sing that song, the one we like {Andy}

[Mumble]

Christmas Village - Ice Skating Rink - Last Semester

When Mumble was getting ready for a big dance performance, something in front of a lot of people, he didn't really get stage fright but he got a sort of buzz, an energy that rattled around in his brain, skittering up and down his spine in anticipation. That was sort of how he felt at the moment, even though he was only putting on a show for one person, and it wasn't even much of a show, although he had rehearsed it in his head a hundred times at least.

He was acutely aware of the weight of the little box in his coat pocket, which was zipped up to make sure said box wouldn't fall out onto the ice as he laced his skates up and stepped out onto the smooth surface. He had reserved the rink for an hour (it turned out being faculty at the school had some decent perks), and Andy was supposed to be arriving within a few minutes, so he just needed to stay warm until she got there. He had his plan all worked out...the ring in his pocket, the little hot chocolate stand nearby...they would skate to a romantic song, and then he would suggest they go to get hot chocolate. This all relied, of course, on Andy wanting hot chocolate and agreeing to go get it, but he was pretty sure that wouldn't be a hard sell, and he could work up a plan B pretty easily even if she flat out refused the hot chocolate.

It wasn't a complicated plan. He was good at ice skating (like he was most forms of dance), and he was pretty confident in his ability to keep Andy on her skates as well even if she needed him to hold her hand for the whole romantic song he had planned. They just had to make it through the one song, and then they could go sit down at the hot chocolate table and...oh, god, he had to remember his speech. Still skating absent-mindedly in circles, he dug into his other pocket (the one without the ring), and pulled out the little notecard there, making sure he remembered the key points. He wasn't trying to make it sound like rehearsed lines, but he did have several main beats he wanted to make sure he touched upon, and he ran through them once more in his head as he waited for Andy to arrive.

[Andrina]

Andrina Triton had been a manic little thrill seeker most of her life. More dangerously so in her youth, but even age and life’s relentless trials had only curbed her spirit for wild adventure slightly. Most would say ice skating is rather tame in the realm of dangerous thrills, but, for someone born with a tail instead of legs, you might venture to call it an extreme sport. Granted, Andy had grown fairly used to walking over the years, she wasn’t in school anymore, but she’d never quite grown out of her clumsiness. She’d been ice skating in the past, a few times, but her longest standing record was something like a minute and a half without assistance. Regardless, when Mumble suggested the date, Andy was nothing short of bubbles and stars over the idea. Warm cozy things, excessively hand holding, and the constant danger of possibly cracking her head open. Honestly, there was nothing more romantic in her book.

She thought about the date all day and somehow still managed to be running late. She threw on a thick blue sweater on her way out the door and only realized it was Mumble’s while she was trying to tie the knots of her skates and the too long sleeves kept getting in the way. She smiled to herself then. Mumble. Sweet, beautiful, talented, passionate, stubborn Mumble. How many wasted years had she spent not in love with him? It didn’t matter, she thought as she clutched the railing to help her stand and caught sight of him skating easy circles on the ice not too far away. It didn’t matter. They were in love now. They’d survived a literal war together. She nearly rolled her eyes at herself at the swell of overwhelming warmth she felt spread from her chest to her face, to the tips of her fingers.

As she wobbled toward the gap in the railing to enter the rink she halted just short of stepping on the ice, watching curiously as Mumble pulled a couple of cards out of his pocket. She blinked a little and forced her brain to take stock beyond how nice his ass looked in those pants. Mumble was a natural on the ice, as he was with most forms of dance, so it wasn’t hard to catch the misplaced tension in his body. Andy let out a huff of amused air. It was a little late to be nervous over their dates. And what exactly was happening with the cards? She supposed she’d better stop staring and make an effort to find out.

Tongue between her teeth in great concentration, she stepped onto the ice. She was rather proud of herself for taking the extra precaution of looking around to make certain she wouldn’t slam into a crowd of strangers before she bent her knees and pushed off with the railing behind her. Too fast. Ok, oh no. She was heading in the right direction, but she had pushed off maybe a bit too hard and she only had time to let out an excited shriek half formed around Mumble’s name before crashing into him.

[Mumble]

He hadn’t meant for her to see him going over his notes, obviously, and when he heard her coming (which he definitely did, due to the murmurs and yelps from the few people still clearing off of the ice as she managed to make her way across the ice to him), he shoved them back into his pocket. Just in time, too, because by the time she got to him, she wasn’t entirely under control, and he instinctively put out both arms to catch her, somehow managing to keep them both steady as she crashed into him.

She was wearing his sweater, he noticed right away. One of his favorites, but like most of his clothes, he liked the way it looked on her much better than he’d ever enjoyed it in the mirror. He wrapped his arms around her waist and held her close to him, stalling for time a little as the rest of the people vacated the rink. He had reserved the facilities on the hour, but apparently it took people a little bit longer to drag themselves off of the ice. Never mind, he thought, he was in no rush. He was excited, but he was patient…they wouldn’t be standing here now if it weren’t for a considerable amount of patience, after all.

He pulled her in for a slow kiss, then nodded over at the small building beside the ice, where the attendant inside was presumably rolling his eyes at the show of mushiness in front of him. As the last few people moved off of the ice, the music changed to the slow song he’d picked out, and he let the rhythm of it settle into him, guiding his movements.

“You made it,” he said, smiling as he met her eyes. “I was starting to worry you were going to stand me up.” He was just teasing - after all they’d been through, getting stood up wasn’t really even on the radar anymore. Holding tightly to one of her hands, he skated in a slow circle around her, letting his other hand trail around from her hip to her lower back, then back to her other hip as he came around the other side of her.

“I just wanted to dance with you a little,” he said, which was true, although not the whole story. “It’s just us for the next hour, so you don’t have to worry about anybody running you over or anything.” He gestured towards the ice, which was indeed now empty besides the two of them. “Will you dance with me? I won’t let you fall, don’t worry. Just hold onto me.”

[Andrina]

Andy used to loathe the idea of going on dates. With men. Or just men, in general. She’d been scared, with good reason. Falling in love again had not been easy thanks to not only a laundry list of her own self sabotage, but the universe's constant barrage of hell shaped nonsense. Their love had been hard fought and hard won and here, laughing in Mumble’s arms as he skillfully managed to keep them both from toppling over, she felt that she would endure another five wars to end up in the same place. He kissed her and it felt like home. Her laughter over her own antics ceased imminently as she melted into it. She had maybe expected a kiss, but she found she was always somehow dumbfounded by how it felt, how easy it was, how she could feel it in her stomach first and on her lips second. It buzzed through her body like a warm current and, although it was not extraordinarily long, she was a little more unsteady for it than before when he pulled away.

A lazy tuned out smile played on her lips and she hummed in acknowledgement when he first spoke. It took her a long moment to stop looking at his lips and actually hear what he was saying. She smiled more brightly at him upon realizing she was being teased.

“I’m not good enough at standing in general for that,” she joked back, wobbling slightly on her skates to make a point. Honestly Mumble should be grateful she wasn’t later, punctuality had never once been her strong suit. She’d gotten better now that she had actual adult responsibilities, but she often found herself with so many thoughts at various speeds that time slipped away from her. Most of her students simply arrived five minutes into class at this point. Thank the gods she was a talented teacher.

She was extremely glad for his steadying hand as he moved around her because, as the other slid gently around her back to land on her hip she felt again like she might lose her footing for a reason entirely different than the ice. Andy was particularly weak to Mumble’s touch. Not only for the simple reason that she was completely and consumingly in love with him, but because she had been cursed so many times to live without it. There was a deep melancholic pleasure that came with the fear of not knowing how long you’d have something that makes you whole. So she let herself feel simple touches like this in a way she never would have years ago, they were far more precious to her now then they ever could have been then.

She smiled again when he kept talking and was silently grateful for the cold staining her cheeks red enough that any strangers spying would not have to suffer the sight of her blushing like she was a teenager on her first date. It’s just that dance was very important to Mumble. She knew in great detail what it meant to him and what it meant to share it with her. Milestones in their lives had been marked by dances. The reminder of continuing to want to share dances together made her feel wanted, special, loved. She hummed again, dreamlike, almost too musical to be another simple acknowledgement.

It wasn’t until he kept talking that Andy finally had the wherewithal to look around and realize everyone else had gone and the music had changed. Sometimes the world was simply Andrew Memphis Mumble and his hands, his eyes, voice. Yet, indeed, the larger world kept turning around them and she’d do well to consider it every now and again.

“I don’t think it’s me you have to worry about,” catching eyes with a couple who she vaguely remembered plowing into not once, but twice last time she was here. They glared at her as they took off their skates. She turned back to Mumble and wobbled a bit again as he finished speaking. She laughed once more and leaned forward to kiss him again.

“For as long as you’ll let me,” She whispered into his lips, then pulled back a little further to twist her lips up into a self deprecating smile. “Though, if I leave this rink with any less than four new bruises from falling, what was the point?”

What was life without a few bruises, anyway?

[Mumble]

Mumble had always struggled with words - not just singing them, he had just never been especially good at using them to express his feelings or his thoughts in general. All the feelings and emotions other people seemed to find so easy to put into words, he had always found much easier to put into dance. And although he had taken the time to come up with actual words for this situation and was pretty pleased with the ones he had settled on, there was no way he could just stand still and deliver that whole speech. It didn't feel natural to say things with the emotional weight of the words he planned to say without some kind of physical expression of it as well.

She was right - music and dance were woven into every step of their relationship; so many of the moments in their lives, moments that they hadn't even realized at the time were going to end up being so important in hindsight, had a soundtrack, had music or lyrics that had accompanied them in such a way that he could hear the smallest series of notes and be taken back instantly to a time and a place. And Mumble liked it that way. They would grow old, and memory was unreliable, but the songs that stayed with them were like little anchor points they could hold onto.

Not all of them were good, of course - there were plenty of memories of the hard times they had been through. Even before the war, there was the amnesia, the dark magic, the blackmail, both of their stubborn refusal to admit the depth of their feelings. But every moment of it was a stepping stone on the road that had brought them here.

He turned her in a slow circle, still steadying her with one hand on her hip, the other holding her hand in his, enjoying the closeness. From the very beginning, he had enjoyed being close to her, even when it was just a physical pull between strangers on the dance floor in a club. He inhaled slowly, the cold clean air filling his chest and calming the remainder of the jitters in his stomach. As Andy spoke, he followed her glance over to the couple removing their skates and glaring, and he couldn't help laughing. Yes, he probably could have chosen an activity that would have involved a little less collision with other people, but...this was Andy. Boring and safe wasn't her style, and it wasn't his style either.

"Have I told you lately that I think you're beautiful?" he said softly. "Bruises and all, though we'll try to avoid putting you in a body cast or anything here." As excited as Andy might sound about the bruises, he had a vision for this evening, and taking her to the hospital was really not part of it. He had done this once before, after all, a couple of months earlier, he had spontaneously asked her to marry him, when she had popped out of the lake with a tail, and she had said yes, but then...everything had gotten a little crazy. They'd had to get her legs back, then the school had needed cleanup and rebuilding, and he hadn't even found the time to get her a ring until now, so he just...he really wanted to make this perfect, to get all the details and the music right so they would both remember the moment forever.

The song wound down, reaching a crescendo of vocals and melody, and as it did, he skated one final circle around her, then came to stand in front of her again, breathing a little faster, his breath clouding out into the winter air between them. "Okay," he said, smiling. "I think the longer I keep you out here, the greater the odds are that you'll get hurt, so would you join me over there for hot chocolate? I'll go get it, you can just sit at the table and look pretty."

[Andrina]

Andy hiccuped on a giddy string of quiet laughter when he told her she was beautiful. Silly, the way her body still reacted that way. All things considered, they hadn’t been able to just simply be in love for a very long time. They were in love, but one of them was injured or cursed. They were in love but fighting for their lives. They were in love, but neither of them would admit it. They were in love, now, and they were skating on an ice rink with no one else around. It was a novelty that Andy still hadn’t quite settled into. A dream she might wake up from. Andy had always been a dangerous optimist deep in her heart, even when she tried her best to run it over with her stubborn cynicism of love after the first time she’d gotten her heart broke. They were pulled together so fiercely that no amount of magic or war or vicious self sabotage could force them apart, but it was nice to not have to fight for once. To just be. In love.

“I guess,” She mock complained at his assertion that she should be kept out of a body cast. She reached up with her free hand and brushed back some of his hair, losing her footing for a moment with the slight change of balance. Worth it.

“You know I think you might be cuter than me,” She said with a sigh and a smile. She was only half teasing, if she was honest. Cute was an understatement. His eyes, his face… many other parts of him that Andy could not dwell on for too long and remain bruise free...they were envied by the gods themselves in her opinion.

When she wasn’t thinking too hard about it, it was actually easier to not lose her balance. Not to mention Mumble was very gentle and attentive as he spun them around, hands warming her anywhere they touched. She pressed as close as she thought she could without landing them both on the ground and tucked her head against his neck. Breathing. Feeling. She started humming along to the song as her busy brain picked up the melody without much effort. She thought for a moment she might have heard it a few times before and that it might sound even more interesting if they tried some notes in different places. It was very pretty, though, the lyrics, the feeling, the energy. She’d just begun to recognize the feeling as one weaved at the very center of what made them one when it began to wind down. She blinked back into the present to the feeling of her heartbeat in her hand where it held tightly to Mumble’s own. Or was that his? Why did it feel like it was just a little faster than it would normally be?

She didn’t wobble again until he spun around her one last time. She couldn’t tell if his decision to get off the ice was because the song had ended or because that last teeter had brought her the closest to the ice. Either way she rolled her eyes and smiled when he mentioned his fear of her getting hurt. Even though he was right. She was about to comment when-gasp, chocolate. She looked over at the stand and then at the table as he mentioned it.

“I’ll sit at the table,” She said, awkwardly shifting herself forward in a too complicated shuffle to close the small space between them. She moved her arms to wrap them around his middle and squeeze slightly. “But I will only be making my ugliest faces,” she whispered with a stupid smile. She then pecked him on the cheek and spun around to begin her awkward shuffle journey to the table by the stand. She managed to make it, in what could only be called Divine intervention, to the edge without falling. Which was all well and good until she turned to give Mumble a smug look and she immediately tripped over the threshold between the ice and solid ground. She took a moment to hurry up and brush off and have the decency to look maybe a little embarrassed, and then she sigh with relief upon sitting down at the table.

[Mumble]

There was a part of him that thought even this one little outing couldn’t possibly go right, that surely some grand catastrophic thing was going to happen because the universe sensed that he and Andy were taking a step towards their happily ever after. But…maybe the universe would let this one slide. After all, they were technically already engaged, it was just that he wanted to do the speech and give her the romantic proposal and the ring she deserved. The technicality was already there, so maybe the universe or Guin or whoever would just see fit to let them get away with this one. He hoped so, but just the same, he watched her carefully as she made her way over to the table, because a concussion was exactly the kind of thing he was trying to avoid this evening.

Once she was seated safely at the table, he made his way over to the little hot chocolate booth. Once he was there, though, he realized there was a minor flaw in his plan. If he put the ring on the marshmallow immediately like he was planning to, she might see it before he got his whole speech out. If he didn’t put the ring on the marshmallow then he would just have to awkwardly dig it out of his pocket at the table, which would kind of ruin the effect.

Eventually he decided to just chance it. He could put the ring on the marshmallow and distract her from the hot chocolate long enough to do his speech, and then direct her glance to the marshmallow, right?

It turned out that they had little snowman-shaped marshmallows that actually fit the ring perfectly around their little snowman waist, so he put the ring around one of them like a glamorous little shiny belt. Carrying both little styrofoam cups of hot chocolate (after giving the proprietor a stern word or two about how terrible styrofoam was for the environment), he made his way back to the table and sat down, holding them both in front of him and meeting her eyes very deliberately.

“Andy,” he said, as if she had forgotten her own name or something. “I have something I want to say, before uh…I just want to say it real quick.” He cleared his throat, and glanced back over at the person in the booth controlling the music, and as he moved on to his next sentence, the music started up again, this time another song, something slow and soft.

“It’s just this. You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I know that’s a little cliche to say, but it’s the truth. I have been so lost so many times in my life, but the most lost I’ve ever been is the times I’ve spent without you. I know we talked about it before, but I lost track of time, and I wanted to make sure you had…” He reached over and set the cup down in front of her, not even looking down at it, eyes still fixed on her face. “I want to marry you. Really, really, like…let’s set a date and plan a wedding, let’s not just talk about it and say we’ll do it eventually. Will you marry me, for real?”

He had not, of course, noticed that the ring had flipped gem-side down, and the marshmallow had mostly melted while he was talking, leaving it nearly invisible amidst the other marshmallows and foam.

[Andrina]

The longer things stretched on and Mumble lingered at the stand, the more Andy felt an itch in the back of her skull that something was just a little strange. She kept dismissing it as fast as it arose considering that nothing her and Mumble had ever done in their lives was particularly usual. Everything was always a little strange. That was part of the thing that excited her, part of the reason she fell in love in the first place. However, the persistent voice was whispering that things were a different kind of strange, Mumble was a particular brand of jittery, this date had been particularly ordered. They were generally sort of spontaneous, but sometimes they liked to plan things like an “ordinary” couple. This seemed like Mumble had a list he was checking off, if she really thought about it. If he was building up to something, she supposed she would find out soon enough. She’d already agreed to marry him, so there was no use obsessing over what it could be.

“Mumble,” She said, matching his serious tone when he returned with the drinks. She felt a little like she was about to be in trouble for a minute before he continued. The music changed, she liked it, she tried not to focus on it too hard and process what Mumble was saying. She felt nervous all of a sudden for some reason, like whatever energy was radiating off of him was seeping into her bones. She felt like she wanted to comfort him, only she had no idea why he was acting this way. The tension eased into a sweet mix of warm joy that visibly reddened her cheeks as he confessed his love for her. She knew he loved her. She knew it everyday in everything he did. She knew it by the way he smiled at her, the way he spoke to her when no one was around. She knew it in the way he kissed her, the way he touched her. So it seemed a little silly to plan a whole date around saying it all again, but it made her eyes well up all the same. As if this was the first time.

She curled her hands around the hot chocolate when it was finally offered to her, not taking her eyes off Mumble as he spoke, smiling with the dopey air of someone intoxicated. He wanted her to have? What? Hot chocolate? Sure ok, she loved hot chocolate. She’d take anything Mumble would give her if he kept saying things like that. She started giggling with the sheer excitement of his final set of words. Maybe he was afraid she’d forgotten since he’d last asked it given everything that had happened, whatever the case, she was overjoyed to hear it all again. She’d let him propose a hundred times if he wanted. She ceased her laughter to suck in a breath to say yes so loud that the glaring couple would likely hear from wherever they’d disappeared to. Only she’d sucked in too fast and choked a bit, she shook her head, still making some sort of noise similar to laughter when she picked up her coco and rushed to take a drink.

And immediately felt metal clash into her teeth.

She froze and stared at Mumble with wide shocked eyes. For several beats she couldn’t fathom how she was going to get whatever was in her mouth out of her mouth without spewing hot chocolate everywhere. Then she considered that maybe she shouldn’t mind that so much because-what the hell was in her mouth?! She swirled her tongue around it for a second and then nearly choked on the thing when it became extremely obvious that it was a ring.

“O muh gauhs,” She attempted to say around everything in her mouth, hand over her lips. Don’t laugh, don’t laugh. She managed to fish the ring from her mouth, but then had to spit the chocolate on the ground anyway given the unbridled laughter that bubbled over her lips. Eyes stinging with tears she held the precious thing in both her hands and admired it.

“Oh my gods Mumble I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry-“ She wheezed, mouth half burned and throat scratchy from coughing. It was a beautiful ring. Perfect. She was such an idiot.