commissioned @yendts to bring to life a scene from all the best people see you (all the best people know), my buckingham/platonic hellcheer season 4 au, to celebrate my birthday and finishing this fic after nearly two and a half years ❤️
“Chrissy, I hope you know how very strange all this sounds to a semi-sports outsider,” Robin manages when she finally finds the words. “That he makes you juice up his jacket for him.”
Chrissy gasps.
“Oh my god, do not say juice it up!”
She laughs a little in shock, and then Robin is laughing, too.
“Chrissy!” she protests. “What did you say, get it all cheery? That’s better?”
“It is better!” Chrissy insists, but she’s still giggling.
“I don’t care what you call it, Chrissy,” Robin argues. “You’re juicing that jacket up right now.”
“Stop!” she says, laughing again. “You’re going to make me take it off.”
“Take it off? Chrissy, what about the Tigers?” Robin asks, making her face go serious. She furrows her brow in mock-indignation. “You can’t joke like that during Championship week.”
“Stop!” she says again through a grin. “I’m taking this off!”
“Are you sure?” Robin asks even as Chrissy starts to shrug out of the letterman. “Do you dare?”
“You’re getting distracted!” Chrissy shoves it the rest of the way off, letting it flop onto the bench beside her. “The jacket is a distraction. It’s coming off.”
She tries to look serious. To stop smiling. Robin’s own grin widens at every twitch of Chrissy’s determined pout.
It only takes about a second for goose bumps to spring up on Chrissy’s bare arms, though, even as she holds them tight against her body. It may be the middle of the day, but it’s still only March in Indiana, and Chrissy’s ruffly short-sleeved shirt doesn’t exactly look warm. It’s not particularly windy, but it’s cold enough out on the bleachers. Robin’s eyebrows raise in cautious concern, smile fading. Against her most sincere wishes, she can’t help shooting a look at where the jacket sits slumped behind Chrissy.
“Do you… want to put it back on?”
Chrissy straightens up. Shakes her head.
“No,” she insists, still stubborn. “I don’t.”
“OK,” Robin hedges. “You’re shivering, though. Which is also… sort of distracting, for the record.”
For a second, Chrissy wavers. Bites her lip. And then she demands —
“So give me yours then.”
Robin freezes.
“You want to… wear my jacket?”
“If it’ll get you to pay attention!”
Chrissy’s cheeks are pink. Still, she holds out one hand, opening and closing it. Robin reflexively clutches the lapels of the oversized blazer she added to her outfit this morning.
“Hand it over, Buckley,” Chrissy says. Her tone is surprisingly firm.
Robin straightens up. Silently, she slips the jacket off, and then she hands it over, watching as Chrissy pulls it on.
Chrissy settles it over her own shoulders. She smoothes out the collar first, and then she bunches her fists in the sides, pulling it closed tight around her. She practically snuggles into it.
“Much better,” she says, wiggling her shoulders. “Plus, who knows? Maybe tomorrow you’ll play extra good in band.”