Life With Ice (An Ice Bear x Reader Story)

Chapter 6: Another Icy Night

   You woke with a start in the middle of the night and began rummaging through your makeshift room for your phone. You were covered in a thin layer of cold sweat from a nightmare that you can't fully remember, and you wanted to know what time it was. Ever since you moved in with the Bears a month ago, you'd changed your schedule to wake up earlier than usual so you could balance work, your internship, and helping Ice with the housework, but this...Felt way to early to be getting up.

   Your hand finally bumps against the phone beside your pillow and you turn it on, your eyes shutting in pain as the screen's bright light floods your face. It was 1:27 AM; three and a half more hours of sleep before your alarm would wake you up to start your day. You groan at the thought and try to turn over in your blankets before realizing that you can't go back to sleep. 'Something doesn't feel right.' you think to yourself, deciding not to ignore the strange feeling in your stomach.

   Quietly, as to not wake up the three brothers, you get out of bed and slip on your sneakers before walking out the front door of the cave to get some air. You stared up at the late night/early morning sky, marveling at how starry the sky can be, once outside of city limits. You let out a breath and notice a small cloud of steam, reminding you that nights are starting to get colder now that it's early autumn  Your mind began to drift off, thinking about the past month living with the bears. You'd quit your job at the karaoke lounge and now worked at the skating rink where you and the Bears had first hung out  together.

   Living with Ice, Panda, and Grizz was one of the best things that happened to you since you moved out of Alaska and over the past month, the three bears had become your absolute best friends. Panda was sweet and shy and felt like a little brother to you; he was a hopeless romantic type and was teaching you how to draw manga. To thank him, you'd set him up on a blind date with one of your friends at Googs named Petra, and the two seemed to really hit it off.

   Grizz was great, too, and out of the three brothers, he matched your bubbly, energetic personality the most. The two of you were always pulling hilarious pranks  on Pan-Pan, Ice, and Charlie, and were thinking of starting a prank channel together. He even offered you a part in the fourth installment of Crow-Bar Jones, which you immediately accepted, of course.

Then, there was Ice. From the moment you'd met him, you knew he was quirky, but now that you'd gotten to know him by living with him for a month, you realized that he was more than just wonderfully weird. If past lives exist, then he was surely a god or at the very least a Navy S.E.A.L. captain. He was effortlessly good at almost everything (except maybe speaking in first person), and the things he wasn't so great at was mainly because of his broken arm. During the past month alone, you'd learned so much from him by simply being his helper and earning your keep- it was like you were his protege. Though Ice didn't speak much, you had grown the closest to him since the beginning of your stay; perhaps it was the secret enmity that both of you shared with that mysterious group with the fire/gear symbol, or the fact that he'd risked his life to help you salvage remnants of your own during the fire, but you felt a deeper level of trust with him than anyone else.

   Thinking of Ice Bear while looking up at the glittery sky made you blush slightly to yourself. "Idiot...Why are you blushing?" you murmur to yourself. You're abruptly yanked out of your thoughts as you hear a 'schling' sound of an axe being sharpened coming from the shed. Turning to the direction of the sound, you look and see the blue lights from Roomba emanating from the shed windows.

   "What the hell?" you blurt out, walking over to the shed cautiously. As far as you knew, everybody else was in bed and besides, Ice didn't really like people rummaging around in the shed too much. You opened the door slightly, only to see Ice with the most enraged expression on his face, sharpening a rather large axe. There was a direct urgency to his movements, but he still fumbled a little, being that his better arm was in a cast.

   Ice finally finished sharpening his axe and turned to leave the shed, Roomba following after him, but stopped dead in his tracks when he saw you in the doorway. Your eyes locked with his and your arms crossed over your chest before asking "Where are you going this early in the morning and why are you taking that axe?" You weren't mad or "disappointed", but your voice came out in barely a whisper and dripped with concern for the quiet polar bear. Was he going out to do something that he'd later regret? If it wasn't something that he WOULD regret, will it be something that he at least SHOULD regret?

   Ice stares at you with wide eyes for what seems like an eternity. You can tell that he wasn't used to being caught with his figurative pants down; he was the secretive, strong brother that no one ever suspected, and you had just walked in on him and his double life by chance. "Ice Bear...Needs to help a friend...Run an errand." he finally answered, unsure on if you'd just let him leave it at that. You raised an eyebrow at him, not budging an inch.

   "With an axe, Ice? In the middle of the night? With a broken arm?" you ask. You see a look of determination spark in his eyes, as though he suspects you're gonna try and stop him from whatever he's about to do and he's made the choice to do it, anyways. You sigh and look over your shoulder before returning your gaze into the bear in front of you. "Listen, Ice, I'm not going to stop you from whatever it is you want to do...I hope you don't hurt anybody, and that includes yourself ... The point is, is that I promised that I'd help you until your arm gets better, and I can't help you with whatever this is if you aren't gonna tell me, y'know?" you say, the last bit of your speech coming off way more emotional than you'd wanted.

    "Whatever this 'errand' is that your friend needs you to do, I'm coming along, too. You could get hurt carrying an axe around with one hand like that." Ice is quiet for a minute, the anger had melted from his face, and the eyes that stared back into yours were still determined, but we're gentler as they measured you up. "Ice Bear's errand isn't safe for Y/N." He answered, trying to walk around you, trying to softly push you back in the direction of the house.
  
   Something lit up inside you when he said this, and you whipped around to face him again. "You rushing into a burning building and helping me wasn't safe for you, either, Ice, but you did it because friends care about each other and if you care about someone, you help them! I'm going to help you, Ice, so you might as well drop the tough guy act and let me come along!" Your hand flew to your mouth after you yelled this, half of your brain hoping that you didn't wake Grizz and Panda, and the other half of your brain shocked that you just admitted to Ice AND yourself how much you cared about him by how far you'd go to help him.

   Ice's cheeks were flushed pink and he let out a small sigh of resignation before making space in his Roomba for both of you to ride. Their was a small gleam of respect, admiration, and... something else in his face as he looked at you, reaching out his casted arm for you to grab. You grab hold of it, and the two of you head off towards the city....

A/N.: Haaaaiiii, guys! 😅Sorry for the long hiatus. I recently got writers' block and a new part time job, so I've been slightly busier than normal. My bad. I'm gonna try and be more consistent with you all, because you guys deserve that. Thanks for all the reads, votes, and comments, too!