Adrien #3
She gently slips her hand from mine and looks away, retreating somewhere deep inside herself.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she murmurs.
“There’s nothing wrong with you.”
She quietly pushes herself forward and skates away from me in measured strokes while I stay exactly where I am, forcing every instinct in my body not to follow.
I quickly pull the phone from my pocket and give it another try, putting the song back on, setting it on repeat.
She does the opening movement once, then again, her body making minuscule adjustments on its own until the hesitation gradually begins to disappear. It’s like watching muscle memory fight its way through fog.
Her shoulders loosen, then her arms, then something shifts inside her entirely, every transition flowing seamlessly into the next until she’s no longer consciously searching for the choreography and she’s simply moving.
I barely breathe while I watch her drift across the rink, because somewhere in the middle of it she stops looking like someone desperately trying to remember and starts looking like Natalya again.
By the time she reaches the center of the ice, the routine has fully taken over, carrying her from one element to the next. She gathers speed with effortless precision, white hair streaming behind her like a ribbon as the music seems to pull every movement from somewhere far deeper than memory.
She finishes another spin, gains speed through a sweeping curve and suddenly drops into a knee slide that sends her gliding elegantly—the rockstar glide, as I call it, because she leans backward so deep she almost lies on her back while she glides across the ice.
Then the speed slows down and she straightens, attempting to get back up, except…she never gets back up.
The music continues playing through the speakers while she remains there, both knees pressed against the frozen surface, completely motionless, and she starts looking at the ice, leaning above it. One hand slowly reaches down, then the other, her fingertips brushing across the ice.
She keeps rubbing the same spot with quiet determination, her eyes fixed on something I can’t see, as though there’s an object trapped beneath the surface that only she is capable of noticing.
My stomach drops.
“Nat?”
She doesn’t react.
I’m moving before I even realize it, rushing across the rink as quickly as I can before lowering myself onto my knees opposite her.
“Nat?” I repeat, but she’s gone.
She isn’t looking at the ice, it’s more like she’s looking through it. Like there’s something buried underneath, sealed inside the frozen surface, and I don’t need to check for myself to know she’s already slipping somewhere I can’t follow.
I gently grab her shoulder, trying to summon her back.
“Nat, what is it? What do you see?” My voice trembles, the fear of losing her clawing its way up my throat.
“It’s the chain with the cross,” she mumbles, her fingertips brushing gently over the ice again as though she’s trying to trace its outline beneath the surface.
“What?” I frown. “My cross?”
I reach beneath my sweatshirt and pull the necklace free, letting it dangle between my fingers while my other hand carefully cups her chin, encouraging her to look at me.
“This one?”
I wait until her eyes lift and settle on the silver cross swaying lightly in my hand.
“It’s here, Nat. I’m here.”
She slowly shakes her head.
“Yes, Nat. I’m here.”
Her gaze flickers back to the ice, then returns to the cross, bouncing between the two as though she’s waiting for reality to slip, for one of them to disappear and prove she was right all along.
“It’s not going anywhere,” I force out, more pleading creeping into my voice than I’m capable of hiding anymore. “Neither am I.”
Her breathing quickens, both palms remain pressed against the frozen surface while I gently tighten my hold on her chin, guiding her attention back toward me without forcing it.
“Nat, please stay with me.”
Our eyes finally meet.
“This is real.” The words scrape their way out of my chest. “I’m here.”
Instead of answering, her brows draw together as though she’s trying with everything she has not to cry.
I’m at my wit’s end, so I change the strategy entirely.
“Nat,” I say, my voice firmer now, more commanding than pleading. “You can get out of this. You’re somehow a genius, creating a reality that’s easier to survive than the real one, but I know you can push it away.”
Her chin slightly trembles in my hand.
“I’m here. I never died. Accept it already,” I manage, my own eyes beginning to burn.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” she grits out, frustration bleeding into every word.
That’s good. That’s okay. Anger means she’s still here with me.
“What can I do to make you believe this is real, hm?” I ask quietly.
We remain kneeling opposite each other, just a few inches apart, the music still echoing through the arena around us.
“I don’t know,” she whispers.
“What proof do you want?” I press. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”
Her eyes drift back to the ice before returning to mine, as though she’s weighing whether she should say the thought out loud.
“Pain.”
My hand slips away from her chin as I simply stare at her, fingers quivering uselessly in the air before I let them fall into my lap.
“Something else?” I grit out.
“Cold,” she says.
Jesus Christ. Much better.
I close my eyes, jaw tight. “Anything else?”
“Pressure.”
“Pressure?” I repeat, hope creeping into my voice.
“Mhm,” she nods.
Heat rushes straight into my face and promptly spreads through the rest of my body.
“I can—” I begin, but the word catches in my throat. “I can do pressure.”
Did I just fucking stutter? That’s a first.
“Then do it,” she says, tilting her head as if she’s provoking me at this point.
My lips part while I weigh exactly how reckless I’m willing to be.
Well, fuck it. All the way, I guess.
My hand finds the back of her neck before I have the chance to overthink it, fingers disappearing into the strands of her hair as I draw her toward me until there’s no space left between us and I finally kiss her.
There’s nothing careful or polite about the kiss. It’s rough, ravenous, and desperate.
That counts as pressure, I think.
For one horrifying heartbeat she doesn’t react. She just stays there, frozen against me, and panic immediately starts clawing its way in.
Then her hand grabs the front of my sweatshirt, not pushing me away, just... holding on. My pulse goes absolutely feral.
My other hand joins the first, cupping the opposite side of her neck as I pull her impossibly closer, my thumb brushing across her cheek before I break the kiss for the briefest second only to catch her mouth once more, deeper this time, more certain, until it feels less like a kiss and more like six years of longing breaking out.
Somewhere in the middle of it, a quiet grunt slips from my own chest, pathetically unrestrained.
I pull back only an inch, our foreheads still touching, my breath embarrassingly uneven while hers brushes across my face in short, uncertain bursts.
“Please,” I wheeze out, still cradling her face between my hands. “Please tell me you trust me. Please tell me this is real to you.”
She swallows before parting her lips, only a hesitant hum escaping.
“Nat,” I urge softly. “Please say it. This is real. I’m here. Do you trust me?”
“I’m not sure,” she admits, her voice barely above a whisper.
My pulse refuses to settle from having her this close, and those three words only send me spiraling further.
“Well then,” I murmur, forcing out a shaky breath, “I’m going to make you cold.”
Before she has the chance to protest, I unzip her sweatshirt and slip it from her shoulders, tossing it onto the ice beside us before claiming her lips again. She doesn’t pull away and simply accepts the kiss.
Taking that as permission to stay close, I slide one arm beneath her just enough to shift her weight and ease her down onto the frozen surface. She follows my movement and lies on her back, my lips never leaving hers.
“Is it cold enough?” I mutter through the kiss.
“No,” she breathes.
Somewhere along the way, the tension between us grows so thick that stopping no longer feels possible. My hands linger against her with quiet possessiveness, fighting the overwhelming urge to remind her what this feels like.
What we feel like.
I break the kiss for a moment, dragging my right hand across the ice until a thin layer of snow dust gathers beneath my fingers, then I slip it beneath the back of her T-shirt and spread the freezing crystals along her skin.
“Oh, fuck,” she squeaks out, the sound unbearably adorable, her cheeks flushed and her lips swollen pink from the kisses.
“This is real,” I murmur, unable to stop the faint smile tugging at the corner of my mouth. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Her teeth start to clatter as she breaks into a weak smile as well.
All the restraint is far gone, so I dive into her neck and trail kisses down her throat, into the crook between her collarbones, my hand traveling down her leg, pulling it into my waist until a shaky gasp tears out of her.
“Do you—” I mumble, dragging my teeth over the sensitive skin on her neck. “Believe me now?”
“Uh-huh,” she hums, then her hands finally grip my hair, pulling me closer, taking me without hesitation now.
“Good. Stay with me.”
My hands grip her legs only to pull her close enough to feel her whole body melt against mine before I flip us over. I end up lying on the ice instead, desperate to feel every inch of her back on my body after such a long time.
My fingers dig into the back of her neck, forcefully pressing her down on me, devouring her lips. Once she sits up on me just correctly to feel how devastatingly hard I got in an unbelievably short time, she lets out the most adorable ragged gasp, followed by mine as well.
“Please stay with me,” I plead. “I’ve been losing my fucking mind without you.”
My hands roam over her back, sliding down under her clothes, feeling the soft skin, while her hips move in my hands, dragging over my groin in a slow and devastating rhythm.