maddie

☆ ━━━━━━━━━━ &. LUPINQS BLOG

maddie. eighteen. she/her. bisexual. d1 hater. paige bueckers hoops addict. harry styles enthusiast. anakin skywalker & remus lupin lovebot. @bueckersbitch wife.

𝒊. my masterlist 𝒊𝒊. my ao3 𝒊𝒊𝒊. my wattpad

jessica shepard deadass might be the worst defender i’ve ever seen 😭 she’s done so much for us so far this season but deadass how are you 6’4 and in 125 career games you’ve only had 23 blocks. help.

She sucks

Do you think you’ll finish speak now?

Well… I’m definitely saving this for my bedtime story tonight because this seems like something

ACT I, CHAPTER II: Sleepover

word count. 9.2K. warnings. paige just has a hella unhealthy mindset but we knew that already. unhealthy family dynamics. internalized homophobia. a little bit of blood too ig. links. main masterlist. on thin ice masterlist. ao3 link. a/n. sorry for the long wait but i hope you enjoy!!

A GREY STORRS MORNING presses in through the high, narrow windows of the rink in its thin, colorless wash still stuck between day and night. It's diluted and distant and it settles in a layer over the ice that chills it even further, if that's possible. Paige sits in the locker room beneath it with her head tipped forward, elbows braced on her knees, fingers working through the laces of her skates as her body lags a half-step behind the hour, the remnants of sleep still clinging stubbornly in the crusty corners of her eyes and the slouched heaviness of her limbs.

She gets there first more often than not, early enough that the locker room is still drenched in silence. She prefers that—space that's yet to be filled, a few minutes where nothing presses in, where she can just sit on the narrow wooden bench and lace her skates slowly, each pull of the laces a small act of control, tightening the world down to something manageable, something she can shape with her hands. Her stomach pulls at her, hollow and insistent. It registers but doesn't demand anything in return, a low ache she files away without thought because it isn't useful. It's too early to eat anyway, she has no true appetite in the mornings. Besides, she never eats before going on ice, another rule that exists because it always has. She eats later, when she gets home and does her schoolwork, content to let her mother place whatever food she deems right for a skater's body before Paige.

The quiet is broken into, the door to the locker room opening with a soft scrape against the floor. Paige doesn't bother looking up right away, already knowing who it is from the cadence of the footsteps alone.

Azzi drops her baby pink duffle beside the bench with a muted thud and sits down close—close enough that their shoulders nearly touch, that familiar and unthinking proximity settling into place as naturally as it always has. It's been weeks without it; Paige wouldn't say she missed it, but she does like the routine of it.

"Hey," Azzi acknowledges, her voice still soft with sleep.

Paige glances over, just briefly. Azzi looks tired in the same way Paige feels it, eyes a little droopy, hair pulled back hastily, a loose curl falling across her face. She hasn't bothered to fix it yet. Paige would do it for her, if that wasn't weird. "Hey."

They don't reach for anything more than that, don't make a thing out of the fact that this is the first time they've been in the same room in weeks, that the last time they saw each other in person was before different competitions, different countries, and different schedules pulled them in opposite directions until the only version of each other they had was filtered through screens and scores and clipped videos and a singular phone call.

Paige hadn't missed her.

What she missed was this: the routine and structure and predictability of being here, in this building, on this ice, where everything is known and contained and expected. That's what Paige knows, what makes her feel like she's sliding back into alignment after weeks of being slightly off.

Azzi nudges her knee with her own absently. "You look dead."

"We just got back in last night," Paige answers, tugging her laces tighter, the pull of them biting into her fingers.

"Yeah, I know," Azzi says, bending over her own skates. "Still. You look it."

"I'm fine," Paige responds. She rubs at her eyes a little anyway, fighting the urge to yawn. She hopes her under eyes don't look purple with exhaustion the way they sometimes do, nearly ill of lack of sleep. She wouldn't want Azzi to see her like that. She doesn't have any concealer, though. She can only hope the skin there is the normal pale, nearly translucent color that reflects off the rest of her body.

Azzi hums, unconvinced but interested in pushing it further.

The room is full of peace and quiet for approximately five seconds before the echoes begin. Voices spill in before bodies do, laughter and complaints arriving in uneven bursts that fill the space from the outside in. Paige lifts her head once more as the door swings open again, the early stillness beginning to dissolve into something louder and more alive.

"I'm actually going to quit," Nika announces as she walks in, already halfway through the sentence, her bag slug over one shoulder before she drops it with a heavy thud that echoes faintly against the walls. "I'm serious this time, bro. I'm done."

"You literally say that every day," Aaliyah calls from behind her, slipping in right after, her tone light and amused, carrying none of the weight Nika tries to give the statement.

"Because every day I mean it," the Croatian girl shoots back, collapsing onto the bench across from Paige will all the grace of someone who has no intention of being graceful this early in the morning. "Why're we here at this hour? Who decided this was acceptable?"

"Geno," Caroline answers quietly, trailing in last.

"Well, Geno's wrong," Nika mutters as she reaches down to untie her shoes, movements quick and restless. "This is what I call abuse."

Paige doesn't bother chipping in, just listening, the corners of her mouth threatening something that almost passes for a smile before she presses it down, her attention returning to her skates, to the final adjustments that bring everything into alignment before she stands. This is what it's always like at Werth Rink in the mornings—complaints layered over laughter, exhaustion worn openly, none of it taken seriously enough to matter. It's just noise, something Paige can exist within easily without needing to constantly contribute to it. Because complaining doesn't change anything. Because none of them are going to leave. Because the ice is waiting, whether they want it to be or not.

Nika's still yapping, her voice rising and falling as she shifts from one complaint to the next. Paige only half-listens until she hears her own name come from the brunette's mouth.

"Paige, my lutz-loop had a one hundred percent success rate while you were gone," Nika informs, straightening slightly, her tone shifting from exaggerated misery to something more pointed, a teasing brag. "It's getting better than yours."

Paige glances over at her, staring unbothered. Nika's most difficult technical element is her triple lutz-triple loop. She is not allowed bragging rights when it comes to jumps. "Talk to me when you have a quad," the blonde says simply, shrugging.

Nika just rolls her eyes. She shouldn't have tried—she should've known that was coming.

With her, it's always been like this. Open and direct, the competition laid bare, though not tangling itself up with anything else. They push each other without pretending they aren't, measure themselves against each other without needing to soften any of it. There's a kind of relief in that, in the absence of anything left unspoken.

Still, it doesn't erase the fact that Nika is ahead—by two full seasons. That is a deeper, persistent weight that's hard for Paige to ignore, lodged in the back of her mind where it resurfaces at inconvenient moments, where it turns something as small as this into something sharp, something with teeth that bite or nails that scratch—or maybe both.

Two full senior seasons, because Nika made the cutoff. Because her birthday fell on the right side of the ISU's new arbitrary line that shifted everything for Paige, that held her back a year when she was ready, when she could have been here, doing this, proving herself against the same field instead of watching from just outside of it. Nika's only six months older than Paige, and somehow that translated into experience, into titles, into a version of Nika that has already existed in spaces Paige is only just stepping into now.

Paige tries her best not to think about it often, but when she does, it sits there all wrong. It's not as though she necessarily resents Nika for it; she just gets irritated, and that hums beneath her skin's surface, a sense that something was taken from her before she even had the chance to claim it.

Of course, she never says any of that. It's not like it'll change anything.

Her gaze flits momentarily to Aaliyah, who leans back against the lockers, stretching her legs out in front of her. Her expression is soft and easy, a kind of humor that threads through everything she says no matter if she's complaining or not. Paige likes her well enough—everyone does—but there's a bit of distance there. It's not intentional, but it exists, a thin barrier that's not present when it comes to Azzi or Nika.

Caroline is quiet this morning, probably just more tired than usual, sitting a bit apart from them. Paige can guess she feels a bit singled out now. She's only a year younger than all of them, but she's still a junior, the last one left in the lower ranks, operating in a different category even as she shares the same ice, the same space, the same early mornings that blur together. She's good, though—Paige knows that. She's got two Junior Grand Prix wins in a row, clean performances that have secured her a place in the Final in December, a trajectory that points upward in a way that's hard to ignore. It was the same trajectory Paige herself was in the past three years.

Caroline doesn't necessarily concern Paige yet. But she does exist.

Everything exists.

That's the thing her mother has made sure of, the thing that threads through every moment Paige spends in this locker room, on this ice, with these girls who occupy both sides of something she's never fully reconciled.

You can care about them. You can laugh with them, sit beside them, share space and time and pieces of yourself with them. But you don't forget—you don't blur the lines. You don't let yourself believe that any of this changes what you are to each other when it comes down to it.

Paige doesn't forget.

Even now, as she laughs when Nika throws a crumpled sock at Aaliyah, then ducks slightly when it nearly hits her instead, then rolls her eyes when Azzi leans over to whisper something under her breath about how dramatic Nika's being, how it's borderline annoying today. There's always going to be a part of her that stays separate, that observes, that catalogs.

Scores, consistency, weaknesses, strengths.

Aaliyah's power, her inconsistency on certain entries.

Nika's spins, flexible and so very fast.

Caroline's growth, steady and upward.

Azzi—

Paige doesn't bother finishing that thought. It's easier to just leave it alone.

The room shifts, everyone beginning to gather themselves before they get up to go get on ice for warmups.

There are fewer of them now. This is something that Paige has become aware of slowly, the gradual thinning of the group that used to fill this space more completely. Katie Lou and Olivia both retired in the last year, and Gabby left. Evina took a "step back" from the sport, and whether that be temporary or permanent they're yet to find out.

Now, it's just the five of them. All incredibly young, unproven in certain ways, even as the results have started to stack up, even as the attention has shifted toward them, toward what they represent, toward what they might become.

Every day, Paige is more and more ready to see what that will be.

Today, when she steps onto the ice, she immediately lets it take her weight, the familiar glide settling into her legs, muscle memory kicking in until the last of her exhaustion has worn out, body readying for the day.

Geno's already here; he's been waiting. He stands near center ice with his hands tucked into the pockets of his hoodie, posture loose but intentional, eyes moving without urgency from each one of his skaters to the next, taking everything in with a kind of quiet accumulation that makes it impossible to tell what he’s actually thinking, even after all the time Paige has known him. It's not as if there's a whistle or sharp command, an announcement that practice has begun—there's just the understanding that it has, because he’s there and the ice belongs to him. Paige has known coaches who fill space with noise, who demand attention by force, but Geno doesn’t need that; his presence settles over the rink the way cold does, gradual and absolute, until everything adjusts around it.

It still does something to her, every time, even now, even after seven years of this.

Because he’s him.

Because damn near every name that matters has passed through his hands at some point—because he built the version of the sport that exists now, because when people talk about greatness they talk about Maya Moore and Sue Bird in the same breath as inevitability, as if their dominance was something written into the structure of skating itself rather than something coached into being by the man standing thirty feet away from her with his eyes half-lidded and observant. Paige feels it in the way she straightens slightly without meaning to, in the way her awareness sharpens around the edges, in the way every movement suddenly feels like it’s being calculated even when he isn’t looking directly at her.

It’s a privilege, she reminds herself, something she has been told enough times that the words exist in her like fact.

It’s also pressure.

The session starts without ceremony, each of them breaking off into their own patterns, carving lines into the ice that overlap and diverge in controlled chaos, and Paige doesn’t waste time easing into it, pushing immediately into stroking drills that bleed into jump setups, her body warming through repetition rather than patience, because there isn’t really time for patience when there are elements to fix and scores to chase and a season that has already started moving faster than she expected it to.

CD's voice carries across the rink from the far end, low and steady as she begins to work with Caroline on transitions, hands moving as she talks, demonstrating edges and upper body positioning with a fluid clarity that makes the choreography feel almost tangible even from a distance, while Aaliyah circles nearby, laughing at something Nika says, the sound of it bright and easy, a sound that doesn’t belong to the same internal landscape Paige operates in. Jamelle is closer, though, near the boards, watching the jump passes with a sharper focus, eyes tracking takeoffs and landings with an attention that feels precise rather than general, and Paige gravitates toward her without thinking too hard about it, because she always does, because this is the part that matters most.

Jumps are the language she understands best. Sometimes, they're the only one.

“Salchow first,” Jamelle says as Paige approaches, not bothering to greet her or waste space in the conversation, just laying the work out plainly between them.

Paige nods once, beginning to turn the pattern over in her head, feeling the entry edge settle into place before she even pushes off, the muscle memory there but unreliable. It irritates her more than it should, because it used to be the easiest of them all. The first quad she ever landed. The one that opened the door to everything else.

And now it’s the one that keeps fucking slipping.

She sets up for it, backward outside edge, shoulders checked, timing counted in the quiet rhythm she keeps for herself, and the takeoff feels fine—fine enough—but something shifts in the air, something small and off-axis that she can feel before she even lands, the rotation tightening wrong, the exit a little too forward, blade scraping instead of settling, and she rides it out anyway because she can, because control can't just disappear because the jump isn’t perfect. But the aggravation is immediate, pinching, cataloguing the mistake as she glides out of it.

Jamelle is shaking her head when Paige circles back. “You’re rushing the takeoff,” she says, stepping closer, her voice low enough that it stays between them even in the noise of the rink. “You’re trying to get up too fast. Let it sit for half a second longer on the edge.”

Paige exhales through her nose, nodding again, replaying the jump in her head with the correction nuzzled into it, adjusting the timing in theory before she attempts it again in practice, because that’s how this works—break it down, rebuild it, repeat until it holds.

It takes three more tries before it clicks.

It's not perfect but it is closer, the takeoff steadier, the air position cleaner, the landing less forced, blade settling into the ice with something that feels almost right, and that’s enough for now, enough that Jamelle gives a short, approving hum and steps back, already moving on to the next thing.

“Again later,” she says, a promise more than a suggestion.

Paige nods, because of course they will.

They always do.

The rest of the session moves around her in fragments—Nika landing her lutz-loop clean (she was partly right earlier, it does look good) and throwing her arms up with a shout that echoes across the rink, Aaliyah clapping her gloves together in response, Caroline quietly repeating a sequence over and over until it smooths out under CD’s watchful eye, Azzi jumping her axel when it's her turn—while Paige stays anchored in her own work, running through her layout piece by piece (not fully, because there's so many people around her, but enough), quads first, getting them out of the way while her legs are still fresh enough to handle the force of them.

The lutz is solid today, the toe loop better, the flip… promising, still new enough that every successful attempt feels a bit unreal, a jump she's quickly learning to master (much to Nika's chagrin), and there’s something satisfying in that, in the way her body keeps reaching ahead of where it should logically be.

The salchow lingers, though. It's got such a frustrating bite recently.

Geno says almost nothing the entire time.

He moves occasionally, drifting closer to one of them or another, offering a quiet comment here, a brief correction there, but mostly he watches, and Paige can feel that watching even when she isn’t looking directly at him, can feel the way his attention settles and lifts and shifts, measuring something she can’t quite define but knows exists anyway. When he does speak to her, it’s brief.

“Don’t rush your transitions after the toe,” he says at one point, almost in passing, and that’s it, no elaboration or praise attached to it, just the note left there for her to interpret and implement on her own.

It’s enough, something Paige is very used to. That's how it works here—less hand-holding, more expectation, the assumption that she knows what to do with what she’s given, that she can take a single sentence and build something better out of it without needing it broken down further.

She can.

She does.

And still, there’s a distance there, something she doesn’t quite bridge, something that keeps Geno slightly out of reach in a way that Jamelle isn’t, because with Jamelle it’s immediate, technical, specific—this is wrong, fix it like this, try again—and with Geno it’s broader, quieter, a kind of oversight that feels less personal even when it isn’t.

Practice ends the way it always does, gradually rather than abruptly, skaters peeling off the ice in ones and twos, conversations picking up again as the intensity dips, guards snapping back onto blades, the cold beginning to settle deeper now she and the others aren't constantly moving. Paige steps off last, as usual, dragging her guards on without really thinking about it, her mind already halfway into review mode, running through what worked, what didn’t, what needs to be fixed before the next session.

Sue her if she's impatient. She likes to see what comes next.

THE DOOR TO the Fudd house opens before Paige is even done knocking, swinging inward expectedly, a current of warmth flowing with it. It presses forward—soft and alive with the residue of cooking and voices and much movement—and then sound follows, layered and uncontained, laughter slipping over itself, someone talking too loudly from another room, something clattering in the kitchen. It fills the air, unbothering to lower itself, to check whether it can exist at that volume.

Paige's house never sounds like this. Sound, at home, is something that gets measured before it's even released. It steels itself against the edges of her mother's attention, trims down into something quiet and acceptable, something that won't invite any sort of correction or consequence. Even the silence there is structured, built into the drywall, arranged on purpose. This—well, this is just the opposite of that.

"Finally, bro," Nika says at the entryway, the one who opened the door. She stares expectantly at Paige. "I thought you bailed."

Paige steps in, letting the door fall shut behind her, the sound of it swallowed immediately by everything else. "Yeah," she replies, sarcastic. "That was the plan."

Nika rolls her eyes, nudging Paige's arm with her elbow. They walk into the house further, energy leaking out of every direction. They find Aaliyah leant against the island counter, slouched on one of the bar stools, sipping from her water bottle and grinning at Paige in greeting. Caroline's next to her, crouched on the floor, petting Stewie, Azzi's dog, who's laying flat on her back, content with the belly rubs. Caroline says hi, before her attention is immediately gathered back by the puppy. Paige leans down to give Stewie a few pets of her own. She loves dogs—she used to beg her mother to get her one, swore up and down that she would take care of it herself, that Irina wouldn't even notice it. Of course, that idea was quickly shut down. Most are.

"Food's ready," Aaliyah announces, pushing off the counter. "Better get some before Nika eats all of it."

"Are you calling me fat?" Nika counters immediately, though she does already begin moving.

Paige follows instinctively, drawn by the smell before anything else—it's warm and familiar and it settles in her nostrils pleasantly and then low in her stomach uncomfortably. It's enough to remind her that she hasn't eaten all day, not having had time after practice, her body running on emptiness and habit for longer than it probably should.

Azzi interrupts her thought process by stepping into Paige's line of sight from the kitchen. Her smile is close-lipped, unforced but too small for a dimple to pop through, and her posture is uncoiled, completely at ease, something that Paige doesn't see all that much—only really in the comfort of her own home, which makes sense. At the rink, everything about Azzi is controlled, shaped for performance even when she isn't skating. Here, that control loosens at the edges, something softer curling in and taking its place.

"You made it," Azzi says simply.

Paige nods, shrugging. "Yeah."

There's nothing else to say before Tim Fudd's voice carries through the kitchen, broad and easy, exclaiming, "Paige! Get in here, we've got pizza."

He appears around the corner with a dish towel slung over his shoulders, hands still busy from whatever it was he was doing before. He grins at her, something so friendly and welcoming that it almost doesn't really look like it belongs on him, a man so big and sturdy. He looks glad she showed up.

"Hey," Paige greets, nodding, trying for a small smile.

"You hungry?"

It's so simple it almost catches her off guard. It's not have you eaten, not should you eat, not be careful, just—you hungry? Of course she is. Jesus, when is she not?

"Yeah," she repeats honestly.

"Good. Sit."

Just then, Katie moves through the space beside him, quieter but no less present, her attention soft and steady as it lands on Paige. "Hi, sweetheart," she welcomes warmly, lips tilting up. The kindness is unearned and yet so freely given—Paige has trouble understanding. "Long day?"

Paige nods, her chest constricting a bit around the ease of it. "Long weekend, actually."

"I bet." Katie's hand brushes her shoulder briefly, gentle. "We'll get you fed."

We'll.

Paige lets herself be guided into the kitchen, into the orbit of the island where everything gathers, plates set out in a loose arrangement, slices already being taken. She takes a plate when it's handed to her, the heat of it seeping into her palms. Walking over, she looks between the two pies—meat lovers and her favorite, margherita pizza.

"Azzi said that was your favorite," Katie says, smiling at Paige, gesturing her to take a slice or two.

Paige's gaze flicks to Azzi, something tightening and loosening at the same time in her chest. The brunette just shrugs, casual, but the blonde thinks she sees a hint of pink dusting the tips of her ears.

"You always eat it," Azzi points out, as if that's some sort of rare occurrence.

Paige just nods, not thinking too hard about it. She grabs a slice, just one, and says, softer, "Yeah. It is."

Katie smiles, satisfied.

They eat standing up, leaning into the counter, drifting in and out of conversation in loose strands that tangle and separate without much effort. Nika talks loudly how Geno's been getting on her nerves, her hands moving as much as her voice, Lili cutting in every now and then with her own commentary. Caroline just laughs, and Paige and Azzi mostly just listen. She responds when she has to, letting herself be carried along by the current without fully submerging herself within it.

Paige eats the pizza, satisfied with the taste, not minding the way it feels molded inside her gut. It probably helps that Katie doesn't watch her plate with quiet scrutiny, that no one comments on how much or how little she takes, no hidden enough or too much coating someone's tone. She much prefers it that way.

Her gaze drifts unintentionally, not paying as much attention to the conversation, instead catching on the details that make this place what this family calls home. The photos scattered along the walls, moments frozen in joy, how Jon and Jose make the room several times more chaotic, grabbing slices, interrupting, laughing too loud and not being told to lower their voices all the while. They exist as large as they want, no one shaping them into something smaller.

Paige doesn't have siblings.

Or, well, no—she does. There's Drew. There will always be Drew, in the technical sense. It's a topic she doesn't let herself ponder on too often, something she keeps tucked away because every time she looks at it too closely it opens a wound that takes forever to stop bleeding, a cut that refuses to scab over. Her baby brother, though that word doesn't fit anymore, not really. He's five years old now. The last time she saw him, he was one—small and unsteady, reaching for her with grabby hands that didn't yet know how to hold anything properly, even though he had her heart pretty well tucked into his grasp.

He probably wouldn't even recognize her if he saw her now. Or maybe he would—Paige assumes her dad never took down the few photos he had of her at his condo, though she supposes she can't be sure. But Drew wouldn't know her, even if. He would still perceive her as a stranger.

Her mother made sure of that.

The custody battle is something that's shaped her life more than maybe anything else, something immovable and final. Her dad fought, but her mom won, and that's just the fact of it. She won Paige, kept her, held onto her with a grip that has never loosened since. And her dad—her dad who taught her how to ride a bike, who stayed outside with her until it got dark, who put a basketball in her hands before skates were ever put on her feet—he became something distant, something scheduled out of existence. First, it was less visits, then it was no visits, then it was her mother deciding no contact whatsoever. Paige had screamed and refused and begged when it happened, a twelve-year-old girl torn in two. But Irina Vasilieva is nothing if not made of cement, and she would not move or budge for her daughter. That was final.

The worst part is that her dad never even did anything wrong. Her mother swears otherwise, her argument having attempted to take root several times over the years: He chose something else. He chose a different life. He cares more about that than he ever did about you. But its vines never spread, and Paige is smart enough to know it's not true.

Because she remembers the way he used to look at her, the way he showed up for everything, the way he made space for her without ever asking for anything in return—because it wasn't something necessary, it was merely because she was his daughter and he loved her. She remembers the feeling of that—solid, certain, uncomplicated, real—and it stands in direct contradiction to everything her mother insists is true.

So, Paige doesn't reconcile it. She just avoids it. She does her best not thinking about him, not thinking about Drew, not thinking about the condo they may not even live in anymore, the one that was filled with people she belongs to and isn't allowed to see.

Drew is five.

The number repeats in her head, now that she's gotten to thinking of it. Five years old and growing up in a space she's got no place in. Five years old and building memories, none of which include her. Five years old and, in all likelihood, not remembering the girl who used to hold him, who used to be something to him.

Paige swallows down another bite of pizza, trying to focus on something she can control.

She glances around once more and can't help but think that this is what it looks like.

A real, big, happy family.

And for a second, just one, it crosses her mind: what would it be like if this were hers? If this warmth belonged to her without condition. If the voices in the next room were her background noise instead of something she hears briefly when she visits and then leaves behind. If Katie's soft sweetheart wasn't something borrowed for the night.

Paige doesn't let the idea go any further, doesn't let it take shape and form. That kind of wanting has nowhere to go. So, she folds it away, the same way she folds everything else, tucks it into a crevice of her brain where it won't interfere with what she actually has to do, with the structure and reality of her life as it exists now.

And, by a couple hours later, she's successfully managed to not think much about any of that. The blue flickering light from the TV washes over the basement now, staining the walls and the massive pile of blankets in a cold, dim glare. Paige lays flat on her back, her muscles aching in that deeply satisfying way they only do after she's completely destroyed someone. In this case, it was Azzi's brothers, who spent the last hour getting utterly dismantled by her in Mario Kart.

They've settled in for the night, sprawled out across the basement floor as the opening credits of Jennifer's Body start to roll. Nika picked it; Paige knows nothing about it other than the fact that Megan Fox is in it.

Hell is a teenage girl.

Isn't that right? Paige surely doesn't disagree.

The movie plays out in blood-reds and sickly greens. It's interesting. Probably not a film she would ever choose to watch on her own, but nevertheless one she finds herself entertained by and understanding. A sensory assault of girlhood turned violent and the terrifying, cannibalistic nature of obsession. To be a girl, to be an artist, to be so thoroughly consumed by the need to possess excellence that it borders on the demonic; Paige understands that hunger completely. If she's honest, it lives deep in the pit of her gut most of the time. Ice is a monstrosity in and of itself, the opposite of the fiery pits of hell, and yet still its own version of torture.

Maybe Paige is just a masochist.

Around her, the girls begin to quiet down. At first, they were all talking over each other, making their usual movie commentary, Nika and Aaliyah sharing a bowl of popcorn. But as the clock creeps past midnight, the exhaustion of the day—and, undoubtedly, the rink—starts claiming its casualties. Nika goes first, her loud inputs trailing off until her head drops back against the cushion behind her, breathing deep and even. Caroline drifts off next, buried so far into a fleece blanket she's practically disappeared, and then Aaliyah finally stops giggling, snoring faintly against Nika's shoulder.

Paige isn't too tired herself, eyes wide open. What she doesn't expect to see is Jennifer and Needy suddenly kissing, tongues forcing their way into each other's mouths, the blonde leaning on top, red-nailed fingertips tracing lines down spines.

Paige's eyes snap away from the screen instantly.

It's a reflex, a sudden electrical shock through her body that make her muscles taut and tighten. Her gaze drops straight to her lap, vision blurring just slightly as she stares at her hands. Almost immediately, she catches sight of a tiny, ragged piece of skin next to her thumb. She goes to work on it, her other thumb picking at the hangnail, digging in sharply, peeling the skin back until a sudden jolt of pain flares in her hand. She welcomes the sting, blocking out the sounds coming from the TV. A small bead of blood, dark and red, wells up along the edge of her cuticle, pooling for a second before tracing a slow line down her thumb. She watches it, detached, before using her index finger to wipe it away against the thigh of her grey sweatpants, leaving a faint, rusty smear on the fabric.

She doesn't hate the girls on the screen. It's not like she's homophobic—she isn't, not even a little bit, and she'll always defend anyone else's right to love whoever they want. But looking at it directly makes her stomach twist into a tight knot, a horrible, violent discomfort she can't rationalize. It feels too close. It feels like, if she looked too long at the way the characters lean into each other, she'd have to acknowledge the metal cage buried at the back of her cerebrum. It's a boundary she refuses to cross with herself. It's infinitely easier to stare at her bleeding thumb, to pretend her racing heart is just a reaction to what can be considered a horror movie, and to stay safely, completely in denial about any other reality.

By the time the credits finally roll, casting a rolling scroll of white names against a black background, the basement is completely silent. The only illumination left is the dull, looping glare of the main menu, casting long shadows over the sleeping girls.

Paige shifts, her joints protesting the hard floor, and slides herself deeper into her sleeping bag. She turns onto her side and suddenly finds herself staring right at Azzi.

The brunette is facing her, curled into a loose, comfortable crescent, her cheek pressed into the plush, pink fabric of her pillow. The proximity is a sudden, intoxicating thing. Azzi carries with her a strong scent, one of vanilla, and it drifts across the tiny gap between them easily. It's a soft, sugary smell, completely unpretentious, but—for whatever reason—it pulls Paige's attention inward, like a bee drawn to nectar, something to taste, something to consume.

"You still awake?" Azzi asks, voice barely a rasp, eyes still fluttered shut. It surprises the blonde—she thought she was sleeping.

Paige swallows hard, her gaze tracing the soft slope of Azzi's nose, the dark fan of her lashes against her cheek. "Yeah," she whispers back, the sound feather-light. "Too much sugar, I think. Or the Mario Kart high."

Azzi lets out a tiny, breathless huff of a laugh, her eyes flitting open just enough to catch the blue glow of the TV. "You didn't even eat that much," she says, dismissing the first excuse. "But you were brutal out there. Jon looked like he wanted to cry when you hit him with that red shell on the final lap."

"He should know better by now," Paige murmurs, the corner of her mouth twitching upward in a rare, genuine smile. "No mercy. You know how I get."

"I do," Azzi says softly. Her gaze settles fully on Paige, steady and completely devoid of the expectations the rest of the world constantly places on her. There's no CD here demanding better presentation, no judges looking for an underrotation, no fans waiting for a stumble. There's just Azzi, looking at Paige as if Paige is a complete person, rather than a collection of scores and titles. Her gaze drifts down slightly. "Your hand is bleeeding."

Paige glances down stupidly, at her thumb. "Oh. Just a hangnail. It's fine."

"You're gonna get an infection at some point if you keep doing shit like that," Azzi chides, though there's not an ounce of heat in it. She pulls her hand out from the warmth of her own sleeping bag, fingers brushing lightly against Paige's wrist before her thumb gently taps the edge of Paige's hand. Her skin is incredibly warm against Paige's perpetual cold, a striking contrast. The touch is brief, just a soft, reassuring pressure, but it leaves a trail of electricity in its wake that makes Paige itch. "Seriously, stop picking at yourself."

"I'll try," Paige whispers. Her chest suddenly feels incredibly tight, a strange, heavy ache opening up inside her.

They drift into quiet conversation, careful not to wake the others, the topics unspooling naturally. They talk about each of their next Grand Prix's—China for Paige, Russia for Azzi—and the competition that'll be there. They talk about the stupid TikTok Aaliyah made them film earlier, and then they talk about nothing at all, the spaces between their words growing longer, heavier, laden with the comfortable exhaustion of two bodies that have pushed themselves to the absolute brink.

Paige watches the slow rise and fall of Azzi's shoulders, the warm brown skin of them and her collarbones exposed to the cool air due to the tank top she's wearing. The world outside the basement is pressurized, a demanding storm of expectations, a place where Paige feels like an artist trying to paint a masterpiece with bleeding, cut-up fingers. But right here, with the scent of vanilla enveloping her and Azzi's quiet breathing filling the silence, the chaos ceases, just a little. The gears in Paige's hyperactive mind finally slow, finding a rare alignment.

Azzi's eyelids droop, her responses turning into single, muttered syllables until they stop altogether, her breathing deepening into the rhythmic cadence of sleep. Paige stays awake for just a few moments longer, guarding the silence, letting her eyes linger on the soft curve of Azzi's jawline. She allows herself to just look, to enjoy the proximity for just a moment without giving herself consequence, before she finally lets her own eyes fall shut, falling asleep right beside her.

THE TRANSIT THROUGH Beijing Capital International Airport is a blur of sterile white, fluorescent light and the hollow clack of rolling suitcase wheels against polished linoleum. Paige moves through the terminal with her hood pulled low, eyes heavy with exhaustion from the lack of sleep the flight provided, her passport clamped tightly in her fist as she drags her heavy bag behind her. Beside her is Aaliyah, rubbing at her temple, clearly tired as well. It's just them and Geno—who stalks a few paces ahead of them—that traveled together for this particular competition, both Paige and Aaliyah's parents having to work and unable to accompany them. It takes a special amount of trust to allow your teenage daughters to travel across the world by themselves with just their coach, but Paige is pretty sure her mother didn't think twice about it. That's okay; Paige honestly doesn't mind.

Everything after that is a blur, jet lag clouding most of the blonde's senses. It was the airport first, then hotel hallways, then credential badges hanging around necks. Practice schedules taped to doors, ice sessions at ungodly hours. The familiar process of competition settles in immediately and the days bleed into one another, every morning another repetition of the last. Wake up. Eat. Practice. stretch. Wait. Skate. Sleep. Repeat.

The difference this time is Aaliyah. The past few competitions have nearly felt like solitary military deployments for Paige, hours spent drowning in the noise of her own headphones and the sensation of ice beneath her skates, almost hollow. They're necessary, obviously. Important, the entire point of what she does. But hollow all the same. Most of the time, it's just her, whichever coach is traveling with her, and her mother orbiting somewhere nearby. The days become quiet outside the rink, long.

But China has Aaliyah. Not constantly—they're not attached at the hip or anything ridiculous like that. But she is present. Present in their hotel room, which they share since their parents didn't come with them. Present at meals. Present during practice sessions. Present in elevators and athlete lounges and hallways outside meeting rooms. Another familiar face occupying the same temporary world.

Aaliyah has a way of making things feel less serious than they probably should. Paige isn't entirely sure how she does it. Maybe it's because she laughs easily, over just about any and everything. Maybe it's because she never seems trapped inside her own head the way Paige constantly is. Maybe it's because she can lose a jump in practice and move on from it thirty seconds later instead of carrying it around for the rest of the goddamn day.

Paige doesn't understand that. She isn't sure she ever will.

Still, she likes being around her. Enough, anyway.

The strange thing about skating is that the people closest to understanding you are also the people you're trying to beat. No one else really gets it, at least not completely. No one else understands waking up thinking about jump technique and falling asleep replaying programs in your head. Nobody else understands the particular loneliness of spending your entire adolescence chasing tenths of points.

Aaliyah understands.

And, unfortunately, Paige is glad she does. In a way, Paige actually quite likes Aaliyah. She likes that there isn't much maintenance required, that there's no complicated emotional calculus. They can spend twenty minutes talking and then another twenty sitting in complete silence and neither one feels obligated to fill the space.

It's easy—or, at least, easier than it probably should be.

Paige's mother would have something to say about that.

Her mother always has something to say about that.

Competitors aren't friends. Competitors are competitors. Paige has heard some variation of that lesson for most of her life. The wording changes, but the meaning never does. Friendships create weaknesses and attachments create distractions. Every person standing beside you eventually becomes a person standing between you and something you want. It's simple and clean and practical.

The problem is that reality never seems particularly interested in staying squeaky clean.

Because Aaliyah isn't just another competitor.

Nika isn't either.

And Azzi—

Paige's thoughts snag automatically. Her attention returns to the box of imported biscuits that sits on her bed. She's been uninterestedly tearing one apart for minutes now; her hands are all messy with it.

"If Geno looks at me like that again during the competition, I might deadass jump over the boards and run away," Aaliyah says, tossing a cream-filled biscuit into her mouth and collapsing backward onto the white duvet.

Paige lets out a snort despite herself, and immediately afterward, a familiar irritation rises in her chest because this is exactly the sort of thing her mother warns her about. The dangerous part of friendships isn't betrayal—it's comfort. Comfort lowers your guard and makes people forget what they're here to do.

Paige never forgets, not even now. She knows Aaliyah's personal best score. She knows her average free skate score this season. She knows which jumping passes tend to get tight under pressure and which spins consistently earn level fours. The information just lives in her brain automatically, and not because she dislikes Aaliyah. it's just because she likes winning. The two things are entirely separate.

At least she tells herself they are.

"He'd catch you before you reached the Kiss and Cry," Paige replies. "He can smell fear."

"He's like a shark," Aaliyah groans, staring up at the ceiling. "He told me my free felt 'sluggish' yesterday. Sluggish, bro. I was literally skating for my fucking life."

They all skate for their lives. Some are better than others at it.

The competition itself passes mostly the way competitions always do, wrapped in nerves and routine and endlessly waiting, though one familiar irritation makes itself known almost immediately.

Paige spots Caitlin Clark during an official practice session and her mood instantly sours, like citrus turning to acid. There's a history there, a long, winding trail of domestic competitions spanning back to their novice days, a history defined by a bitter friction that no time has managed to smooth over.

It's fine, though. Paige hasn't had to see her much in recent years, not since Caitlin started representing Italy. Italy. The thought still makes Paige irrationally happy, watching the girl sport the Italian flag on her warm-up jacket feeding a dark, ugly satisfaction deep inside her chest. Maybe irrational isn't the right word. Honestly, she thinks her feelings on the matter are perfectly rational.

The United States women's field is a knife fight full of blood-soaked rinks with too many talented girls. Too many people competing for too few spots. Thus, a few years ago, Caitlin had switched federations and started skating for Italy through family connections. Paige is almost positive the last truly Italian in the Clark's family tree was her great-grandparents or beyond—that girl is American, through and through. Still, she was approved. Officially, there had been statements about opportunity and development and international experience.

Unofficially? Everyone knew. She couldn't make it here, not consistently. She'd found herself suffocated by the depth of the field, unable to break through the impenetrable wall of Paige, Azzi, Caroline, Sonia Citron, and Aliyah Boston at the junior level. Not to mention Napheesa Collier, Veronica Burton, and Sabrina Ionescu at the next level. There was no place for Caitlin Clark.

It's a victory, in Paige's mind. A small one, but one all the same. A tangible reminder that when the furnace of American skating grew too hot, Caitlin was the one who had to flee across the Atlantic to find a guaranteed spot on a different national team. It makes Paige feel massive, a gatekeeper of the true elite, even as she watches Caitlin snap out a triple lutz with that characteristically cocky, theatrical flourish that Paige utterly despises. Caitlin skates with the performative, desperate need to be watched; Paige skates to conquer.

As Paige is pulling her guards off by the barrier, Caitlin glides over, sprinkling a small spray of ice against the plexiglass. She looks entirely too comfortable, a smug smile playing on her lips as she grabs her water bottle, taking a long gulp.

"Didn't know you two would be in the same session," she says, leaning her elbows against the top of the boards. If she was any sort of observant, she would have known, considering all of their names were on the same paper in the same time slot. But Caitlin has some air clouding her brain most of the time, so Paige doesn't blame her. "Geno let you two out the cage together?"

Paige sets her guards on top of the boards, finally stepping onto ice. Aaliyah, meanwhile, replies, "We share a room, Clark. Not a cage."

"Same difference under Geno, isn't it?" Caitlin laughs, a sharp, ringing sound that's entirely too loud for an early morning practice. Paige knows she's just spewing her usual jealous bullshit—she'd requested a spot in Geno's camp two years ago and was instantly denied. "I saw your skate at Canada, Paige. The quads are cool. Very... robotical, though."

Paige finally raises her head, her gaze dropping to the Italian emblem emblazoned on Caitlin's chest, letting her eyes linger there for a long, pointed second before looking back up. "It got the job done," she says, shrugging. "Good luck with the European field this year, by the way. Must be nice not having to worry about making the national team anymore."

Caitlin's smile stiffens, jaw tightening just enough for Paige to know the arrow hit its target. "An international assignment is an international assignment," Caitlin snaps, pushing off the boards with a sharp stroke of her blade. "See you on the ice, Bueckers."

The short program comes and goes. As usual, Paige survives it more than she enjoys it. It's a game designed around strengths she doesn't naturally possess. No quads, her biggest weapon locked away. She performs well enough regardless. Strong enough, clean enough, the usual story. The main point is that she remains near the top heading into the free, which is all she needs.

The free skate, however, reveals more unfortunate cracks in her heavy foundation.

She misses the salchow again. After spending the last few weeks working and working and working to make it consistent again, it just continues to be a loose thread she can't stop pulling. She twists back into it, the axis titling wildly beneath her. And then she lands—a hard, jarring collision that sends her hip slamming into the ice. A sharp shock of white-hot frustration flares behind her ribs as she scrambles back to her feet, her hands skittering against the frost.

She forces her body back into the choreography, her face a mask of cold fury. She keeps skating, keeps fighting. The quad lutz lands, the quad toe-triple toe lands, the second quad toe lands. The technical score climbs and she knows it.

The last jumping pass, her triple lutz-triple loop, arrives. Immediately, her timing is completely shot. The take-off for the loop is sluggish, her legs heavy with the sudden accumulation of lactic acid and panic, and she goes down a second time, her blade sliding out from under her in a clumsy, humiliating spill.

When the music finally dies, Paige stands at center ice, her chest heaving, her fingers twitching against the deep blue of her skirt. The arena applauds, a loud, roaring sea of noise, but to Paige, the sound is completely hollow. She knows she survived on the sheer, ridiculous magnitude of her base value; the three landed quads are a massive mathematical shield that—hopefully—protected her from the wreckage of her falls.

And, in the Kiss and Cry, the scores reflect just that. Paige wins, the gold medal hers with a total score of 234.47—a good number, but an undeniable drop from the stratospheric numbers she'd put up at Skate Canada weeks prior. Aaliyah takes the silver medal with clean performance that earns her a 225.76, and Caitlin finishes a distant third at 215.12.

The press conference is a tedious exercise in diplomatic smiling. Paige sits between Aaliyah and Caitlin, the heavy gold disc resting against her collarbone, but her smile feels like a plaster mask cracking under pressure. A reporter—luckily one that speaks in English, Paige was growing tired of the constant translating—leans into the microphone, directing the question at her.

"Paige, another gold medal here in Beijing, securing your spot in the Grand Prix Final. Are you satisfied with your performance today despite the two falls?"

Paige leans forward, her voice flat, completely devoid of the performative joy expected of a champion. "A win is a win, but the performance wasn't where it needs to be. My technical difficulty saved me today, but you can't win a Grand Prix Final with your back on the ice. I got a lot of work to do when I get home."

Beside her, Caitlin shifts in her chair, a subtle roll of her eyes that Paige catches in her periphery. Throughout the rest of the mandatory media rounds, Paige stays mostly glued to Aaliyah's side, letting her teammate's easy, gracious demeanor carry the weight of the casual interviews—she's better at them anyways.

Later, the arena's emptied out, leaving the backstage corridors cold, quiet, and smelling faintly of damp concrete and Zamboni exhaust. Aaliyah's already gone back to the hotel to pack, but Paige stays loitered in the dim hallway behind the media mix zone, her duffel bag slung over one shoulder.

She pulls the gold medal out from beneath her jacket, letting it dangle from its silk ribbon, its heavy, polished surface catching the dim overhead light. She spins it between her fingers, watching the metal twist and flash against the dark fabric of her sweatshirt. It feels heavy, but not real. To the rest of the world, this piece of metal is a declaration of absolute victory, a sign that she's still undisputed at the top of the Grand Prix circuit. But to Paige, it might as well be a counterfeit coin. She can still feel the exact, violent vibration of her hip striking the ice on the salchow; she can still feel the sickening, weightless terror of losing her axis on the loop. The math had saved her today, the sheer, brute-force difficulty of her content lifting her corpse over the finish line, but math won't be enough at the Grand Prix Final. In a few weeks, she won't be competing against a field she can out-jump with her eyes closed. She'll be standing on the ice against Azzi. She'll be looking into the eyes of Nika. They won't give her a free pass for bleeding on the ice.