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Clown wasn't sure exactly what else he'd been expecting.
He stood at the edge of the ice rink, a grip for life squeezing through the glove of one hand and near-fusing it with the bar running around the perimeter. His other hand strayed out parallel to the ice for balance - or at least as close of an imitation of it as he could manage.
Every so often, he'd let go for just long enough to blink twice, before his fingers snapped back around with no looser of a grip than they'd left with. And though he was progressing around the rink, it was so gradual that it was difficult to make any note of how far five minutes had really taken him.
As it turned out, accepting an invitation to go ice skating is a pretty terrible idea when you've no idea how to skate.
The fateful day had fallen in between the turning of seasons, where the flaming tones of fallen maple could be found kissed on the surface and beyond with the gentlest stage of winter. Angel-white, and catching every ray of morning in the crystals that were, like most things, born to be temporary. And, had the invitation been from just about anybody else, Clown may have been able to save himself before it was too late.
It was hopeless to think he'd ever get that lucky when it came to SB. The exact point where it had started happening, where Clown had started to feel the way he did, was fuzzy, a hazy blur tinted with the glow of a gentle flame wherever SB was present.
And SB was present everywhere. In anything that held even the slightest resemblance to a star in the galaxy of details Clown had kept in the safest, warmest corners of his mind. At this point, friendship was a label generous enough to be fragile - and way overdue for shattering.
So when SB had asked him if he wanted to come along, every ounce of gravity pulled Clown towards "yes" before the latter had even finished the question.
Clown had seen opportunity. The two of them weren't going to be alone like he'd initially pictured - Mini and Quiff were joining them - but perhaps whatever happened during the day out could mean something for him and SB if he played his cards right.
Wishful thinking.
Clown glanced up from the ice beneath his borrowed skates and began to trace the light of an early December afternoon from right to left. The rink in question was outdoors, complete with a surrounding of trees that the season, though young, had already stripped barren of anything to show for the summer gone.
However, it hadn't been able to tear down the string lights, weaves of baby blue blinking through each branch, continuing in rows above the skaters' heads. Glacier-toned starlight was reflected in the ice; subtle, but enough for wonderland to be more than an assumption, an especially honeyed concept when the weather could numb.
Unfortunately, a sweet coating wasn't going to make it any easier to find SB.
Clown had, logically, expected to spot him somewhere in the buzz of a hundred intertwining pathways. A hundred people who wore skates like it was first nature, something otherworldly in the eyes of Clown when he couldn't possibly imagine himself among them.
Though the moment he spared the crowd something further than a light scan, he realised the buzz had pulled down to a much slower flow. Heads were tilted up at the sky with fingers pointed into the clouds, into the soft azure freckled between the white that covered the majority of the heavens.
Clown hadn't expected an even bigger awareness of his surroundings to be possible given that it already felt like every eye was boring pins and needles into him. Yet, he saw it all the same. A steady powdering of snowflakes, falling featherweight and easy with every promise to caress the skin at Clown's cheeks with tender chill the moment he craned his neck upwards.
The slow lethargy of an early flurry couldn't last long, though. Within seconds, the flakes had picked up speed and were swirling the rink in constellations, fresh cotton stars landing in Clown's hair to contrast the mocha of his curls.
He was perfectly content to just stand there and take in the sight, even if he wouldn't admit it. Even if he wouldn't admit that the snow was bringing more rays of sun to his lips in a single minute than the trip that he accepted the invitation for had managed to in fifteen.
But, of course, there could be no backing out of consequence.
A particularly heavy snowflake fell upon his shoulder. And, even through his winter coat, the chill pierced right through, pressed a mild shiver into the unsuspecting skin there. It only buried itself down further when a voice came to accompany it.
"Having fun?"
Clown turned to his left to see none other than SB, grinning the entire length of the ice rink and twice as bright as the snow dusting him from head to toe. Speckling his hair reverse Dalmatian, frozen pearls glittering faintly in the twin tangerine orange of his earmuffs and scarf.
The "snowflake" that had made itself at home on Clown's shoulder was wrapped in a glove the same shade of flame. And it became evident when he met SB's eyes, jade and bronze kaleidoscoped together and waiting for a response. It became evident in the heat that began to stain the skin at Clown's face and neck with rose. A colour he could only hope would remain mild enough to blame on December.
"Oh, yeah. For sure. Mhm." He scrambled together a reply through a grin that he tried his best to match to SB's, half of his focus set on keeping the flutters at his chest from finding their way to his voice.
He hadn't exactly lied. He was enjoying the snow. That didn't stop the pinpricks of guilt that pressed into him when SB glowed brighter. It only lasted a second, however, before there was a twitch in his lips, almost apologetic and matching the temperature of the fleeting snap from eye contact that followed.
"Sorry I've kinda just been elsewhere this whole time." SB said, embers lightly tracing his arm as the other gloved hand skated absentmindedly against it. "Had to deal with," he motioned to a vague point in front of Clown, "the situation."
Clown glanced across the rink to where the allusion supposedly sat. "There was a situation..?"
He found SB's eyes already halfway to piecing him together when he looked back, as if what he'd said was something to be unravelled, find the roots of. Light confusion had settled under SB's lashes, too stubbornly set to budge even as he blinked.
"Where have you been for the last ten minutes?" Perplexity melted away with a teasing crease at the edges of SB's eyes, courtesy of the warm laugh that came to breeze through icy air.
Clown's free hand moved on instinct to where his neck met his collarbone. Trying to soothe the sparks that were flaring ever so slightly, trying to hide the pink that he was almost certain was a ripple away from visibility.
"Well...not very close to this "situation", that's for sure." He chuckled in hopes of neutralising the pulse at his fingertips. His own gloves, as thick as they were, stood no chance against the thunder when they were pressed against one of the most storm-prone sites.
"I mean, it's not like Mini's very hard to spot in that coat." SB replied, nodding to his and Clown's left. And sure enough, not even the flurry that continued to whirl over the rink was thick enough to mask several neons, stitched together unconventionally and fighting tooth and nail to be the brightest garment in a five mile radius.
"Surely you saw?" SB continued while Clown felt the uncertainty transfer from SB's face to his. He shook his head, keeping reason hidden behind sealed lips and praying SB wouldn't try to find it.
Unless he planned to pry them open with more than his words.
"Alright." Another grin spread across SB's face, wiping out any scraps of doubt that remained there, "Put simply, he slipped. First thing after getting onto the ice. Insisted he could get up on his own, wasn't letting me or Quiff - or anyone, really - help him up." He explained, nettle-cheeked amusement widening his smile by the second as he recounted the events.
And Clown was never immune to mirth when SB was the one to start the wave. Feathered laughs brushed over his tongue, falling through to his words as he replied. "So were you-" he was cut off by another giggle, "were you just standing around him all that time?"
"Yup. Couldn't exactly leave him there, could we?"
Clown shook his head again, now laughing into the scarlet glove that he didn't recall ever putting over his mouth. "I'll bet that got a good crowd."
"It did." SB confirmed. "Which is why I'm confused as to how on earth you didn't notice."
In Clown's defence, there was only so many times he could deflect naturally before he would have to start dipping into explanations. Or rather, excuses. And there was only so deep the colours blended into SB's eyes could burn into him before something stripped of coherence would spill out.
"Yeah, well. Focus. And watching up ahead. All of that."
SB didn't seem convinced. His head tilted as if viewing Clown from another angle would line up his words, one eye slightly squinting like he were putting another lens over him. "I would've seen you around the rest of the rink, though. You've been at the edge, from what I've seen."
"That's just for extra support." Clown tapped the bar a few times in hoping it would do something to ornament the statement, even if only by a few silver flecks cut pure from what was technically true.
But the same expression remained sculpted onto SB's face, rigid, and this time he didn't reply immediately. Instead, his focus flickered back and forth between Clown and the fingers that'd once again secured themselves tight around their saving grace. Shifting with edge as the seconds were dragged from one corner of the sky to another, fingertips rubbing heavier through gentle knit in protest.
"Clown," SB began, a simple questioning gaze enough to slice at the seams keeping Clown's composure, however much of it he had left, intact, "do you not know how to ice skate?"
Clown winced. Busted.
"I don't." He admitted, only speaking to substitute gnawing at the inside of his cheek. He let his grip flatten slightly until it was more akin to how it lay around the bar whenever he decided he was brave enough to get a few inches ahead.
He half expected SB to laugh, half expected him to be let down, and quite frankly wasn't sure which of the two would leave a bigger pit in his stomach.
"Oh." SB replied, face unreadable. Clown felt the shift in the direction of ever-turning gears as his mind steered towards assuming the second option, and braced for however many excuses he was going to have to pull from the clouds.
And then, SB was smiling again.
"Why didn't you say so, then?"
Short-circuit. Clown halted a breath as the ghost of a reply clung to his throat, threadbare. His eyes snapped in and out of lock with SB's as uncertainty tugged them between points.
It was hard to distinguish rhetorical from sincere when the whiplash was loud enough to mask either. Clown decided to try his luck at guesswork.
"I thought, y'know," he started, voice slightly weak and trailing off a little after too long spent agape in ice, "you'd take that as me not wanting to come along, or something."
SB looked back at him through honey glaze. "You know, Clown, you could have used that as a chance to request a pro skating lesson."
Clown double blinked. "I- from you?"
"Of course." SB smiled, the same sort of smile that always found him whenever his words dripped heavy with ego. Wide, toothy and with just a smear of obliviousness carved meticulously between perfect enamel. "Who else has got the skills like I have?"
Before Clown could reply, the gap between them was pulled further apart as SB moved backwards on the ice and stopped a few feet away in one fluid movement. A clear attempt to impress, illustrated in a vibrant shade of cocky that fixed SB's gaze to Clown's face, searching him for the reaction he was intent on igniting.
Clown didn't like to be easy when SB was brazen from head to toe. He never usually paid his efforts in much more than a quick eye roll - at least, not immediately. Watching SB take his reactions as competition, watching the proof that SB saw his approval as worthy of being a competition, warmed the flow in his veins enough for him to crave it, jump at the possibility any chance he got.
Today, however, Clown left awe clinging to his lashes a little too long, which dawned on him the moment the gold trimming SB's lips shone up to diamond.
"Not bad, eh?" SB remarked, tone still widely disproportionate to what the "stunt" called for. (Not that Clown would have known much difference). Then, just as seamlessly, he slid forward again with a dip and slide that mirrored his previous move, right back to where he'd began.
"Alright, SB," Clown sighed, letting a thick layer of banter through, "anyone here could do that."
Testing how many buttons he could push, seeing if he could nudge SB towards showing him more. And for a moment, it seemed like SB had taken the challenge. Clown didn't miss it when SB's eyes narrowed slightly, another daring stretch pulling the corner of his already-burning smile the second it caught the tease.
SB pushed forward again, diagonally, this time putting himself directly in front of Clown. To show him something that would be better if he didn't have to turn his neck to see, Clown presumed.
The next thing Clown registered was SB's hand wrapped tight around his own.
"So that includes you then, right?"
SB's voice had changed; dropped into a tone that was lower, softer, sincere. Clown was almost certain that his heart left his chest, that it had leapt into heaven and left him on the ground to fend for himself. But it didn't stay there for too long, and soon enough it had fallen back down with a crash loud enough to shake him off of his balance, beating like it was his last day on Earth while he just about managed to stay upright.
There was no way SB couldn't feel it. He was sure to have noticed the speed of Clown's pulse against his own. Clown's palms blazed and blazed beneath vermillion fabric, and with how quickly the flames were spreading through him, he wouldn't have been surprised if SB could feel that too.
"I'm- no, wait, hold on, I didn't mean..." Every sentence Clown attempted to speak shattered on his tongue, all structure lost in the wake of hazel eyes closer than they had been before.
"No, it's easy, trust me." SB insisted. The gentleness in his words had made it to his smile. "Tell you what; I'll tell you how to push forward, and then you try it with me."
Clown could only nod, opting against embarrassing himself further. His mind spun almost as fast as the snowflakes still going strong around the rink, and clouded his vision doubly as much.
"Alright. You want to bend your knees, first of all. And stand with your feet turned out slightly. Like what I'm doing." SB explained.
Clown mirrored his demonstration, and with some wordless coercion, managed to take his other hand off of the bar and land it safely in SB's. He clutched the outstretched glove harder than he probably needed to as SB waited for the signal to continue.
"Okay. Now what?" Clown asked, finally breathing steadily.
"You put one foot in front of the other and push off. Right about...now."
Clown barely had any time to react. SB skated backwards the moment the former's blades touched back on the ice in front of him, pulling him forwards to, for the first time since he'd arrived, properly glide across the rink.
For about two seconds.
Somewhere along the line, there must have been a misjudgement in Clown's confidence on SB's part. They were moving quickly, more quickly than Clown had anticipated, and it was more than the chill in the air stiffening his muscles as his heart plummeted ten feet beneath his body. He braced for impact.
Right as he was sure he was about to meet the ice, there was a firm grip on his shoulders. He didn't fall.
And when he opened his eyes again, SB was closer than ever before.
"Not bad!" SB grinned, and from here the shades of autumn in his eyes went past the edge of the Milky Way, brought out by the starlight that fell into every crease framing them. Searing every inch of Clown's skin more and more as he was pulled deeper into them, but he decided then and there that the burns were more than welcome. "Think I'll give you a bit more of a warning next time."
Clown nodded, dizzy. He felt like he would melt the entire rink down if SB held him like that any longer.