#sasha your whole club is terribly in love with you how will you respond

[ratatatastic]

another child has come out toddling of the woodworks to moon over siboney and in other news the sky is blue

feat. a sasha mention because god forbid the sasha love chip that gets implanted into every kitties brain once they become part of this team ever fails like oh we are speaking of other players well coincidentally sasha-

Primetime Panthers | 12.11.24 (x)

[artificialqueens]

If Samson and Delilah Lived Happily Ever After (Sashea) - Melon

A/N: The slam poets AU nobody ever asked for. Shea is an ethereal goddess and Sasha is unprepared. This is my first fic, so any and all criticism is welcomed. Don’t worry about seeming rude, I have a thick skin!

The bar is cold and filled with people, but the heat of their tiny bodies stood no chance of warming the large space. Chatter, fast and meaningless, drifts through Sasha’s body, leaving as quickly as it came.

She likes it.

Nobody attempts to speak to her, and she doesn’t mind. It isn’t the kind of bar a person goes to with intentions of making new friends. Perhaps next week Sasha would bring Peppermint, let her bright energy fill Sasha’s time and mind.

But for now, Sasha is content with sipping the surprisingly affordable drink she’d ordered, watching the people around her socialize.

The bartender, Aja, tops off Sasha’s drink with a smile and a promise of conversation once she’s dealt with her other customers.

Aja and Sasha knew each other through a series of bad decisions made on a drunken night with mutual friends. They shared a sacred bond. When Aja invited Sasha to a poetry night at the bar she worked at, Sasha knew she’d be attending; friendships built off body shots deserve at least a second outing.

Sasha lets her mind drift, lets her eyes dance between various strangers’ faces, before settling back on a now seated Aja.

“Any other night and I’d be out of here as soon as my shift ended, but sis, Shea’s performing tonight and I’m not about to go missing that. She doesn’t come around enough anymore,” Aja says, her excitement for the coming hour infecting Sasha. Aja has a particular way of doing things, that way being that she would show up for people she deems interesting, and drop off the face of the planet with anyone else. Sasha supposes she must be one of the former.

“Is she any good?” Sasha asks, still half in her own world, but enjoying the click of Aja’s long nails on the bar and the way she doesn’t seem to give a fuck. “I’ve never heard of her before.”

“Girl, she’s so good, you might fall in love with her before she leaves the stage. Gotta be careful with girls like Shea Couleé,” Aja throws back at Sasha, aware that most people fell for Shea Couleé. She’s just that kind of person. Despite Sasha’s grumble of doubt, Aja knows. Nobody sees Shea perform and leaves without at least a small crush on her.

This time, Aja hopes the feeling will be mutual.

The bar is still bitingly cold, but as the lights dim in preparation for the show, it thrums with impatience. The whole room is muted, waiting to be brought to life. Even Aja fades a little as the stage lights come on.

Sasha’s thoughts are interrupted by the unmistakeable sound of heels against hardwood and the shuffle of people backstage. Moments later, God arrives. Or, at the very least, a demigod among mortals.

Tall, toned, long hair and longer legs - in walks a woman who screams elegance, but whispers meet me out back if you’ve got a problem with it. Sasha’s a goner at her first word.

“To everyone who hasn’t been here before, I am Shea Couleé, and I’m here to talk about everything your mama warned you not to mention at thanksgiving dinner,” the woman, Shea, says with a wink and a devilish grin.

Sasha watches intently as Shea goes through her introduction, enthralled by the way she takes a concept and turns it into a symphony. She isn’t concise; she doesn’t need to be. Shea uses too many words to describe simple things, ambles through her speech without much regard to brevity. To capture Sasha’s attention is easy, but to hold it proven near impossible, and Shea held her attention far longer than acceptable. Sasha wants to understand the way her brain works, with her too-many words and too-few things to say.

Sasha is acutely aware that she is staring. Intently. She is also suddenly aware that Shea is staring back. Fuck.

———-

Shea isn’t planning on performing any of her better pieces tonight, not particularly proud of anything on her docket, but they were all presentable. Tonight, hosting and performing, she doesn’t feel the need to waste one of her newer perfections. One of her older pieces will do.

She opens the show with one of their regulars, Farrah, who has potential but a lot of improving to do. Farrah’s barely old enough to get into the bar, never mind drink. However, her bubblegum pink feminism appeals to the disenfranchised youth of the room, making her a favorite.

Shea scans the audience, searching for familiar faces before spotting Aja. Before spotting the woman next to Aja.

Shea sees her, and it’s like looking through a fish-eye lens. The room - no, the whole world curves around her, making a halo of frizzy hair and glittering lips the center of Shea’s attention. Her aesthetic says revolution, but her expression says I never stop thinking. It’s utterly intoxicating. Shea wants her.

She’s looking right at Shea, like maybe she wants Shea right back.

Shea isn’t even on stage any more, she’s off to the side, watching the crowd react to Farrah’s prose. She isn’t supposed to be the focal point, but this woman doesn’t seem to realize, nor care. She wouldn’t look away. Neither could Shea.

People had looked at Shea like she was the only person on Earth before. People had looked at Shea like she held the world under her tongue before. Hell, people had even made Shea feel both of those were undeniable truths of the universe before.

Not like this woman, though. Never so without inhibition, such totality, before they’d so much as shared words.

Shea doesn’t even know her name. Shea needs to know her name.

Pulling out her phone, Shea quickly begins typing up a messy, practically incoherent mush of words and stanzas. She motions to a member of the staff, whispering she needs to be moved to the closing spot. She doesn’t even look up as he nods, doesn’t watch as he rearranges the schedule. The entire time, Shea feels the woman’s eyes on her.

When Shea finally looks up, finding the woman watching the stage intently, her stomach twists with jealousy. She knows it’s ridiculous to expect a woman at a poetry night to not watch the performers, but she misses the rush of feeling like the only important person in the room.

Shea Couleé does not believe in love at first sight, but goddamn if this woman doesn’t make her want to.

Shea wants to know her; wants to know how she likes her coffee, if she gets cold easily, or has a bad immune system, or if she looks at everyone with the same electricity in her eyes.

It’s annoying as fuck.

In between introducing acts, Shea types. She can’t let this woman leave without making an impression. When it’s her turn at the mic, Shea takes a deep breath, reviewing her work one last time before stepping into her usual strut.

She doesn’t bother introducing herself, just turns to the mic and began speaking, letting the words wash over the crowd like rain on their childhood bedroom’s roof.

“Electric. You Are Electric.

Who gave you the right To look at me like I’m everything, When I don’t even know your name?

Let me feel your skin under my fingertips. Baby, Let me feel the buzzing of your veins under my tongue.

Show me who you are. Electricity - Tell me your name,”

Shea doesn’t look away from the woman’s face. She keeps her eyes trained on her, spoke as though she’s whispering into the woman’s neck instead of performing for an entire room of faceless people. Shea makes what she wants clear in 53 words, 14 lines, four stanzas, and prolonged eye contact. Now, all that remains undecided is whether or not the stranger would reciprocate.

She knows all of this could go drastically wrong; the woman could turn her down, run from the weight of Shea’s attention as quickly as anyone else had, but she hasn’t broken their gaze yet. Shea takes that as a good sign.

———–

Sasha isn’t breathing. How could she, with Shea staring her down like that, like she’s real, and not just a consciousness tethered to physical form. Shea makes her real. Too many people surround them, suffocating her. All those eyes on Shea, none of them important. Shea’s eyes on her, all important.

So Sasha does what Sasha does best - she takes a step back. And then about ten more. Before she knows it, she’s on the street outside the club, breathing in the autumn air like she’s never tasted anything as sweet, and never would. She leaves with the knowledge that, hopefully, Shea will understand.

———–

After the night officially ends, Shea finds herself searching for the woman. Her heart feels heavier with each passing person, each exclamation of joy at seeing her performing again, after all this time. She begins to lose hope, starts to believe, maybe, it’s all in her head. It wouldn’t be the first time Shea’d convinced herself she meant more than she does.

Aja abruptly, as the woman tends to do, enters Shea’s space, pulling her aside in a whirlwind of neon.

“What does you think of my friend?” She asks, wondering how she ended up back in 4th grade, passing along messages between blushing children. She must’ve done something truly terrible in a past life to deserve this.

Shea is stunned silent for a moment, recovering almost immediately. “The blonde? I mean, yeah, I noticed her. Who wouldn’t notice her, I mean she’s…beautiful,” she says.

To an outsider, Shea would seem casually interested. Her tone is carefully regulated, voice barely wavering. She doesn’t stumble over a single syllable. Aja, unfortunately for Shea, knows better.

“Shea Couleé, there were fifty people in this building,” Shea winces, “and you remembered her well enough to react like that?” Aja finishes, hand on her hip, her mouth pulled into a smile.

“Shut up, bitch,” Shea responds, only fueling Aja’s twisted delight further.

“Here, she wants me to tell you that her name is Sasha, and she’ll be back next week,” Aja hands Shea a piece of paper, leaving almost immediately after in the same whirl of color she came.

Shea looks down at the paper, finding a rushed message, untidy but legible:

Sorry for running out on you, got a bit too loud for me in there. Hope you can forgive me ;)

-Sasha

Okay, then. Shea thinks.

Okay, Sasha.