Multi-Fandom One-Shots Part 2

3. break every inch of my love - Stydia (Teen Wolf)

It was incredible, really, how little time it took for everything to drastically change.

Rehearsal started off normal enough- Nutcracker season was about two weeks from beginning, and choreography was still being reworked and repeated, over and over, until it was muscle memory. Today was the Waltz of the Snowflakes: Lydia was dancing the Snow Queen, Patrick was, naturally, the Snow King, Adelaide and Lauren were her lead snowflakes, and Lydia had been dancing with a comfortable ease she hadn't had for a while- they'd joked and laughed as they ran choreography for the fiftieth time today; the stagers were barely concerned, because rehearsal was practically over at this point. Ever since the company directors had told her that as long as she did well this season, they would promote her to soloist next season, Lydia had been more stressed than ever before at the prospect of messing up, and her body was starting to show the physical and mental strain that promise was imposing on her. Today, however, felt different, and rehearsal was effortless, easy, and refreshing. Lydia could just dance, somehow push the worry and stress away and just focus on doing what she loved.

And then, before she knew it, she was on her back, the studio lights bright above her, her head a little woozy from its sharp contact with the floor, and an incessant, jarring pain in her left ankle.

It was almost hilariously ironic, she thought afterwards, that after doing this dance four or five times a week onstage for almost nine years, while fake snow rained down on them and turned the stage into a practical ice rink, making them fight tooth and nail for traction on the nightmarish surface- of course, when she slipped, it wouldn't be on fake snow onstage, but in the brightly lit studio, marley floor clear of anything.

"Lydia!" she heard someone call, and the world came back into focus around her. Patrick was hovering over her, face etched with concern, Adelaide leaning right over his shoulder.

"I'm okay," she said immediately, just because that was her gut reaction- you were never not fine in ballet. Rehearsal went on, the show went on, and you dealt with the pain later. She took Adelaide's outstretched hand, slowly clambering onto her feet again. Lydia could pretend she was fine, but it was abundantly clear the second she put weight on her foot- she was definitely not okay. She yelped at the sharp pain shooting up her leg, her ankle feeling like there was a knife jammed in the joint, and Patrick immediately slipped his arm under hers, forcing her to lean on him and take the weight off of the offending ankle. The pain lessened, but it didn't go away, still aching dully.

"You're not fine," Lauren said, standing on Adelaide's other side. "Lydia, that doesn't look good. Sit down, take off your shoe."

Patrick practically carried her over to one of the stager's chairs, everyone in the room loosely crowding around her. Lydia tried to block the tears gathering in her eyes as Lauren gently untied the ribbons of her shoe. She whimpered as Lauren pulled it off, and at the sight of her ankle, already swelling, her foot hanging at an angle that was slightly unnatural, Lydia couldn't hold the tears in anymore.

"That looks broken," Adelaide whispered, as if saying it loud enough would actually make it true.

"Can you wiggle your toes?" Lauren asked, the injured foot still resting on her knee. Lydia slowly wiggled them, wincing at the pain. "That's good," Lauren sighed. "No nerve damage."

"You have to go to the hospital," Patrick said. He turned to the other people in the room. "What's closer, Mass General or Beth Israel? Or Brigham and Women's?"

"How do we get there?" Adelaide cut in. "Do we call an ambulance? Is that only for life and death? Do any of us even have cars here?"

"It seems wrong to get an Uber," Emily said.