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pucksandpebbles · 3 days ago

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𝒄𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒂 𝒅𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒎𝒊𝒏', 𝒎𝒄⁷¹

a short fic in which Mack notices a girl on the ice and cannot get her out of his head because of just how much they have in common macklin celebrini x figureskater!reader

a/n : my first mack fic ahhhhh! I wanted to do this as a dual pov so it felt more 'x reader' but then couldn't be arsed so this is all Mack pov!

A disclaimer btw, reader's nickname is 'Princess' and sometimes that's how Mack refers to her but otherwise it's pretty much 'x reader' because she isn't named. The way I write reader fics can be so specific cause I hate doing the y/n thing so this may read a little like my oc fics. I also know nothing about figure skating except the basics and have no idea about the goings on at the Shark Tank so don't come for me.

Absolutely nooooo proofreading sorry guys if there's mistakes. Always remember to show love and don't be a silent reader - I love your thoughts and without y'all I probably wouldn't be writing so thank you. And we are soooo close to 200 followers, I cannot believe it.

wc: 1.9k

There’s a girl on the ice at the Shark Tank. Clad all over in a black material that clings to her skin, hair whipping from side to side even though it’s secured in a pony tail, even her skates are an even-toned black, speckled with bits of ice, the only part of her not in black, not covered in a material are her hands. Despite the way she’s skating, rushed and powerful, Macklin thinks that she must be cold - her hands that is, especially with the way in which, when she does the cantilever, her fingertips brush at the ice below her. With a strength that is deep set in her bones, she charges across the ice, powering her high and complex jumps and landing with an elegance that would be impossible to master for Macklin. She’s a figure skater, obviously. Occasionally, some of them book out the stadium for practice, it’s not often though and usually they’re accompanied by their trainers and teammates - but as Macklin looks around the empty seats of the stadium, he spots nobody.

She’s stayed past her allotted time. But Macklin’s also here early, lacing up his hockey skates for a pre-practice practice, his own personal warm-up that he can do without any prying eyes. Now he’s the prying eyes, watching mesmerised as the skater performs her toe-loops and a quad or two. It’s impressive to him.

He watches as she propels herself up into the air, arms pulling into her chest and long hair wrapping around her face. This time when she lands though, she stumbles and her other leg flies over and she goes tumbling to the ice, the momentum of the jump carrying through to slide her away from the scene of the incident, sat with her legs outstretched. She buries her head in her hands and cries out and Macklin shoots to his feet and rushes to the plexiglass to see if she’s okay.

Against his better judgement of staying quiet and unnoticed, Macklin shouts out across the ice to disturb the skater, “Are you okay?”

Her head pricks up and she stumbles to her feet and her skates haphazardly, skating tenderly to the plexiglass where Macklin is standing.

“Fine, sorry were you waiting for the ice?” She smiles apologetically, stepping off the ice and reaching for her guards.

Macklin shakes his head, “It’s okay, not really,” she sits on one of the benches, unlacing her states and tugging a hoodie out of her skate bag to pull over her head, Macklin watches intently and then realises he’s being a bit of a creep - the best that he can force out is, “Your skating was impressive.”

She practically bats away the compliment, smile souring into a hard set line, “Not really. I fell, couldn’t make the quad in case you noticed.”

“Well, it looked impressive to me.” Macklin combats the self-depreciation, the line sounding awfully familiar. Usually he was on the other end of this type of conversation.

The girl shakes her head, “I need that quad to make the team.”

Macklin sits down beside her as she swaps over her shoes and takes her earbuds out, “You seem like you’re working very hard for it.”

She smiles, brushing through her loose hair now, Macklin watches the soft waves unfold along her back, “You too. You’re a shark aren’t you?”

“The centre, Mack,” he formally introduces himself, extending a hand out to her to shake which she takes with a giggle.

Her amusement is barely hidden and she slides her hand against Mack’s and softly shakes it up and down as a greeting, “Nice to meet you Mack.”

“You’re not going to tell me your name,” Mack questions.

She smirks as she stands up, pulling her skating bag, a light beige coloured and highly battered, onto her shoulder, “You can figure it out. But people call me the Axel Princess in the skating world.”

“How about Princess then,” Macklin shouts to her as she makes her way through the stadium away from Macklin, evidently towards the exit.

She turns to him, walking backwards slowly, a sweet smile appearing on her face, “Princess, I don’t mind it.”

Macklin thinks about ‘Princess’ through all the way up until practice, as he run drills silently and alone on the ice. He thought it would be nice if she had stayed to watch, leaning back in the stadium seat as he warmed up until he was warm and his hair was wet underneath his helmet. The drills strain at his muscles in a burn that Macklin pretends the enjoy - it’s for the good of him, for the good of the game, for the good of the team. When he returns to the locker room before actual practice, he’s puffed out and jelly-legged, having pushed himself more than usual. Spaced out as he thought of the girl of the ice, how her limbs must burn with the exertion of how she propels herself up and off the ice and lands back to the ice in a hip-shattering movement, and then just carries on.

He’s heard about some of the San Jose figure skaters before, most of the hockey players look upon them with scorn, a little bit of a rivalry. There’s no artistry in hockey like there is in figure skating and ice dance, and the two sports operate in almost completely different ways. Hockey players build up and figure skaters slim down - most of the skaters burn out by the time they reach their twenties. Macklin remembers the exhaustion under her eyes, dark purple circles and the tape covering the bit of her skin visible to him when she came closer. She was small too, skinny, a small woman but able to produce such a performance on ice, it was incredible. It’s a sight that is familiar to Macklin, when he goes home and his father trains him and Aiden until they drop. It’s his second season with the sharks and when he returned after his first, he remembers how Toffoli had pulled him to the side, told him he looked exhausted, and asked if he was okay because he didn’t seem himself. Macklin had shook him off, it was for the better he said to himself but he couldn’t even bring himself to believe it.

He wondered if it was the same for Princess. If she worked herself to the bone like Macklin did because she felt inadequate. Not good enough, even if everyone around her was saying that she was perfect, the best, number fucking one.

Macklin couldn’t stop thinking about her all through practice, and then in the locker room when he would usually be chatting with Toff and Ekky, even on the drive home with Will, he keeps strangely silent, thinking of the next time he might see her again.

Mack must be a psychic.

Because Mack does see her again. It’s when he, Will, Ekky and Toff are filtering into the stadium before practice. This time she is on ice with what looks to be a trainer. A stern looking woman dressed in a warm fur coat and yelling at her across the ice; with each screeching yell, Macklin flinches, and watches as she takes it, a blank look washing across her face, making the only defining feature on her face the purple circles under her dull eyes which skitter across the ice. It catches Macklin’s attention immediately, and after a few curses from her trainer, Mack watches as Ekky and Will turn their attentions to what is happening out on their ice.

As they walk past, Princess runs her jump again, the same one over and over and Mack watches as she fails in over and over, tumbling to the ice and getting back up.

Toff looks concerned Mack notices, and he’s not the only one. But the boys do nothing, say nothing. It turns Mack’s stomach. Yet again, Mack can’t stop thinking about her all through practice. It’s eating away at his bones, and by the time he plonks down on the bench of the locker room after practice, and the incident is all but forgotten by his friends, he pulls out his phone.

He does what he must and googles her - The Axel Princess.

Headlines pop up instantly. Horrible ones, questioning her integrity, critiquing her performance despite the medals hung around her neck, commenting on her struggle with her body. Mack slams his phone back down. He can’t think about it. Can’t think about just how alike they must be.

She stays on the periphery of his life for almost half a year, until the Winter Olympics roll around.

He knows that she’s been picked for the team, he has a google alert set up and that is how she finds out that she’s officially competing on the team, for the US. He goes to the Olympics, he’s not competing, but his father drags him and Aiden along to watch Canada compete and despite being herded by his dad around the event, he does slip away to watch the figure skating and watch her compete.

The routine is beautiful. Macklin cannot judge, obviously, he knows very little about figure skating, but to him it is beautiful.

He thinks that she spots him in the crowd, directs a little wave and moves on.

Her face is stern and hard as the hang a bronze medal around her neck and Mack thinks he might be able to see tear track streaking through her competition make-up. He’s been following her career since they first met and he’s watched as they predicted her to podium, one reporter even asked her if she thought she could win gold. She shook her head but her answer said it all.

That anything but gold, was sub-par.

It made Mack’s throat clog up when he read the article.

He is desperate to get out there on the ice, to where she is wobbling on the make-shift podium. She looks as if she might keel over and spill her guts out on the pure white of the ice. Mack stands up and rushes down the stairs. There’s a slight bribing incident with security (the Olympics need better security desperately, he thinks), but he manages to get backstage.

They’re not close. Not really, by any means, have only talked once, it’s a strangely parasocial relationship and for a moment Macklin feels as if he has made a horrible mistake in coming here, doing this, misreading it all. However, almost as soon as she spots him, she melts into his arms, weeping and burying her head into his hoodie.

Macklin doesn't talk, doesn't question as she weeps salty tears onto his teal Sharks hoodie. His arms help support her as she leans into him, chest heaving and body limp against him - it breaks his heart a little.

He takes her back to his hotel room, makes sure she has a good shower, some comfortable clothes to dress in - they’re all Mack’s - and lets her cuddle up to him on the hotel bed and she eats a hamburger and they watch the movies on the horrible hotel channels. She lets him drag her around the rest of the event to watch Will and Ekky play and watch him try to avoid his dad and Aiden for the rest of the time in favour of her and Toff’s attention.

It’s the best week of his life.

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