(no subject)
Title: Hold My Whole Entire Heart
Fandom: Figure Skating RPS
Characters: Mirai Nagasu/Caroline Zhang
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Work of fiction. Never really happened.
Summary: Their relationship has been changing, but then they both changed too. Spoilers for US Nationals if anyone hasn't seen it yet.
It was the wee hours of the morning and Mirai had officially given up on sleep, much as Mr. Carroll would probably murder her for it; she had left her room and was out wandering the hotel, which had been her typical way of dealing competitive insomnia from the time she’d been much younger and really shouldn’t have been out alone in the middle of the night. On instinct she kept to the shadows, not wanting to be bothered, though to do that now felt weird.
She was trying to decide if she felt any different or not, now that she was an Olympian. The world felt different, that was for sure. Places and crowds that five hours ago would have looked too big and a little scary now seemed to invite her in, tell her that she belonged. The air around her seemed to sing. When people she knew looked at her, she knew they were thinking, You did it. You’re a success. That she had done it, that she had achieved the dream of so many little girls it was ridiculous, was still sinking in.
At one point she was practically dancing down the hall, and merrily she hit the elevator button. She was going to hear that funny elevator voice in a minute or so, and she was going to erupt into such peals of laughter. Indeed, the doors slid open immediately-
-and revealed someone who knocked the wind out of Mirai immediately.
“Caroline?” The other girl was standing there, expressionless, beckoning Mirai in. “What are you up to?”
“Waiting for you to come to the elevator,” said Caroline. “Come in with me.”
Mirai obeyed, and Caroline pressed a button at random. “Hey,” she said when the doors had closed. Nothing else.
“Hey,” Mirai said back, not knowing what else to say. Words of consolation might not be a good idea; she knew she hadn’t wanted them last year, and when she’d at least managed to get some joy out of that final free program here at Nationals. She might not have seen Caroline skate, but the accounts she’d heard had been very clear.
But then Caroline dictated the conversation on her own terms. “I’m trying to figure out if I can do as you did this year.”
“Sure you can,” said Mirai automatically. “It’s a teenage thing that hit both of us, right?” She was fairly sure of that; Caroline had been talking and acting much like she had the previous year. And long before that, they'd both known of the coming storms, both known that there was the danger of their bodies deciding they weren't suited to skate; having known in the back of her head that these things happened, and were often gotten over, had helped Mirai in the battle she had fought.
“Yeah,” said Caroline, “but I finished lower, and there’s no Olympics next year.”
“But there’s one in four years,” Mirai pointed out. “So you just get more time to recover.”
“Right,” Caroline sighed, and their eyes met, and Mirai could no longer avoid that Caroline, like everyone else, was now looking at her differently, and in this case, that wasn’t a good thing. It was almost like she was looking up at her, and now Mirai really did feel like a different person than she’d been before that evening, and she didn’t like the feeling. And it felt like Caroline was a different person, too, then the girl she’d been all the years she’d kept up their friendship.
“You’re coming with me next time,” she declared, and wished saying such things could work. Then, on impulse, she pulled Caroline into a tight hug.
She felt better immediately, now that Caroline wasn’t looking at her like that anymore, now that she was instead burying her face in Mirai’s shoulder-not crying, though, just letting her woes rest for a minute. She didn’t know when her hand moved into the other girl’s hair, or when Caroline’s weight sunk into her, her knees sagging forward and knocking against Mirai’s, but she didn’t want to part from her, didn’t want to let her go, because she was afraid when she did they’d end up right back where they started. The elevator found the floor and the doors chimed open as the funny voice announced it; Mirai barely heard.
Caroline lifted her head, and again their eyes met, but then she almost looked like the Caroline of old. Almost, so close it made Mirai’s stomach ache, except that her eyes still weren’t the same, and no matter how much Mirai might try to pretend she knew she couldn’t ignore that.
“I’m being self-centered,” she remarked. “I should be congratulating you. Or maybe I should be consoling you for being robbed of the title?”
“I wasn’t robbed,” snapped Mirai; she heard that argument already, and it didn’t make her happy to hear it. “Downgrades are downgrades; I’m not going to protest them. I just have to work harder.”
“Always the good sport,” said Caroline, and smiled, as her hand found Mirai’s cheek. “And that’s good, because the best of us probably get better by being good sports and saying we just have to work harder. You’re going to be amazing, I just know it.”
And now there was too much heat, the feeling of the elevator shrinking, and through her cheek Mirai felt that hand generate funny feelings all over, making something squeeze tight inside her as she grew hot in places she still blushed a little to think about, and this wasn’t unfamiliar, because it had been happening a little whenever she’d seen Caroline during the last year, building up so slowly she’d never even noticed it starting and growing until it had felt like it had always been happening, but it had never felt anything like this. She’d never felt her heart pound so hard it threatened to crack her ribs open, or her knees feel so weak she thought they should both sink to the elevator floor.
It was in this state that she realized, and the wretched thought overtook her, Why does this have to happen now?
In the back of her head she’d known for months, and maybe Caroline had known too, that what was about to happen was something that was going to happen sooner or later, they’d been building towards it, after all, maybe for years, Mirai wasn’t sure, and obviously it was going to change everything, though it had been so overwhelming a thought she’d never dwelt too much on the details. All she knew now was it couldn’t happen yet, not when she had done what she had just done, and Caroline had so utterly failed to do, and that sitting between them and ruining it.
Desperate to stall it, she asked, “When you going home?” She should have pulled away, but Caroline had suddenly grasped her hand tight, and Mirai didn’t know if she’d let her go.
“Actually, I don’t know if it’s been officially announced yet, but I’ve been told I’m going to Korea, so I think we’ll go…I looked at the plane times, but I can’t remember them.” She closed her eyes as she tried to remember it, her lips pursed, Mirai watched them move, and suddenly she couldn’t stand it any longer.
She moved so recklessly they both lost their balance, and tumbled against the elevator wall. Mirai didn’t care. All she could think about was Caroline’s tongue was in her mouth at last, at last she had her hands on her lower back and going down, and Caroline’s hands were even getting under her shirt were on her skin and there were no words to describe how incredible that felt, and this was like drinking the most delicious water that still only left her all the more thirsty, while it was so hot her body was burning up but that was the best feeling ever, something she’d never felt before, not during the fumbled make-out sessions from high school corridors and rink corners, all she’d known before this moment had come and blown them all away.
Then she heard footsteps in the hall, and pulled away with a horrified exclamation of, “The elevator door’s open!” Then she realized whoever was in the hall had heard her say that, and that meant they’d know she had something to hide. How could she have forgotten, she scolded herself, how could they have both forgotten so quickly that they could not get caught?
Caroline acted first; she hit another button and the elevator doors closed. In Mirai’s dazed state, the elevator dropping back down nearly made her sick to her stomach. The two girls tried to get their bearings as they took each other in. Caroline’s hair was a mess, her shirt was heavily wrinkled, and her lips were so swollen, her face so flushed, and her eyes so dialated she looked like a completely new person all together, as if she had transformed again, along with her and Mirai’s relationship.
Mirai assumed she looked the same, maybe the same as she felt; wanting something more than she ought to want anything, beset by inappropriate giddiness that made her want to laugh because what had just happened had been so wonderful, and yet so terrified.
So this was what being in love felt like, this joy and pain and want.
“I should kiss you again,” Caroline was speaking in a voice almost not her own. “I should go back to you with your room, and…well, you know.” Even in their distress both girls blushed. “That’s what’s supposed to happen, right?”
“You’re sure you don’t want to?” asked Mirai, because the thought that they might, the thought that they even could, sent her body aching and begging her yes, please.
“I’m sure I do want to,” she laughed bitterly. “But I can’t.”
“Oh, Caroline!” And she was not going to cry; surely a situation like this needed a no-cry rule, but it was so hard, because this hurt more than losing any old medal did or even losing a berth to the Olympics might have; to lose her chance at Caroline…no, it was too awful to think about.
“Look,” said Caroline, and now she sounded old, older than Mirai had ever felt, “I don’t know. I’ll call you after the final in Vancouver? You shouldn’t be getting distracted before then anyway.”
“Caroline,” she said, “if I don’t know if I’ll even be allowed to speak to you again, I won’t be able to think about anything else.”
“I don’t think it’ll be that bad,” said Caroline. “But you have to give me time. A couple of months at least, maybe as much as a year.”
“A year?!”
“I’m sorry, Mirai. But I can’t promise you any more than that.”
Then once again the elevator doors slid open, and the funny voice announced they were on Mirai’s floor. “And we say goodbye here?” she asked, not caring as much as she ought to about if they were overheard. “Just like that?”
“I don’t want to leave you afraid,” said Caroline, “I really don’t.” There was a pause that felt like a year in itself.
Then she said, “Can’t you see it in terms of hope rather than fear? Hope that I’ll say yes?”
That was like something Mr. Carroll had said to her once, though Mirai had forgotten it before that moment. “Hope rather than fear,” she repeated, and she thought she could do it. “Do you hope, Caroline?”
“And fear, yes.” And then she finally smiled. When Caroline smiled, Mirai thought, the world was a happier place. Or it would have been, had it been smart enough to pay attention.
“Good,” said Mirai, and shook her hand, and they nodded at each other, as if to say, I’d kiss you again right now, but not only are the elevator doors open but if I did I might not be able to stop. “Good luck in Korea.”
“Good luck in Vancouver,” said Caroline, and that her smile widened meant Mirai could go back to being excited about the Olympics, and in fact be more happy about it than ever. It would be okay, she told herself. Caroline would skate better in Korea, or even she didn’t she’d pull herself together eventually, and after getting through this being together while being rivals wouldn’t feel as hard. She could start telling herself that right now, and by the next day she hoped she’d be believing it until further notice.
When the elevator door closed behind her, parting her from Caroline for at least a little while, Mirai felt a little alone, and a little overwhelmed. The world, already a lot bigger than it used to be, seemed to expand and swell, as did her heart, though how empty or full either was to be, she could not yet tell.
Fandom: Figure Skating RPS
Characters: Mirai Nagasu/Caroline Zhang
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Work of fiction. Never really happened.
Summary: Their relationship has been changing, but then they both changed too. Spoilers for US Nationals if anyone hasn't seen it yet.
It was the wee hours of the morning and Mirai had officially given up on sleep, much as Mr. Carroll would probably murder her for it; she had left her room and was out wandering the hotel, which had been her typical way of dealing competitive insomnia from the time she’d been much younger and really shouldn’t have been out alone in the middle of the night. On instinct she kept to the shadows, not wanting to be bothered, though to do that now felt weird.
She was trying to decide if she felt any different or not, now that she was an Olympian. The world felt different, that was for sure. Places and crowds that five hours ago would have looked too big and a little scary now seemed to invite her in, tell her that she belonged. The air around her seemed to sing. When people she knew looked at her, she knew they were thinking, You did it. You’re a success. That she had done it, that she had achieved the dream of so many little girls it was ridiculous, was still sinking in.
At one point she was practically dancing down the hall, and merrily she hit the elevator button. She was going to hear that funny elevator voice in a minute or so, and she was going to erupt into such peals of laughter. Indeed, the doors slid open immediately-
-and revealed someone who knocked the wind out of Mirai immediately.
“Caroline?” The other girl was standing there, expressionless, beckoning Mirai in. “What are you up to?”
“Waiting for you to come to the elevator,” said Caroline. “Come in with me.”
Mirai obeyed, and Caroline pressed a button at random. “Hey,” she said when the doors had closed. Nothing else.
“Hey,” Mirai said back, not knowing what else to say. Words of consolation might not be a good idea; she knew she hadn’t wanted them last year, and when she’d at least managed to get some joy out of that final free program here at Nationals. She might not have seen Caroline skate, but the accounts she’d heard had been very clear.
But then Caroline dictated the conversation on her own terms. “I’m trying to figure out if I can do as you did this year.”
“Sure you can,” said Mirai automatically. “It’s a teenage thing that hit both of us, right?” She was fairly sure of that; Caroline had been talking and acting much like she had the previous year. And long before that, they'd both known of the coming storms, both known that there was the danger of their bodies deciding they weren't suited to skate; having known in the back of her head that these things happened, and were often gotten over, had helped Mirai in the battle she had fought.
“Yeah,” said Caroline, “but I finished lower, and there’s no Olympics next year.”
“But there’s one in four years,” Mirai pointed out. “So you just get more time to recover.”
“Right,” Caroline sighed, and their eyes met, and Mirai could no longer avoid that Caroline, like everyone else, was now looking at her differently, and in this case, that wasn’t a good thing. It was almost like she was looking up at her, and now Mirai really did feel like a different person than she’d been before that evening, and she didn’t like the feeling. And it felt like Caroline was a different person, too, then the girl she’d been all the years she’d kept up their friendship.
“You’re coming with me next time,” she declared, and wished saying such things could work. Then, on impulse, she pulled Caroline into a tight hug.
She felt better immediately, now that Caroline wasn’t looking at her like that anymore, now that she was instead burying her face in Mirai’s shoulder-not crying, though, just letting her woes rest for a minute. She didn’t know when her hand moved into the other girl’s hair, or when Caroline’s weight sunk into her, her knees sagging forward and knocking against Mirai’s, but she didn’t want to part from her, didn’t want to let her go, because she was afraid when she did they’d end up right back where they started. The elevator found the floor and the doors chimed open as the funny voice announced it; Mirai barely heard.
Caroline lifted her head, and again their eyes met, but then she almost looked like the Caroline of old. Almost, so close it made Mirai’s stomach ache, except that her eyes still weren’t the same, and no matter how much Mirai might try to pretend she knew she couldn’t ignore that.
“I’m being self-centered,” she remarked. “I should be congratulating you. Or maybe I should be consoling you for being robbed of the title?”
“I wasn’t robbed,” snapped Mirai; she heard that argument already, and it didn’t make her happy to hear it. “Downgrades are downgrades; I’m not going to protest them. I just have to work harder.”
“Always the good sport,” said Caroline, and smiled, as her hand found Mirai’s cheek. “And that’s good, because the best of us probably get better by being good sports and saying we just have to work harder. You’re going to be amazing, I just know it.”
And now there was too much heat, the feeling of the elevator shrinking, and through her cheek Mirai felt that hand generate funny feelings all over, making something squeeze tight inside her as she grew hot in places she still blushed a little to think about, and this wasn’t unfamiliar, because it had been happening a little whenever she’d seen Caroline during the last year, building up so slowly she’d never even noticed it starting and growing until it had felt like it had always been happening, but it had never felt anything like this. She’d never felt her heart pound so hard it threatened to crack her ribs open, or her knees feel so weak she thought they should both sink to the elevator floor.
It was in this state that she realized, and the wretched thought overtook her, Why does this have to happen now?
In the back of her head she’d known for months, and maybe Caroline had known too, that what was about to happen was something that was going to happen sooner or later, they’d been building towards it, after all, maybe for years, Mirai wasn’t sure, and obviously it was going to change everything, though it had been so overwhelming a thought she’d never dwelt too much on the details. All she knew now was it couldn’t happen yet, not when she had done what she had just done, and Caroline had so utterly failed to do, and that sitting between them and ruining it.
Desperate to stall it, she asked, “When you going home?” She should have pulled away, but Caroline had suddenly grasped her hand tight, and Mirai didn’t know if she’d let her go.
“Actually, I don’t know if it’s been officially announced yet, but I’ve been told I’m going to Korea, so I think we’ll go…I looked at the plane times, but I can’t remember them.” She closed her eyes as she tried to remember it, her lips pursed, Mirai watched them move, and suddenly she couldn’t stand it any longer.
She moved so recklessly they both lost their balance, and tumbled against the elevator wall. Mirai didn’t care. All she could think about was Caroline’s tongue was in her mouth at last, at last she had her hands on her lower back and going down, and Caroline’s hands were even getting under her shirt were on her skin and there were no words to describe how incredible that felt, and this was like drinking the most delicious water that still only left her all the more thirsty, while it was so hot her body was burning up but that was the best feeling ever, something she’d never felt before, not during the fumbled make-out sessions from high school corridors and rink corners, all she’d known before this moment had come and blown them all away.
Then she heard footsteps in the hall, and pulled away with a horrified exclamation of, “The elevator door’s open!” Then she realized whoever was in the hall had heard her say that, and that meant they’d know she had something to hide. How could she have forgotten, she scolded herself, how could they have both forgotten so quickly that they could not get caught?
Caroline acted first; she hit another button and the elevator doors closed. In Mirai’s dazed state, the elevator dropping back down nearly made her sick to her stomach. The two girls tried to get their bearings as they took each other in. Caroline’s hair was a mess, her shirt was heavily wrinkled, and her lips were so swollen, her face so flushed, and her eyes so dialated she looked like a completely new person all together, as if she had transformed again, along with her and Mirai’s relationship.
Mirai assumed she looked the same, maybe the same as she felt; wanting something more than she ought to want anything, beset by inappropriate giddiness that made her want to laugh because what had just happened had been so wonderful, and yet so terrified.
So this was what being in love felt like, this joy and pain and want.
“I should kiss you again,” Caroline was speaking in a voice almost not her own. “I should go back to you with your room, and…well, you know.” Even in their distress both girls blushed. “That’s what’s supposed to happen, right?”
“You’re sure you don’t want to?” asked Mirai, because the thought that they might, the thought that they even could, sent her body aching and begging her yes, please.
“I’m sure I do want to,” she laughed bitterly. “But I can’t.”
“Oh, Caroline!” And she was not going to cry; surely a situation like this needed a no-cry rule, but it was so hard, because this hurt more than losing any old medal did or even losing a berth to the Olympics might have; to lose her chance at Caroline…no, it was too awful to think about.
“Look,” said Caroline, and now she sounded old, older than Mirai had ever felt, “I don’t know. I’ll call you after the final in Vancouver? You shouldn’t be getting distracted before then anyway.”
“Caroline,” she said, “if I don’t know if I’ll even be allowed to speak to you again, I won’t be able to think about anything else.”
“I don’t think it’ll be that bad,” said Caroline. “But you have to give me time. A couple of months at least, maybe as much as a year.”
“A year?!”
“I’m sorry, Mirai. But I can’t promise you any more than that.”
Then once again the elevator doors slid open, and the funny voice announced they were on Mirai’s floor. “And we say goodbye here?” she asked, not caring as much as she ought to about if they were overheard. “Just like that?”
“I don’t want to leave you afraid,” said Caroline, “I really don’t.” There was a pause that felt like a year in itself.
Then she said, “Can’t you see it in terms of hope rather than fear? Hope that I’ll say yes?”
That was like something Mr. Carroll had said to her once, though Mirai had forgotten it before that moment. “Hope rather than fear,” she repeated, and she thought she could do it. “Do you hope, Caroline?”
“And fear, yes.” And then she finally smiled. When Caroline smiled, Mirai thought, the world was a happier place. Or it would have been, had it been smart enough to pay attention.
“Good,” said Mirai, and shook her hand, and they nodded at each other, as if to say, I’d kiss you again right now, but not only are the elevator doors open but if I did I might not be able to stop. “Good luck in Korea.”
“Good luck in Vancouver,” said Caroline, and that her smile widened meant Mirai could go back to being excited about the Olympics, and in fact be more happy about it than ever. It would be okay, she told herself. Caroline would skate better in Korea, or even she didn’t she’d pull herself together eventually, and after getting through this being together while being rivals wouldn’t feel as hard. She could start telling herself that right now, and by the next day she hoped she’d be believing it until further notice.
When the elevator door closed behind her, parting her from Caroline for at least a little while, Mirai felt a little alone, and a little overwhelmed. The world, already a lot bigger than it used to be, seemed to expand and swell, as did her heart, though how empty or full either was to be, she could not yet tell.