WHO: William Laurence and Lan Xichen WHAT: Ice Skating at the kids hockey benefit! WHEN: Saturday evening WHERE: The Rink WARNINGS: Disney AF
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It had been some time since Laurence had last gone ice skating, not since he’d been a teenager. But he and Edith had spent long hours in the winters of their childhood skating on the lake on Wollaton Hall’s grounds before he’d enlisted in the Navy, and on those winters that had coincided with his shoreleave after, right up until his seventeenth year when Laurence, freshly made lieutenant, decided to give up such frivolities.
The cost of the skate rentals, however, were going toward charity. The children of Laurence’s home didn’t often get childhoods like the children here in Vallo, and it was refreshing to see them afforded a level of freedom not available back home, to see them chasing one another on the ice, or able to play carefree games such as hockey, and if he could assist in that, then he was happy to. And so, he thought he could justify an afternoon of fun on the ice with Lan Xichen.
Especially once Lan Xichen had told him that he’d never been ice skating himself.
There was a brief moment in time where Laurence thought he was going to be playing to fool; the skates were different than those he was used to, and it had been half a lifetime since the last time he’d worn even those, but it only took a couple of wobbly strides before he was able to find his feet. He skated back to where Lan Xichen was putting on his skates.
Putting on the skates was no real trouble. Lan Xichen wore shoes nearly every day of his life, and all his clothing fastened with various ties and laces. The fact that these were shoes with daggers on the bottom, however, was more than a bit strange. He'd never seen anything like it, and though he could understand the principles involved - balance, gliding, cutting slightly into the ice to stand upon it, offering little surface area to slip on - trying to make practical sense of it was harder than the academic concepts.
It did not get any easier when he got to his feet and had to balance with the blades on the rubbery floor of the dressing area. Lan Xichen, foremost cultivator of his generation, actually stumbled, of all the wretched ungracious things. He hadn't lost his balance without someone deliberately pushing him since he was a child! Even when deliberately pushed he could still keep his feet most of the time! He was a renowned warrior, master of his own body and mind! He did not wobble on his feet like a newborn deer!
But here he stood, required to work at finding how his weight should rest on the boot-daggers, and meanwhile rapidly schooling his face into something other than an expression of shock and horror. It was--Lan Xichen did a brief mental calculation--the fifth most embarrassing moment of his life.
Laurence knew that he shouldn’t smile at Lan Xichen, his steps not entirely unlike a newborn foal, but he couldn’t quite help it from his face. He didn’t mean it in a cruel way, of course, though it was nice to see that Lan Xichen wasn’t the picture of perfect elegance in everything he did. It was a nice reminder that Lan Xichen, too, was only human.
Laurence stood at the end of the ice and extended his gloved hands. “It might be best if you take my hands,” he offered. “It’s a little harder to keep your balance once you get on the ice, but I can try to stop you from falling.”
"Thank you," Lan Xichen replied, his relief visible as he took the offered hands. The point of contact made balance instantly easier, though getting across the floor still required enough of Lan Xichen's concentration that he didn't get around to troubling himself over how warm and good Laurence's hands felt. Once they reached the ice, of course, even more concentration was necessary, as it seemed the very ground was trying to slide out from under him. Lan Xichen was not unfamiliar with ice - his home in the mountains was subject to it all winter long and sometimes on into the spring - but generally what one did with ice in Cloud Recesses was to avoid walking on it, not strap on foot swords for a lark.
He glanced around at the adults and children merrily whirling around the rink, then turned his gaze back to Laurence (because Lan Xichen did at least know from his martial training that staring at his feet would be useless). "I suspect this is the sort of thing people are meant to learn when they are closer to the ground."
“And when we can bounce back after any fall,” Laurence agreed. Falls that would leave Laurence smarting for days seemed to have little effect on children between a certain age. He tightened his grip on Lan Xichen’s hands, gentle but firm, glanced behind him to make sure there was no one there, and then turned back to Lan Xichen. “But I’ll try not to let you fall.”
And then he pushed backward, pulling Lan Xichen along slowly so that he might grow accustomed to the feeling of the ice sliding along under his skates before he attempted to gain any moment of his own. “We had a small lake on my family’s estate when I was a boy, and I used to spend a fair amount of winter afternoons there when I was free from other responsibilities.”
"We were always forbidden from stepping on frozen water as children," Lan Xichen replied, but he nonetheless smiled at the mental image of a tiny golden-haired child skittering across a pond. The smile also held some connection to the fact that he was now moving forward - slowly, awkwardly, and requiring help, but forward nonetheless. "You must have enjoyed it - I imagine you as the sort of energetic child who would take easily to such things."
“That’s generally good advice. It is difficult to know when the ice is thick enough for walking on.” He glanced down. “You’ll want to push your feet out from side to side, not front to back. I’m afraid I was rather too spirited in those days, though I’m afraid I was never as good a skater as Edith Galman was. It was great fun though; doing this now reminds me a little of those days of carefree youth.”
Complete with the same nervous excitement he had in the pit of his stomach when he’d see Edith Galman back in those days, which he chalked up to a combination of nostalgia and a subtle anxiety about not wanting to fall in front of Lan Xichen when he was the one who was supposed to have experience in this particular matter.
"Painting is like that for me," Lan Xichen replied, attempting to move his feet as instructed. "My uncle was pleased that I was good at it, but he never found it necessary, so I was largely left to do as I liked as long as I didn't make a mess with the ink. Even now I find it a good escape from everything else."
The movement, he considered, was less like walking and more like swimming - another thing he was dismal at. He did understand the principles, though, and made his best effort at applying them. Using Laurence's hands for balance (though mindful of not gripping too hard), he pushed at the ice as though he was pushing off a rooftop to fly through the air - that was better, thinking of it like flying instead of swimming.
“Good,” Laurence said, shooting Lan Xichen a pleased smile as he felt the momentum shift - he was still propelling himself, but only so that Lan Xichen wasn’t pushing him along. “You’ve put the time to good use, if you were to ask me. Now that I’m older, I find myself regretting that I never put much time into learning any of the arts.”
He’d always enjoyed music and art - though he often enjoyed the social aspects to both a little more than the art itself - but he’d never had the patience as a boy to learn either, and then never the time as an adult. He rather suspected he was too old to learn much of anything new now.
He took them around a corner, slowly so that Lan Xichen might get a feel for the shift needed to turn. “Do you think you might be ready to try on your own? I will stay in front of you like this in case you need to grab hold again.” Laurence had little trouble skating backwards himself, and while the need to constantly check behind to be sure he wasn’t about to crash into one of the children who were zipping by or anyone else made conversation a little awkward, he suspected it was better than Lan Xichen needing to the side for conversation.
"Let me keep your hands for another turn," Lan Xichen requested, because despite his age and his fine manners he was not above employing the tricks of a teenager with a crush when it suited him. He liked holding Laurence's hands, and there had been too little opportunity for pleasant idle flirtation in his life to this point. If Laurence didn't care for it, he would undoubtedly give a very gentlemanly soft rejection, and Lan Xichen would happily continue a friendship without any sidelong glances or casual touches involved. Lan Xichen didn't even feel like he was breaking the rule against lying, not when the ruse was so terribly obvious to anyone over the age of twelve.
Laurence thought that Lan Xichen likely had enough of a feel for his skates that he likely didn't need the extra support, but Laurence understood well enough why someone might be reluctant to let go of it too soon; the blades attached to their own feet and everyone else's were quite sharp, and the ice slick, and they were long passed the recklessness of youth. And so, the only thing obvious to Laurence was an abundance of caution in an unfamiliar situation.
"However long you need," he answered, easily. "Aside from painting, how did you pass the time in winter back home?”
Lan Xichen answered based on the experience of a normal winter at Cloud Recesses, rather than the last year of drowning himself in misery. They were having fun, there was no need to bring that up even if it did automatically cross his mind. He was getting better at sliding past those thoughts rather than getting entrenched in them.
“Training, meditation, correspondence, poetry, and music, mostly,” he replied. There would always be the usual business of running a sect to take care of: teaching disciples, night hunts, diplomacy, planning conferences, trade, and so on, but winter was often a quieter time. Less daylight meant less time that was obligated to others, and more time for his own pursuits. “None of it is really particular to winter, I suppose - there was just more time for it.”
“Those all seem like worthy pursuits for those long winter nights,” Laurence said. He could picture it too, Lan Xichen sitting by candlelight, gold light playing off his fine features, penning some work of poetry or playing something beautiful on his xiao, robes fanned gracefully around him. He smiled at the thought. “It sounds quite peaceful.”
"It was." Lan Xichen gave a smile of his own, more at the sight of Laurence's than at the memories of winters past. Laurence had a very nice smile, Lan Xichen thought. Nonetheless, he couldn't keep up his silly excuse for holding hands forever. When they finished the curve, Lan Xichen let go, hoping that he could avoid making a complete fool of himself. "You said you'd stay in reach, yes? We'll see how far I can manage without losing my footing."
Laurence's hands felt suddenly bereft, the chill of the air rushing in to replace the warmth of Lan Xichen's hands, and Laurence had a sudden, ridiculous urge to take Lan Xichen's hands again. He instead clasped them behind his back.
"You're doing quite well," he said, encouragingly. "But I'll remain just in front of you, if you wish."
“Thank you.” Lan Xichen briefly lowered his head, certain that a proper bow was not to be attempted while balancing on blades. He was indeed getting a better sense of how to move his body and feet to stay upright and propel forward, however. It would take some time before he was twirling about with abandon like some of the others on the rink - some of these people looked so comfortable on skates one would think they had been born on the ice.
Some were stumbling just as much as he was, though, or worse, which was comforting up until the moment a small child toppled right into the back of his knees and sent Lan Xichen lurching forward. There was no sound, just a sudden widening of his eyes as Lan Xichen tried to simultaneously assess what the hell just happened and also not go crashing face-first into the ice.
Laurence acted before he quite processed what was happening. He grabbed Lan Xichen, arms wrapped around his torso and pulling him close, nearly losing his balance himself but managing to keep his feet under him by some miracle. He scowled, looking for the child so that he could scold him for not being careful, and realized that he was already skating off, a guilty look cast over his shoulder, and Laurence made a mental note to lecture the child on manners as well, should he catch up with him later in the day.
“Are you - Oh,” Laurence said, turning his attention back to Lan Xichen and realizing, belatedly, how close together their faces were. He flushed and skated back a few inches, not letting go just yet but putting some distance between them, his voice momentarily abandoning him.
Lan Xichen felt his breath catch halfway in his throat, all his mental and physical processes coming to an abrupt halt as the perfect moment rushed over him. How long had it been since he’d last found his heart stopping just from looking into someone’s eyes and standing a little too close? How much longer still since he’d felt that and not known it would be dishonorable and immoral to acknowledge the feeling even to himself? It was a stretch of time measured in years, and having that carefree teenage rush of lightweight feelings at this late date was enough to make Lan Xichen smile again despite almost eating ice. There was nothing in the world like the feeling of wanting to kiss someone and thinking that maybe sometime he actually could.
“Thank you.” He kept his hands on Laurence’s arms, despite having regained his physical balance. His emotional balance still needed a little help. “You have very quick reflexes.”
“I - yes,” Laurence said, unable to come up with anything cleverer. It took another moment before he had anything resembling coherent thought. “Yes,” he repeated. “Though I should have seen the trouble sooner. You’re not hurt?”
He didn’t think he was, though there was every possibility he might have turned his ankle during the stumble. It was probably best not to let go of him just yet.
"Not at all," Lan Xichen assured him, but made no move to let go of Laurence's arms. He just shifted his grip so they were holding hands again and glanced after the wobbling child who'd almost knocked him over. Ah, youthful exuberance and its constant companion, youthful carelessness. Lan Xichen wasn't one to get very annoyed by such things anyway, and under the circumstances he wasn't annoyed at all. Silly, perhaps, but it was a little bit fun letting someone else come to the rescue for once.
"Forgive me for holding on a little longer?" Lan Xichen requested with a hopeful smile.
Laurence found himself smiling; knowing that Lan Xichen was no worse for wear for the collision made the thing a little amusing, he thought. Lan Xichen’s hands were warm in his own, and Laurence was pleased enough to close his fingers around them. “Of course, there’s nothing to forgive,” Laurence said, and pulled him along once again.