Work Text:
Willie doesn’t remember hating the winter this much when he was alive, though he always preferred summer, with the longer days and the late nights kissing people he didn’t really know, early mornings tumbling over friends whose names and faces have become blurred with time. As a ghost, it wasn’t so bad either, especially in LA where things look similar year-round, and ghosts can’t feel the change in temperature, not really. He liked seeing everybody swap their t-shirts for jackets, how the tourism would turn quieter, leave more space for thinking on the beach.
But the first winter after Julie magicks him back to life is awful.
There are lots of benefits, obviously. He feels very lucky to be not dead, for starters. And he’s enjoying how during the fall, Mr. Molina starts to light candles that smell good around the house, and cooks a range of Puerto Rican foods Willie’s never heard of before but enjoys immensely. It’s cute to see Alex and Reggie and Luke huddle together like penguins, like it’s subconscious, like they don’t even realise they’re standing shoulder to shoulder with their heads all in together and their shoulders around their ears. Alex’s cheeks and the tip of his nose turn the cutest pink when he’s hit with a particularly cold breeze, so that’s a bonus, too.
It’s just… everything else, that’s the problem.
The way that Willie wakes up in his spare room feeling icy-cold in the middle of the night and can’t seem to get warm, even with his blankets and the sweaters Ray was nice enough to buy him. It’s how going out skating makes the air bite at his face, and his eyes water, and how the ocean is too cold for really jumping in. He knows, realistically, that it’s not that cold. That he shouldn’t be feeling it quite as much as he is, shouldn’t feel like shivering as soon as the temperature drops below 70 degrees, but it’s bone-deep, this cold feeling, and it takes so much work to get warm.
Maybe that’s what makes him isolate himself, a little, without even realising he’s doing it. He doesn’t want to get out of bed, as much, because at least there he can stay still and be relatively warm. He finds himself avoiding their exploits outside, preferring to stay out of the cold outdoor air.
“It’s his first winter not at the club,” he hears Alex say quietly, to the others, one day when he thinks Willie is still upstairs and won’t hear his conspiratorial tone carry across the Molina’s kitchen. “He’s probably still… adjusting.”
He feels guilty for eavesdropping, so he goes back up the stairs and waits a few minutes before he comes down again, louder this time so they’ll hear him coming for sure, but the cold icy feeling spreads to his stomach.
It’s the ice skating that finally convinces him to go out, even though that’s the dumbest idea ever, because it’s going to be so cold . But Alex gets so excited when Flynn tells them about the ice rink nearby, starts rambling about oh my god, I used to love skating so much, we would go all the time , and Reggie backs him up dude, Alex is the best skater I’ve ever seen in my whole entire life. Death. Renewed life. Gifted second chance. Whatever .
It’s going to be cold. Willie would rather stay in his bed, tangled up in the blankets with his feet double-socked and tucked up under him, but the idea of seeing Alex that happy, doing something he really loves -- Willie knows he can’t miss it.
“Man, this is awesome!” Reggie crows, staring with starry eyes out at the ice skating rink. Alex shoots him a fond grin, the kind he only gives when he knows Reggie isn’t looking, but Willie feels lucky to catch it. He can see the excitement in Alex’s face, too, even if it’s not as sparkly-bright as Reggie’s, a quieter hum of anticipation. Luke and Julie have already made it out onto the rink, Julie confidently skating backwards as she holds Luke’s hands, his knees wobbling in and out like he’s a baby deer.
“I thought you said he’d done this before,” Willie comments to Reggie and Alex.
“He has!” Reggie chirps brightly. “That doesn’t mean he’s good at it.”
“Yeah, Luke’s kinda a one-trick pony,” Alex adds dryly, “if it’s not his guitar or a songbook he’s… well.” Luke practically finishes Alex’s sentence for him by falling squarely on his ass, pulling Julie down with him. She laughs, patient as always, and helps them both get back up.
When Reggie’s laced up his skates and the attendant has gestured them on, Reggie, Alex, and Willie shuffle onto the ice. It’s so cold. Willie’s chest and stomach ache with it, but Alex looks like he’s just opened a window and breathed in a spring breeze, so he tries to focus on that as much as he can. Alex takes off ahead of them, while Willie and Reggie keep pace with each other, Reggie seeming more content to people watch than skate particularly fast, Willie trying to adjust muscles that are used to a very different kind of gliding around, though at least his balance is steadfast and serves him well.
Alex does a few laps, and he really does look like he’s flying, easily weaving between people at a safe distance, controlled as he takes the oblong rounded edges of the oval, able to slow down when he’s about to lap Willie and Reggie for the second or so time, to match pace with them. His nose and cheeks are doing the bright-pink thing, and the big fluffy hat with the ear flaps that Ray insisted he wear to keep his ears warm is making him look stupidly cute.
Not that Willie can really talk, he supposes, since Ray also forced him to wear this stupid beanie, with a pompom so oversized that Reggie’s jaw had dropped like he didn’t know whether to scream or laugh and so he had simply malfunctioned instead. Reggie, somehow, got away with the beanie that has no pompom at all, convincing Willie once and for all that Reggie is Ray’s favourite not-quite-a-ghost-adopted-child.
“This is so much fun,” says Alex, unusually expressive, and Reggie eagerly agrees,
“Yeah! I’ve seen so many cute couples. I think that guy over there is trying to ask his friend out. See?”
Willie and Alex roll their eyes at each other, but they do look where Reggie gestured, and he’s right, there’s a brunette boy sitting on his hands and talking to another boy on the bleachers and the sparks are practically tangible in the air. Reggie looks so happy .
He’s weird. Willie really likes him. To be fair, he really likes all of them. Luke with his weird, overexcitable, never-knowing-quite-what-to-say brand of being perfect in any situation. Julie, with her daydreams and her creations, simultaneously incomprehensible and also so able to touch people's hearts where it matters. Reggie with his fascination with other people that translates into deep caring and generosity. Alex with his neuroticism and sarcastic sense of humour that betray glimpses of a wonderful inner world.
Willie’s almost enjoying himself, just being here with them, moving his body and feeling the tactile slicing of his skates through the ice. If only he wasn’t so cold it hurts .
“Are you okay?” Alex asks. Willie must have done the glassy-eyed look he does when he’s distracted and trying not to let his discomfort show on his face.
“Yeah!” he says, because his instinct is that if he’s not okay, he’ll be ruining Alex’s fun. Alex doesn’t look convinced, but he reaches out, the way Alex often does out of habit, before he remembers who he’s dealing with, before he remembers that Willie’s damaged goods and flinches back. He’s been doing it ever since Willie came to live with them and Willie gets it, he does, it just… sucks, anyway.
But this time Alex doesn’t flinch away. He does pause, his hand halfway extended, and his gaze scans across Willie’s face, like he’s looking for something, which unnerves Willie a bit because if he knew what exactly Alex was looking for he would know how to please him, would know how to put that exact thing on his face and fix things. But whatever it is, Alex must find it anyway, because he reaches the rest of the way and squeezes Willie’s fingers in his own.
It’s like Willie’s put his hand in an electrical socket. Maybe. He doesn’t actually know what that feels like (he imagines, for some reason, that Reggie probably does, and thinks he should ask him). But the warmth that shoots up his arm almost makes the pain worse, and then it eases, is so, so soothed that he suddenly is faced with the compulsive need to plaster himself to Alex just to get warm, even though they’re still skating. For a moment, Willie almost loses his balance.
“Oh, man! You’re freezing!” Alex exclaims, concerned, which makes sense, because even though Willie can feel Alex holding onto him, Alex’s fingers feel so, so hot that they feel like he just took them out of a warm bath. Even though Alex has been here, skating in the cold for as long as Willie has.
Alex leads him off to the side, nimbly leading him through the crowds of people that get thicker towards the outside of the rink. He doesn’t let go of Willie the whole time and Willie can barely take his eyes off their clasped hands even as he’s trying to weave between other skaters. Once they’re off the side of the rink, Alex does an awkward skate-walk to a bench, tugging Willie to sit next to him.
“What are we doing?” Willie asks, still thrown from the thrill of the touch, the warmth bleeding in through his hand that’s like nothing he’s felt in such a long time.
“Your hands are too cold,” Alex explains, cupping Willie’s other hand in his, too, and the warmth is mirrored, washes up Willie’s other arm as well, now, in tandem. “I’ll warm them up.”
Leaning over Willie’s hands where Alex holds them in his lap, he breathes warm air into them, and then rubs up and back along Willie’s palms with his thumbs, like he’s trying to distribute the heat through. Repeats the process. It’s like Alex is breathing the spring breeze he carried into the rink out onto Willie’s hands, restoring the feeling to them, easing the ice that has been building in Willie’s chest since the start of winter. He feels strangely like laughing, or crying, but he doesn’t do either, just squeezes Alex’s hands in return, some meager effort at saying thank you as he feels himself start to go boneless and relaxed. The relief is overwhelming, and ecstatic, and crushing, all at once.
Alex must notice this, because he continues to rub up and back along Willie’s hands long after they’re warmed, past when it’s necessary. His eyes are kind, but a little too insightful, when they meet Willie’s, and he asks, “Did that help?”
He’s not just asking about the cold. Willie can tell.
“Yeah,” he breathes, quieter than he meant to.
Alex nods, like that’s all the answer he needed regardless. “We can hold hands the rest of the time,” he offers, and Willie can’t tell if he’s going pinker or if it’s just the cold doing what it always does, “if that will help. Um. With the cold.”
Something like a little flicker lights in Willie’s chest. The ice isn’t gone. The problem isn’t all fixed. But holding Alex’s hand sure is making a difference. “That sounds great,” he says, swallowing against the weird laugh-cry lump in his throat. Alex is still touching him. Now that his hands aren’t so numb, he can really feel it, can feel every hot pinpoint where they’re holding each other.
Alex helps him back up into the rink. Julie and Luke are leaning on the barrier nearby, Luke all scruffy and sweet and panting for breath, while Julie laughs at him. “C’mon, rockstar, surely you’re fit enough for more than that.”
“Just give me a moment!” Luke wheezes. “I’m not unfit. I’m just -- learning how to have lungs again. It’s been awhile, okay?”
“He’s just saying that as an excuse,” Alex offers as they pass by. “I haven’t had to adjust to my lungs at all.”
“Neither,” says Willie, with no idea whether it’s true or not, just to hear Luke’s betrayed yelp and Julie’s brilliant laugh.
“Where’s Reggie?” Luke asks pitifully. “He wouldn’t treat me like this.”
Reggie’s skating by himself on the other side of the rink. He doesn’t look unhappy at all as he slows, lets a family with little kids pass him. If anything, he looks a little wistful.
Hands still clasped tightly in Alex’s, Willie thinks he gets it. “Hey,” he says to Alex, “race you to Reggie.”
“How is it a race if you’re holding onto me?!” Alex splutters, but has no choice but to skate with him, hands clasped tight. Reggie looks up just in time to crack up laughing before they gracefully barrel into him, almost knocking him flat before they catch him.
It’s strange that the warmest Willie’s been all winter is in an ice skating rink. But with Alex’s hand in his, and the echo of Reggie’s laughter in his ears, he thinks it makes sense, too.