tentatively. He knew he had to tell him that his brothers thought he was dead, but first he had to know Flo's side of the story.
"I used to be a biathlete too. I never made it out of the junior stages and my parents always looked at me as if I was a failure and someday I couldn't take it anymore. Fabien reached the world cup and Emil was absolutely destroying junior stages. It was like I was dead to my parents because I was working on a uni degree and not competing. I couldn't take it anymore, between all of the attention my brother's got, I was forgotten. But they were also talking about nothing else than that stupid sport. I really wanted to spent time with them, but they were either training, traveling the world, or spent time with their friends from Biathlon and I never got a word in. I finished my degree and my parents didn't even show up. They rather wanted to drive my brother's to some trading camp. Both of them. All that while Fabien was more than capable to drive himself. The same day I packed all my bags and booked the flight here. I left a letter at home saying I was fine, but that I needed to get away. That I couldn't stay in the town anymore and needed a new start. I wrote that they were blocked on my phone for three month, because I really needed a break. I sent a postcard when I arrived here with the same reminder, but when I unblocked them, neither my parents nor my brother's tried to call me or even send me a text once. That was it for me. Once and for all. It proved to me, that I was right to leave and I never looked back."
"Oh Florent that's horrible of your parents! How could they do that to you? I'm feel so sorry for you. I understand how distraught you must have been when you saw them. I don't even know what to say. Nobody should experience that kind of neglect!", Jesper said, lifting up his head to take a better look at Florent.
"It wasn't only my parents my brothers didn't try to contact me either and that hurt even more if I'm honest", Florent murmured into Jesper's neck.
"About that. I asked the two about you, because I couldn't make sense of your sudden disappearing and when I mentioned your name to them, they told me you were dead. That you died in a car crash, or that's what your parents told them", Jesper repeated what Fabien and Emilien had told him. He cringed at how fast Florent's head shot up.
"They did WHAT?", Florent asked.
Jesper wasn't sure if he could repeat it. It was so cruel. Not only, that they haven't even tried to contact their oldest child, they even told their other children their brother had died.
"They told your brothers you are dead. They didn't believe me you were here, until Tarjei came up to our table and backed me up. He recognised you, because you competed against eachother for a bit. He's one of the Norwegians."
"I can't believe it. Why would they do that? I mean I was dead to them the moment I stopped progressing through the junior stages, but this? What am I even supposed to do?"
"I don't know, but what I can tell you, is that Fab and Emil were just as shocked as you are right now. And that they looked sad at the mention of your name. It was evident, that they miss you. If you feel up to it, talk to them. We'll be on the island for another week, so no hurry", Jesper tried to lay out his perspective.
"Right now I just want to fall into bed and sleep. I am exhausted. I'll just text Lotte to do the bar tomorrow, she's already filling in right now, she wont mind an extra shift.", Flo said, getting up to grab his phone and texting Lotte, one of his employees, a sweet girl from Belgium who was currently doing parts of her study on the island.
"Okay, I'll get going then. Have a good night", Jesper said, slowly getting up too. He wanted to give Flo a hug, but the older stopped him, by putting his hands on Jesper's shoulders, keeping him at a distance, to look him in the face.
"Stay? I don't want to be alone right now", Flo asked sheepishly. He knew it was a lot to ask and Jesper had already done so much for him, but he had to ask.
"Sure", the Swede answered softly and gave him the hug regardless.
That night they fell asleep cuddled up together.
______________________
The next morning when Florent woke up, he hoped everything had just been a dream. Well not everything. He hoped Jesper was still with him. And he was, but that meant that the rest had also happened.
"Hey", he said when he saw the younger waking up.
"Hey", was the answer he got back, together with a tired smile.
"So that really happened?", Florent asked.
"It did", Jesper answered, laying on his side looking at Florent.
"I think I'm going to talk to them. We all deserve that conversation", Florent announced.
Jesper smiled at him. "I can arrange that. I think I at least have Fabien's number, otherwise I can ask my teammates, they'll know."
"So you are a biathlete too then?", Florent wanted to know.
"Yes", Jesper answered, not knowing how deep to go into the subject.
"Any good?", Flo asked cheekily and Jesper smile widened.
"Well I have an Olympic gold medal, that speaks for itself", Jesper said in an overly serious tone and Florent knew, that he didn't take himself too serious. It was endearing.
"Wow, that's impressive."
The rest of the day was spent just between them, cooking together, watching a movie and just being close. Jesper had called Fabien and asked whether he wanted to meet his brother, which Florent was very nervous about, but Fab and Emil agreed in a heartbeat. They said, that they needed some more time to understand everything and especially to talk to their parents. They agreed on a meeting on Wednesday in the afternoon. And so the Tuesday came and went away, all too soon Flo woke up in his bed again, Jesper next to him.
Flo could get used to that. Jesper really was the best thing that could happen to him in all this mess.
The whole Wednesday was filled with anticipation, Florent opened the bar up again and started his business. The time on the clock ticked away slowly, but whenever he got too nervous, Jesper was there to squeeze his hand and calm him down.
"Before all of this happens and goes down, I want to ask you something", Florent said, not knowing where the confidence came from all of the sudden. "Would you maybe like to go out sometime? With me?"
"Of course!", Jesper answered. "I would love to!"
Florent smile widened into new dimensions and Jesper smiled just as bright.
When it was almost time, Florent gave the bar over in Lotte's very able hands and sat down on one of the tables with Jesper, waiting for them to arrive. Florent was squeezing the younger's hand nervously, eyes fixed on the entrance.
"It's all going to be alright. I'm here for you", Jesper said encouragingly. That made Florent look at Jesper grateful, turning away from the entrance for a second. Only when Jesper gave him a little nudge, he realised that somebody new had entered.
He looked back and saw his brothers. He couldn't believe how much they had grown. Especially Emil, who was still a teenage boy when he left, he had grown into a strong man.
Florent got up from his chair, when they started walking towards their table.
"Hi", he said.
That was all that it took for his brothers to break out into tears and fling themselves into his arms.
"Oh my god, it's really you, it's actually you", Fabien murmured over and over again while clinging to his older brother's T-shirt for dear life.
"I missed you so much. Everyday", Emilien cried, clinging on just as tightly.
They stayed like that for ages, the three Claude brothers finally reunited.
From here on it could only get better.