199. there's a little bit more that has to be said
Title | there's a little bit more that has to be said
Rating | pg
Summary | Let's not make it harder than it has to be. [Does this have anything to do with the prompt? lol no it does not]
People | Scott Moir + Tessa Virtue
Notes | Written for this ficathon. Also I'm quite certain this is Scott Moir's fault entirely, so. Also this is fic, so, like, what girlfriend? I have never heard of any girlfriend.
They have The Talk in Toronto, all but snowed in at their hotel, the roads too messy for the drive home. Tessa is wearing a pair of old sweatpants from Roots and her hair is starting to curl softly as it dries. She sits on Scott’s bed, cross-legged, and he mirrors her pose, looks back at her.
“So.”
Scott smiles. “So.”
Tessa looks at him and tries to read his mind through all those classic Scott signals: the depth of his eyes, the corners of his mouth, the set of his jaw. She touches him to get a better sense of him, her hand on his knee.
“Do we need to use psych-speak?” Scott teases. His hand covers hers habitually. “Do I need to ask you to tell me how you feel?”
She tilts her head and continues to study him. Finally, she says, “Together.”
Scott nods and Tessa nods and she squares her shoulders like she’s preparing for a blow, and Scott’s hand on hers is a gentle weight, his fingers tapping out the melody of Mahler’s fifth symphony, quick beats and long, lingering pauses.
And they say: “Are we - ”
It is so quiet, the television muted, the city almost silent in the snowstorm, and Tessa’s got that feeling in her throat like she might cry, and Scott’s leaning toward her like he can tell, and her arms lift automatically to return his hug, her hands already seeking those familiar places on his back.
But he catches her hands in his and there isn’t a hug, there’s just this:
Scott Moir, the boy who has occupied one half of her existence for as long as she can remember, leaning across the space between them and kissing her, kissing her, not the soft or subtle pecks of their programs but the real thing, open-mouthed and curious, and Tessa’s dizzy with her hands caught in his and nowhere else to put them, dizzy like the sun is shining directly in her eyes.
“Retiring,” is what she says when they pull apart, because that was how the question was supposed to end, that was the point of the conversation - are we retiring?
“I think so,” Scott says steadily, as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened. “Are you ready?”
Tessa only blinks at him, so he repeats, “Do you feel ready?”
She is a woman with walls. She always has been. She thought it was funny, in a strange and awful way, when they diagnosed the pain in her calves. Compartment syndrome seemed so appropriate for a girl with every part of herself so neatly divided: a space for skating, a space for school, a space for dance; here is where she she’ll build the wall, brick by brick, that will guard her against disappointment if they get silver in Sochi; here is where the wall was erected against all future romantic interest in Scott, the first stones laid when she was eight years old and his small voice on the phone broke off whatever it was they may have had someday.
“Tessa?” Scott’s voice is a cue for her, the sound to which her whole life is attuned. She can’t remember the last time he used the two full syllables of her name when speaking to her directly.
“Do you?” she asks. “Feel ready?” Scott is looking at her differently, his gaze very intent on her mouth, on the strip of skin between her t-shirt and her sweats. “Maybe it’s best to just - just rip the - ”
“Band-Aid off?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah,” he repeats. “Together, right?”
Tessa nods. “Together.”
An hour later they’ve watched the bulk of some stupid made-for-TV movie, stretched out alongside each other on the cushy white duvet of the bed. Tessa cannot stop fiddling with her rings.
“You kissed me,” she says; he kissed her.
Scott makes a face she’d find hilarious under any other circumstances. “Did I?”
“Scott,” she murmurs, the same inflection she uses when he’s goofing around too much and Marina’s getting annoyed.
“It’s nothing new, Tess,” he says, suddenly reticent.
She looks at him and he looks at her and, finally, when she props herself up on one elbow so that she can study his face from a new angle, he says, “When we retire, we won’t be…Virtue and Moir, anymore. We’ll - ”
“Be Tessa and Scott,” she finishes. “Just Tessa and Scott.”
Scott puts his hand on her cheek, her neck, her collarbone, her shoulder. She trembles somewhere deep in her soul. She can hear it when he swallows.
Scott says: “Don’t make me give up every possibility all at once.”
And Tessa bursts into a nervous giggle. “I thought you were going to say every dream. I thought you were going to be such a cheeseball - ”
Tessa kisses him first this time and Scott’s hands go everywhere on her body, her hips and her waist and her thighs. They’re touching each other in ways they’ve touched each other before a thousand times, but this time Scott’s kissing her and she’s kissing him and there is no ice, no crowd, no chemistry to be performed, just the balls of her bare feet pressing against the tops of Scott’s toes and the two of them finding a million more ways to fit together.
They settle in the cocoon of Scott’s blankets with slow snowflakes skating down the windowpanes, and Tessa’s so sleepy but she can’t stop starting sentences, oh my god, our moms and Scott, what will Marina say and Scott, ohmygod, the entire country is going to -
But he stops her with his fingers on her lips and his eyes half-closed and he calls her the world’s biggest worrywart and he says, “Tess, no matter what, I love you.”
fin.
Rating | pg
Summary | Let's not make it harder than it has to be. [Does this have anything to do with the prompt? lol no it does not]
People | Scott Moir + Tessa Virtue
Notes | Written for this ficathon. Also I'm quite certain this is Scott Moir's fault entirely, so. Also this is fic, so, like, what girlfriend? I have never heard of any girlfriend.
They have The Talk in Toronto, all but snowed in at their hotel, the roads too messy for the drive home. Tessa is wearing a pair of old sweatpants from Roots and her hair is starting to curl softly as it dries. She sits on Scott’s bed, cross-legged, and he mirrors her pose, looks back at her.
“So.”
Scott smiles. “So.”
Tessa looks at him and tries to read his mind through all those classic Scott signals: the depth of his eyes, the corners of his mouth, the set of his jaw. She touches him to get a better sense of him, her hand on his knee.
“Do we need to use psych-speak?” Scott teases. His hand covers hers habitually. “Do I need to ask you to tell me how you feel?”
She tilts her head and continues to study him. Finally, she says, “Together.”
Scott nods and Tessa nods and she squares her shoulders like she’s preparing for a blow, and Scott’s hand on hers is a gentle weight, his fingers tapping out the melody of Mahler’s fifth symphony, quick beats and long, lingering pauses.
And they say: “Are we - ”
It is so quiet, the television muted, the city almost silent in the snowstorm, and Tessa’s got that feeling in her throat like she might cry, and Scott’s leaning toward her like he can tell, and her arms lift automatically to return his hug, her hands already seeking those familiar places on his back.
But he catches her hands in his and there isn’t a hug, there’s just this:
Scott Moir, the boy who has occupied one half of her existence for as long as she can remember, leaning across the space between them and kissing her, kissing her, not the soft or subtle pecks of their programs but the real thing, open-mouthed and curious, and Tessa’s dizzy with her hands caught in his and nowhere else to put them, dizzy like the sun is shining directly in her eyes.
“Retiring,” is what she says when they pull apart, because that was how the question was supposed to end, that was the point of the conversation - are we retiring?
“I think so,” Scott says steadily, as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened. “Are you ready?”
Tessa only blinks at him, so he repeats, “Do you feel ready?”
She is a woman with walls. She always has been. She thought it was funny, in a strange and awful way, when they diagnosed the pain in her calves. Compartment syndrome seemed so appropriate for a girl with every part of herself so neatly divided: a space for skating, a space for school, a space for dance; here is where she she’ll build the wall, brick by brick, that will guard her against disappointment if they get silver in Sochi; here is where the wall was erected against all future romantic interest in Scott, the first stones laid when she was eight years old and his small voice on the phone broke off whatever it was they may have had someday.
“Tessa?” Scott’s voice is a cue for her, the sound to which her whole life is attuned. She can’t remember the last time he used the two full syllables of her name when speaking to her directly.
“Do you?” she asks. “Feel ready?” Scott is looking at her differently, his gaze very intent on her mouth, on the strip of skin between her t-shirt and her sweats. “Maybe it’s best to just - just rip the - ”
“Band-Aid off?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah,” he repeats. “Together, right?”
Tessa nods. “Together.”
An hour later they’ve watched the bulk of some stupid made-for-TV movie, stretched out alongside each other on the cushy white duvet of the bed. Tessa cannot stop fiddling with her rings.
“You kissed me,” she says; he kissed her.
Scott makes a face she’d find hilarious under any other circumstances. “Did I?”
“Scott,” she murmurs, the same inflection she uses when he’s goofing around too much and Marina’s getting annoyed.
“It’s nothing new, Tess,” he says, suddenly reticent.
She looks at him and he looks at her and, finally, when she props herself up on one elbow so that she can study his face from a new angle, he says, “When we retire, we won’t be…Virtue and Moir, anymore. We’ll - ”
“Be Tessa and Scott,” she finishes. “Just Tessa and Scott.”
Scott puts his hand on her cheek, her neck, her collarbone, her shoulder. She trembles somewhere deep in her soul. She can hear it when he swallows.
Scott says: “Don’t make me give up every possibility all at once.”
And Tessa bursts into a nervous giggle. “I thought you were going to say every dream. I thought you were going to be such a cheeseball - ”
Tessa kisses him first this time and Scott’s hands go everywhere on her body, her hips and her waist and her thighs. They’re touching each other in ways they’ve touched each other before a thousand times, but this time Scott’s kissing her and she’s kissing him and there is no ice, no crowd, no chemistry to be performed, just the balls of her bare feet pressing against the tops of Scott’s toes and the two of them finding a million more ways to fit together.
They settle in the cocoon of Scott’s blankets with slow snowflakes skating down the windowpanes, and Tessa’s so sleepy but she can’t stop starting sentences, oh my god, our moms and Scott, what will Marina say and Scott, ohmygod, the entire country is going to -
But he stops her with his fingers on her lips and his eyes half-closed and he calls her the world’s biggest worrywart and he says, “Tess, no matter what, I love you.”
fin.