#clearly i'm in my hockey obsessed era

[elisela]

hold me closer marrish, 1k, college au, jordan & stiles friendship  (also on ao3)

The chill of the rink is welcome against his overheated skin. Jordan hates cardio if it’s not racing around a rink, and Stiles’ insistence that running the four miles from their off-campus apartment to the rink would give them an edge when the season started had somehow made sense when they’d started at the end of spring, though he couldn’t for the life of him tell you why now.

They’ve gotten faster, though, so maybe it’s not for nothing.

“I hate you,” Stiles pants out, bending at the waist with his hands on his knees. Coach Finstock has told him not to do it a hundred times—at this point, Jordan’s pretty sure he’s doing it specifically to be contrary. “Fuck. Jesus. I know this was my idea but I didn’t mean we should fucking sprint the last half a mile. You’re a fucking sadist, man.”

Jordan’s too busy working on getting his breath back to talk, and frankly, if Stiles can spit all that out he’s probably good to push himself more. “Just making the most of it.”

Stiles straightens up and makes a face at him, tongue half hanging out of his mouth. “What, the extra time to drool over someone way out of your league?”

He doesn’t deny it. She’s still on the ice—he can’t see her yet, but the sound of her skating is familiar, the sharp swish of two people perfectly in sync. He’s spent so long watching her practice that he can see it in his mind: the way her copper hair whips out behind her as she glides across the ice, the slight arch of her back when her partner takes her weight and spins her around, footwork moving so quickly that he can’t begin to make sense what they’re doing.

“Like you’re not doing the same thing,” he says.

“Hey, I’m equal opportunity. I’m drooling over two people way out of my league.” He nudges Jordan’s side before draping one sweaty arm that Jordan doesn’t bother to shrug off over his shoulder.

“You have a girlfriend.”

“And she’d think they’re hot, too,” Stiles says brightly. “Bisexuality is a beautiful thing. But hey, you should try talking to her this time.”

“Maybe next time,” Jordan says just like he always does, only to hear Stiles say it along with him, high pitched and mocking.

“Loser,” Stiles says fondly, pushing him the final step out of the lobby and into the rink—before he promptly stumbles and nearly knocks them both to the floor. “Whoa. Dude.”

Jordan’s mouth goes a little dry when he looks out at the ice. For weeks he and Stiles have been arriving at the end of the practice sessions for the pair, getting little glimpses of them going through motions, always dressed down in practice gear. But this looks like a full run-through of their program—the rink lights are down, the music playing through the speakers, the sparkles on her costume throwing a dazzling rainbow of lights onto the ice as the spotlight follows them.

For weeks, he’s been pretending he’s not watching, and all it takes is one look at her to give up that pretense completely.

Figure skating has never been his thing—the only thing he’s ever really felt about it was annoyance at having to share ice time when he wanted to practice—but he can’t take his eyes off her. He tracks her movements around the rink, forgets completely about her partner until she’s lifted in the air or spinning around him, and then, horrifying, feels the smallest twinge of jealousy deep in his chest when the music ends and they’re wrapped up in each other.

The rink lights come up just after the music ends, and Jordan makes accidental eye-contact with her partner, who says something that he has no hope of hearing from a hundred feet away, but that makes her tense and smack at his arm before pushing off and skating backwards—and right towards them.

“Hey,” Stiles calls out, “that was awesome. Gold medal for sure.”

When she turns, her eyes flick over Stiles quickly before she turns her gaze to him. “And what did you think?”

“Uh,” he says, trying not to wince when he clearly doesn’t respond fast enough and Stiles kicks his ankle, “you’ll score ten out of ten. You were really good.”

She breaks out into a smile that softens her whole face, and Jordan is so screwed. “You don’t know anything about figure skating, do you?”

“Not a thing,” he admits, grinning back a little helplessly.

“Well, Lydia doesn’t know anything about hockey,” her partner says, “so maybe you two could teach each other. Give him your number, Lydia.”

It’s not until later, when he and Stiles are alone in the locker room and her number is saved in his phone, that he catches Stiles grinning at him like he has a secret, like he’s figured something out that Jordan had completely missed. It’s not an unusual look, sadly. “What?”

“She doesn’t know anything about hockey,” Stiles says, his grin getting wider. “But she knows you play.”

He frowns. “Yeah? We’re here to practice—” he cuts himself off. He’s never actually seen her when they practice, and he would have if she’d stuck around. And thanks to Stiles growing up in this rink and knowing the owner, they’re allowed to store all their gear in the locker rooms instead of carrying it back and forth all summer, so he’s not sure how she knows that he plays.

“Someone has a crush,” Stiles sing-songs, laughing when Jordan reaches out and tries to push him off the bench. “Ooh, you gotta impress her now, she probably thinks you’re some kinda smooth motherfucker and you’re really just a big idiot—”

“Shut up, Stiles,” he says, feeling his cheeks heat up, but he can’t help but laugh as he bends to tie his skates. “Smooth motherfucker, really?”

“Yeah dude, you’re so much cooler on the ice than off.”

“Sounds like you’re talking about yourself. This all stuff Allison has told you?”

“No, she’s still laboring under the delusion that I’m charming and funny,” Stiles says, grabbing Jordan’s hand and allowing himself to be pulled upright off the bench; Jordan almost falls over the sneakers he’d left on the floor when Stiles cuts in front of him suddenly. “Come on, first one to the ice gets to choose where you take Lydia on your first date!”