#I have a huge stupid backstory for both caitlin and spencer

[pongpalace]

The Shark Epidemic

Day One of Charmer Week: Meet-Cute (AU~kinda)

Read on ao3 

It’s a Friday night when Caitlin finally caved to Spencer’s peer pressure and downloaded Tinder onto her phone. Well, less caved into the pressure and more lost the wrestling match and was sat on while Spencer downloaded Tinder onto her phone.

“This is so stupid,” Caitlin said, voice slightly muffled by one of the thousand overstuffed throw pillows that Spencer insisted she needed to sleep with. Somehow they’d started migrating over to Caitlin’s side of their two-bed dorm room.

“You’re stupid,” Spencer replied absently, still tapping on Caitlin’s phone. “I’m just helping you meet people.”

“If I wanted to meet people, I’d be fighting for elbow space at whatever party March and April were talking about,” Caitlin huffed.

All through practice, the volleyball captains had been going on and on about what they were going to wear to the “Haus” that night. It was apparently the place to go for a good time on the weekends, especially before any athletic seasons started. Invitations had been extended to the freshmen through the team group chat after practice, but Caitlin ducked out as soon as it was made this clear that this wasn’t part of the mandatory team bonding that had been taking place throughout the month she’d been at Samwell. She was looking forward to a night in with the new Oceans documentary on Netflix and maybe some popcorn if she decided to brave the walk up to the common room with the microwave. Spencer, her roommate and fellow freshmen setter, had agreed to the night in, but had other plans when the shitty dorm internet made Netflix buffer for too long.

“Jeez, one night off and you get boring,” Spencer tutted, ignoring Caitlin’s groan when she got elbowed as Spencer rolled off Caitlin to lay on her stomach so they could both see the phone screen. “Here, I did all the hard work.”

Caitlin took her phone back and flipped through profile. Her name and age was displayed underneath the same picture she had as her Facebook profile.

“Does Facebook know that I’m on Tinder now?” she asked, flipping through the other three pictures Spencer had chosen to display. Caitlin was lowkey surprised to see that her favourite picture, the one where she stood proudly beside the surfboard her and her mom had spent all summer working on together, made the cut.

Somehow Caitlin both saw and felt Spencer’s eyeroll. “Okay, now I’m surprised that you’ve even heard of Tinder before this. It’s connected to your Facebook, but Facebook won’t post anything.”

“No need to be an asshole.” Caitlin kept scrolling and saw a brief description under her name made almost entirely of emojis. She wasn't sure what the girl flipping her hair emoji meant in this context.

“Oh FYI, I put your preferences as men and women ‘cause I wasn’t sure, but you can totally change it.” Despite Spencer’s flippant tone, she wasn’t looking at Caitlin and was biting at her bottom lip; a tell that Caitlin had come to recognize as nervousness under Spencer’s devil-may-care attitude. Caitlin was sure she’d get sat on again if she brought attention to it though so she just shrugged.

“That’s fine,” she said. 

Sexuality had been an open topic in her house growing up so she’d been able to come to terms with her attraction to both genders and sometimes forgot that not everyone was as lucky. It’d been awhile since she needed to come out to anyone and now, retrospectively, forgotten she hadn’t gotten around to doing that with the volleyball team yet.

“Me too.” Spencer still wasn’t looking at Caitlin and actually looked like she was going chew right through her lip, so despite Caitlin wanting to thank her for trusting her with the moment like her sister turned LGBT counsellor would have, Caitlin just knocked their shoulders together before adding three emoji hearts to her description; pink, purple, and blue. She saved it.

“So how do I use this now?” she asked.

Spencer, no longer chewing on her lip, took the phone back and flipped to a different screen. “Okay. People around close to us are gonna pop up and you swipe right if you like ‘em-” she demonstrated the right swipe on the first picture that loaded: a bright-eyed Asian guy smiling widely in a San Jose Sharks sweatshirt. “-or left if you don’t.” She swiped left on the next picture: a blond guy in wire frame glasses.

“Oh damn, he was cute.” Spencer frowned.

“Aw do they know if I swipe left on them?”

“Nah. You match with someone when you’ve both swiped right on each other.”

“So everyone I’m uh, swiping on has already swiped right on me?”

“No, they’re just everyone in your range. I set that to like a 10 mile radius so you’re most likely just swiping on people from the university by the way.” Spencer tossed Caitlin’s phone back and got up to get hers off the dock where it’d been charging.

“Wait.” Caitlin caught the phone, brow furrowed as she takes in the new picture on the screen: a girl with an insane undercut. She swiped right and a message appeared on the screen informing her that it’s a match and giving her tips on how to start a conversation that she would not be taking. “Then how do I know if they swiped right on me if they haven’t seen my profile yet?”

“You get a notification thing later, kinda. I dunno Farmer, just start swiping, jesus.” Spencer’s attention was already back on her phone, which was also opened to Tinder and the rest of their Friday night passed in a matter of left and right swipes, with the Oceans documentary finally loaded and playing in the background.

Tinder was actually much more enjoyable than Caitlin had originally anticipated; there was something soothing about the repeated swiping. Through trial and error, a couple of accidental right swipes on guys pictured with douchey sunglasses, she figured out that by touching on people’s pictures she could get to their profile pages and read their descriptions.

Surprisingly, some were really fucking funny.  

“Holy shit, Spence, listen to this-” Caitlin pushed Spencer off her stomach so she could sit up, reaching for the spacebar on her laptop to pause Netflix. She cleared her throat to read out the description as dramatically as possible. “‘If murdered, I want a closed-casket funeral. However, towards the end of the service, please have the organist play “Pop Goes The Weasel” over and over, until everyone in attendance is staring at my coffin with mute horrified antici- anticipation.”” Caitlin was laughing so hard by the end that she was pretty sure Spencer couldn't understand her, but Spencer grabbed the phone the read the description herself. She started laughing too.

“Oh my god.” Spencer had tears of laughter streaming down her. “Please tell me you swiped right! No, let me find them and swipe right! We’re soulmates!”

Sometime around 11 they restarted the documentary after Caitlin realized they had laughed through most of it as they compared Tinder bios and pictures. She still got distracted by her phone though as messages started coming in along with notifications of new matches. The first message that Caitlin opened was a straight up, literally, dick pic. She yelled and dropped her phone on her face when she opened it.

“Jesus christ, no hello?”

“Welcome to tinder babe.” Spencer patted her shin while stealing Caitlin’s phone with her other hand. “Oh HELLO.”

Caitlin snatched her phone back to look at the other, written, messages she’d gotten. Most were generic hi’s or hello’s, and some were really cheesy pick up lines that had to have been googled. While she was working on a reply to one guy’s piss baby reaction to her not replying to him within five minutes of his first message, another message popped up. She swiped over to it to watch two more messages join the first.

Chris: [(hearteyes emoji)]

Chris: [ur gorgeous]

Chris: [u’re*]

Caitlin tapped into to his profile and saw it was the smiling Asian guy that Spencer had swiped right on for her demonstration. His description was empty so she settled for swiping through his photos, wondering if it was worth replying. Black, turquoise, and sharks of all varieties were prevalent themes in his photos, including the one where he was dressed in full goalie gear; San Jose jersey stretched across his chest and helmet covered in realistic sharks. Other than that photo, he was pictured smiling widely, showing off a mouthful of braces. Caitlin went into the conversation, amused by the guy’s obsession.

Me: [how do you feel about the shark epidemic?]

She pressed send, turned off the screen on the phone and dropped it on the bed, unsure if she expected or wanted a reply. Sure, he wore black and turquoise well, and she was pretty sure he had dimples, but that opening line left something to be desired. Maybe he’d have a sense of humour in his response though.

“Another dick pic?” Spencer asked, craning her neck back to look at Caitlin. She’d moved so she was halfway down the bed, her feet hanging off the edge and probably touching the ground. It couldn’t be comfortable, but she’d been intently swiping at her phone in that position for the last 20 minutes so what did Caitlin know?

“No.”

“Damn.”

“Get your own dick pics.”

“Ew, no thank you. I don’t want that on my phone.”

Caitlin kicked her side, and tilted the laptop screen so she could see the brightly coloured fish better.

*****

Caitlin woke up to a stupid amount of notifications on the Tinder app. Still cuddled under her blankets, she had to laugh as she went through them; the decline of coherent spelling in the messages as the timestamps got later was a hilarious example of everything she hoped university would be. The increase of sexual messages was less so. She had just finished blocking one guy who used their message thread as one might use a void to angrily shout in, when she noticed that she’d missed a reply from Chris in the mess of drunk messages. She went into the thread; jaw actually dropping as she read through it.

Chris: [If by 'epidemic' you mean the alarming rate at which sharks are disappearing from the ocean, I think the culling of sharks is a direct response to the fear mongering of the mainstream media that’s been consistent for the last forty years or so in order to keep beaches 'safer.' That sharks are dying prematurely outside of being killed by humans, is a reflection on how little is being done in terms of controlling global warming as the whole oceanic ecosystem is being disturbed. What little information is available about this in comparison to the widespread articles about sharks attacking humans reflects on the cultural mindset that sharks are 'bad', when in reality sharks are only naturally reacting to their homes be invaded. They were here first after all.]

Chris: [also, I’m so sorry if these messages woke you! It took me a while to type them out (smiley face emoji)]

Chris: [okay, have a good night! (smiley face emoji) (smiley face emoji)]

Caitlin kicked off her blankets, almost tripping when she jumped out of bed and they were still wrapped around her feet. She jumped onto Spencer’s bed, ignoring the groan of protest to dig through the pillow fort that Spencer slept in. After knocking aside the pillows and blankets, Caitlin found Spencer: messy haired and glaring through bleary eyes.  

“What.” The lack of infliction might have been threatening if not for the pillow creases across her face.

“You gotta see this.” Caitlin shoved her phone, screen bright, into Spencer’s face.

“This better be a nice fucking dick pic Farmer,” she said, rubbing her eyes and stretching to grab her glasses off her nightstand. She took the phone to read the message once she could see.

Caitlin sat back, clutching a pillow, watching Spencer’s eyebrows raise as they moved across the screen.

“Better than a dick pic?” Caitlin grinned when she finished. Chris had hit all the points in Caitlin’s own rant about sharks and the ocean. Though she hoped her biology major would focus on deep ocean tidal patterns, Caitlin had a vested interest in all sea life that came from living right next to the ocean for most of her life.

“Way better than a dick pic.” Spencer handed the phone back.

“How do I reply?” Caitlin stared at the screen, thumbs moving over but not touching the keyboard. Honestly, Chris’s reply was better than anything she had expected; she wanted to make her own reply just as good.

“Can you figure it out in your own bed?” Spencer asked, replacing the pillows around her. “Some of us are enjoying the Saturday off.” Her voice came out muffled, under the blankets already, and Caitlin took the hint and knee walked off the bed, only slightly jostling the bed on purpose. She threw her phone onto her own bed, grabbing her toiletry bag to go brush her teeth and wash her face.

She thought about what to say the whole time she brushed her teeth, staring at herself in the badly lit bathroom. She thought about what to say while patted her face dry, wondering what it was that Chris was looking for on Tinder. She thought about it on the walk down the hallway, slippers slapping loudly against her heels. She was still thinking about it when she let herself back into her room, but she still hadn’t thought of anything clever or witty to reply with as she slipped back under her covers. She stared at the blank screen.

The thing was, though she’d joined Tinder under duress of her roommate’s bony ass, Caitlin didn’t necessarily object to the idea of meeting someone, even if it was via a stupid hookup app. Honestly, she wasn’t sure what expectations she had of Tinder, but now, not even 24 full hours after having the damn app, it had somehow both fallen short and exceeded expectations and that in and of itself was annoying. Add in Chris’s well written message and fuck. Caitlin wanted to meet him to see if he’d fall short or not.

“You’re thinking too hard,” Spencer said from under the pillows.

“Shut up.” Caitlin unlocked her phone and went into the message, typing quickly and pressing send before she could think too hard about it.

Me: [any chance you wanna get coffee sometime? (smiley face emoji)]

Yep. That was out in the world now. Caitlin locked the screen; did it seem too forward? Well, if she hadn’t scared Chris off with her shark question, she probably wouldn’t scare him off with the coffee invitation. Probably. Caitlin rolled onto her stomach so she could groan into a pillow without Spencer commenting on it. She took two deep breath and told herself she would not let his response, or lack thereof, ruin her weekend. She still had conditioning tomorrow and that would be what ruined it.

Caitlin’s phone buzzed, once and then twice. She reached back blindly to grab it, rolling over when her arm wasn’t long enough. She unlocked it onto the conversation where two new messages were waiting.

Chris: [oh wow I didn’t think you’d reply--that was a reallllllllllllly long paragraph to get through (nerd smiley face emoji)]

Chris: [also, I’m sorry if the first message was too much. apparently my drunk teammates break into phones for fun (eye roll emoji) I’m glad they did though (blushy face emoji)]

Caitlin huffed a laugh and another message popped up while she was staring at the conversation.

Chris: [coffee would be s’awesome! (grin emoji) (coffee mug emoji)]

“What’d he say?”

Caitlin jumped at Spencer’s voice.

“I thought you were enjoying your Saturday off,” she said, but she chucked her phone across the gap between the beds.

“Your Tinder feels are keeping me up,” Spencer said, smiling and rolling her eyes while she read through. “You’re welcome by the way.” She tossed the phone back, screen still unlocked and Caitlin read two new messages, one of which she apparently wrote.

Me: [is now a good time?]

Chris: [yeah it's great! I haven’t tried Annie’s yet, but hear it has really good (coffee mug emoji) ..?]

“I can set up my own Tinder things,” Caitlin said, glaring. She typed out a confirmation that Annie’s worked and that she’d see Chris there in 20 minutes, before kicking off her blankets for the second time that morning.

“Get dressed, c’mon! You need to look good!”

With a very opinionated commentary from the peanut gallery, Caitlin got pulled on black leggings and an oversized denim shirt, leaving her 18 minutes to get to Annie’s.

“Good thing hipster chic is in,” Spencer said, while Caitlin tried not to stab herself in the eye while doing her mascara.

“I’m not the one who set the time.” Caitlin capped the mascara and considered her hair for a second before pulling it up into an impressively messy bun. She wrapped her scarf around her neck, shrugged on her puffy vest, stepped into her Docs, and turned to Spencer for inspection, arms spread. “Look okay?”

Spencer looked her up and down. “Good enough for a coffee date.”

“Asshole,” Caitlin shook her head, checked her pockets for her phone and cards and left.

“You’re welcome!” Spencer called after her.

She made it to Annie’s with two minutes to spare from when she said she’d meet Chris. He wasn’t there yet. It was still relatively early on a Saturday morning so she had her pick of tables to sit at while she waited. She picked one near the door, smiling at the tired looking student barista behind the counter as she sat and pulled out her phone to double check Chris’s picture to make sure she’d recognize him.

She really shouldn’t have bothered though. Chris was easily recognizable when he walked in exactly two minutes later, dressed in a Sharks hoodie under a plaid button up smiled widely when he caught sight of Caitlin. His braces flashed. Caitlin stood up so he wouldn’t tower over her.

“Oh wow. You’re really beautiful,” he said, cheeks colouring slightly but his smile never wavering.

Caitlin stuck out a hand, finding Chris’s grin contagious. “I’m Caitlin.”

Chris took it. “Chris. It’s s’awesome to meet you.”

*This takes place in the same alternative "Nursey-isn't-on-SMH" universe as this