Work Text:
It had started as a joke, really. A little good-natured ribbing here, a fake shove there, exaggerated gasps and dramatic accusations of sabotage whenever one of them landed something clean and the other didn't. Their own tiny rivalry, manufactured for fun, a way to make figure skating exciting again—like the olden days, Alysa liked to say, doing her best impression of an old-timey announcer. Two legends. One ice. Only one can be champion.
It wasn't real competition. Isabeau had never once believed she was actually up against Alysa—not when their bunks sat right across the aisle from each other every single night, not when they split popcorn backstage and traded earbuds on the bus. But the bit had a kind of staying power that surprised her. It gave her an excuse to faux-pout when Alysa threw an arm around her, to curl her fingers into her side in some half-hearted tickle fight, to tug her hair at the rinkside and laugh it off like it meant nothing.
It was fun. It was easy. Until, somewhere around Orlando, it stopped feeling like just a joke.
Isabeau couldn't pinpoint the exact moment. Maybe it was the night Alysa fixed her costume strap before they went on, fingers brushing the back of her neck, and Isabeau had felt that touch like a struck match. Maybe it was three cities later, when Alysa came out of nowhere to swing an arm around her neck, a grin on her face, small metal fang peeking out under her lip—and Isabeau felt an urge to lean up, to press against those lips, to see if the metal would be warm to the touch.
Whatever it was, it had a name now, and Isabeau was doing an aggressively bad job of not thinking about it.
"You're doing the thing," Alysa said, dropping into the seat beside her on the bus, two coffees in hand. She passed one over without being asked—she always knew which one was Isabeau's, oat milk, too much cinnamon—and Isabeau took it like it was nothing, like her pulse hadn't just done something embarrassing.
"What thing?"
"The thing where you go quiet and stare at me like you're trying to solve a math problem." Alysa took a sip of her own coffee, eyes flicking over with that easy, unbothered curiosity she had about everything. "Should I be worried? Are you plotting my downfall? Finally ready to dethrone the reigning champion of Stars on Ice?"
"You gave yourself that title. Nobody crowned you anything."
"Details." Alysa kicked her foot up onto the seat in front of them, settling in. "C'mon, what's going on in there."
Nothing, Isabeau wanted to say. You. You're what's going on in there, all the time, and I don't know what to do about it. What came out instead was, "Just tired. Long week."
Alysa studied her a beat too long—long enough that Isabeau felt it crawl up the back of her neck—before she let it go, the way she always did when she sensed Isabeau wasn't ready to talk. That was the thing about Alysa. She pushed and teased and got in close, but she never pushed past the point where Isabeau actually needed her to stop.
It made it so much worse, somehow. Easier to want someone who knew exactly when to back off.
Isabeau was curled into the corner chair near the back of the bus, knees pulled up, phone throwing pale light across her face as she scrolled through nothing in particular, when Alysa dropped down beside her without asking.
"Move over," Alysa said, already nudging her with a shoulder, like Isabeau hadn't been there first.
"There's like six other seats." Isabeau rolled her eyes, but she shifted over anyway, making room she didn't have to make.
Alysa didn't say thank you. She just got comfortable, pulling out her own phone, thumbs moving fast over some conversation Isabeau couldn't see, and after a moment she leaned her weight sideways until her shoulder was pressed against Isabeau's. It was such a small thing. Alysa did it without thinking, the way she did most things — unbothered, no permission required because she'd never doubted she had it.
Isabeau was not unbothered. She kept her eyes on her own phone, conscious of every point of contact, the warmth bleeding through her sleeve, the soft, distracted sound of Alysa typing.
A few minutes passed like that. The bus hummed along under them, dark window glass throwing back their reflections, half the cast already asleep further up the aisle. Then Alysa turned her head, slow, until her chin came to rest on Isabeau's shoulder.
"How's the ankle, Isababy?" she asked, quieter than before. No teasing in it this time.
Something warm bloomed in Isabeau's chest at the nickname, before she could stop it. "It's fine," she said. "Doctor said not to put too much stress on it for a while."
Alysa just nodded, the motion small against Isabeau's shoulder, and didn't pull away. If anything she leaned in closer, settling, like this was simply where she belonged.
It didn't take long after that. Alysa's phone slid loose from her hand, her breathing went slow and even, and Isabeau realized, with a strange lurch in her chest, that she'd fallen asleep right there — chin tucked against her, weight gone heavy and trusting.
Isabeau didn't move. Her arm went numb somewhere around the second hour, pins and needles crawling up to her shoulder, and still she didn't move, didn't so much as shift to check the time, because Alysa's hair was against her cheek and her breath was warm against her collarbone and some quiet, traitorous part of Isabeau thought: I could stay like this. I could stay like this for the rest of the tour.
By the time the bus pulled into the next city, three hours later, her arm had gone completely dead.
She didn't regret it.
Isabeau was mid-attempt at a bottle flip — phone propped against the boards to catch it on video, more out of boredom between run-throughs than anything — when a spray of ice hit her square in the back, cold enough to make her yelp.
She spun around to find Alysa grinning at her, full piercing on display, skates still carving the spot where she'd just stopped short.
"You—" Isabeau didn't even finish the sentence. She pushed off after her instead, mock-furious, and Alysa shrieked out a laugh and bolted, both of them weaving around the rink, dodging the other skaters actually trying to practice.
Alysa tucked her arms behind her back, speed-skater style, chin lifted, putting on an exaggerated show of effortlessness even as she fled. Isabeau copied the pose without thinking, arms locked behind her, both of them giggling too hard to actually go fast, circling the rink in a lap that looked more like a victory parade than a chase.
Alysa slowed first. Isabeau, carefully — always carefully, ankle still tender, doctor's voice in the back of her head — let herself drift into her instead of stopping short, a soft collision that left Alysa's arms catching her at the waist to keep them both upright.
They were both laughing, breath fogging between them, and Alysa's eyes had gone crescent-shaped with how wide she was smiling, that particular curve Isabeau had started to know better than she probably should.
The arena lights were bright, almost uncomfortably so, and they landed on the halo rings caught in Alysa's hair — bright, perfect circles, like something out of an old painting. She looked divine, Isabeau thought. A craft from God. Some hallowed figure set loose on the ice.
And there it was again — that giddy, foolish happiness blooming up through Isabeau's chest, something too big for the moment it was attached to.
They were mid-finale when Isabeau felt a hand land on her shoulder. Amber, grinning, already scooping her up into a princess carry before Isabeau could brace for it. She laughed, startled, and threw a wave out to the crowd as Amber spun her in a slow circle, the audience roaring its approval, lights blurring past overhead.
She was still giggling when Amber set her back down on her blades, and that was when Alysa skated up beside her, hand already out.
Isabeau reached for it without thinking. Their palms clashed together and they spun, momentum carrying them in a tight circle, before Alysa pulled her in close and shifted them into something steadier — a waltz hold, her hand settling at Isabeau's waist, leading them in slow turns across the ice.
Isabeau looked up at her. Alysa's hair was pulled back into a ponytail, her bangs haloed under the lights, brown shot through with the barest fringe of gold where the dye was growing out. She was smiling wide, that easy, unguarded smile, the small metal piercing catching the light at her lip.
Isabeau's eyes dropped to that mouth before she could stop them. Alysa's lip gloss had a faint shimmer to it, catching every pass of the spotlight. She wanted to kiss her. Wanted to find out what that gloss tasted like, wanted to make those lips shine with something other than—
"Group photo, let's go, now!" someone called from center ice, the whole cast already gathering, breaking the spell before Isabeau's thought could finish forming.
She blinked, skated back toward the group on legs that didn't quite feel like her own, and as she turned to find her spot in the lineup, she caught Alysa still watching her.
She'd been staring too.
The arena seemed to shake as Isabeau made her way backstage. Cheers rose up behind her, muffled through the walls — Ilia's crowd favorite backflips, probably, the ones that always brought the house down. She shuffled past stacked chairs and a folding table crowded with hairspray and bobby pins, and that was when she saw her.
Half-hidden behind the heavy show curtain, Alysa was talking to Ellie in that low, easy way she had with everyone. The light from the rink bled through the gap in the fabric and caught Alysa's back, and Isabeau noticed the glitter then — scattered across her shoulders, her spine, wherever it had come from, a costume or some stray prop or just the general chaos of backstage — and the light hit it just so.
She thought, helplessly, of those Twilight vampires. The ones who didn't burst into flames in the sun but instead became something unbearable to look at, all fractured light, like a disco ball given form. She'd laughed at that as a kid. She wasn't laughing now.
Alysa was talking, gesturing at something, completely unaware, and she looked exquisite — gold and bright and shining. Isabeau wanted to gather her up in her hands, hold her close, the way you'd hold a hard-earned medal.
She looked like something out of a dream Isabeau didn't want to wake up from.
Isabeau skated lazy loops around the rink, waving to the handful of audience members scattered in the seats for rehearsal. Her attention caught on Christina, maneuvering Amber into position a few yards off, and she watched for a second, confused, until the opening notes of "Too Darn Hot" crackled through the speakers.
Right. That number. At some point over the course of the tour, most of the cast had picked up bits and pieces of each other's choreography out of pure boredom and proximity — and apparently today was the day it was going to be put to use.
Alysa appeared behind her and hooked an arm through hers, tugging her along. "C'mon, let's do that too."
Isabeau let herself be pulled, laughing, and as the opening lines kicked in, she sauntered over to Alysa. Right on the beat, she shoved her shoulder.
Alysa dropped like a stone, sprawling into a starfish on the ice, and Isabeau spun on her heel, tapping her toe pick down in time with the chime in the music, just as Alysa flipped herself sideways to lie there grinning up at her.
Her hair fanned out around her like a halo against the ice, dark practice clothes stark against the white. Isabeau had seen her in practice gear a hundred times by now, and somehow it still looked good on her — the black accenting every line of muscle, the lean strength of her.
The audience laughed, scattered applause rising up, and something bold and unfamiliar surged through Isabeau — she blew Alysa a kiss, theatrical, the kind of move she'd never have dared without the music as cover.
Alysa's grin only widened.
A reminder popped up on Isabeau's phone between run-throughs. 7 years.
Seven years since her dad died. She stared at it a second too long before she swiped it away, but the low feeling it left behind didn't swipe away with it. She skated the next run-through a little flatter than usual, a little more in her own head, and she thought she'd hidden it well enough.
Amber noticed anyway. She always did. After the run-through ended, she skated straight over and pulled Isabeau into a hug without asking what was wrong, like she already understood she wouldn't get a real answer if she asked.
"You don't have to talk about it," Amber said quietly, against her hair. "Just figured you could use this."
Isabeau let herself be held. She wrapped her arms around Amber's neck and pressed her cheek into her shoulder, breathing through the tight feeling in her chest, and for a moment that was enough.
Then she felt someone else skate up beside them — Alysa, who didn't hesitate, didn't ask any questions either, just folded herself into the hug from the other side until it was the three of them tangled together at center ice.
"Group hug rules," Alysa said, muffled against Isabeau's shoulder. "No opting out."
The fondness that rose up in Isabeau's chest at that was almost unbearable, too big and too warm for a day that otherwise felt hollowed out.
Amber pulled back first, slow, pressing one last ruffle into Isabeau's hair before she skated off to give them space. Alysa didn't follow her. Instead she tugged Isabeau by the sleeve toward an emptier stretch of ice, turned her back, and crouched slightly, offering a piggyback ride like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Come on," Alysa said, glancing over her shoulder. "Up you go."
"I'm not a child."
"Didn't say you were. Up."
Isabeau let out a small, surprised laugh — the first real one all day — and looped her arms over Alysa's shoulders, hoisting herself up. Alysa skated slow, careful circles around the rink, hands hooked securely under Isabeau's knees.
"You don't have to say anything," Alysa added, quieter now, easy in a way that made it clear she meant it. "I just didn't want you sitting in it alone."
Isabeau rested her chin against her shoulder and let her eyes fall half-shut. "Thank you," she murmured, and meant it more than the two words could really hold.
"Anytime, Isababy."
She could feel her own heartbeat from there, quick against her ribs where her chest was pressed up against Alysa's back — racing, a little too fast to blame on the skating alone — and for a few minutes, gliding slow loops around an empty patch of ice, Isabeau let it be the only thing she paid attention to.
Isabeau sent the bowling ball down the lane and held her breath as it knocked down all but one stubborn pin at the back. She tensed, watching it wobble, wobble, and finally topple, and she threw her hands up with a cheer.
Alysa's arm came around her shoulders before she'd even turned around. "Okay, show off."
Isabeau laughed, leaning into it, and caught Madison a few feet away snapping a photo, throwing up a peace sign the second she noticed she'd been spotted. Isabeau tugged Alysa toward the row of stools as Jason stepped up to take his turn, bowling ball cradled in his arms.
Alysa's arm stayed where it was. She'd gone quiet, watching Jason pose dramatically for Madison's camera, and then, without warning, she shifted, tucking her face into the crook of Isabeau's neck.
Isabeau tensed at the sudden warmth of her breath against her skin, a startled, ticklish jolt running through her. She squirmed. "...it tickles."
Alysa didn't move. When she spoke, her voice came out muffled, quieter than Isabeau had ever heard it. "I'll miss you."
Something in Isabeau's chest ached, sudden and premature. It was the last week of the tour. After this, there was no telling when they'd see each other again — maybe not until the competitive season started back up, and even that depended on whether Alysa would be out there at all this year, something she'd never quite said out loud.
Isabeau reached over and laced her fingers through Alysa's hand where it hung between them, holding on a little tighter than the gesture really needed.
"We'll see each other next season," she said, aiming for light, though it came out a little less certain than she meant it to.
She felt Alysa smile against her neck before she lifted her head, just enough that their eyes met.
"I'll try," Alysa said — not quite a promise, not quite nothing either — and Isabeau let it sit between them, unresolved, exactly as it was.
They lined up for the final bow, the whole cast shoulder to shoulder, and Isabeau hooked her arm through Alysa's without thinking about it, the way she did most things now where Alysa was concerned. The moment the bows finished, Alysa swatted at her, fast and playful, and Isabeau shrieked out a laugh and ducked behind Amber for cover.
Amber just laughed, planting herself between them with both arms stretched wide like a referee. "The girls are fighting~"
Isabeau threw her hands up, laughing too hard to defend herself, and behind it all she could hear the audience still cheering, the sound rolling through the arena in waves.
Alysa hopped onto Amber's back without warning — a false start, nearly toppling both of them — before Amber caught her balance and piggybacked her clean off the ice, Isabeau laughing helplessly alongside them the whole way.
Alysa turned to look at her then, face half-curtained by Amber's mane of blonde hair, just enough visible that Isabeau caught her eyes. They were affectionate, something unreadable underneath it. Brown eyes met green, and Isabeau's heart did something strange — a stutter, a missed beat, like it had tripped over itself.
Alysa's mouth moved, shaping something Isabeau couldn't quite make out through the curtain of hair between them.
"What?" Isabeau called back, raising her voice over the noise.
Alysa just shook her head. "Nothing," she said, tone fond, like whatever it was could wait.
Starhaven. Isabeau turned the name over in her head, almost laughing at it — such a poetic name for somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Mississippi. But it was, fittingly, where the tour would end.
The last notes of "Golden" faded out into the arena's rafters, and Amber pulled both of them into a hug before the applause had even fully crested. Isabeau slung one arm around Alysa's neck, the other around Amber's waist, and Alysa pressed in closer than the hug really required, close enough that Isabeau could see the flush creeping down her neck, a single bead of sweat tracing a slow line past her collar.
The audience cheered, and cheered, and kept cheering, the sound swelling up around them in waves that didn't seem to want to stop. The three of them held the bow a beat longer than they needed to, hands still linked, the lights washing gold and white and gold again across the ice — and Isabeau thought, distantly, that this was the last time the three of them would take this particular bow, in this particular order, ever again.
When they finally broke formation, they skated toward the rink exit, Jason already there with his phone out, filming. Alysa pulled her into a one-armed hug the moment they got past the curtains.
"We actually did it," she said, breathless, voice still pitched high from the adrenaline of the ice. "Last show. Can you believe that?"
"Smile for the camera!" Jason called, phone held up sideways, already laughing at his own narration. "Look at my girls. Final show, final hug — let me get this one for the vlog."
"Get that thing out of my face," Alysa shot back, but there was no real heat in it, and she didn't let go of Isabeau, just tipped her head toward the camera with a small, fond eye-roll, grinning the whole time.
Isabeau pulled her into a proper hug, both arms around her this time, and they stood like that for a moment, Alysa's chin settling on top of her head, the noise of the arena still going on somewhere behind them, distant now.
"...I'll miss you," Isabeau said, quiet, into the front of Alysa's costume.
She felt Alysa go still for a second, like the words had caught her off guard even though she'd said almost the same thing herself, a week ago, into the curve of Isabeau's neck. Then her arms tightened, just slightly.
"Yeah," Alysa said, voice low enough that it was only for Isabeau to hear. "Me too."
Around them, the noise hadn't really stopped — Madison was reapplying lip gloss in the reflection of someone's water bottle, somewhere closer to the curtain a stage manager was calling fifteen minutes to the next number. The show wasn't over. There was still a finale to get through, still costumes to change into, Isabeau still had her own solo number after Andrew's.
But right here, right now, she let herself stay in this moment a little longer.
The show was over. Isabeau sat cross-legged on the hotel bed, sorting through her suitcase with the particular distracted carelessness of someone who wasn't really thinking about packing at all. She had a flight tonight. Everyone did, scattering to a dozen different cities by morning.
Alysa was there too, curled into the chair at the vanity table, picking absently at a chipped nail. Neither of them had said much since they'd gotten back to the room.
Isabeau sighed without meaning to, and at the sound Alysa looked up.
"All set?" Alysa asked.
"Yeah," Isabeau said.
She turned to look at her properly then. Alysa's stage makeup was gone, scrubbed off sometime in the last hour, mascara smudged faintly under one eye where she hadn't quite gotten it all. Without it she looked younger somehow, more unguarded — not the dazzling, halo-lit thing Isabeau kept catching glimpses of under arena lights, but something quieter and more real, more human, and somehow that was so much harder to look away from. There was a small pout on her face, the kind she got when she was trying not to show what she was actually feeling.
"So I guess this is it," Isabeau said.
Alysa didn't answer right away. She set down whatever she'd been picking at and just looked at her in a way that made Isabeau's chest go tight.
"Guess so," Alysa said finally. Her voice had lost its usual easy lift. "Unless you've got something to say about it."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean—" Alysa let out a short breath, almost a laugh, except there was nothing funny in her face. She stood up from the vanity chair, crossing the small distance between them, and stopped at the edge of the bed. "I mean I've been trying to figure out how to say this for like five states now, and I keep chickening out, and we're literally out of states. So."
Isabeau's heart was doing that thing again — stuttering, tripping over itself. "So," she echoed, barely a word at all.
"I don't want to ruin anything," Alysa said, talking faster now, like if she stopped she might not start again. "And if-if I was just seeing things, I'm sorry, I just don't think I can get on a plane tonight without telling you, because if I don't say it now I don't think I ever will."
"You're not going to ruin anything," Isabeau whispered, barely a sound.
"No?"
"No."
Alysa's eyes dropped to her mouth, just for a second, the same unconscious thing Isabeau had caught herself doing a dozen times this tour. She stepped forward, her knees brushing against Isabeau's. Isabeau looked up at her, Alysa's eyes hooded behind the fringe of her bangs. Her tongue came out to wet her lips, and Isabeau caught the glint of metal.
She placed a hand against the side of Isabeau's neck, thumb stroking at the stray hairs slipping loose from her ponytail. "Is this okay?"
"Yes," Isabeau breathed, already curling her fingers around the front of Alysa's shirt, already pulling her down until there was no space left between them at all.
Alysa's hand came up to rest against her jaw, the small metal fang at her lip catching for half a second against Isabeau's mouth, cool then warm, exactly the thing she'd wondered about for weeks. Her lips were soft, unhurried — she could taste artificial strawberry on them, faint and sweet as Alysa's hands slid down her sides until they caught on her hips.
Isabeau's fingers tightened in the fabric of her shirt, anchoring herself to something solid as the room seemed to tilt very gently sideways. She felt Alysa smile against her mouth at one point, a small huff of breath that might have been a laugh, and Isabeau pulled back just far enough to look at her — flushed, eyes soft, hair coming loose from its tie — and thought, distantly, there she is. Just Alysa. Hers, maybe, if she wanted to be.
She kissed her again before she could think too hard about it, slower this time, deliberate, learning the shape of this new thing between them. Alysa's hand slid up from her hip to rest at the small of her back, drawing her in and Isabeau let herself sink into it completely.
When they finally broke apart, neither of them went far — foreheads resting together, breath still caught between them, the quiet broken only by something that was almost a laugh from Alysa, disbelieving and pleased all at once.
She pulled back just enough to flop sideways onto the bed, tugging Isabeau down with her by the hand, and for a moment they just lay there, shoulders pressed together, staring up at the ceiling.
"Okay, I— um." Alysa said finally, sounding a little stunned at herself. She turned her head against the pillow to look at her, expression nervous in a way that didn't suit her usual confidence. "At the risk of sounding like a useless lesbian — what are we now?"
Isabeau considered the ceiling for a second, like it might actually have an answer written up there somewhere. Then she turned her head too, until they were looking right at each other, close on the same pillow.
"I don't know," she admitted. "But I don't want to go back to just friends. I don't think I could, even if I tried."
Alysa was quiet for a moment, just looking at her, thumb tracing absent circles against the back of Isabeau's hand.
"So. Girlfriends?" she said finally. "Is that — can I call you that?"
Something in Isabeau's chest went warm and a little overwhelmed, hearing it said so plainly, no joke buried inside it this time. "Yeah," she said. "Girlfriends."
"Okay." Alysa exhaled, like she'd been holding her breath. "Okay, good. Great. Cool. I'm very chill about this."
"You're shaking."
"I am not—" Alysa pulled her hand back to check, found it actually was, and groaned, hiding her face against Isabeau's shoulder. "Oh my god, I am. This is so embarrassing."
Isabeau pressed a laugh into her hair, holding onto her a little tighter. "I think it's kind of cute."
They lay like that for a while, the shaking easing out of Alysa's hands, the room gone soft and quiet around them. Then, because it had been sitting in the back of her mind all night, she said, "Hey — earlier. During a finale, when Amber was carrying you. You said something and I couldn't hear you because of her hair. What was it?"
Alysa went still against her shoulder. "You remember that?"
"I remember everything you do," Isabeau said, her own face went a little warm at how that sounded out loud.
Alysa let out a breath that was half laugh, half nerves, and looked down at their joined hands instead of at her. "I said I think I'm in love with you. Or — I was trying to. I got about halfway through the sentence and panicked. "
"Oh," Isabeau said, very quietly.
"Yeah," Alysa said, still not quite looking at her, like she was bracing for something.
Isabeau reached over and tipped her chin up with two fingers, just enough to make her look up. "I think I love you too," she said. The words felt strange in her mouth, too big and too simple all at once.
Alysa's smile went soft and a little disbelieving, like she hadn't actually expected to get the sentence back.
A sharp knock cut through the moment before either of them could do anything about it, followed immediately by Amber's voice, muffled through the door. "Shuttle's outside! We've got like five minutes before it leaves without us, let's go—"
They scrambled up, grabbing bags, Isabeau's hair still a mess from where Alysa's hands had been in it, and by the time they hauled the door open, Amber was standing there with a sad smile on her face.
She pulled both of them into a hug. "I'm gonna miss you girls so much," she said, voice a little thick. "Remember to text me. Both of you. I mean it — every boring little update, I don't care, I want all of it."
"You're going to get so sick of us," Alysa said, muffled against her shoulder.
"Never." Amber squeezed them tighter, then finally let go, swiping quickly at her eyes before either of them could comment on it. "Okay. Shuttle. Let's go before I start actually crying."
They grabbed the last of their bags and headed out into the hallway, the three of them walking close together, and Isabeau felt Alysa's hand find hers somewhere along the way. She turned to find Alysa already looking at her, smiling soft and quiet.
"See you next season, Isababy."
Isabeau squeezed her hand and smiled back. "See you next season."