Chapter Text
“Come on, Sharky! You are so slow!” Nikki teased him as she walked ahead of him down the path, flashlight beam bobbing in front of her. Sharky on the other hand was casting his in every direction but where he was walking. Good thing it wasn’t completely dark yet. She laughed again, loud and bubbly. She never said they had to be quiet on their trek, and that is a very good thing. Because he had not been from the moment she pulled her truck off the road and parked it back at the start of the trail. In between fixing cars and spending as much of her time as she could with Sharky, she tried to slip in the occasional hike. Mostly she looked for old buildings, failed businesses from the past or present, old homes abandoned, shacks that’d been taken back by nature. She thought they were neat, and liked poking around through them. But mostly she like photographing them.
Sharky, on the other hand, was not a big fan of hiking. He gave the occasional sigh, maybe a grumbled remark about walking half the damn county, and she was glad she’d taken the time to chart the shortest route out. “Well, I give up. I have no idea where we are. Where the fuck are we going Nikki?”
Again she laughed, stopping to wait for him to catch up. She reached out immediately when he was within arm’s reach and he was quick to take her hand in his own. She felt her heart skip when met her eyes again. “I guess I’ve kept it secret long enough.” She told him, watching him before she told him. “I found an old roller rink.” As if on cue, his blue eyes lit up with his own fire. He grinned after a minute and watched her face, trying to figure out if he heard that right. She nodded and he quickly shook his head.
“Fucking no way! They play disco?” He was bouncing from foot to foot, something resembling a bit of a jig in his excitement before he stopped as suddenly as he started. “Wait, why the fuck are we hiking to it?”
“I never said it was an open roller rink.” She took both his hands in her hands now, doing her best to look her most apologetic. “Disco died, baby.”
He gave a gasp, pulling a hand away from hers to give her a look of mock anger. “You take that back. It’ll come back around, I’m telling you.” He argued, tone still as lighthearted as it usually was. “Anything that makes you wanna groove like the genuine jammin tune of the Trammps ‘Disco Inferno’ is meant to come back. Rise from the ashes like a motherfuckin phoenix or some shit, all majestic like.” He broke away to give another dance, this time with a few hummed bars. She could almost make out the 'Burn baby burn’ floating on the breeze of to accompany him and she smiled.
“You know what, it sure will. I’ve seen the error of my ways. My bad.” Nikki offered, and he stopped dancing to lean down and quickly peck her lips.
“No worries, little lady. You know I can’t stay mad at you anyway.” He offered before he took her hand again and once more let her take the lead. “So if it’s not open, why are we going?”
“Well, it’s not open yet. We’ve gotta break in first.” The answer was a quick and honest one, because was he really going to complain about trespassing? She pushed on, before she indicated the backpack she was carrying. “But I brought some beer, and some music. It’s even disco. Didn’t bring skates because…where am I gonna honestly get those so last minute? That and the floor is probably not skate friendly anyway.” She left the ramble unfinished, a habit developed from spending prolonged periods of time with her talkative best friend. A comfortable silence fell between them as she brought him through the trees to the clearing. Well, what would be if someone kept up with it. As of this point in time, the grass was tall and sweeping, the remains of an old path keeping some of it tame and just holding back bushes.
But it wasn’t silent for long, because as soon as Sharky had assembled his thoughts he asked a final question before he let them continue on. “So you brought me out into the middle of the woods, to an abandoned-maybe-haunted roller rink that we are going to break into. Then the plan is to get drunk, maybe dance a little, presumably if we’re the only ones who thought of bustin’ into an abandoned building…like drifters or murderers…or wildlife?”
“Yeah.” She replied before she thought about what he said. Huh, maybe she hadn’t thought this through. Ironic that he was though. She looked at the building, the old bricks still standing against the elements. She could see the windows were still in tact, and the old neon still hung above the entrance. It wasn’t very big, admittedly, and it’d probably gone overlooked for at least a few years. That in itself might have been what put it out of business. “Why, is it a bad idea? We can turn arou--.”
Before she could really panic, he swept her up in a tight embrace. “Goddamn I love you, and this is the best date ever.” He answered her, though she almost lost in in his circling around and swinging her. He set her back down and almost tumbled down with her until she got her footing back in the middle of laughter. “Let’s get a move on then.”
She giggled, leading him along the pathway to the old door, before she turned to look at him almost seriously. “All I ask is that you do NOT burn it down.”
“I’ll do my very best.” He answered, moving into her reach again. He leaned down, pressing a kiss to her lips.
She smiled against the gesture, lifting her hands to run her finger tips through his scruffy beard. “That’s all I ask.” She kissed him again before she pulled back and moved to the door. She checked the hinges, the state of the heavy wood door. She shrugging, stepped back, and lifted her foot to kick at the base of the door. It gave a bit, before she turned to use her shoulder now. A firm push and it swung open. She lifted her flashlight, looking around the inside of the building.
A few holes higher up on the walls she hadn’t noticed through the trees let in some of the burning red rays of the almost set sun, and dust motes danced through the beams. It helped light up the room for now, and she only needed the flashlight for dark corners. She pushed the door open as far as she could before she turned off her flashlight for now. She couldn’t see any recent remains of food around, no signs of life. All clear.
“Man, this place has been forgotten. Maybe it’s a liminal space, you know, don’t exist on the normal time flow or whatever the fuck its called.” Sharky spoke as he moved past her, far less careful than she was already. She stopped to look at him, wondering if she’d just heard those words coming from his mouth. “What, I read sometimes!” He turned to give a huff of indignation before laughing softly at himself. He walked forward, across the hard concrete that had probably been carpeting before it was torn out. He stopped at the edge of what had been the rink itself, but the smooth floors had decayed and rotted and the years without care hadn’t been kind to it. Currently, it was probably a skater’s nightmare, full of potential for tetanus and splinters at the very least. And the red light in the air added a natural filter to it, giving it a warning it didn’t need.
Nikki laughed before she slid her back pack from her shoulders. She dug through for her camera, moving around to snap pictures as she let her boyfriend go for her bag and start setting up the few things she brought. A lantern with fresh batteries, a six pack to split because they didn’t need to get wasted in the middle of the woods, a small speaker she could hook up to an old mp3 player (both of which she’d remembered to charge), and a blanket they could spread out and sit down on. She could hear him moving around behind her, until she heard him stop. That’s when she heard the music start up.
She turned around to look at him and found him watching her, and he was standing just underneath one of those bright red beams. She smiled as she lifted her hands to capture that moment forever. He looked like fire itself, and in a moment she turned off the camera again to close the distance between them once more.
He seemed almost surprised when she slipped her arms around his neck, and stretched up the rest of the way to capture his lips. He was quick to respond though, his own arms snaking around her and holding her close to him as he kissed her back. She could never get enough of him; of his hands, his taste, his teeth on her skin. She eventually broke for air and gave him a little laugh, breathless and happy. “So, you like it?”
“Hell yeah. Oh wait, you mean the place.” He grinned as she punched his chest lightly, before he nodded. “Yeah, of course I do. This is neat as shit.” Then he leaned down to nip at her neck playfully, dragging his lips up to the edge of her jawline where he pressed another kiss. Her eyelids fluttered when he lifted enough to whisper in her ear. “I know what could make it perfect.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that?” She had an idea, and she was already grinning.
“You.” He answered quickly, nodding to the blanket he’d spread out when she’d been preoccupied. “Right there.”
“I think I can do that.”