| b u g s | MCYT(OC)

~Skating Shouldn't Be A Competition~

"Your balance is off, Toms," Fern laughed, holding his forearms so he wouldn't fall over. "Keep your feet shoulder-width apart for now; we can adjust that later."

Most everyone else had picked it up fairly easily; Niki and Wilbur were doing the best of the group, at least. Tubbo was good enough to not need Fern's help, so he just stayed by them as they helped Tommy. Dream and Sap were the worst of the adults. Markus and Nine had offered to help them, but it seemed pretty much useless- they couldn't seem to stay upright long enough to catch their breath.

Tommy, though, was the worst of all; he was on the ice so much that Fern had resorted to standing in front of him and acting as a walker so he had some semblance of balance.

"How do I know when they're shoulder-width apart?" Tommy huffed, eyes fixed solely on his skates.

"I'll tell you," They smiled, watching as he slowly inched his feet out. The skates scraped harshly against the ice, making them wince. Tubbo was the only one who noticed. "There. See? Notice how it feels a little steadier?"

He hummed, still not entirely happy with it.

"I guess," His eyes darted around for a moment. It wouldn't take a genius to see how uncomfortable he was right now; being the worst at something just as people had predicted had a tendency to do that. "Let me try standing."

Fern's face scrunched up a little, but they did as he asked and took a step back. Tommy slowly let go of their forearms, keeping steady on his feet.

"Hey, look at me," Fern said, trying to fix the posture that would make him fall. "Not the floor."

He did so, and for a moment Fern could perfectly read the joy that flashed on his face.

"Hello children," Wilbur laughed, making his round with Niki again. "I see we're still struggling to stand. Don't worry, you'll get the muscles when you're older," Tubbo chuckled. Fern would've, but Tommy seemed put off by the comment.

"Fuck off, Wilbur," He laughed, trying to cover it.

"I'll have you know, he's doing amazingly," Fern smiled, snatching Tommy's hand. "Unless you'd like to compete with me, Wil. We can see who's really the beginner."

"Ooh, I'm so scared!" Wilbur laughed loudly, gathering Markus' attention. "Show me what you've got, Kiddo."

"That's probably not a good idea," Markus cut in, skates slicing through the ice. "Shoulder, remember?"

"I'll be careful," Fern shrugged him off quickly, pulling off their headphones and handing their things to Niki. "C'mon Mark, I need to."

"What, earlier wasn't enough?" He asked, brow raised and arms crossed. "You need to take it easy."

Fern rolled their eyes, ignoring him and making their way to the center of the rink.

"Fern!" Nine yelled, glaring at them and trying to hold up two grown men by herself. "No!"

"Yes!" They yelled back, grinning wider than they had all day.

They started off slow; they couldn't just go all out right away. Then there would be no build up, and that was one thing they absolutely wanted- Shock Value. Also, Nine and Markus would definitely kill them.

Simple spins and jumps turned to something more complex, and their feet were hardly touching the ice anymore. They closed their eyes; doing this in front of new people was stressful enough without seeing them.

They tried to be quick; they'd hate to be a show-off, after all. Nobody said anything when they came back over, but they also couldn't seem to move their eyes from Fern.

"Now you," They grinned, out of breath and shoulder throbbing. They ignored both to watch Wilbur back up and fall flat on his ass.

"Nope! I'm good!" He laughed, accepting Niki's hand when she helped him up.

"I warned you," Nine groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. "No more now, or you'll be in that brace until we graduate."

"Shut up," Their laugh was breathy, chest still heaving, but it was lighter than the streamers were used to. Dream, for one, couldn't help but smile.

It was working.

~

"So then Nine pops out from under my bed and hecking screams at me-" Fern cut themselves off, unable to hold in their giggle. They clamped their hand over their mouth as they smiled. "Scared me half to death, and for no reason. She just wanted to be a nuisance."

"Incorrect," Nine cut in, gliding in front of the group and glancing at the grown disasters following her around. "I wanted to scare you. And since you've got the reactions of someone who watches horror movies to go to sleep-"

"It was one week!" Fern yelped, growing red when the boys following them started to giggle.

"I'm speaking, peasant," Nine huffed, begrudgingly grabbing Sapnap's arm so he didn't faceplant into the ice. "But really, scaring them just doesn't work. They like horror for some reason, so it's like impossible."

"It's not impossible," They scoffed. "I just don't get scared by the things normal people do."

"Trust me, I know," She groaned, glancing behind the group to check up on Markus' struggle. Niki and Wilbur were slowly catching up to the group again, too.

"Ay, Mark!" Fern called, not bothering to turn around. "Time stamp?"

"Watch says 5:46, phone says 5:43, intuition says time to go home," Dream snorted, losing his balance at the movement and crashing to his ass on the ice. "C'mon, man, even Tommy hasn't fallen recently!"

"Give him a break," Fern smiled, scooting backwards to help him up so Markus could take a break. "It's not easy for everyone. I remember the first time we came out here, and you-"

"Shush, I get it, I understand," Markus groaned, leaning against the glass panels.

With a small shake of their head, Fern helped Dream back to his feet. "We probably should get going, though. It's close to supper time- who's hungry?"

When every hand shot up, and Sapnap had forced Nine to raise hers, Fern begrudgingly agreed that they should get off the ice right that second.

"I vote we go to Space Aliens," Markus chimed in, grinning ear to ear once he could walk normally again. Fern was quick to roll their eyes, but the name had caught the groups attention.

"Hell yeah," Nine snorted. "More torture for Fern!"

a/n:
howdy ho everyone! how is everyone doing? i hope everyone has had a good week, and if not, i hope the chapter made it just a bit better : D

this weeks question is!

what's your favorite song? the catch is that it has to be written by someone on the SMP!

i would've uploaded this hours ago but i was forced to learn about g*ns for four hours so i had no choice 😔 still, i hope you all enjoyed and hopefully i'll see you again next weekend!

~Bee