Chapter Fourteen: Spread Eagles
Jean sighs, glancing down at his phone. Despite the Olympics having come to a close, Marco was still training hard. He doesn't mind watching Marco skate, but he's been watching him work on the same quad for at least twenty five minutes now, and his brain felt like it was going to short circuit. He plops his phone on top of his backpack and stands up to stretch. He catches Marco's eye and gives him a bright smile - he's in a pretty good mood today, despite the boredom. He still has yet to tell Marco about his situation, but he's been breathing fine, so he keeps pushing it to the back of his mind.
He quickly walks up the steps, heading out the door of the rink. He feels a slight temperature increase when he steps into the hallway, although not by much. He's surrounded by windows on either side, one side looking down onto the rink Marco skates on, and the other one of the other rinks in the building. Jean realizes he's never actually seen the third rink, but his thought process doesn't get much further than that when he hears someone calling his name from a little ways down the hallway.
"Jean!" Hanji is waving at him, the usual eccentric smile lighting up the older woman's face.
He raises his eyebrows, a little shocked that she even know his name, but starts walking towards her, hands deep in his pockets. She's standing with a small blonde girl who's back is facing him.
"Jean," Hanji says again as he stops between the two women. She gestures towards the blonde, "This is Historia Reiss. If you watched the women's event, she is the US's gold medalist! She will be joining us in a few weeks time to train with Levi and me. I was wondering if you would like to show her around? You're here often enough."
"Oh," Jean says, eyes widening slightly, "Yeah! I can do that," he turns to the blonde. She has soft blue eyes and looks like an absolute angel. It's kind of like the sun is shining down directly on her, even though they're inside. "I'm Jean, but you already knew that," he sticks his hand out to her.
She takes it, a small smile playing in her lips, "I'm Historia, but you already knew that."
Hanji glances at her watch and the down at the rink, "I better get going. I have to take Eren and Mikasa soon." With that, the woman strides past them, headed for the coach's locker room.
They watch her go and sit in silence for a moment. Jean finally says, "Well, that's the rink you'll be skating on most," pointing through the window. "I'm guessing you already know most of them?"
Historia nods, "Yeah, I've been competing with most of them for years."
"What made you decide to come here?" Jean asks, although he has a feeling it'll be some reason he won't quite understand. He's learned a lot about skating, but not nearly enough to understand it yet.
Historia pauses, watching the skaters fly across the ice. "Well," she starts, "I loved my coach back in California, but he retired after the Olympics. I knew the coaches here were great, but my girlfriend actually moved here last year. She plays for the Trost Titans, the hockey team. It was kind of a no brainer."
Jean nods, "That makes sense. Glad that worked out for you. I don't know the rink as well as Hanji thinks, but I can show you the stuff I do know. Although I'm not allowed beyond a certain point since I don't actually skate."
"All you really have th show me is how to get to the locker room from here," she smiles, "I can find everything else on my own. Rinks really aren't that confusing once you get used to them, so it shouldn't be all that bad."
"Okay, well," Jean points towards the left end of the rink, "See that hallway down there? That leads to all of the locker rooms. They're all marked from what I saw the few times I've been allowed back there. There's coaches, internationals - which I'm guessing is you - high level, low level, and basic. Internationals is the first right."
"You made that easy," she says. "I think I'm gonna go check it out now. Thanks for your help!"
"O-of course!" Jean stutters, watching her go. Really, she must be an actual angel.
After he watches her disappear into the rink, he turns his attention towards the end of the hallway. Walking over, he glances at all of his snack options from the vending machines. Some mini brownies didn't sound too bad.
After a small fight with the machine, Jean is headed back to his seat, brownies happily in hand. He stops, however, when he catches a glance at what's happening on the other rink. There's a large group of girls chatting, all wearing greyish dresses with longer skirts. At first he thinks dance, but no, there wouldn't be that many dancers on the ice, even if it they were all doing solo. He watches them get into positions (or, at least, he assumes is into their starting positions). He can't hear it well because of the glass, but the music started and he's somewhat in awe at these girls moving in complete unison with each other.
So, it's synchronized skating. He knew they had various level teams here, but he had never paid much attention to what has happening on the other rinks to actually see them skate. A few of the girls are wearing the team coats, and he occasionally catches a flash of "Trost Twizzlers" on their backs. With how long the program is and how effortlessly they flow, Jean assumes this must be one of their highest level teams.
Before he knows it, he's watched the entire program. The girls all take a quick lap around the rink, a few lingering and chatting with each other.
Jean furrows his brows when his eyes lands on one girl with short, chin length, amber hair. She has a devious smile on her face as she chats with another girl. She catches Jean's eye and smiles at him, causing his to quickly glance away.
Where did he recognize her from? School? No.
Where?
With a sigh, he continues his walk back to his seat.
Marco swings his keys around on his lanyard absentmindedly, watching the zamboni cross the ice. He glances back over at Jean, who's leaning against the window, playing on his phone.
"I'm gonna head back down to the locker room. Meet me at the diner?" Marco says, turning quickly on his heel.
Jean looks up and pockets his phone, pulling his own keys from his pocket. "Okay sweet, I'll get us a table."
He watches Marco head for the locker rooms and begins walking towards the entrance doors.
"Jean."
He stops, looking down the hallway to the left of the entrance. The girl who spoke is the same girl from earlier, on the synchro team. She's still in her dress, although now she has a coat on as well, with Hitch written on the right side chest and the Trost Twizzlers logo on the left. He can't tell how tall she is, but she can't be that tall since she has her skates on and is still shorter than him.
Reading her name makes it all click though. He doesn't know her from school, but from the children's clinic back in California.
"Hitch."
"It's been a while," she says, her hand coming to rest on one hip, the smallest of smirks on her face. "What brings you here?" she gestures around the rink.
"Oh, I'm dating one of the singles skaters," he says, and then clarifies, "Marco."
She nods for a moment and then says, "Glad to see you finally had your gay awakening."
"Hey-"
"I'm kidding, chill," she laughs, rolling her eyes. "But no, I knew that. I meant Michigan. Aren't you a California boy through and through?"
He shrugs, "I didn't have much say, dad got a job offer here with good benefits."
"It's always the benefits," she sighs.
"You too?" he asks.
She shakes her head, "No, actually. My dad found a clinical trial for the heart disease I have through Trost's med school and signed me up. Somehow got accepted. It went well enough that they wanted me to try a sport to keep my heart healthy or whatever, and now I'm here."
"I don't think it goes from starting a sport to be healthy to being a competitive skater, but okay," Jean says with an eyebrow raised.
"Fair point, our team is going to world's a month, so I guess there was some other stuff in there," she shrugs. "How are you holding up?"
"Alright. Had some breathing issues on and off since moving here, but nothing terrible. If I actually survive for a few more months, I might be eligible for a lung transplant." He hadn't actually said that out loud to anyone yet, but it felt kind of good to tell someone. He knows it should've been Marco to hear it first, but Hitch already knows the situation. She gets it.
"That's great!" she says, "I really hope that happens. Maybe you can actually get into music again."
"That would be pretty great, wouldn't it?" His eyes wander towards the parking lot, where the sun is starting to set. "I need to go, I'm meeting Marco for dinner. It was nice to talk to you again. Good luck at worlds."
"Thanks. Good luck with your lungs," she turns around and heads back down the hallway, her blades clicking against her guards with each step.
Happy midpac guys! I'm literally chilling at the rink right now as I post this. It's funny, when I started this fic I had no intentions of including certain characters or disciplines of skating, but things have changed quite a bit since I started this fic back in 2014. I'm skating for my university now, although I'm only doing intercollegiate (solo) because my study abroad last spring made it a little too difficult to do synchro this year. Come fall, I will be though! Which is insane, I had never considered doing synchro until last year! I wish I would've decided to do it my first year of college. I'm in my third year now, which is wild since I started this fic as a sophomore in high school.