An Ice Skating One-Shot
A/N: Standard disclaimer. Anything relating to Supernatural is not mine, I am simply borrowing it for a while. Except my OCs. They're mine. Enjoy :)
I should disclaim the line from Love Actually. It appealed in the moment and made me giggle so I left it in!
After a couple of hours, the three of them had warmed up enough that it seemed like a good idea for them to go back out and get cold again. Claire waved the tickets she had bought earlier in the day at them.
"So, you coming?" Her dancing eyes were met with looks of incredulity and excitement in equal measure. Dean stood up and lifted one of the tickets from where it was dangling off her fingertip.
"You bought us an hour on an outdoor ice rink?" His face lit up with anticipation. Sam looked between them blankly.
"Ice. You're putting me on ice. I am going to fall over." Claire bumped her shoulder into his chest.
"So'm I, dummy. You're looking at the winner of the Miss Clumsy Award 1992 to 2013. It'll be fun!"
They all wrapped up in a stupid number of layers (Claire won with six tops, two pairs of trousers and three pairs of socks), and Claire towed them back through streets which had a thin layer of ice beginning to form on the surface, making it treacherously slippy underfoot.
On arriving at the ice rink, placed on the grass in the Cathedral Close, Claire led them into the bookings office, and exchanged her ticket for a pair of skates with ease. The boys were having significant trouble finding skates to fit. Sam was attempting to skulk away quietly, but Dean was protesting loudly about the lack of sizes 10 and 12 skates. Claire leaned against the end of the counter and swapped her trainers for skates, and, balancing on the blades and carefully avoiding other peoples' feet, she handed them over for the desk operator to stow away.
"Boys, haven't you got your skates on yet?" She grinned at her own pun and edged closer to them, addressing the woman across the counter from Dean. "Excuse my brothers. What they mean to say in their politest voices," her voice took on a strict, motherly tone as she glared at Dean, "is please do you have a pair of skates in a size 10, and a pair in size 12? They have big feet, I'm sorry." She gave an apologetic smile to the woman Dean had been yelling at for the past few minutes, and took hold of his wrist. "Dean, play nicely." The woman – somewhat shakily – handed over the two pairs of skates and received a pair of beat-up army surplus boots and a pair of scuffed work boots in return. "I'm sorry."
Claire grabbed hold of both her brothers' hands and dragged them towards the rink. Dean backed onto the ice and wobbled for a moment, arms held out and knees bent.
"Ok, Claire next." His voice was full of laughter and he held his hands out towards her. She batted them away and took a confident step beside Dean, gliding smoothly past him and spinning to place her hands on his hips and laugh at Sam dithering on the edge, clinging to the wall.
"I do not like this."
"Come on, Sammy, it's ok." Claire glided back to Sam at the side and took hold of both his hands in hers. "I don't promise to be the best skater in the world, but I can skate forwards and backwards and turn around and most of the time I can do it without falling over. Trust me." As she spoke, Claire began moving slowly backwards, pulling Sam after her, and Dean skated alongside arms hovering ready to catch either should they fall. Sam gave him a look.
"When did you learn to skate?" He spoke almost as haltingly as he skated, focussing on not catching his toe-picks on the ice.
"I didn't." Dean sounded almost as surprised as Sam. "I guess it's a confidence thing." Claire looked at him and smiled.
"You've dealt with too many other things, Dean. You have fear, but it's not of falling, and it's not of pain, so for you ice skating holds no fear because the only two outcomes aren't things you're afraid of." She looked at Sam. "You've tried so hard to live a normal life, and you've got normal fears as well as supernatural ones, so you're scared of falling and scared of the pain which could be caused." She smiled kindly. "Neither are bad things, but that's why Dean's happier on ice than you are."
In a matter of a few minutes, Sam had gained some confidence on the ice and Claire had let go. They were sticking to within a foot of the edge, but Dean and Claire were facing each other holding hands, doing some kind of dance to the music floating from the speakers surrounding the rink. Sam was just managing to keep pace, laughing at them. The other skaters had begun to stop and stare at them as they made their way around the rink doing a surprisingly graceful ice-based waltz to The Power of Love. As the song came to an end, the two of them suddenly noticed that everyone in attendance at the Christmas Market had stood still where they were and were now staring at the two dark haired figures dancing on the ice. A cry rose from a spotty teenager near the Cathedral walls.
"Kiss!" Claire looked at Dean and laughed.
"No way, he's my brother!" The gathered audience began to laugh and moved off again, dissipating as they realised how cold they'd become while standing still. Sam attempted to join them in the middle of the rink, and managed to trip halfway, continued to travel forwards despite his inexorable downward motion, and landed mostly sprawled across both Dean and Claire. "Oh, hello!" They got Sam standing on his own two feet again, and Claire brushed the ice from his knees. She took hold of a hand of each of her brothers and began leading them back to the side, carefully judging the gaps between the other skaters.
"How're you feeling, Sam?" He was wincing as he skated, and he pulled a face.
"Like someone took a sledgehammer to my knees." She cooed at him and snuggled gently against his side until Dean tugged her away.
"Can we have another go at the dancing?"
"You liked doing that, huh?" She grinned at him widely as the first bars of The Christmas Song began playing. "Oh, go on then." They started skating in circles and loops, swirling effortlessly over the ice. Sam leant against the side, head on one side, watching their feet and subconsciously copying their techniques. A young, red-haired woman stopped beside him and gave him a questioning look.
"Are you in love with them?"
"Uh, b- what?"
"I... I just thought I'd ask the blunt question in case it was the right one and you needed someone to talk to about it and no one had ever asked you so you never been able to talk about it even though you might have wanted to…"
"No, no, absolutely not. They're my siblings. I'm trying to figure out how they're so good at skating." He glanced at her. "Were you quoting something?"
"Yes." Her eyes – a similar shade to Claire's grey-green – danced with laughter and he found himself smiling back, before directing his attention back to his siblings. "So…are you on a leash or can you come home with me and keep me warm?" The woman was now pressing herself against him and wriggling in a way he was sure was supposed to be alluring but was actually just alarming as it kept threatening to throw him off balance.
"I…" He'd been about to say he couldn't come back, then he looked at her again, making eye contact. "I don't want to come back with you." He shook his head to get a strand of hair out of his eye. "I've come from the US to see my sister, so I'm going to spend my time with her and my brother, thanks." She threw him a dirty look as she pushed away from the side of the rink and skated away. He looked after her, wondering whether he should regret his decision, until his eyes fell on his siblings. They were wobbling in an ambitious simultaneous arabesque, and as he began to laugh he knew he'd made the right choice.
When Claire and Dean re-joined him, they were pink and panting, and Claire flopped against the side.
"No more ice dancing for me!" Sam wrapped an arm around her and pressed a kiss to her head.
"You two were great!"
"Oh you were watching were you?" Dean elbowed him in the ribs. "I saw that girl chatting you up. What did you say?"
"I said I've come to see my sister and I didn't want to spend time with someone I don't know." Sam shrugged. "It's true."
They spent their remaining few minutes towing Sam around the rink and laughing, collapsing into the side and trying desperately to avoid crashing into other skaters. Eventually, the three of them tripped back into the ice-skating shack and collapsed into each other, giggling like school children as they tried to undo laces with frozen fingers.