It's Us Crew Oneshots

Push and Glide [6]

The chilling winter air broke through Don's heavy coat, the cold nipping at his nose as he strayed behind the group. Duni had dragged him and the rest of the D Gang along on some dumb "group-bonding experience", which completely defeated the purpose of the Gang's leader wanting everyone to hate one another. Don just assumed the pug had a lapse in memory or was going senile. Either way, the reason for the mutt's behavior didn't matter, for there was no turning back the moment the group arrived at the frozen lake. Several people from nearby towns were already skating on the thick ice, which somehow reflected the sky. Don stood by and watched as a woman across the rink jumped off the snowflake-littered ice, twirled in mid-air, and landed graciously on the ground again.

     "Woah," said Don, eyebrows raised. Duni tossed the group's bags off to the side in the snow and looked back at the jester.

     "Impressive, huh?" said the pug before addressing the others. "Today's an off day!"

     "Yeah, we kind of got that," commented Richard, who pushed his glasses up and crossed his arms, a bored expression painted on his face. Duni ignored him.

     "We'll just be ice skating today," said the dark-furred dog. "But remember, if you see Uni and his friends—"

     "—Give them hell and report immediately to you," Dashlie said with a tired sigh. Duni glanced at her, his face flickering to surprise.

     "How'd you know what I was going to say?" he questioned, and the silver-haired woman rolled her red eyes.

     "You literally say it every day."

     Duni went quiet for a moment as he marveled in his own disbelief before clapping his paws together and shaking the awkward moment off. "Well, anyways, other than that, go have fun!" he said, and quickly hobbled over to the frozen lake, not needing to lace up ice skates like everyone else since he had paws for hands and feet.

     "Right," grumbled Richard as he grabbed his ice skates from his bag, "fun..."

Don hesitantly retrieved his own skates from his bag, watching as Richard laced up his boots. The jester sat in the snow as Dashlie got up and launched herself confidently onto the ice behind DDawn. All Don did was stare at the ice rink, not even getting up when he had slipped on his ice skates. He blinked as flurries of snowflakes casually drifted down from the sky, settling into his hair and on his eyelashes. No, he didn't know how to skate. Sure, he'd been to snowy places before and seen bodies of water freeze over, but never had he actually thought it to be something fun to skate along the fragile surface. While, yes this lake was particularly frozen over well, the last time he'd stepped on a frozen surface was when he'd been crossing a river and he fell in. He could've disappeared under that ice, never to be seen again, and no one would've noticed. So, to see people walking, running, and skating on this frozen lake, all the while smiling and laughing, was mind-boggling.

"Hey," said someone, and Don looked up to see Richard giving him a weird look. "Are you just gonna sit there or what?"

Don opened his mouth to shoot something back in reply, but Richard left and skated off before he could say anything. Sighing and pushing down his fears, Don pulled himself up to his feet and shakily made his way toward the shore, anxious eyes gazing at the ice and wondering how people made it look so easy to ice skate. He placed his feet onto the ice as his hands clammed up inside his gloves and his legs began to quake. He didn't know why he felt this way, felt this much fear suddenly, but he did. Dashlie circled around and skated towards him when she noticed he hadn't moved.

    "What's wrong, loser?" she asked with a smile, slowly drifting past him. "Can't skate?"

     "Of course I can," Don snapped, but he hesitated a moment before pushing himself forward a few inches across the ice. "See?"