.: Let Our Crosses Crown Our Past [Julian Drain] :. Info

I was shaken awake after what seemed like two hours of sleep. I reluctantly opened my eyes to see an equally sleepy-looking Julian trying his hardest to keep even himself awake long enough to get me out of bed.

“It’s time to wake up already?” I mumbled, turning my face into the pillow so as to somehow fall asleep once more. “What time is it?”

“It’s four o’clock. We need to be there by five,” he replied, probably debating whether or not to climb into bed with me again.

I let out a groan as I forced myself out of the comfort of his sheets and stood up only to find that Juke had taken my spot in the bed. “Juke!” I yelled, surprised that he would wake me up just to fall asleep himself. If I had to endure the torture of waking up, so did he.

“What?” he asked, as if he was doing nothing wrong. I shot him a ‘you-know-what’ look and he just sighed, climbing out of bed as if it were the most strenuous activity at the moment. “Be ready by 4:45.”

I nodded as I yawned and walked out of his room into the hallway. Judging by the shuffling coming from the other rooms, I assumed that the others were awake as well. If my intuition was correct, Antero, the head honcho of our group, probably woke everyone up before dawn could even break.

I went into my room and grabbed a towel, some clothes, and the essentials for freshening up in the morning before going back into the hallway. Just as I reached the main bathroom door, it opened and out walked a drenched (in sweat or water, I couldn’t tell) Miina and Jesse looking pleased with themselves.

I raised an eyebrow at the couple when they froze after seeing me there. “Didn’t sleep last night?” I asked in an uninterested tone. Miina glanced at Jesse and giggled before going back into their room.

“We tried not to leave a mess in there,” Jesse added before winking and following his girl toy’s path. I watched in disgust as he closed the door, probably to have yet another session with her. I went into the bathroom quite hesitantly to take my shower and prepare for the day. While in there, I tried my very hardest not to touch anything.

We were all downstairs and ready at exactly 4:45, just as Antero had ordered us to. Five minutes later, our two cars were speeding off towards the closest ski resort, which happened to be about fifteen minutes away. I knew we were about to arrive before we even neared ten miles of the place. A few looming hills and mountains could be seen with some paths going right through the middle of them. They seemed so intimidating that I wish I had had more lessons with Juke.

We all exited the car and started getting our stuff from the trunk when Juke pulled me aside. “Hey, I have something to give you,” he said before pulling out a brand new bright pink snowboard from the pile of them in the back. “This was supposed to be a Christmas present, but I think it would be helpful to you right now…”

I stared in shock at the present, unable to form any words at that moment. I was surprised at his gesture, and surprised that I had received such a great present from him. But it also made me nervous since I had nothing to give back to him, and I would have a few days to think of something before Christmas.

“Thank you so much, Julian,” I said sincerely as I pulled him into a tight embrace, which he returned.

“I’m warming up on the smallest hill here. Anyone joining me?” Katrina asked as she grabbed her stuff.

“I will,” I replied as I finally let go of Julian. The other three girls chimed in too so all the guys were heading off to one of the more challenging courses.

“I’ll see you later, sweetheart,” Lauri said before he pecked Katrina on the lips and walked off to follow Theon, Jesse, and Antero. Juke and I stared shocked at the sight while Katrina avoided eye contact with us and blushed.

“Are you two…together?” I asked. This day was apparently full of surprises.

“Yeah. He asked me out last night,” she said, turning bright right. Her face was probably warm enough to melt the snow off of the entire hill.

I looked at Juke triumphantly. “I guess Jesse finally had the courage to ask her out,” I said with an air of victory in my tone.

Juke looked defeated, knowing there was nothing he could do now that the bet was finally over. “I guess you win,” he mumbled, not wanting anyone to hear the fact that we had made a bet about this. “What are your terms?”

“I haven’t decided yet. I’ll let you know when I think of something good,” I replied with a wide grin on my face as I set off following the girls in the opposite direction as the guys. “I’ll see you later.” I waved to him and went off to spend the rest of my day in the icy weather of Lapland.

Snowboarding with the girls was incredibly fun. They were not competitive in the least bit and we ended up throwing snowballs at each than actually riding down the hill. It wasn’t helpful since we were there to warm up, which we barely did. So when we finally did decide to go up on the big hills with the guys, we weren’t exactly prepared. I was sure we spent more time buried into the snow than riding.

As soon as more people started arriving at the ski resort, the less we got to ride. Antero made a good call on waking up incredibly early if we wanted to get any riding done since by noon, the place was swarming with people. Besides, we were all pretty tired since we had just spent six hours snowboarding. We were all frozen to our clothes, but having too much fun to really care. We ended up going to the lodge anyways for a few hours to have lunch before we went back to the cabin.

The second we got back to the cabin, we all climbed into our beds to make up for lost sleep. Juke and I had practically fallen asleep before our heads even hit the pillow. When I woke up, I was entangled in his arms and ended up waking him up while trying to get up. Since we had nothing to do for the rest of the day, we went over to the other cabin to bug the hell out of Avadria, Theon, Katrina, and Lauri. It seemed as if the whole group was now coupling up.

“So have you decided what you want me to do for losing the bet yet?” Julian asked as I beat him in yet another game of Spit. It was now ten in the evening and the others were all off doing their own things.

I shuffled the deck of cards as a thought slowly started forming in my mind. “Yes, I do. I don’t think you’re going to like it at all though,” I said smirking. “We’re going on a little snowboarding trip.” I set the cards down and got up, walking out the front door towards our cabin.

“What? At this time? Are you crazy?” he asked as he rushed to follow me. I entered the cabin and ran upstairs, grabbing some comfortable, warm clothes to wear outside.

“I believe it was part of the bet, Julian,” I replied, glancing at him. He sighed and started putting on some warmer clothes too before I stopped him. “Oh no, you don’t get to wear those. Snowboarding down a hill at ten in the evening is not nearly as embarrassing as riding down a hill in your boxers at this hour.”

He looked at me wide-eyed. “You really are crazy. It’s freezing out there!”

“That should encourage you to get down the hill faster,” I replied as I started heading downstairs. I waited down there for a bit before Juke finally came down the stairs in just his boxers. I smirked as I handed him a coat. “You can take it off once we get there. And, just because I’m nice, you can ride down the small hill that’s not too far from here. We can walk there.”

He gave me a desperate look as he got the coat on. “I have to walk in this?” he asked, gesturing to his ensemble of a thick winter coat and a pair of boxers.

“You can tough it out for a few minutes,” I replied, opening the door for him. He let out a groan as he stepped out into the blistering cold. It wasn’t far of a walk. I was just looking for the closest hill to our cabin. We finally came across something that was barely a hill, but enough for someone to snowboard down. “Here we are,” I said when we reached the bottom of it. “I don’t know what you’re complaining about; it won’t take you more than five minutes to ride to the bottom.”

“Five minutes in my boxers in freezing cold temperatures is more than enough to make me complain,” Juke whined as he took off his coat and handed it to me. He started walking up the hill while I stayed on the bottom to wait for him so we could walk back together. “If any of those asshole security guards get here, start sprinting towards the cabin. They’ll end up interrogating you for about an hour before finally letting you go with a warning.”

“There are security guards here?” I asked, getting slightly worried.

“Yeah, but they’re usually back at the lodge getting drunk. They like to abuse their power,” he said before continuing his trek up the hill. It took him a few minutes to get the top before he finally strapped on his snowboard. After preparing himself, he started to slowly glide down the hill, picking up speed until he finally halted to a stop close to me. “Happy? Can we get back now?” he asked, his teeth shivering in his mouth.

“Aww, I’ll warm you up a bit,” I said as I wrapped my arms around his bare waist and pulled him close to me. He pulled me into a tight embrace, whether to just be near me or stay warm, I wasn’t sure. “At least I didn’t make you do this naked,” I said into his chest.

“This hug would be pretty awkward if I was naked,” he replied, making me laugh quietly. He was about to say something else when we heard a booming voice called out from nowhere.

“Is someone there?” a man’s gruff yelled out from behind a nearby tree.

I quickly peeled myself off of Juke and looked at him alarmed. “We have to run. This way!” I whispered before running off into one direction behind some trees in the opposite direction of where the voice came from.

The last thing I heard before disappearing behind the woods was Juke saying, “Natalia, wait-“ but I was already gone and sprinting as fast as I could. I assumed that Juke was behind me, but I didn’t want to stop and look in case whoever the intruder was caught up. When I finally reached the cabin, I was breathless and my legs felt as if they were about to break into two. I turned around to wait for Juke, but he wasn’t there.

That’s when I started feeling sick to my stomach. I was already out of breath from the long run, but now my heart was racing because I had no clue where Juke was. The possibility of him getting caught and somehow facing consequences seemed so practical that I was now beginning to worry. I debated going back and looking for him, but that would probably end up with me getting lost. The only thing I could do was wait at the cabin for him arrive.

When I entered, the place was dark and dead quiet. Everyone had obviously gone to bed, oblivious to the fact that Juke and I had snuck off into the night. I threw Juke’s jacket onto the nearest couch and started pacing back and forth in front of the door, peeking out the window occasionally to see if he was outside. After an hour, I was getting exhausted so I lay down on the couch and waited there.

I was just about to drift off into sleep when I heard the front door open, and that’s when I quickly snapped awake and sat up. There, in front of me, was Juke, still in his boxers, only now he had a dark red blanket wrapped around him. He smiled weakly at me.

“What happened? Are you okay? Where were you?” I asked, bombarding poor Juke with questions as he slowly sat down on the couch next to me.

“Don’t worry, I’m alright. It turned out that one of those damn security guards decided to get off of his lazy bum and inspect the area. He found me in a clearing with just my boxers on and assumed I was up to no good so I was out there in the freezing cold weather while he assailed me with his harsh questions,” he replied in an exhausted voice. “He took me back to the lodge, gave me a blanket, and finally let me go with a warning.”

“I’m so sorry! I feel so bad for making you do that now,” I said as looked at him worriedly.

“Don’t worry about it. I did lose the bet so I guess it was just part of the deal,” he said chuckling. “Now can we please go climb into the warm, comfy bed awaiting me upstairs?”

I smiled at him and nodded. He returned the smile before we both lazily went upstairs to get some well-deserved rest.

Author's Note: Thanks to Wifey for the great idea. =D