Little white lie by almostafantasia.
Summary: Jennie has the perfect winter date planned out – ice skating in the park followed by hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows – but it doesn’t quite go as expected when she realises that Roseanne has neglected to mention that she spent her youth as a competitive figure skater, while Jennie can barely stay upright on the ice.
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When Jennie has the idea, it comes to her very suddenly, but she decides almost instantly that it’s one of the best ideas that she’s ever had.
“We should go ice skating.”
Roseanne looks up from her phone with confusion on her face, like she wasn’t quite listening to Jennie’s words.
“Ice skating,” Jennie repeats. “You and me. They’ve built a rink in the park for the holiday season. We should go.”
“Like, right now?” asks Roseanne.
“No, not now,” Jennie rolls her eyes. “This afternoon, maybe. Or tomorrow. You’ve got the day off work, right?”
Roseanne hesitates for a moment, like she’s trying to decide whether Jennie’s idea is a great one or just downright ridiculous, before she shrugs and answers, “Okay. Why not?”
Jennie smiles gleefully in triumph, before she starts daydreaming about their perfect skating date.
“It’ll be so romantic,” she coos aloud. “Both of us wrapped up warm, holding hands so that we don’t fall down on the ice, drinking hot cocoa to warm us up again afterwards.”
Roseanne nods in agreement and says, “I’m a bit rusty, though. It’s been a few years since I last skated.”
Sighing with relief, because she can already imagine how unsteady she is going to be on a pair of skates, Jennie replies, “Me too. Don’t worry about it.”
☆°•°•
It turns out that Jennie should have been the one worrying.
It takes her almost five minutes to get both skates onto the ice and to remain upright, and even then, she’s still clutching onto the wall that surrounds the rink with both of her gloved hands, certain that if she lets go, her already bruised backside will hit the ice again with another unceremonious thud.
Roseanne, meanwhile, gets herself onto the ice without as much as a stumble.
Staying completely upright, and with the tiniest glimpse of elegance about her movements that Jennie could only dream about, Roseanne skates across the few metres of ice between them and holds out one of her hands.
“Come on, I’ll help you,” she tells Jennie. “Take my hand.”
Jennie tries to pry her fingers away from the wall that she clings to, but they’re either frozen solid by the chilly winter air, or there’s a malfunction in her nervous system between her brain and her hand, because they just don’t move. It’s as if her body knows that she’s trying to take away the one thing that is keeping her upright and has decided to just nope the heck out of there.
“I … I don’t know if I can,” Jennie admits reluctantly, when she’s realised that she isn’t moving anywhere except for downwards if she lets go of the wall.
“I thought you said you’d skated before,” Roseanne laughs softly, moving close enough to wrap an arm around the small of Jennie’s back, which Jennie leans into, deciding that the more support she has, the less likely she is to add to the bruises that are already blossoming all over her body beneath the thick layers of clothing.
