Prompt: But basically I just want a fluffy thing where Spencer teaches Toby how to ice skate, and either he's adorably uncoordinated and keeps falling over and she spends the whole time trying not to laugh at him, or he's secretly an expert/picks it up really quickly and Spencer's totally surprised and finds it really attractive. Or something along those lines. I don't know; it's up to you, should you choose to write it.
So, I don't know how to ice skate. You should probably ignore my tips if you go out and try it any time soon haha. And if you're like an expert skater just play pretend with me, okay?
Thanks for the prompt, ShadowsTellAll! I got a bit carried away, but I think it's still okay :).
IT'S SO FLUFFY I'M GONNA DIE. Review and let me know what you think, assuming the fluff didn't kill you!
"You don't have to do this if you don't want to." But even as she spoke she could hear the longing that laced through her words. She really wanted to.
Toby glanced down at her and gave her one of her favorite looks. It was like a cross between 'don't be an idiot, Hastings' and 'I'm pretty sure I'd walk across hot coals for you.' He hoisted the two pairs of skates up from the bed of truck, and reached for her with his free hand. She expected him to lace their fingers together like usual, but instead he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her close. "There's no where else I'd rather be," he said simply.
That was one of the things she loved best about Toby. He had a way of speaking simple truths that left you with no doubt. With anyone else she would spend time analyzing their motives, but with Toby it was never necessary. He let her know how he was feeling, one way or another. "Have you ever ice skated before?" She probably should have asked that before they left, but he took his shirt off and things just escalated from there. Those perfectly sculpted abs were her kryptonite.
"Nope," he laughed. "But I happen to know of a pretty good tutor..." he trailed off, pressing his lips to the top of her head.
She closed her eyes, trusting Toby not to let her fall, as she reveled in the feeling. It was like the comfort started at the contact point on the top of her head and rippled down her body like flowing water. She never felt anything but loved and safe when she was with Toby. "I don't know," she teased. "Maybe I can only teach French."
"Pretty sure you can do anything. It's the Hastings way," he chuckled. His hands temporarily left her waist so that he could move a large branch out of her path.
That was the thing about her boyfriend. It wasn't the big things. They weren't ones to go on elaborate dates or do these big romantic gestures, but they were experts at the small things. The way he moved that branch, the way he tucked her hair behind her ear, all the times he listened to her scream out the answers on Jeopardy, the way he said her name like she was a bottle of water in the midst of a long and dry desert. It was those things that showed their deep love for one another.
And love him she did. It wasn't just the way that he made her feel beautiful on her worst day. It wasn't the way that he was able to calm her down with just a word. It wasn't the way that he was able to make her feel safe with a single touch. It was every single part of him. It was his overly protective side, his master of the art of the annoying boy side, it was the Toby that hogged the covers in bed. She wanted all of it.
"Spence?" His hand moved up the back of her coat. He rubbed a gloved hand over her bare skin, trying to get her attention.
"Mmm?" She mumbled. "Sorry, I was distracted there for a second."
"It's alright," he said easily. "I was just wondering how much further this pond was?"
"Oh, um," she laughed at her failure. It wasn't lost on her that Toby was the only one who could make this amusing. With anyone else she would have been embarrassed. "I have no idea. I haven't been paying attention. How long ago did we leave?"
"About 20 minutes," he murmured, his voice dropping down to a level that only she could hear.
"Then we should be," she paused her sentence as they stepped through the treeline and into the clearing that housed her favorite pond, "here."
They laughed together at the opportune timing of Toby's question while Spencer led him to the huge rock that they could sit on to put their skates on. When they were little she and Melissa nicknamed it the butt rock because it was kind of shaped like a butt. They were obviously super imaginative children. Toby passed her her skates as they took a seat on opposite butt rock cheeks.
"You know, I could have carried my own skates," she laughed.
"I know," he smiled.
Once he finished lacing his skates he took her hand. Spencer bit back a laugh as he immediately wobbled and tightened his grip on her hand once he was standing on his feet. He was so outrageously adorable, like a wobbly, baby giraffe. "Have you roller skated or roller bladed before?"
"Not really. Maybe at a birthday party when I was a kid." He almost sounded embarrassed, and she didn't like that.
"That's alright," she said encouragingly. "You'll be great. Balance is the most important thing. You have plenty of that. I've seen you on that skateboard of yours. Just keep your head steady and if you feel like you're going to fall try focusing on a single point."
"Like a cloud or something?" He asked as he hesitantly looked at the ice; like it wasn't frozen solid and he would fall through to the very pits of hell. Don't let it be said that her boyfriend wasn't a bit dramatic.
"Maybe pick something that's not going to move on you," she said with her lips twitching, trying her hardest not to giggle. "Try that barn over there."
"And how do I actually skate?" He questioned. "Like do I just shuffle my feet or what?"
"You should try walking first," she explained. "It will help you figure out your center of gravity, and it will make the actual skating easier." She grabbed his hand and brought the back of it to her lips briefly before stepping out onto the ice and showing him how it was done. Toby was a visual learner. She had discovered that when she was trying to teach him French. That's why she brought him the French translation of the Catcher in the Rye. It was how he learned best.
He smirked at her and took a few wobbly steps onto the ice. He was shaky, but not that bad. It was probably something to do with his outrageous abdominal muscles. How could anyone have any kind of balance issues with that kind of rock solid core?
She laughed and skated back to him. She took both of his hands and walked with him around the edge of the ice. The barrier between them and the water below would be thicker there, so she worried less about him falling. But even more than that, she wanted him to feel secure. Toby always wanted to make her happy, so she constantly worried about making him feel comfortable because she wasn't sure that he would tell her what he needed to feel secure if it went against what she was wanting. She knew that if she didn't know how to ice skate, being close to the grass would go a long way to help her feel safe.
After a solid twenty minutes of him shakily walking she stopped, knowing that he would follow her lead. "Want to try skating now?"
He looked alarmed, which was adorable. He unabashedly joined the -A team for her, he ran off to Harrisburg to become a cop so that he could protect her, but he was afraid of ice? She laughed and ran a hand through his messy hair. "I won't let go until you're ready, I swear. You'll be fine."
Toby looked down at the ice and then back up at her, nodding slowly. The trust that he put in her made her heart jump. "How?" He asked her, tightening his grip on her hands. "I feel like I'm going to fall when I walk."
She gave him a reassuring smile. She learned a lot about Toby when she was tutoring him in French, especially about his learning style. Usually all he needed to succeed was a little reassurance that you believed in him. If you thought that he could do it he slowly started to believe in himself. "Are you kidding? You're doing awesome. When I was learning, I had fallen on my butt about fifty times by this point. Just glide. Kind of like when you're pushing off on your skateboard, I guess? Be graceful, and stay steady."
She found herself actually relaxing for the first time in a long time. The past few weeks had been saturated by -A's escalating game, Hanna's new found dependence on alcohol, trying to live Ali's lies, and absolute terror at possibly losing Toby. And honestly, her Toby related fears were the worst. Because if he got hurt- if anything happened to him while he was trying to protect her- she would never be able to forgive herself. He was so loyal, so good. He deserved the best in the world, and that was decidedly not her. But she would never stop thanking the God that she didn't even believe in that he chose her. Every day, every single day, she woke up and she felt lucky. She felt bless beyond belief, because she knew that she wasn't good enough for him, but he still wanted to be with her regardless. Toby was the only one who could make her feel safe. He was the only one that knew everything about her, he knew her hopes and fears and shortcomings, he saw the best an the worst parts of her, and he still loved her unconditionally. He was the only one that she trusted to be there for her through everything.
So right now, having him lean on her so fully, being able to help him lean to do something- even something as inconsequential as ice skating- was bringing her an incomparable sense of joy and peace. Was this what it was like to be a normal couple without the ever-swinging pendulum of death hanging over their heads?
"Spence, am I doing this right?" He mumbled, tightening his grip on her hands as he stumbled. If he fell there was little she would be able to do to keep him upright, but she could steady him through little stumbles like that.
"You're doing fantastic, baby," she smiled at him to show her pride and sincerity. Because she couldn't help but be a little proud of him. He wasn't ready for the Olympics or anything, but he sure as hell was doing significantly better than she had her first time on skates. She distinctly remembered falling on her butt and taking Melissa down with her. "Do you think that you want to try on your own now?"
He hesitated. "Why not? What's a potential trip to the emergency room? Now that Dr. Pervert's gone it might not be so bad."
She couldn't stop the laugh that time. Toby, her beautiful, altruistic, loving Toby, really hated the British doctor; and it was one of the things that amused her the most in the world. "Just don't break your leg, because I'm not sure I can carry you out of here."
He rolled his eyes. "Real reassuring, Spence." He slowly released one of her hands, but as he went to let go of her other hand she skated over a twig. Because she had been going backwards she hadn't seen it, and it caused her to lose her balance.
Toby tried to catch her, but he was already precariously balanced on his wobbly giraffe legs; so the two of them plummeted to the ground. The panicked look was all she saw as they fell, and even she was preparing for impact she couldn't help but laugh again. He was so cute.
Mid-fall Toby wrapped his arms around her waist and agilely twisted in the air so that he took the brunt of the fall. He landed first, silently, but when she fell on top of him he let out a quiet groan. "Sorry," she giggled, not sounding sorry at all. But she couldn't help it. "I can't believe I fell before you did."
He didn't respond. He just laughed and craned his neck up to kiss her. She made no move to pull away or disentangle their intertwined limbs as she normally would; she simply leaned in to deepen the kiss. She loved him. She lovedhim. Not high school romance love, and not passing fancy kind of love. Like the kind of love where their souls were so intertwined that she didn't know where he started and she ended. If she didn't have him she didn't have anything.
And when she looked at him she knew that he felt the same way that she did. She looked into his eyes and she didn't see doubt or fear. She only saw love and acceptance. She knew that he loved her. She was as sure of it as she was of anything. Not because he told her, but because he showed her. He showed her in every single move that he made. He showed her in the way that he touched her, and in the way that he protected her from everything. She wasn't an easy person to love. She was stubborn, annoying, and could hold onto a secret like nobody's business. But he looked past all of that until he saw the real her; the part of herself that she didn't make known to a lot of people, and she would love him forever for that.
She broke away from the kiss and simply rested her forehead against his. The chill of the ice didn't bother her. Not when she was locked up in his secure embrace. "God, Toby- I can't even begin to describe how much I love you." She whispered, her lips brushing over his in the softest of touches. "Every day I look at you and just am in awe of how lucky I am. My life is complicated, everything about me- I just don't know why you put up with it sometimes. You're all tangled up in this mess, and it's my fault." Her little declaration took a depressing turn, but it was all true. It needed to be said, and she wouldn't fault him if he ever decided to walk away. It would break her heart, but she would understand. And at least then she would know that he was safe.
"Hey," he murmured, moving one hand from her waist to lightly stroke her hair. "You still don't get it, do you? You didn't bring bad things into my life. Trust me, my entire life has been spent dancing along the line that separates the darkness of life from the light. But you do give my life meaning. You give me a purpose to keep going when things get hard. For the first time in my life I have something that I can't stand to lose. I'll always protect you, Spence." He pressed his lips to her forehead. "You're the only person in my life that I'm sure that I love, that I'd do anything for."
No matter what happened, no matter how much the -A thing escalated, no matter what life threw them... as long as they had each other, and perhaps a few more light hearted moments like their time on the ice, they could do anything. They could be anything. Because a love like theirs was an unstoppable force.