Chapter Text
Japan finally arrives and Alysa breathes. She can finally stop feeling like she’s shorting someone. The relief lasts until her gaze lands on Isabeau across the hotel lobby. It’s not even intentional, but something in her always knows.
Isabeau’s not looking. She’s standing with Jason, coffee in hand and it’s utterly stupid the way Alysa’s breath stalls in her chest. She can skate in front of thousands of people, parade down a red carpet, appear on national television, and none of it feels like this.
“She’s been waiting for you,” Amber says and Alysa startles so hard that she nearly knocks over her suitcase. On instinct, she punches Amber in the arm.
“Jesus, ow, I missed you too, jerk,” Amber says as Alysa pulls her in for a hug.
“Maybe don’t sneak up on people,” Alysa says.
“I was absolutely not sneaking. I just walked up like a normal person. You’re just distracted.”
“By what?” Alysa asks, pulling back to find Amber smirking at her.
“You tell me, Lys.”
Alysa stiffens, not because she doesn’t want to tell Amber but because it feels a little unfair that Amber should know first.
“Shut the fuck up,” she grumbles. “God, I fucking missed you.”
“I missed you too,” Amber says, arm still around Alysa’s waist, Alysa half sagging against her in a mixture of exhaustion and relief.
It’s then that Isabeau’s eyes find her, her whole face lighting up as she sprints across the lobby. Later, Alysa realizes Amber had pulled away, had left the moment for them alone. But living in it, she only processes the surprisingly solid lankiness of Isabeau in her arms, the warmth of her breath in the crook of Alysa’s neck.
“You made it,” she breathes and Alysa wants to tell her she doesn’t know how, because feeling this again, the wholeness of it, makes her wonder how she could ever survive even one day without.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Alysa vows, and if her lips press briefly to Isabeau’s hair, so what? No one is any the wiser.
________________
In her head, she’d crafted a timeline. One that gave her enough time to recover from jetlag, gave them all enough time to learn the new choreo, and let them just be for a minute before she made her big confession.
The problem with that, though, is that Alysa has enough time to doubt. What if it’s not the right time? What if Isabeau doesn’t feel the same way and Alysa’s been reading it all wrong? What if it makes things horribly awkward? What if she’s been right and Isabeau does feel the same and they try and it all blows up, but they still have to tour together? And Alysa wonders why the hell none of this had occurred to her before now.
So the timeline gets shifted. Not today, in a week. A month. Once tour is over. Once the new season starts.
In the meantime, she has Isabeau here, grabbing her arm to show her something in a shop, sneaking up behind her on the ice to jump on her back, draping across her lap backstage. The kind of delicious torture that Alysa savors, because it means an excuse to touch the other girl, to be close to her.
The day the men follow them downtown, they’re outside a shop, waiting for Amber who’s looking for a pair of sunglasses. And Japan is safe. People are respectful. Alysa never should’ve let her guard down.
“Those guys keep looking over here,” Isabeau says, her gaze flicking nervously from Alysa to the men and back. Instantly, all ease is gone, not because there’s any specific sign of real danger but because keeping Isabeau safe is the only thing that matters.
“Be cool,” she says, subtly shifting so she’s between Isabeau and the men, who are making their way closer now. Isabeau grabs anxiously at her arm.
It’s not that Alysa can’t defend herself. She has no problem putting men in their place. It’s that Isabeau’s here, bearing witness to whatever happens. The stakes are so much higher.
The men speak in hurried Japanese, reaching around Alysa to grab at Isabeau, too, demanding and too close and too fast. Alysa is literally seconds from punching one of them in the face when Amber appears, somehow nudging her way between the girls and their aggressors.
“Enough,” she says, firm and clear. “No more. Leave them alone.”
Through a good bit of mime and very broken English, it’s established that the men want autographs. Pictures. And Alysa wants to deny them, but it’s faster and easier to give them what they want and Isabeau’s grip on her arm hasn’t loosened.
“Fine,” she mutters, forcing a smile, careful to keep herself between Isabeau and them, because they don’t deserve access to her.
Even once they’re gone, Isabeau stays close and Alysa certainly doesn’t mind.
“I’m sorry,” she says, once they’re back at the hotel, safely removed from unexpected interruptions.
“For what?” Isabeau’s disbelieving eyes meet hers. There’s more space between them now than there has been all day and half of Alysa thinks good while the other half mourns.
“I should’ve said something. Before Amber came out. I shouldn’t have…I mean, they should never have gotten that close.” Her chest feels oddly tight and Alysa looks away, staring at the Osaka skyline out the window.
“Alysa. Stop that. Right now.” Isabeau’s hand wraps around her arm for the second time today but Alysa doesn’t look at her. “It wasn’t your fault. And it wasn’t even a big deal.”
“It felt like one,” Alysa admits, glancing over at her, forcing a shaky exhale.
“Yeah,” Isabeau agrees, gently touching Alysa’s cheek with her free hand. “It did. But it wasn’t your fault. Okay?”
“Okay,” Alysa agrees, and for Isabeau, she tries to believe it.
And then there are the nights Isabeau ends up in her bed. It’s nothing untoward. Just, Amber needs her sleep to function, and the two of them do just fine with less, so they usually end up in one bed or the other, watching movies or scrolling or talking or some combination of all of it. And when Isabeau falls asleep, Alysa doesn’t bother to move her. More often than not, she ends up with Isabeau tucked against her, warm and soft and smelling faintly floral. Addictive.
Alysa keeps promising herself the time will come.
The last night of tour in Japan is another level entirely. There’s karaoke and dancing and alcohol and no one seems to care that Isabeau’s technically too young, even here. No one’s watching. And Alysa isn’t going to be the one who spoils the fun. So she nurses just one drink, all night and keeps her eye on Isabeau, not that it’s hard. The younger girl is practically the star of the party somehow, everyone fawning over her. It should make Alysa jealous but it just makes her proud.
“I think maybe I’m a little tipsy,” Isabeau declares, draping herself over Alysa like her body belongs there, all of her fitted perfectly.
The familiar scent of her is undercut with whatever fruity beverage she’d been nursing and Alysa thinks, not for the first time, of kissing her, just to taste. She can’t even blame the alcohol. Doesn’t want to. Just wants to kiss and kiss and kiss so she can know the shape of Isabeau’s mouth from the inside, the kinds of sounds she’d make, the way her fingers would feel, curling into the front of Alysa’s shirt. As if Alysa would ever dream of pulling away.
“You’re staring,” Isabeau murmurs, too close when Alysa’s trying to hide. They’re in public. Isabeau is, at the very least, tipsy. Now is not the time.
“Maybe it’s time we switch to water,” Alysa suggests, extracting herself enough that she has half a shot at breathing.
“I like when you stare at me,” Isabeau murmurs.
“You like when anyone stares at you. It’s part of the job description,” Alysa says, guiding the other girl to the bar and ordering a water which she deliberately lifts to the other girl’s mouth. “Drink.”
Thankfully, she obeys. Alysa studiously looks anywhere else.
With the glass empty, she sets it on the bar, satisfied that Isabeau, at least, will be no worse for wear come the morning. Which is good. They have a flight to catch.
“What do you say we call it a night?” she offers, fully prepared for vehement rejection, but Isabeau’s head drops to her shoulder instead, soft, silky hair brushing the bare skin of Alysa’s arm, making her shiver.
“Mmkay,” she sighs on another yawn.
There will be time for goodbyes in the morning, so Alysa focuses on getting them back upstairs.
They’re barely out of the elevator when Isabeau makes a sound of protest.
“What’s the matter, baby?” The pet name slips and Alysa considers that maybe, somehow, she’d become a lightweight.
“I wanna stay with you,” Isabeau says. God, Alysa’s fucking useless, because the other girl is looking at her, bottom lip caught under her teeth, and Alysa thinks she’d give anything to take her to bed.
“Okay, come on,” she says instead, changing directions, keeping what she’s convinced herself is a steadying arm around the other girl despite the fact that Isabeau is totally fine.
The inside of her room feels too quiet with the door shut, and too still with both of them just standing there, shoulder to shoulder, like they’ve never been alone in a hotel room before.
“I’ll get you something to sleep in,” Alysa says, finally unlocking.
Her things are still not even a little bit packed, clothing and toiletries and souvenirs covering most every surface. It doesn’t take long, though, to find an old tshirt for Isabeau to sleep in and a pair of sweats.
While her back is turned, Isabeau strips off her clothes. It’s not like it’s anything Alysa hasn’t seen. They’ve shared hotel rooms and dressing rooms and locker rooms and there really is no space for modesty in their sport, but here in her space, where the bra and panties Isabeau has on are edged in lace, where the only thing waiting for them is the bed, it feels like an offering Alysa isn’t sure is for her.
“Here,” she says, forcing a step closer, hand outstretched with the clothes clutched in her fist. Her gaze drops to the carpet which does a decent enough job of hiding the faint blush coloring her cheeks.
When Isabeau takes her things, their fingers brush. Alysa would swear it was intentional but when she dares to look up again, Isabeau is sweeping her hair out of the collar of the shirt, not even facing her.
Alysa changes while Isabeau is in the bathroom, washing off her makeup and brushing her teeth with the extra toothbrush that had become hers within one day of arriving in Japan.
By the time the younger girl returns, Alysa is folding her clothes, making a very half-assed attempt at cramming things back into her suitcase.
“I told you to do that before,” Isabeau reminds her, flopping unceremoniously onto the bed. The neck of the tshirt slides to one side, half off her shoulder. Alysa doesn’t look. Much.
“You can go back to your own room, actually,” she says, pleased that her voice sounds like it should, that for even as deeply as she aches to make Isabeau hers, the foundation is still just them. Like this.
“I’m sorry you can’t stand being held accountable for your irresponsibility,” Isabeau sighs, rolling onto her back, her hair spilling over the side of the mattress and this time, Alysa looks. Which is a mistake.
“I have no problem with accountability, thank you very much,” Alysa insists, her eyes dragging unbidden down the elegant slope of Isabeau’s neck, to the faint curve of her breast under the thin cotton of the shirt that will most definitely smell like her tomorrow. Alysa swallows, the tip of her tongue finding the sharp edge of her piercing under her lip and prodding.
“No,” Isabeau agrees after what Alysa thinks must’ve been several minutes of silence. “You just have a problem with action.”
And then, like it’s nothing, Isabeau sits up and reaches for the TV remote and the world tips back onto its axis.
The next morning, Alysa is late to checkout. With the way Isabeau’s barely touched her all morning, she wonders if she’s late for her confession, too.