Chapter Eleven: Crossovers

At 4:00 AM, Jean wakes up to his phone buzzing with notifications. He wipes his eyes, trying to clear the blur of sleep to see who was blowing up his phone and why. He had about fifteen snaps from Marco, with more coming in every few seconds. He stares at his phone as it continues to buzz in his hand, trying to decide why the fuck Marco would be sending so many messages this early in the morning.

Suddenly, everything connects in his tired brain and he realizes that Marco is seven hours ahead of him and in Russia. For the Olympics. He's scrambling to unlock and open his phone because it's the coolest thing that's ever happened to him, and he's not even there. He quints through the brightness and opens the snaps, letting them all play through. A picture of Marco on the plane, a video of the airport, a video of the city, and then a continuous stream of pictures and videos from the Olympic Village. Jean feels a little odd seeing the insides of the village. He had always wondered what the inside looked like, and now he was finally seeing it. Of course, he supposed the inside of each Olympic Village looked different, but still. The experience would probably be the same, being an outsider and all.

After Marco's snaps finish, he checks out what everyone else has been posting. Mostly the same things, showing the village in all its glory and all of Jean's friends posing in various areas. He guesses he feels a little jealous, since that's a feeling he'll never have. But at the same time, most people will never stay in an Olympic Village, so he shouldn't too feel left out.

Throughout his friends stories, he sees multiple candids of Marco walking or smiling and laughing with friends. He resists screenshotting them. After all, he doesn't want to be that boyfriend. Or, he does, but he doesn't want anyone else to know.

Glancing at the time, it's now 4:15 and he groans. There's no way he could sleep now, but he really needed more sleep before he had to wake up for school. He sends a blurry snap to Marco with a thumbs up and plops his phone down on his bedside table, rolling over with a grunt. Slowly, he takes in a deep breath and lets it out, feeling relieved that he can breathe right now. He would've noticed it earlier if he couldn't, but the thought hadn't entered his mind until now. He manages to drift back to sleep pretty easily.

Armin wakes up to over a hundred notifications on his phone, the main one being that school has been delayed due to heavy snowfall. He had sort of been hoping that wouldn't happen; he really needed a distraction from the flow of snaps and messages he had waiting him. He should be there. But he's not. He swings his legs over the side of his bed, reaching forward to turn on his lamp. His skates are placed on the other side of the room, untouched from the last time he wore them in Boston. With a sigh, he stands up and stretches, wondering what he should do with his two hours.

A thought hits him as his phone lights up with another message from Eren. The ice will be empty today, everyone is literally in another country. He was told he would never be able to walk again, but he walks fine. What if, this one time, he tried to skate again? If it didn't work, he could head straight home and deal with the consequences later. He desperately missed the feeling of the ice beneath his feet, gliding along with the wind cooling him off from his program. He walks across his room, picking up his skates with a newfound determination. He slowly cracks his bedroom door open, checking for any light. If his grandpa was awake, there's no way he would be able to pull this off.

Lucky for him, his plan had worked perfectly. Grandpa was still asleep when he snuck out of the house, and the rink was, as he planned, empty. Now was the hard part. He sat in clubroom for the first time in what felt like forever, staring at his skates sitting on the floor. Did he even remember how to skate? Would he still be able to jump, or would he crash and fall?

He leans down and pulls on one boot very carefully, his fingers shaking slightly as he laces them. He could blame it on the cold all he wanted, but realistically he was nervous and scared. If he couldn't do this, then it really would be over. This spark of hope could have been for nothing, and he didn't know if he could handle losing skating twice in his life.

He sits there for five minutes after tying his skates, contemplating what he's about to do. This has to work, he thinks as he stands and walks out of the clubroom, down the winding hallway, and out to the rink. He opens the door and a blast of cool air hits him and he feels so alive. He swallows down the excitement building up in his throat and chest, telling himself that this may not work and it's really only a last ditch effort at feeling okay. He pulls of his guards and tries not to think of this as the moment of truth. It is though. If he can still skate, everything will change for the better. If not, he'll continue to watch his friends do what they all love with him on the sidelines. Can he do that for the rest of his life?

Carefully, he steps onto the ice, his toe picks digging in for a moment before he lets the entire blade settle. Then he pushes off with his other toe pick and it's happening. For the first time in years, Armin is gliding across the ice, guards in hand. It's like old times. The ice may be empty, but it's like old times.

He reaches the boards and sets his guards down, and then checks to see if the radio is in the music box. It is, but he would rather hear the ice crunch under his feet for now. He starts off with simple stroking. After all, it had been so long he didn't want to push it. He wanted to take the moment in, and hold close to it for as long as he could, in case all he could do was stroke.

Crossovers came naturally to him and he reaches the short boards, and instinctively he turns backwards and falls into his normal warm up routine. Alternating backwards crossovers, forwards and backwards power pulls, and so on. He comes to a stop beside his things, breathing heavily. A smile crosses his face because he can still do moves, at the very least. Glancing at his phone, it lights up once more, this time a snap from Sasha. He starts to reach for his phone, but decides against it. He wants to see what else he can still do before he replies to everyone.

He skates to the middle of the rink, and pushed himself into a spin. It feels odd, like all of his blood is rushing to one side of his body, but he still managed to do it pretty well after all this time. He looks down at the markings left over and he didn't travel too far, so he guesses he should be pretty proud. His eyes trace their way around the rink and he realizes the only thing he has left to try are jumps. He definitely can't do doubles anymore, and really he should start with a waltz jump to keep things easy, but he wants to try something else, something harder.

He settles on a flip. Not too hard, but harder than what he should be going for. He loops around the rink to gain speed and decides flinging himself into it is really the only way to do it after so long. He turns, his toe pick digging into and crunching the ice beneath him, pulling himself up and over his leg. And then, it happens. He's in the air.

If you has asked the Armin Arlert of three years ago what it felt like to jump, he probably wouldn't have had much of answer. If anything, he hardly noticed it all because he did it all the time. It was normal to fly through the air on a daily basis. But now? Not so much. It was different. Similar to the feeling of landing his first double, but still. It was better. He could feel how his entire body was positioned, the crisp air against his skin, the weightlessness.

His landing is a little scratchy, a little too forward on his toe pick. But he landed it. He comes to a stop and stares at the ice, not knowing how to respond. There's no one around the celebrate with. He glides back to his phone, finally deciding to watch all of the snaps that he's been ignoring. Draped across the boards, he opens Sasha's first. The snaps are about what he thought - everyone showing off where they were and what they were doing. He didn't mind now though, it suddenly didn't hurt as much. He wishes he could be there, that he could've been training this whole time with everyone, but he also didn't want anything to take away this magical moment of falling in love with skating again.

He checks messages both from Eren and Mikasa, who are keeping him the most updated of the bunch. He can tell through their messages how apologetic they are that he's not there. He debates if he should post a picture of his skates on his story, or maybe a video of him doing something. He sets his phone carefully against the glass portion of the boards and begins recording. He settles for a camel spin, deciding it was probably the easiest thing for him right now that still looked somewhat impressive (if he could still do it).

As he steps into the spin, he goes through each step mentally: stepping with his knee slightly bent, hunched over, whipping his arms around as if he's clearing a table, snapping his knee, and pushing his other leg into the air. When he comes out of the spin, he feels satisfaction flowing through his whole body. He couldn't believe that he was actually out on the ice, doing what he loved after being told he never could again.

He posts the snap to his story and realizes that he's going to be late for school if he doesn't leave now. He quickly checks that school hasn't been canceled and sighs as he skates towards the door. He didn't want to go already, not after knowing that he's still capable. But he supposes there'll be another time that he can come and work on getting back what he's lost. His phone buzzes with a notification that Eren is typing on snapchat, and then a message notification pops up. He slides his phone open and taps on the message.

Eren: yooooo what the fuck how

Armin can't help but smile. Such a typical Eren response.

Armin: :-)

Eren: why the fuck would you use a nose

Armin: I thought you were shocked about my skating?

Eren: no we gotta talk about this nsoe bullshit first

Eren: *nose

Jean grabs a gallon of milk from the fridge and starts to chug when his mother comes out of nowhere and whacks him over the head with a rolled up newspaper.

"Ow! Hey!"

"What do you think you're doing?"

"...Nourishing myself."

She sighs and sets the newspaper down, learning against the counter. "You know school was delayed?"

"Really? Fuck, I could've slept in."

"Jean!" his mother gasps, "Language!"

"Shi- sorry mom," he says sheepishly, grinning at her.

After glowering at him for a minute, she offers to make him breakfast. He says yes and sits at the counter, idly chatting with her as she cracks the eggs on the side of the pan. "Scrambled?" she asks, heading for the fridge. He nods and she pulls out a few slabs of American cheese and milk, setting them beside the stove top. "How are you feeling?"

"Good," he says, "I can breathe still, so. I assume the new medications is doing what it should be."

She nods again, this time to herself, before saying, "I'm glad. I was so worried when the doctor decided to switch you over. That is your main medication, after all." She pauses, glancing over her shoulder at him, "Tell me right away if you start to have any trouble breathing."

"Mom, you know I will."

"I know, but I worry," she says, adding some milk and the slices of cheese to the eggs and stirring. "The last time you switched was hard for all of us."

"I know it was."

She plates the eggs and set them in front of him. "Milk?"

"Yeah?"

She pours a glass and slides it over to him, then begins working on cleaning up the kitchen.

At 1:00 PM, Jean begins to impatiently twist in his seat, glancing at his phone. He couldn't stand paying attention in class anymore. Opening ceremonies were starting and his boyfriend was literally in it. How could he miss his boyfriend on international TV? He guesses that America will be pretty far back in line, starting with a U and all, and the performances should add some time as well. But still, he would've liked to watch the whole thing live.

Time slowly ticks by as he fidgets in his seat, ignoring whatever his teacher had to say. When the final bell rings, he's the first one out of his seat and rushing through the door. He quickly piles away his things in his locker and goes over the few homework items he actually has to worry about and slams them in his backpack. And with that, he's headed for the backdoor of the school, towards student parking.

By the time Jean flipped on the TV and found the channel, Serbia was headed around the Olympic stadium. After a few minutes he realizes he was lucky with his timing, because they announce the USA. The crowd of red, white, and blue begins their walk, and he wonders if he'll even see Marco or any of his friends considering the amount of athletes the USA has.

But then he sees them - right there, in their own portion of the group, phones out, smiling and laughing with each other. He leans forward on the couch, fingers gripping the edges tightly. He felt some kind of rush as he watched Marco flash a smile directly at the camera, and then they were gone. His phone buzzes beside him.

Snapchat from Marco.

He swipes his phone open, feeling weirdly light. Could he now breathe again? Or was this something else?

First, a selfie from Marco backstage. Jean decides he doesn't care and screenshots it. Then, a video from inside the arena. It shows the crowd and how large it really is, and Jean can't help but wonder what it would feel like to walk through with his best friends and teammates, knowing that you're the best of the best.

He decides the feeling must be some kind of sadness because he knows he'll never do something like that.

Jean wakes up early the following day to catch Eren and Mikasa's short program in the morning. He thinks they did pretty well, but he guesses he doesn't know enough about skating to really judge. By the end, they're placed in second, so he decided he must know something.

During their event, he receives multiple snaps from Marco. Marco and the rest of the skaters are shown a few times, sitting in the crowd, along with Eren and Mikasa's parents.

The afternoon brings the ladies short, leaving Sasha in first and Mina in third.

The rest of Saturday passes agonizingly slow, with nothing but homework to be done. Jean can't bring himself to look at it, but he knows he should get it done before tomorrow. Tomorrow afternoon is the men's short, and he absolutely cannot miss that.