Chapter Text
Trixie is completely mentally checked out from school. She had trudged through the doorway of her house almost two hours ago, and ever since: any thoughts about her assignments or schoolwork have been wiped from her mind. Trixie’s headphones are plugged into her phone and she is absentmindedly winding and unwinding the cord around her pointer finger. She's laying on her stomach despite her spine starting to get sore from the position. In New York they were deep into autumn so the late afternoon sun had almost already disappeared. The last faint slivers of sunlight leak through Trixie’s blinds, onto her bed. Trixie brushes her hair out of her face, putting it back behind her ear. The honey blonde strand falls back in front of her eyes and Trixie sighs exasperatedly. A blaring alarm starts playing from her phone. Startled, Trixie rolls over again to sit on the edge of her bed. She allows her socked feet to dangle over the hard wood for a moment and turns off the alarm that reads “Don’t be late for cheer!!” Knowing she has already swiped away the first two reminders she starts getting ready.
“Shit”, Trixie mutters to herself, as she goes to gather the unpacked items strewn across her bedroom floor, chucking them into her cheer bag as efficiently as possible. She goes through her mental checklist before picking the bag up. Practice uniform? Check. Shoes? Check. Water bottle? Check. Sweatpants? Check.
She pulls a pink hoodie over her head and throws as many loose hair elastics as she can grab in one handful into the front pocket of her cheer bag. She grabs a quick glance at herself in the hallway mirror before leaving, to ensure she didn’t look crazy. She has her honey blonde hair in a tight high ponytail that reaches just below her shoulder blades. Under the plushy oversized hoodie and sweatpants, she is wearing a black and red sports bra that hug her breasts nicely. Along with the bra, she is wearing black cheer shorts that have her team’s name embroidered along the band of the left leg. She jogs through the door frame advancing towards the bus stop. There is a light wind travelling through the New York air, but the sun is still out. The warm orange rays are a welcome comfort as they slightly lessen the harsh breezes that are abrasive to Trixie's exposed skin. She pulls her hoodie sleeves over her hands and forges on.
Trixie is exactly four minutes early when she pushes open the cold metal handle of the studio doors. A whoosh of warmer, stale, air hits her face. She proceeds through the lobby, making a beeline to the change rooms. The entire lobby is decked with various shiny trophies from past competitions. Some of the more important accolades: awards from worlds and NCA, are displayed on the right side of the front desk. Walking past these many awards, Trixie can’t help feeling a strong sense of pride, as she is reminded of her many successes. Trixie has just enough time to slip off her loungewear and to assure her uniform is sitting correctly. Once satisfied with her appearance, she steps towards the change room cubbies and shoves her bag into one of many small wooden boxes. Trixie leaves the changeroom and re-enters the lobby, where a few other cheerleaders are already hanging out. She is well acquainted with everyone on her team, but usually likes to keep to herself. She sits on the bench opposite to the gaggle of athletes, occasionally eavesdropping into their conversation when it moved to subjects that interested her more.
Just minutes later, class time rolls around, and all the cheerleaders are called to the floor and are directed to find an open spot. At this point in the year most people had an unofficial reservation as to where they would be standing. Or was sort of like a high school classroom: where most people sat in the same spot every day. As Trixie is walking to her usual place, she is delighted to see that her closest friend, Katya, has just entered the gym (two minutes late, as she often did). The instructor reprimands her lightly, broadcasting her tardiness to the entire class. Embarrassed by this, Katya swiftly saunters to her usual spot on the floor, still tying back half of her short hair into a ponytail. She migrates to right next to Trixie. Reaching her spot, Katya apologizes profusely to their coach. The coach gives a glance of irritation, but in reality is unbothered, as most people on the team knew: Katya could get away with almost anything.
Five girls: Katya, Trixie, Shea, Violet, and Jaiden were essentially the backbones of the entire team. Katya, being the best flyer, was indisputably crucial to the team’s success, paired with Trixie: the strongest base they were essential for routines. Along with their stunting skills, both of the girls had proven themselves worthy with their exemplary tumbling. As for the rest: Shea and Violet showed incredible flexibility and charisma as flyers, while Jaiden demonstrated such strength as a base, that she could support multi-base stunts all on her own. These five girls were all pretty close, but they all also had other close friends on the rest of the team. The five of them were not an exclusive group, in fact: everyone on the team was close with at least one of them. They were essential not just for their skill, but their interconnection.
They team commences practice with a high intensity workout, lasting around twenty minutes. Though this workout was standard for the girls, it still continues to leave the athletes exhausted. This fatigue is enough to make their bodies beg for rest. By the time they are given their minute-break many are lying on the carpet flooring of the gymnasium, too tired to sit up.
Once the team is recovered, the cheerleaders get a few minutes to stretch themselves, and afterwards the bases are instructed to stretch their flyers a bit further. Trixie looks over her shoulder to Katya and smiles, already aware of the pain she is about to put her through. Katya groans half sarcastically, speed walking towards Trixie so that they can get stretching over and done with. They start with a needle stretch. The girls stand chest to chest, and Katya wraps her arms around Trixies middle. Katya lifts her leg towards the back of her head with the assistance of Trixie. Once the position is stable, Katya arches her back to deepen the stretch. Trixie glances down to check Katya’s footing, but catches a glimpse of something she shouldn’t. Katya’s gym shorts are slightly bunched up, revealing the trim of her lacy red panties, hugging her thigh tightly. Feeling guilty and confused by her sudden arousal, Trixie brings her gaze quickly up to eye level, and shortly after releases Katya’s leg from her grasp.
The coach informs the girls on their next stretch, and allows them time to hold the position. Trixie continues through the next stretch, and then the next, but her thoughts remain unchanged. All she can focus on is what she saw.
When the flyers are ready to move on, they set up their third stunt and run it from the start. At a competition, a few weeks prior, this had been the stunt to cost them their first place prize. One of the flyers had come down almost immediately after being put up, and another group dropped only a few seconds later. This mistake lost them enough points to drop from first place to fourth. A placement below third happened so rarely for the girls, that their coaches, and cheer fans on the internet, could barely believe it. So, since then, they have been running it over and over again until it becomes perfect. Their coach starts them off with a count: 5, 6, 7, 8! On their cue: bases set, and flyers jump in. Trixie has both hands on one of Katya’s shoes, while Jaiden holds the other shoe, preparing for the lift. Their back spot, Jasmine, is holding onto Katya’s ankle and thigh. They dip and spin katya around in a full 360. All the flyers put their hands on their hips and pull their shoulders back once they have reached the peak of the stunt. Bases dip again, and flyers kick onto their opposing shoe. Following this, they pull the free foot to their head in a front stretch. Trixie pulls Katya down, allowing her to support herself on Trixie and Jaiden’s shoulders.
Katya is then hoisted back into the air. Now on both feet, she is enabled to perform her choreographed motions, as her bases start to move the stunt towards the center of the floor. Being in the center as a flyer would be an extremely exciting opportunity on any team. But with how well known the cheer gym is, the pressure would be unbearable for many. The team has a longstanding reputation for precision and performing clean routines, and Katya was not interested in changing that. Katya sighs deeply, popping her chest out and fisting her hands tightly, preparing herself. From here they dismount by throwing Katya as high as possible, and catching her in a cradle. On their counts they dip and throw, flicking their wrists and pressing through their toes as much as humanly possible. They watch as Katya turns, kicks, and twists a final time on her way down as the bases line their bodies up so they can catch the incoming flyer. She lands correctly, and the girls bring her petite body down to the ground. Trixie beams at Katya, saying
“that was flawless!” Katya looks surprised as she responds,
“Really? It didn’t feel like perfection.” Trixie wishes she could roll her eyes to Katya’s blatant humility, but instead just nods her head. Katya tends to hold herself to much too high of a standard, but Trixie feels it is unnecessary. Though Trixie understands the pressures of being on a semi-famous team, she still feels that Katya takes her sport too seriously at times.
Competition season is just about to start, with their first huge competition, NCA, being the following weekend. The competition will have thousands in attendance, both as audience members, and cheerleaders. There will be people filming the entire event, and an official version that will be recorded by the competition itself. Due to this added pressure, the instructors have been becoming stricter and will be less forgiving if their athletes get tired at the end of routines or if, god forbid, they drop a stunt. After running through the routine five or six-times, Trixie is having a hard time concealing her exhaustion. She feels a bit of relief when she looks over to Katya, seeing her bracing herself on her knees, panting..After yet another run through, athletes are awarded a three minute water break.
Trixie and Katya, fatigued, walk together to the cubbies, snatching their bags from the shelves and pulling out water bottles. Since they are given an extra minute to break, they go into the bathrooms. Trixie approaches the mirror and begins to unravel her now very disheveled high ponytail. One by one, she releases the grip of each band that she so precisely tired just earlier that day. She pulls out the final elastic and begins to massage her scalp.
“You need to stop putting your ponytail so tight” Katya vocalizes from across the room, with a subtle smile begging to form. Trixie frowns at her,
“and why would I do that?”, she responds, looking at Katya looming behind her in the mirror.
“Traction alopecia” Katya says plainly, while flipping one side of her choppy bob over her left shoulder. Trixie looks at her, confused,
“care to elaborate?” Katya’s smirk turns into a grin as she simply replies,
“no.” Trixie tries to roll her eyes, but simply can’t stop herself from giggling.
“Like you can talk, you basically only put a quarter of your hair up! Trixie says in reference to Katya’s hair, which is too short to style in anything other than a half-down updo. Katya gasps in mock offense.
“What else am I supposed to do?!” Katya asks.
“Well to start: You could pin your bangs bag for once.” Trixie replies, smirking, and eyeing the strands of hair that were plastered to Katya's forehead from sweat.
Since break is almost over, Trixie must once again tug her wavy, blonde locks into her usual sleek high pony. Once all her fly-aways are patted down, both her and Katya return to their cubbies, water bottles in hand. They join everyone back on the spring floor, still waiting for a few people to return from the water break. As soon as the whole team is back on the blue floor they are divided into groups based on their power tumbling skills.
Since Katya came from a gymnastics background, she already had plenty of tumbling and flexibility skills upon arriving at cheer. This is what made her into the star athlete she was. When putting together a routine, coaches never really had to worry about where to place Katya, because she could do practically anything that is asked of her. She is one of the best flyers, and can match most other bases. Trixie has been doing All Star cheer since she was nine, and she is a strong tumbler, despite it being something she has had to work for a bit harder for than Katya. Trixie’s most advanced tumbling pass is a front tuck-through to a hand-spring to a full twisting layout. However, Katya's hardest pass is the same, but with an Arabian and a double twisting layout. The coaches put on cheer music to get everyone pumped up and, in turns, everyone throws their tumbling across the floor. People cheer for each other when they land a difficult pass, and encourage teammates if they’re hesitant to throw a certain skill.
They run the routine again and again, and by the time it’s all over Trixie can feel an ache starting to develop in her shoulders and wrists, due to holding flyers above her head. The rest of the class passes by in a blur of eight counts and water breaks, and before she knows it, the team is doing a cool-down stretch.
By the time they’re out of the gym it's almost nine at night and the crisp autumn air is already settled. Trixie feels the sweat that accumulated on her forehead congeal as the pair trod to their bus stop. Trixie and Katya are waiting together. Trixie is intently listening to Katya tell a story from her gymnastic days. However, Trixie’s focus begins to shift, as she is now noticing the way air from Katya’s mouth moves and condensates in the air. Trixie can’t help but be almost hypnotized by the way Katya’s mouth contorts when she speaks passionately. Katya makes a joke and Trixie cracks a smile, looking her straight in the eyes. Katya then smiles even wider back at her, noticing that their eyes have formally met. Trixie doesn't know how long they have been looking at each other, but she is instantly pulled from the mysterious moment, as she hears the sound of screeching brakes.
“Looks like your bus is here.” Trixie states plainly, thrown off by having to disconnect eyes. Katya chuckles to herself as the bus door swings open. “Goodnight Trixie”