Let It Snow
Snow whipped past in a furious frenzy of motion as Lemon Zest hurled her body along the sidewalk, feeling the subtle cracks and shifts in the cement as her roller blades bounced with every crack. The wind and sideways snow whipped sharply against her exposed cheeks and the clear plastic goggles she wore over her eyes, but however hard it may try, it couldn't stop her from pushing herself even harder, nor could it stop the tunes from making her blood pump from the headphones fitting snugly over her ears around her head.
There weren't many people out in the modest snowstorm, which meant that Lemon Zest had the city all to herself. Well, mostly, she thought with a smile and a quick peek behind her. Sour Sweet was furiously pumping her own blades as hard as she could to keep up with the much more practiced Lemon Zest. The redness in her cheeks could be either from the effort or the cold, it was impossible to know which, but she refused to give up regardless. Lemon could appreciate that.
Lemon glanced forward again just in time to notice a patch of ice coming up in the middle of the sidewalk, gleaming wetly in the little light that came through the thick gray cloud cover overhead. Lemon just cocked her lips in a slanted grin and picked up her speed, waiting until the last possible moment to fling herself through the air with a shout of victory before she had even landed. She cleared it, of course, and spun to a stop on the other side with her adrenaline pumping.
"Yes!" Lemon pumped her fists into the air. "I'm unsto-"
"WAAAAUUUGGGHHHHH!" Lemon's mouth hung open as Sour Sweet slid right past her on her back, skidding sharply across the cement to slam butt-first into a metal bench that was drilled into the sidewalk. Her thick snow-clothes gave her ample padding, but even that didn't keep Lemon Zest from wincing at the force of the impact.
"Holy crap! Are you okay!?" Lemon skated after her friend and knelt beside her. "Where does it hurt?"
"Where do you think it hurts?" Sour Sweet half howled and half growled.
"Well uh... no offense but I'm not kissing there." Lemon giggled as she hooked Sour Sweet's arm to help heave her back to her feet.
"Yeah, yeah..." Sour sweet rose to her feet with a pained grunt. Her hands moved to her back as she hunched over in pain. "That's it. That's it. I think I'm done for the day."
"Okay, yeah, I'll get you home. Just don't move." Lemon rolled behind Sour Sweet and carefully pushed her down the sidewalk in the direction of Sour Sweet's house, so that she didn't have to move her sensitive posterior.
They reached Sour Sweet's house just as the cold wind began to slap them in the faces with snow, and the door closed behind them not a moment too soon. "Here, sit down." Lemon helped Sour Sweet hobble across the carpet to the living room sofa, where Sour sat down heavily with a sigh of relief. "You take a load off. Do you want something to drink? Eat? Anything?" Lemon knelt down to untie Sour's skates.
"Cocoa." Sour Sweet was holding her thick jacket tightly around herself. "I want hot cocoa."
"Sure thing! That's one of my specialties!" Lemon Zest stood up with a grin. "For now I'll turn the fire up for you." She made her way to the fireplace, where the tiny gas flame was just barely flickering within the decorative logs inside. She turned up the gas, which in turn turned up the flames until they created a convincing illusion of lapping at the fake wood within. "Be right back!" Lemon Zest turned to make her way into the kitchen.
It wasn't long before Lemon plucked two steaming mugs of hot cocoa from the kitchen counter and left to join Sour Sweet in the living room. The freckled girl had already tossed her jacket across the room and peeled her thick snow pants off, leaving her in a plain white t-shirt and a pair of short blue shorts. She was relaxing comfortably in the flickering orange light of the fireplace, with an almost worryingly blank expression on her face.
"Here." Lemon held one of the mugs out to her. Sour's eyes snapped up to her and she gave a small smile as she took the mug. Lemon pulled off her own snow clothes, leaving herself in a blue tank-top and a pair of white shorts as she plopped down on the cushion beside her friend. "You doing okay? You look kind of tired."
"Yeah, I'm fine." Sour Sweet stared at the fire as she lifted her mug in both hands to take a slow, cautious sip of the hot liquid. "Just having kind of a crash."
"Hehe..." Lemon Zest giggled.
"That wasn't a joke." Sour narrowed her eyes sharply at Lemon, who turned her eyes downward in shame. "Though my butt does still hurt..."
"Do you want me to go?"
"Psh, no, of course not." Sour Sweet rolled her eyes. "You're sitting right there." Her tone left no room for argument, but Lemon Zest didn't really want to argue anyway.
The fire burned, the silence grew, and their cocoa flowed as the two girls sat companionably side-by-side on the cozy sofa cushions. Lemon Zest couldn't help giving her companion another lingering glance. Her eyes traced the line of freckles from the neck of her shirt up to her blank, sullen face. It was a face Lemon Zest had never seen on her before. She was almost as energetic as Lemon was most of the time... the blankness was almost terrifying.
Setting her mug on the end table, Lemon reached out to touch Sour Sweet's shoulder. The girl didn't respond. "Are you sure you're okay? You look a little... upset."
Sour Sweet shrugged. "Just a little pissed that I fucked up our good time..." She growled. "Again."
"You slipped, it happens," Lemon Zest assured her. "What matters is that you're not hurt."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Sour Sweet shrugged off her hand and repositioned herself on the sofa, though she didn't move away. "I always fucking do that one way or another." Sour Sweet held up her finger to silence Lemon's open mouth. "Don't you dare say it isn't true! Just because you put up with it doesn't mean it's not the truth."
Lemon sighed. "I wasn't going to say that. I was just gonna say that you're worth it." She smiled. "I keep telling you that."
"And I still don't get it." Sour Sweet bit down hard on her fingertips at her eyes glared almost hatefully into the fire, her blank mask replaced by a sudden rage. "What is so worth it about me?"
Lemon lifted her fingers to brush Sour Sweet's bangs out of one eye. They were starting to get longer than usual. "Come on, you're nice, sweet, caring-"
"Don't bullshit me." Sour Sweet jumped up from the sofa and marched over to the fireplace. Lemon jumped up after her in fear, but she was relieved when Sour Sweet stopped before reaching it. Sour Sweet turned around before she could sit down again, eyeing her with a sharp glare. "What, were you afraid I was gonna do something stupid?"
"I was just worried. That's all."
"Worried I was gonna do something stupid!"
"Worried that you were going to do something rash." Lemon smiled. "Have you taken your medicine today?"
Sour Sweet threw her hands into the air in exasperation and whirled back to the fireplace, but a few moments later stopped and gripped her hands together tightly in front of her. "N-no... no I haven't..."
"Come on." Lemon Zest walked up behind her, cradling Sour's arms in her own and pulling her away from the fireplace. They made their way into the kitchen, where Lemon Zest opened the cabinet to pull out a small bottle of pills. She poured a small plastic cup of water to join the pills, and handed them over to Sour Sweet. "Here, you'll feel better."
Sour Sweet took the pills and cup in each hand, staring down at them with that oddly blank expression again. "Is this what you want?" Sour Sweet's voice was almost a whisper.
"What do you mean?"
"Do you want to take care of me?" Sour Sweet clenched her fist around the pills. "Make sure I take my medicine, coddle me like a little baby because I'm too fucked up to take care of myself? Is that what you want out of this?"
Lemon Zest calmly put her hands on Sour Sweet's, pried her fingers open, and gently pushed one pill into her lips with her finger. Sour stared into her eyes as she lifted the water to her lips, washed down the pill, and repeated the process with the second pill.
"There." Lemon smiled with a calm wink and took the small cup to chuck it into the trash can in the corner. "Woo! Made it!"
She spun back to Sour Sweet with a grin. The blank clouds were beginning to lift from her eyes, as if the life was seeping back into her. "Do you wanna play a game or watch some TV? I could go for a quiet day. It is Hearth's Warming, and we're sure as heck not going back outside." Lemon gestured to the kitchen window, through which they could see the snowstorm only picking up in ferocity, blowing a sheet of snow across the window so thick that the day had turned to night far too early.
Sour Sweet lifted a hand to her head half in relief, and half in embarrassment. "S-sure. Yeah, that sounds good. I still need to finish the season of Dr. Whooves I've been working on."
"Sounds good to me." Lemon slipped a comfortable arm around her shoulders and led her back into the living room, plucking the remote off the end table to turn on the TV hanging on the wall between the fireplace and the front door. As the TV show came on and the two of them sat in companionable silence, Lemon could almost feel the tension coming from Sour Sweet. No longer blankness or rage, but rather a keen embarrassment. The kind of feeling that made Sour Sweet start fidgeting and clearing her throat more often than seemed sensible.
Hoping to calm her down Lemon just slipped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her against her side. Sour slid up against her gratefully, but the tension didn't ease entirely. At last Sour Sweet spoke with her head resting on Lemon's shoulder. "You're really cool with me, huh?"
"You're not as scary as you think you are." Lemon squeezed her shoulder. "Not once I got used to you, anyway. You've basically just got a temper. Everyone has their thing. Vinyl had a girl-boner for confusing tech stuff and I never gave her crap for it." Lemon winked. "And you don't give me crap for dragging you outside in roller skates and sending you hurtling into benches."
"I guess..." Sour looked down. "But what if the medicine stops working or something? What if I try to hurt you? With my... problem..."
Lemon pursed her lips, her mind casting back to the previous Hearth's Warming, when she had listened to Vinyl Scratch's story. The story of abuse and heartbreak...
"Your problem has nothing to do with that." Lemon concluded dismissively. "That kinda stuff happens with a perfectly healthy couple. As long as we can promise that if things get bad we can call it off, go back to being friends without regret..."
Sour Sweet was blushing deeply against her shoulder. "Y-you mean... we're... we're actually..."
Lemon blushed herself. She hadn't even thought about it, not consciously anyway. It had just come out as if they were a real couple. Far more than just friends having a good time. "I... guess that's how I think of this, yeah... it's okay if you don't, though."
Sour Sweet sat up on the bed and turned to look into her eyes. Her cheeks were almost so red that her freckles disappeared, but there was happiness in her eyes. "N-no! I mean... heh, I'd love that. I just didn't think you did... I didn't think anyone ever would..."
Lemon just smiled and leaned in to give her a gentle kiss on the lips. "I didn't think anyone ever would either, about five years ago..." Lemon rubbed her shoulders gently and kissed her again.
"Really? You?" Sour Sweet blinked in surprise. "But you're hot and normal..."
Lemon smirked. "Hot, maybe... but not entirely normal. And you sure don't feel normal when the first girl you get the guts to ask out calls you a freak for being into chicks."
Sour Sweet grimaced. "Fucking Crystal Prep..."
Lemon Zest chuckled. "Yeah, well, the point is you can't let the things that make you weird make you think that they'll drive everyone away from you." She brought her hand up to Sour Sweet's cheek, cradling it gently in her palm. "If I did, I wouldn't have any of you guys as friends... and I sure wouldn't have gone out with Vinyl, and I wouldn't be sitting here with you now either. I'd still be a one-girl party... rocking out and turning off the world outside my headphones."
"Doesn't sound so bad." Sour mused. "At least there's music."
"Yeah... but you're better than headphones." Lemon smiled. "Problems and all."
There were tears in Sour's eyes, which she quickly reached up to wipe away in embarrassment. Lemon watched her with a patient smile on her lips, letting her freckled girlfriend compose herself on the other side of the sofa while The Doctor hurried about trying to solve whatever was going wrong on the forgotten television set.
"Are you feeling better?" Lemon asked in a soothing tone.
"Uh-huh..." Sour sniffled as she wiped her eyes with the bottom of her shirt. "Geeze, I never cry like this..."
"It's okay." Lemon wrapped her arms around Sour Sweet and ran her hands over her back as she pulled her up against her chest in a comfortable embrace. She leaned back against the arm of the couch with Sour Sweet lying half on top of her. "Your secret's safe with me."
"Thanks." Sour Sweet nestled into her shoulder and wrapped her arms around her waist. Her head turned to look at the TV again, and Lemon could feel just a touch of moisture on her flesh where Sour's cheek rested against her. "Thank you so much..."
