Title: See what I see?
Author Bernie
Rating G
Pairing Dany Heatley / Ilya Kovalchuk
Dedication Fi and Cassidy
Fiction means this is made up.
A/N's Fi said I never wrote happy fluffy Dany and
Ilya, well I can to!! And here it is.
Thanks Mae for the read-through, and for the title.
I don't know exactly what it is we are looking for. At
the moment all I can see are scratches on the surface of the ice. The snow is
pushed into huge banks around the pond, one of which Dany has already shoved me
into.
He is looking at me, smiling slightly, like he knows I
can't see what he does. He skates then; in lazy circles around the outside of
the pond, and the noise is soothing in a weird way, you would not think it
could be, metal cutting through ice, but it is.
I teased Dany once, about looking down when he skated.
I told him he was looking for a concussion, and he told me he was looking for
what was under the ice.
'The floor of the arena' I told him promptly. 'Under
that is dirt.' I smiled so he would know I was joking, and he smiled at that.
'Did you ever skate outside? In the wintertime? I used
to, with my Dad and Mark.' Dany said. 'And I would have to be careful to pay
attention, because I could see the river still flowing under the ice, and
sometimes fish at the very bottom, in the riverweeds. And that would distract
me. And then Mark would sneak past me and score.'
'I can't imagine that.' I told him and he smiled at
me.
'I did though,' and he grins, 'and Dad would tell me I
was not going to find any pixies under the ice and to pay attention to what I
was doing.'
'Did you?'
'Did I what?'
'Ever see any pixies?'
'Nope.' He smiles at me, 'want to help me look? I can
take you skating when we are in Calgary. We had just better not tell Bob where
we are going, I don't think he would approve.'
I had never considered that there could be anything
other than an arena floor under the ice. I have seen painted lines under the
ice; I had seen the concrete under street hockey.
'I can keep a small road trip a secret.' I told him,
which made him roll his eyes. And I fell asleep imagining what he would look
like skating outside.
I bet he would look fantastic on the ice. I bet his
face would be pink and white from the cold air. And I bet he would look like he
belonged there, totally calmly relaxed, and the air would be crispy from the
cold, and bright from the snow.
I have never skated outside in the winter, on a proper
pond I mean. I have skated on out door rinks. I was always told it was too
unsafe, that the ice could be rotten, and you could slide through the holes and
be swallowed up be the icy water. And it would cover over you like an icy
blanket that you could not get out from under.
I don't know if I was more afraid of the water or of
coming out of the water, my parents told me stories about people that froze to
death the second the came back into the air.
But Dany had been skating outdoors since he was a kid.
I trusted him enough to be skating with him outside outdoors.
And even though I am perfectly warm lying in bed next
to him, I shiver a bit thinking how cold it would be, and Dany pulls me closer.
It is a wholly different kind of cocoon that we are in, wrapped around each
other, bare skin to bare skin under dark blankets.
It is not as chilly as I thought it would be. But it
is quiet.
"Aren't there any animals around in Canada when
it is cold?" My sounds unnaturally loud with the hint of an echo around
it.
"Well, there's us." Dany grins at me, the
gap in his tooth seems to be more noticeable. Maybe it is the hat keeping his
curls off his face.
He skates up behind me. "See any pixies?" He
whispers in my ear and pulls me against him.
"No. Only ice." I tell him.
"Look straight down, see the water under the
ice?" And I can, see it flowing very slowly.
"And see how there are some very dark weeds on
the river bottom?"
I nod. And push myself back against him, and he
responds to that by wrapping his arm tighter around my middle.
"Well sometimes there are other things under the
ice. Maybe they are really perch, or trout, or maybe they are the fins of
underwater pixies."
Dany kisses the side of my neck, and I can't really
feel his lips it is too cold, "come skate with me." He says and pulls
me to the centre of the ice.
And we don't really touch, we don't ice dance or
anything, but we chase each other around the ice and try to shove each other
into the snow.
And when I look down to make sure the ice isn't too
cut up under my skates sometimes I can see the flutter of fairy wings under the
ice.
End.
Bernie
