#i LOOOOOOVE when y'all send me asks like this like yesssss i wanna read your concepts ur own au ideas

[poppy-metal]

So I’ve sent a few asks about this since i'm not a challengers blog lmao but i feel like ive got this sorted now. This is a polycule au where reader enters via Tashi.

Reader is Tashi’s childhood best friend. They met at a day camp for kids in the neighborhood, and you were excited to let her babble on about tennis and sports and everything else. You traded hair ties and discovered you have the same favorite movie and that was that. 

You were interested in tennis for a bit, an eager little kid, really just excited to have a best friend. Your parents were a bit concerned - don't you want other friends? She seems a little... overbearing... - but you didn’t care. This wasn’t just another kid - this was Tashi. Fire and ice, determination and grit, strength and beauty... You didn’t realize you were falling in love, you were just a kid. But that first love - when given the opportunity - can grow into its own beast. Spin the bottle might have been the first kiss you two share (and your first kiss ever), and it probably should have hurt your feelings more when she told you you were a terrible kisser later that night, but she offered to teach you and you tried to ignore the way your mouth went dry at the thought of tasting her again.

But despite your best efforts, as you drift away from tennis and into the pageant circuit, you and Tashi drift apart too. She still drags you out to do doubles for fun, but you can tell it bothers her that you aren’t as passionate about it as she is. It was her idea to write letters in college - she was flopped out on your bed, looking like a goddess in her tiny pajama shorts. She said it was convenient, you couldn’t help the way your heart skipped a beat. You’d been scared that she might just leave you - find a friend with a passion and drive that matched hers. But she wanted you around. Even tried to set you up with Art one time, the four of you crammed in a booth at some shitty diner. You decided then that you hated both boys - you’d heard their names in her letters, tried to ignore the way jealousy coiled in your chest every time they looked at her.

After her injury though... she just drifted away. By the time Lily was born, she rarely wrote back, to your texts or emails. It was too hard - you understood tennis as a game, but not in the way she did. Besides, you were solidly from before. Before the injury, before the marriage, before any of it. In her mind, you were pure. She couldn’t taint that with her pain and loss. You tried reaching out to Art, but he brushed you off.  You ran into Patrick a few years later, at a shitty hotel. You’d almost kissed him - the heat of the moment and the history making desire twist with guilt in your stomach and you’d practically ran from the bar.

But that didn’t mean you stopped writing. And that made everything worse - why couldn’t you be more like Patrick, take a hint, let her go, let her slip fully into her after. But you never forgot a birthday - an ever growing collection of cards and letters in a box under her bed. You’d wondered, sometimes, if she read them. The letters got shorter and shorter as your own life drifted away from you. Empty friendships, empty relationships... it should have alarmed you, the way your life became grey without her. 

After the Challenger, when Patrick was back in their life, he was looking for something of Art’s when he found that shoebox under her bed. The last few letters are unopened - you’d stopped including any details of interest by now, and she couldn’t bear to read the nothingness. You used to fill pages - now you barely covered the front of one.

But despite late night conversations while Tashi was getting ready for bed, neither Patrick nor Art ever felt like it was their place to say anything. Patrick would poke and prod, but never actually did anything. 

It would be another year of radio silence before fate intervened. At this point in your life, you were working as a personal assistant for some big-wig sports sponsor, an overbearing man with wandering hands - but he pays you well, and your contract has a year or so left in it anyways.

The party had barely started when someone taps you on your shoulder. You’d been flitting around in a blush gown, debriefing the staff and restocking tables. You spin, expecting another waiter with a question, but Art’s blue eyes widened as they met yours. He hadn’t recognized you from behind - looking for answers about where to put their coats, but now you were both staring, brains whirring, trying to think of what to say. And you can’t stop  yourself from scanning the room, a million questions swirling in your mind. Is she here? Did she know I was here? Eventually, you and Art are able to get through the awkward conversation, as you try to keep your eyes from traveling the entirety of his form - older, but still muscled, and the crows feet around his eyes only served to increase his attractiveness.

You’d flit away again, your heart pounding in your chest. You still hadn’t seen Tashi - was she even here? It would be a few hours before Patrick would confront you at the bar. You’d finally gotten away from your boss, throwing back a shot surreptitiously. 

“Is he always like that?” He asked, leaning back against the bar, up in your space the way he’d been all those years ago. 

“Hmm?” Was all you could manage, the shock and the alcohol making your mind move slower than normal.

“Your boss. Is he always so touchy?” You don’t answer that, putting your shot glass back on the bar and flitting away again.You’d hosted a thousand parties with your boss - why are they here now?

It was almost midnight by the time you finally see Tashi - you’d been washing your hands in the women's bathroom when she came out of the stall behind you and you both froze. Your brain was running a mile a minute, you weren’t even sure if you were breathing, all those feelings from decades ago coming up your throat.

“It’s good to see you.” Was all she said before slipping out of the bathroom. You find yourself leaning heavily against the sink, just trying to catch your breath.

Tashi would say that it was seeing you with your boss that pushed her over the edge into bringing you back into her life. But both Patrick and Art know that it wouldn’t have mattered if she had seen you with your shitty boss, happily married with kids, or in the height of your career. One look at you was enough.

aw, this one HURT what the hell ☹️☹️☹️☹️ the continued letters :((((( them slowly getting more and more lifeless the more that times passes and the more listless she becomes :(((( i imagine she stops hoping for tashi's reply, probably stops thinking tashi reads them at all - just vents like its a diary - she could buy an actual diary but something about the letters and knowing where they'll end up gives you comfort. you talk about failed dates and how you dont feel like you're built for love, dont think its meant for you. think you're probably always meant to doll it out and not receive it and how its okay and you accept it and you dont resent her for leaving - especially after her injury, you get it - except sometimes you get angry and your letters have tear stains on them with blurred ink lines and you write about how you understand how hurt and devastated tashi must have been and still must be, but why couldn't she let you be there for her? why weren't you enough? why did she accept love from art years later but never sends a letter back to you? why does he get grace from that time in your life, but you dont? what did you do to deserve it?

those are the letters tashi almost replies to - the angry ones - she gets as far as putting a pen to paper but can never find the words to explain how the reminder of you, after her injury, was just too much to bear - all her passion and ferocity and girlish zeal were wrapped up tightly and bound to you - even though you didn't play tennis - you reminded her of everything playing tennis used to make her feel. euphoric. how can she explain thinking of you made her sick to her stomach and by the time she'd gotten to a place where she could stand on her own two feet again. allow love back into her life through art - that she'd simply felt the weight of her cruelty too intensely. she couldn't apologize. she couldn't bear seeing the betrayal in your eyes, the hurt, the wound she'd caused. tashi was tough - but not when it came to you. you'd rip her right open. so she never replied. and eventually, it became too much to read them too.

and art probably knows about you - it's kind of hard not to notice his wife getting letters continuously. he asks about them, and tashi tells them they're from you and arts thinks 'oh.' he feels bad for you, he remembers you - remembers that time tashi tried to set you on a double date and it went miserably because art was too much of a loser back then to know how to treat a woman - and he'd still been very much in love with tashi. you'd been sweet, though. down to earth, kind, funny. he could tell you and tashi adored eachother. he doesn't read any of your letters, but he sees the expression on tashi's face kind of - shrink whenever she gets one - and he recommends only once, "why dont you return it?" but the glare she'd sent him had been enough that he'd never brought it up again. he wanted to ask more about you. had an inkling there was something more there under the surface - something romantic even, but he never knew how to go about asking. you were a touchy subject. it made him endlessly curious, despite himself.

and patrick - patrick probably hurt the worst. tashi marrying art - not being invited to the wedding - it'd hurt, badly. you'd written her many letters about just how much it hurt - but with patrick. it felt like a slap to the face. you and patrick - you felt a kinship with him. you hadn't bonded until well after college, not until years later, when you ran into him one night at a local bar. but catching up with him felt as easy as breathing, and like you'd known him all your life. he was self-deprecating and annoyingly flirtatious and haunted. he asked you about a tattoo you had on your wrist with a finger skimming the mark there and you'd breathed in. and that was it. you spent hours talking about tashi, spooling your guts out - and he did the same. you realized you had a connection there - you'd never been around patrick much when he dated tashi but you could tell he still loved her. just like you did. art too, though you didn't know the man well enough to mourn his absence from your life, other than to be stung that he apparently was more deserving of tashi than you were.

you'd almost went home with him - you could tell he wanted to. and the shared pain you felt drew you to him, you couldn't lie. patrick zweig was attractive and and you knew a night with him would treat you well. he'd make you cum - many times, probably. but the thing that stopped you was the very reason you were called to do it in the first place. god, was everything in your life about tashi? every goddamn thing? even your hookups? patrick wanted you, he definitely thought you were hot, but the peak of his desire came from wanting to have something of tashi's. to be closer to her - or to back at her. he'd make you cum, but it wouldn't be about you, or even for you. you couldn’t even be mad at him for wanting it - because for a moment, you wanted it too. to have something of tashi's - both to be closer to her and to spite her. but that's not who you were, at the end of the day.

you just didn't have it in you to play games.

patrick didn't take it hard. just gave you a half crooked smile and gave you his number if you ever changed your mind. the paper sat folded up in a pocket in your wallet for years to come. never used, but never tossed out.

it would be a few years later - working on an event for your gross boss that you saw the match on screen. catching snatches of it between your rounds of attending to guests, before tuning in fully on your break. breathless and nearly nose pressed to the screen as you watched all three of them come together in the most beautiful match of tennis you'd ever seen in your life. watching art and patrick embrace across the net made your eyes burn. when you saw tashi smile you turned the TV off.

a week later patrick was in the news, pictures of him seen with tashi and art on every article online. you couldn’t escape from their image - pictures of the three of them at a dinner - coming out of the movies. one of tashi and patrick seen laughing at a premiere. another of art and patrick relaxing on beach chairs.

it felt like being stabbed in the chest. the connection you felt with patrick severed. you didn't share anything. he was still chosen, in the end, when you weren't. you threw his number out. crumpled and barely eligible anyway.

you stop writing tashi after that. you doubt she'd notice. it was time you stopped being pathetic and let go. she probably threw the letters away the second she got them. art probably thought you were a nuisance. patrick probably thought you were a joke.

you move through life on autopilot for some time. you tune out news about anything related to tennis. you throw yourself into your job - that you hate. but what can you do? it puts food on the table and a roof over your head and yeah your boss gets handsy and makes inappropriate comments but its worth it kind of because he pays you extra and that means you get to buy the fancy ramen. the kind with actual beef tips in it.

its just any other night, refilling guests drinks - managing the bar when it's unattended - flitting around to see if anyone needed anything. your outfit was bordering on inappropriate - akin to that of a maid - black and white and shorter than necessary, especially for a high brow event such as this. but it was what your boss made all the women wear, so you couldn't complain. and yeah, maybe your skirt was shorter than anyone elses but if you just were conscious enough of your surroundings and keeping the hem from raising, it was manageable.

seeing art is like a bucket of ice being dumped on your head. turning around to see his startled expression feels almost comical. his suit and tie in comparison to your near slutty get up is humiliating beyond belief but you simply paste a smile on your face and pretend like seeing him and what it means that hes here hasn't just made your brain short circuit - you act like he's any other guest. pluck his coat from his arm and tell him if he needs anything to please let you know. you hope he doesn't. you hope he leaves you the hell alone.

if seeing art was ice seeing patrick at the bar feels like being tossed into a fireplace. you feel your skin heat just from him being close. your nose twitches at his comment - patrick was always more perceptive than people gave him credit for - but you didn't want to linger around to entertain him. if he thought he could just talk to you like he did the last time you two talked - like he hadn't spit in your face - he was wrong.

and if seeing patrick was like being thrown in a pit of fire seeing tashi in the bathroom was like being shot through the heart. a bullet entering your sternum. breaking all your bones that'd been paper thin anyway and tearing apart all your lungs and viens and cartilage. beautiful as the day you'd last seen her. somehow even more gorgeous with time and in the flesh. her beauty could never be captured completely by a camera or on a screen, though. it was the kind that shone best in person. because she glowed. she was effervescent. you wanted to die.

"its good to see you."

its good to see you.

over and over again in your head long after the door swings shut behind her. its good to see you like there wasn't a decade of unaccounted time between you. its good to see you like there weren't a thousand unanswered letters between you. its good to see you like you were passing acquaintances. nothing more.

you wash your hands in the sink three times. you fix your skirt, though it does absolutely nothing to do so. you go back outside and you deliberately avoid their table and when your boss pulls you to the side and slides a hand down your arm and tells you, you look like you need a break - you look at him and you know you can do what you usually do, which is act stupid and say no thank you or simply act like you dont know what he wants from you until he gets bored. but then you feel the empty pit in your chest that the bullet left ravaged, and you know you need something to fill it. even if that something will make you hate yourself.

you dont beat around the bush.

"can you take me home after work?"

your boss grins. you smile back, it feels wooden on your face.

"sure i can, sweetheart."