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“Hi Wallace!”
Scott cheerfully removes his coat and closes the door behind him. He doesn’t even bother hanging it up, just dropping it on the floor in front of the coat rack.
Wallace would be annoyed if he bothered to look up from the newspaper he’s casually flipping his way through.
“Hey guy.” He greets with the tone of voice that makes it easy to imagine someone’s words melting into a yawn.
Scott sits down on his usual spot on the floor and gets ready to get to his usual activities (playing games while Wallace falls asleep on the armchair), but he stops halfway while grabbing the controller and sets it back down. He spins around to face Wallace.
“Hey, Wallace, could you do me a favor?”
Wallace finally graces Scott with eye contact, lowering the paper to look down at him.
“Another one?” He pauses to take a sip of his coffee. “I let you live and eat and sleep here for free.”
Scott frowns. Wallace feels a little bad. Not because he’s wrong, but because Scott kinda looks like a sad puppy when he frowns up at him like that.
“Come onnn, hear me out!” Scott pouts and Wallace relents.
Wallace sighs, making a production of closing his paper and folding it up in his lap.
“Shoot.”
Scott’s smile comes back.
“Do you know how to skate?”
Wallace nods.
“I’m not, like, Brian Joubert or some shit. But I can keep myself upright at least.”
Scott tilts his head, once again making Wallace think of a puppy. Maybe he should get a dog…
“Brian Joubert?” Scott asks.
“Professional figure skater.” Wallace answers flatly. “Keep up, Scott. Context clues.”
Scott scans his memory for that name and a face to match and comes up blank.
“How do you know who he is? Is he an Olympian?”
Wallace shakes his head.
“I’m gay, Scott. Look him up and you’ll get it.” He rolls his eyes as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
Scott stands up to make his way to the computer. Wallace leans over to grab him by his shirt sleeve and pull him back.
“I didn’t mean right away. Focus!”
“Oh.” Scott blinks, empty-headed, and Wallace sighs.
“Why did you ask?” Wallace says in an attempt to rerail Scott’s train of thought.
“Oh! Right.” Scott pops back onto his butt in front of Wallace’s chair. “Will you take me skating?”
Wallace raises an eyebrow.
“Take you?”
Scott nods excitedly.
“Yeah! There’s an ice skating rink right by our place!” He pauses. “Also, we live in Toronto.”
“Oh? You asking me on a date, guy?” Wallace smirks. “You two timing little bitch!”
“Agh, no!” Scott’s face flushes. Whether it’s because he thought a little too hard about ‘date’ and ‘Wallace’ happening to him at the same time, or because he’s embarrassed and offended at the idea that he would cheat on his girlfriend on their 2 day anniversary, he doesn’t want to know.
He shakes his head, patting his warm cheeks with his palms.
“No, no. I want to impress Ramona.”
Ramona’s name slips past his lips softly. He says it the way people say the names of gorgeous flowers, or their favorite anime girls.
“Why should I?” Wallace asks bluntly. Scott can hear the angelic choir that accompanies the image of Ramona’s face in his mind start singing out of tune when he cuts in.
“Well, because- Ah…” Scott searches for a good explanation and he falls pretty short. He flounders for a little longer before eventually coming up with the brilliant: “Because- Please?!”
Wallace watches as his eyes flicker from fondly talking about Ramona like she’s the girl of his dreams and desperate pleading as he practically begs him to take him and he can’t hold back longer. His brain wants to tell him no but, as cheesy as it sounds, his heart screams yes.
“...Fine.” Wallace sighs, rubbing his temples. “Alright, We’ll go next weekend.”
Scott doesn’t respond so Wallace looks back down at him. He’s beaming at Wallace, eyes lit up like a Christmas tree in a department store window. For a brief moment, Wallace thinks he might do anything if it meant Scott would look at him like that.
“You rule, Wallace!” Scott exclaims as he spins back around to get to his previous plans of speedrunning Sonic & Knuckles for the 12th time this year (he still can’t beat that damn record!).
Wallace shakes his head and smiles a fond smile Scott can’t see.
“I know.”
~~~~~~
Scott drags himself through the longest Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday (Wallace slept all afternoon after drinking too much on Friday) of his life.
When Wallace FINALLY gets up to get prepared to leave, Scott is more than ready to go. He grabs his lame-ass X-Men coat and hands Wallace his coat (better) as soon as he gets out of his chair. Before long, they’re off.
A decent chunk of their walk is spent with Scott regaling Wallace with the details of the history of speedrunning for Sonic & Knuckles. Wallace tries to pretend that he’s bored or annoyed by it, but he can’t stop little smiles from creeping onto his face when Scott gets particularly excited. Eventually there’s a bit of a lull in the conversation, one-sided as it is. But the brief silence is pretty comfortable for the both of them.
Wallace shivers a little. His coat isn’t exactly the warmest. Fashion over function is very occasionally his motto.
“Geez. Isn’t it a little cold for this time of year?” Wallace remarks, rubbing the goosebumps out of his arms.
“Is it?” Scott tilts his head to see the face of the man beside him. “What time of year is it?”
Wallace shrugs. “The author doesn’t remember.” He slides his hands into his pockets. “But it felt true when I said it.”
Scott nods in agreement. “It did.”
He looks away from Wallace’s handsome, confident smile to see the sign he’s been waiting to see all week. He excitedly points to it.
“Wallace! Dude! Look!” Scott grabs Wallace’s shoulder.
Wallace laughs. Scott is like a kid in a candy store. He nudges him with his elbow.
“Chill out. I see it.”
Scott grabs Wallace by his wrist to get them inside a little faster, Wallace trips over himself a bit when Scott starts dragging him.
They go through the tedious process of grabbing skates and getting let in. Scott is practically vibrating the whole time, earning both men some odd looks. Wallace tries his best to ignore them. Scott doesn’t seem to notice them at all.
Finally, finally! They get to skate.
“I’ll hang back while you try.” Wallace says, patting Scott’s shoulder when he gives him another Pilgrim Patented sad puppy look. “You’ll be fine. Maybe you’re secretly some kinda prodigy.”
Scott sighs, but decides to take his advice. He makes sure his skates are on right, tapping the blades on the ground a few times to test them before pushing himself out of the waiting area.
Wallace takes a moment to laugh at Scott when his ass hits the ice. It gets funnier when he catches sight of a child no older than five easily gliding past the both of them. Scott looks up at him, and his face is so red hot with both anger and humiliation Wallace thinks he could melt the ice below him. He eventually finds it in himself to stop laughing and hold out his hands.
"Alright guy, come on up."
Scott grabs his hands with a pout.
"Gee, thanks."
He mutters under his breath as he laboriously pulls himself up.
Scott wobbles. His legs threaten to give out and cause another ass-ice collision, but Wallace (his hero who he owes at least a pizza or something after this) uses a little more strength to pull him up. Not a lot though. The little dude is surprisingly light on his feet.
"Wanna just stand here for a sec and get used to being on skates?" Wallace asks, suppressing another laughing fit.
"Yeah..." Scott sighs. "Sounds good."
Wallace nods. In the brief silence between them, he looks down at their hands. Two pairs of thick gloves separate Scott Pilgrim's fingers from his own. Briefly, his chest aches at the thought of it. Hand to hand, skin to skin. How perfectly they might link together. Like two pieces of a wonderful puzzle. He finally pulls his eyes away from the sight after an amount of time that in his mind could be anywhere between two minutes and two days. He clears his throat.
"Let's hit the ice."
Scott doesn’t have the time to protest as Wallace drags him into the rink. His squeaky yelp bounces off the walls of the hollow building. He gets some looks from a couple of the parents. and the same child from before blows a raspberry at him. He groans.
“I think I cracked my ass.” Scott frowns.
“It was like that already, genius.” Wallace corrects him.
“This sucks!” Scott complains. “I wanna go back home.”
Wallace scoffs and shakes his head. “No no no, you made me take you so we’re staying until you can stand on your own without breaking your tailbone.”
“That rhymes…” Scott says in an oddly sad tone.
Wallace sighs fondly, loosening his grip on each of Scott’s hands. He stops Scott before he can whine about falling over.
“Hold onto my arms. I’ll keep you up while you get used to the skates. Kay?”
Scott slowly nods. He grabs onto Wallace’s arms like a lifesaver in the middle of the ocean. Wallace pulls him to stand up straight. His legs wobble for a moment before steadying along with his corrected posture. Wallace smiles.
“There you go. Just hold onto me and let me take the lead for a sec.”
Scott nods again, not taking his eyes off of the twin blades barely keeping him upright.
Wallace takes a breath and starts moving. He starts out with straight lines and slowly gets a little more complicated. Scott is mesmerized by the way Wallace’s skates move in and out in near perfect, smooth zig-zags.
Wallace really hopes no one ever asks him if he’s charmed by Scott Pilgrim, because if they did he couldn’t lie, but he really wouldn’t want to say yes. Watching him tremble and hold onto him like he’ll die if he falls again while he glues his eyes to their skates is just… cute, unfortunately.
Scott, after much deliberation, finally looks at Wallace again. When he sees how gentle his expression is he feels like he’s being stabbed. He’s being looked at with such warmth and something Scott singularly places as ‘love’ in his mind and it’s new. Sure, girls have smiled kinda like this before. But something about this is different in a way he couldn’t explain out loud. In a way that you can only really understand if you were Scott Pilgrim at this very moment in time.
Wallace’s ear catches a soft song playing over the speakers. He thinks maybe he’s just a little delusional, but to him it sounds romantic. His thoughts briefly flicker to his high school prom. He remembers a dance with a nice girl he did not care for one bit. He remembers them both cringing at a kiss. He remembers feeling a little nauseous when her chest pressed up against him during their final dance of the night.
This feels a little bit like everything he wanted that to be. He thinks of Scott in a nice suit, with an overly ornamented corsage clipped to his collar. He imagines Scott nervously asking him onto the dance floor. He imagines Scott stepping on his feet and he imagines forgiving him with a laugh.
He needs a break.
Wallace leans back a little.
“Are you ready to try and spread your wings?”
Scott feels an unexplainable renewed confidence. Well, actually, it’s very explainable, but he doesn’t want to think about it.
“Yup!”
Wallace nods, slowing to a stop.
“Knock ‘em dead, buddy.”
Scott carefully lets go of Wallace’s arms. Wallace moves back a bit, giving Scott some space.
Scott takes a deep breath. He gives him a few seconds to stand still, thrilled that he can manage just that. He tries to move again, very sure he’ll be on the other end of a triple axel any second now. But the ice is getting… oddly close. Until it stops getting close!
Wallace’s body sped ahead of his brain when he saw Scott lose balance. In a matter of seconds, his arms around Scott’s waist, holding him up as he pulls him closer to his chest. Scott looks up at him and he’s surprised to see the level of concern in Wallace’s eyes.
“Are you okay?” Wallace asks gently, brushing Scott’s bangs out of his eyes.
Scott stares at him, mouth open. Was Wallace always so… hot? So cute? So heroic? So perfect? He thinks he wasn’t like that yesterday. He feels his face start to get warm. It takes him way too long to answer the question.
“Y-Yeah.” Scott nearly whispers, blinking his wide eyes. “Thanks, Wallace.”
Wallace freezes. Scott said his name an awful lot like he said Ramona’s when he was begging him to do this. He hopes, prays to whatever God or Goddess or universal Sims player will listen that Scott can’t feel the way his heartbeat quickens. In a moment of panic, he drops Scott, completely defeating the point of catching him.
“Ow!” Scott hears that tone deaf choir again when he hits the ice. “What the hell!”
Wallace laughs, deciding to play it off as a joke. That’ll make him seem less gay and deranged, he thinks.
“Sorry guy, I didn’t sign up to be a dude hanger.” He shrugs, easily gliding towards solid, non-slippery ground.
“Wallace!” Scott groans, pathetically getting up onto his feet. “You’re such an ass!”
Wallace sticks his tongue out, letting his eyes linger on Scott just a little longer before turning away from him.
“If you can make it off the ice in one piece I’ll buy you a couple hot chocolates!” He waves as the distance between him and Scott grows larger.
Scott yells. “You suck!”
Wallace laughs, but the image of Scott’s body laid out flat on the ice sticks in his mind. Because of him.
Maybe one day, he’ll stop feeling like Scott deserved the fall.