#tashi duncan fluff

[abbysbunny]

dating tashi duncan hc's 💭

warnings: age gap (reader is in college, tashi is in her 30s), implied hyperfem!reader, fluff !

notes: sorry these are so short chat

౨ৎ ˖ ࣪⊹ so incredibly clingy, she loves having you close to her, she cannot express enough how much she loves it when you sit on her lap, she also loves when you lay your head on her chest so you can curl up against her

౨ৎ ˖ ࣪⊹ brings you to all the nicest places, she takes you wherever you wanna go, doesn't matter how expensive, she loves making you happy and seeing you smile

౨ৎ ˖ ࣪⊹ adores your laugh, she finds it so incredibly cute, sometimes while you giggle she just gently holds you face, like you could break at any moment

౨ৎ ˖ ࣪⊹ when you fight she's the first to apologize, she hates making you mad or cry so she's always the one who makes it up to you, it's usually small fights but since a lot of things hurt you she's the sweetest with you after, she'll buy you flowers and make you talk it out with her

౨ৎ ˖ ࣪⊹ she loves your style, she adores all the skirts and dresses you wear, she buys you all the fancy stuff:3 all the designer and cutesy shoes!!>_<

౨ৎ ˖ ࣪⊹ she's big on privacy, the public doesn't know much about you or you're relationship, occasionally she'll post anniversary posts on her story

౨ৎ ˖ ࣪⊹ helps you unwind when you're assignments get to you:( she'll massage you and make you tea, she holds you as you rant and maybe even cry from how overwhelmed you are

౨ৎ ˖ ࣪⊹ loves watching horror movies with you, she loves when you get scared and move closer to her to seek comfort, she wraps her arms around you and holds you close

౨ৎ ˖ ࣪⊹ loves showing you off to her friends, she brings you up in every conversation, 'yeah well my girlfriend said something similar . . .' and she just ends up rambling about you

౨ৎ ˖ ࣪⊹ at the end of the day she would do anything for u and adores you to the max>3<

[heartz4shauna]

being tashi’s controversially young lover >_<

warning: sexual implications

𝜗𝜚 is actually obsessed with you. she NEEDS to have your location at all times, other wise she’ll text you “where the fuck are you? i told you a million times before, you need to have your location on.”

𝜗𝜚 takes you to THE fanciest restaurants. you feel like you don’t fit in there but she always reassures you

𝜗𝜚 tells you not to post you both together on your socials, “you’ll get me in trouble.” she’ll explain. only makes you wanna post more though…

𝜗𝜚 you absolutely love watching her practice. she makes sure she grunts extra loud when she sees you 🫠🫠

𝜗𝜚 if either art or patrick were to say something about you to her, she’d be ready to fight. “what did you just say? keep her fucking name out of your mouth.”

𝜗𝜚 constantly buying you new fragrances. just so she can come up behind you and practically swallow you whole, “you smell so good, huh?” it gets you so flustered every time and she fucking loves it

𝜗𝜚 thinks it’s actually so hot when you wear her clothes. the I Told Ya shirt?? yeah it’s yours now

𝜗𝜚 she has a separate private insta for posting pictures of just you. you on dates, you at home, you in your most vulnerable moments.. the account only has a few followers. who are they? you, art and patrick of course

𝜗𝜚 hates the idea of sharing you. your hers and hers only apparently!

𝜗𝜚 basically your sugar mommy. she doesn’t mind spending her paycheck on you

𝜗𝜚 always has a stern look on her face when she looks at you but she’s actually just admiring your beauty

𝜗𝜚 prefers holding your waist over your hand

𝜗𝜚 keeps your relationship super lowkey of course. you two are very rarely seen in public together, the press thinks your just friends :P

[pparacxosm]

dearly beloved

(tashi duncan x fem!childhood best friend!reader x patrick zweig; artashi wedding; nonlinear narrative; tw infidelity but then wrong fandom; tw obsessive dysfunctional relationships but then wrong fandom; tw patheticism but then wrong blog; oakland!tashi truthers i’m sorry; florida!tashi truthers ((if there be any)) you’re welcome ! ; uno mentioned twice for some reason; unromantic romance; callow sapphic pining; tw nascent menstruation; y2k teenage girlhood; it’s always patrick zweig at the scene of the crime; ((the crime is unrequited devotion)); tw a little bit of body shaming kind of; but then general tw for excessively derogatory banter; sorrow shared is sorrow doubled; cake shared is just good cake; tw atlanta™)

‘Love is awful. It’s awful. It’s painful. It’s frightening. It makes you doubt yourself, judge yourself, distance yourself from the other people in your life. It makes you selfish. It makes you creepy, makes you obsessed with your hair, makes you cruel, makes you say and do things you never thought you would do. It’s all any of us want, and it’s hell when we get there.

So no wonder it’s something we don’t want to do on our own.

I was taught if we’re born with love then life is about choosing the right place to put it. People talk about that a lot, feeling right, when it feels right it’s easy. But I’m not sure that’s true. It takes strength to know what’s right. And love isn’t something that weak people do. Being a romantic takes a hell of a lot of hope. I think what they mean is, when you find somebody that you love, it feels like hope.’

The Priest, ‘Fleabag’ (2016—2019) Episode 2.6

It strikes you that Tashi Duncan has always had a strange way of talking about her own wedding, as if the whole event is a starstrewn chrysalis. Something transformative, that will make of her an airborne creature, carried off by the lightness of her being.

She looks fucking beautiful, of course.

Sleek and exacting, draped in silk crêpe de Chine, like a white bullet. Tashi Duncan, the bride. Heavenborne starshine, all wrapped in tender clouds, just as she should be.

But then you’ve always thought so.

When she rehearses her aisle walk, golden gazelle legs glissading her across the hotel room carpet, she speaks of herself as if she were a rare and fragile insect.

She says, “I feel my bones changing,” her hands on either arm of the makeup chair you’re in.

You sniff, eyes flicking over every part of her. She is so close, bent over you, but she’s blurred at her edges on account of your gushing tears. You’re weeping. “Your bones?” you all but wail, face twisting in sorrow as the tears sluice harder.

Your left eyelash dangles wetly halfway off your eyelid.

You’re melting like a fucking witch, because her dress reveal came before the setting spray, and now your palms are soused in foundation. You keep wiping your face to keep from bemiring the butteryellow satin of your bridesmaids gown.

You weep more than Pam, as Tashi floats around the room.

She is radiant as sunlight on water.

Tre and Tevin holler, spirited, scattering around the room in all directions, like a great empire has collapsed. Okay, Tashi! they whistle, We see you!

And you weep and weep.

And now, her amber knee, faint scar, peeks from the slit in her silken, sweeping skirt and knocks against yours.

Her arms are lithe and lustrous and they bracket you within the amalgamated cloud of her meticulously curated Big Day fragrance. She floods your body.

She’s nodding softly. She is haloed by bloodwarm morninglight. You feel too pathetic to even be looking at her. You feel worse, even, when her delicate fingers coast poetic down your arms, and she takes your hands into hers.

“Hey,” she says softly. Squeezes your fingers. The flesh of her soft and fragrant as rosepetals. Her smile unfurls like a star going nova. “You’re crying so much,” she laughs.

“Of course, I’m crying,” you choke out, a watery gasp wafting her gorgeous face. “Pauline hates me.”

Tashi spares a glance over your shoulder, where her makeup artist is leaning against an ornate dresser, chewing the edge of her thumb and seeming generally engrossed with her phone.

“Oh, honey,” Tashi’s manicured thumbs caress tender circles over your knuckles. Then clicking her teeth softly, “You are making her do her job twice.”

“Oh God,” you sob, your head dropping heavily onto the crushed velvet cushion of the chairback. “Don’t get married.”

Tashi's smile turns soft and commiserating.

“Babe.”

“T.”

Tashi places your hands gently in your lap. She swivels your chair so you’re facing the vanity mirror.

The sight of yourself festers your misery like rotting flesh. You look like a smeared oil painting. Your lashes clump like eldritch spiders. Your face is smeared and swollen and gleaming wet. Your lower lip trembles.

Tashi glows behind you in a tragic pastiche of a solar eclipse.

“I can’t do this,” you blather past the clot in your throat. Mucus bubbles from your nostrils and trickles to your mouth. You swipe at it. You sniff again. “I’m gonna mess up your wedding.”

Tashi’s warm, slender fingers trace your collarbones. In college, you used to give each other lymphatic drainage massages.

“You’re gonna make my wedding.”

This makes you tear up again, in earnest.

The tissue of your nose is raw and sore. You moan a broken lament. Her thumbs drift in gentle ellipses along the slope of your shoulders. Her warmth seeps into you.

“Do you remember what you said to me,” Tashi asks, “When I got engaged?”

You swallow, coughing around a flower of phlegm. She leans down, resting her cheek against the top of your head. Her hair spills over your shoulders in velvet sunbeams.

You blink at her reflection. Her eyes wash you in tender flame.

“‘Dear God, please, no’?”

It is staggering, at thirteen, to stand over a limp, bloodstrewn body.

You are traipsing through the halls, summoned by weeping, and, when you peek into the loo, the dense miasma of sweat and antiseptic is pervaded with something stannic and fetid.

Tashi Duncan, splayed across the tile of the corner stall, clutches her tummy with death’s desperation. The athletic uniform of Blue Vista High garbs these young girls in floaty skirts of daisy white, which Tashi now thinks is fascinatingly deplorable.

Unfamiliar and unprepared, her eyes gleam with tears. Her heart pummels in her chest to the same faraway thunk, thunk rhythm of the tennis balls striking the clay courts outside.

The world seems to have turned against her. Her clothes are drenched red, and her body is betraying her. Tashi, twentyone months your senior, is a late bloomer. Here is her inaugural encounter with the inevitability of womanhood.

So, you encounter this horror film tableau. Tashi Duncan, bloodstrewn and splayed. You don’t feel nausea or concern or anything. You’re thirteen. You’re mildly reproachful, if anything.

“Um,” you say, a bit too loudly, “I have a tampon. If you want?”

“I want to play tennis.” She writhes. “My match is in twenty minutes.”

You swing your backpack off your shoulder, clutching it in front of you and digging clumsily into the front pocket. “Well, you need a tampon.”

“I’ve never…” She seems halfcoherent. You don’t have great faith in her ability to sweep across a court. But she catches the tampon with an easy agility when you toss it over.

There’s an odd, blithe immediacy to girlhood. You drop to your knees and play gynae. You introduce yourselves somewhere there. Your hair’s pretty; Where did you get those pins on your bag?; Do you think Mr Cleven’s kind of cute? Yeah, no, me neither; Is it in yet?

“Aw, what?” you whine at her insistence you disrobe and give her your clothes, “For how long?”

“Like,” she gestures frenetically with her hand, “Twenty minutes.”

You hum, ambivalent, but doff your skirt. And they get anal about you guys jumbling formal uniforms with athletic uniforms, so she takes your shirt, too, and you wear hers, the navy nylon collared tee with the Blue Vista crest stitched to the breast.

You sit pantless on the toilet seat, reading her Princess Diaries paperback.

She wins her game, apparently.

Her mom drives you home. She brings a fleecy pair of Tashi’s Powerpuff Girls pyjama bottoms, which fall past your ankles. Says, call me Pam, honey, when you say, thank you, Mrs Duncan.

You keep her shirt, and her pants, and you still smell her womb.

She hits you up on AIM that night.

Mr Cleven is cute, she sends. He looks like Dawson Leery.

Then, But he’s THE WORST !!!!!!

And then, TLC or Destiny’s Child?

And things go from there.

When Christine McVie starts crooning for mercy, you think you’ve officially had your fill.

You have taken bridesmaid, like you took best friend before that, like you will one day take doting aunty to their gilded brood.

At times, it feels like there is no limit to what you can take.

But the very concept of a First Dance feels like a vaudeville satire portending a dire omen. You refuse to dance into hell—you just can’t do it. And you can’t watch them squeeze your heart to bloodpulp between their flush, swaying bodies.

Though you suppose that may be symbolic. Beginning as the end.

Hot red spilled upon her white regalia. Will she still let you splay and clothe her? Or does such proprietary now fall within the purview of his husbandly duties? All set to ‘Say You Love Me’.

You take it all. On the chin, lying down. You take it. You take four consecutive champagne flutes to the gut. You take deep breaths. You take yourself out of the girdling throng of devoted onlookers as the music starts. You take no prisoners. You take your leave.

You are weeping again.

You try to catch your tears as they fall. You think you owe Pauline that much.

The veranda is lit by scattered amber lanterns and the weeping moon. Each stone pillar stands sentinel to the maelstrom of revelry within. Things are hushed, here, but so much colder. You miss her warm fingertips against your skin. You miss everything. Shadows stretch across the tiled floor in languorous arcs.

You smell the sea.

You find a dark corner and sink into it, bracing yourself on the balustrade as you crouch to your haunches. Your body aches with the force of your suppressed sobs. Your shoulders tremble and your heart mewls with anguish.

You miss the sound of footsteps, so the voice does surprise you.

“One wedding that’s a funeral.”

You laugh, sort of. Damp and congested. You try to daub the tears away. “Ha,” you sniff, “Yeah, no, I—“

You stop.

It doesn’t seem the least bit real.

Let’s leave aside the fact that he’s The Ex Boyfriend. He shouldn’t even exist in this fucking stratosphere anymore. And that’s why he seems elusive, ghostly, even now. Emerging from the shadows like a demonic apparition.

You know Art and Tashi don’t really talk about it. They have a peace to protect. You cannot say the same of yourself.

Because in the unbroken silence of your dreams, there is a whistle. A sharp, clear necklace of sound, tightening around your throat, tugging forward. And even earlier, at the ceremony. A malevolent spirit in the room seemed to say, I won’t be ignored. And here he fucking is.

A horrid little laugh builds up in your throat, until you can’t keep it down any longer.

You laugh. It comes out like a savage chortle. Patrick stills, five feet away from you. His eyes are sad, a little surprised, and, yes, repelled.

Repelled by you and your laugh.

Suddenly, all you feel is helpless anger. You’re angrier than you’ve ever been, angrier than when they were together, angrier than when Art swooped in to take his stillwarm seat, angrier than all those times you had to be quiet and eat humble pie. You’re furious that the woman you love has jettisoned her last name, like a shorn chrysalis. And you’re livid that you have to deal with this asshole, this piece of shit pretty boy you’d thought you’d seen the last of, who is standing in front of you, on this moonlit veranda, trying to share in your mourning. He’s fucking insane.

So you say it, out loud, but not too loud, because you don’t want to make a scene. You certainly don’t want Tashi to see him.

“You’re insane,” you scoff, gaze vast and glossy with shock, “You’re fuckin’ insane, I knew it! I knew you were fuckin’ insane! I told her you were fuckin’ insane.”

You’re surprised at the viciousness in your voice. The blue in his eyes has become washedout, almost white. You can see tiny red capillaries blooming around the iris in the dark.

To his credit, Patrick has never left you hanging in your ferocity.

His brows are hoisted in defense. He gestures wildly into the reception hall, “I’m fuckin’ insane? He’s fuckin’ insane! And he’s marrying her!”

He’s all big words and movements like this is fucking Seinfeld.

You upheave yourself to a tremulous stand. “You’re both fucking insane,” you say darkly, though, at the moment, you feel a bit deranged.

Your vehemence startles him a little. Something imperceptible changes in his mien. Like he’s standing straighter. His eyes shine like glass. You’re bizarrely reminded of those National Geographic documentaries where lions size each other up before a fight.

But then his shoulders slump, and he nods, and you are almost incredulous at his patheticism. “Okay,” he breathes. He seems tiny. “You look nice.”

You blink, shifting.

You clear your throat. “Thank you. You don’t.”

And he doesn’t. He’s wearing a T-shirt and athletic shorts. And he looks vaguely showered for once, but there’s still something faintly noxious in the air he emanates.

“Yeah, well,” he shrugs, “I wasn’t gonna dress up for a wedding I wasn’t invited to.” A pause. “That’d be weird.”

For a moment, you are sure you tripped on a rock out here, and cracked your skull open on a pillar, and all of this is a stage play happening in the most masochistic corner of your mind. You have never been so disbelieving of his inanity.

“Oh, yeah, that’d be weird!” you say, eyes still wide and marginally manic. “That’d be crazy, for sure. If you dressed up for the wedding you weren’t invited to.”

He fills in the blank there—always could, for his part—that he’s shown up to the wedding. He gives a feeble chuckle. He looks awkward, really, which is… fucking something.

“When are they gonna cut the cake?” His voice is small and tentative like a child’s.

“You’re not getting any, you cow.”

He looks sincerely wounded at that, his eyes casting downward, and it borders on pitiful. But the sympathy stirred feels like a small lashing, like punishment for your lack of decorum. There is something contemptuous in that pitifulness.

You know an athlete’s body is his wound.

But you can’t bring yourself to say sorry.

You just lower your hackles with a visible exhale, which he seems to recognise as safe treadspace.

“Why are you crying?” he asks.

You snort. “Why are you here?”

He connects those dots, too, the perceptive bastard.

He clears his throat, hands in his pockets, rolls back and forth on his feet.

He stares at the ground. “You gotta say a speech?”

“Yeah, but I probably won’t.”

The ocean rushes. Luther Vandross thumps faintly from beyond. First dance is over, apparently.

Patrick peers up at you, like he’s debating saying what he’ll say next.

“Wanna go get a drink?”

Tashi jumps on the balls of her feet. Her waifishness is often a screen hiding an impressive amount of energy. PE is competition in its purest form. Every time she manages to wrest the ball from the opposing team she feels invincible. She is invincible. She dribbles the ball quickly, ponytail swishing in the air as she runs towards the goalpost.

From the corner of her eye she registers movement. She’s always hyperaware of her surroundings. That’s why she notices you sitting down in the stands, two other little girls (in the way that a year—which is all the time sundering you two—can feel like a decade when you’re fourteen) on either side of you.

One of your friends doles out UNO cards, and it is clear it is the other who had suggested this place of loitering, because she has her gaze trained conspicuously on a boy in Tashi’s class.

Tashi pivots. Makes a pointed throw. The ball goes past the goalkeeper into the net. Her team cheers. She checks to see if you have borne witness, but you are too busy stewing over your dealt cards.

She runs over to you. You look up when you hear her barrelling up the steps of the bleachers with a haste that makes them shudder.

She slides in between you and Vidya, who is unperturbed on account of her intently watching Anshu Morya pretend two basketballs are his tits and siring great gales of laughter from his audience of other fourteen year old boys.

Tashi slips a lanky arm around your shoulder.

“Hey, you,” she says, “Why didn’t you come say hi?”

You feel weird and diminutive and caught in a weird way, because Essence is looking upon her from your other side as though she is a seraph who has descended and deigned to grace you with her presence.

(Essence is in under13’s tennis, where it is wildly regarded that the girls who do under14’s tennis are the coolest people ever).

“Uh,” you drawl dumbly.

“You’re my friend now,” she squeezes your arm, pulling you closer to her side, “You have to say hi.”

Tashi seems to preen beneath the attention of these little girls, with a poise remarkably incongruous for fourteen. It feels a stark juxtaposition to the girl you’d seen, wailing, wet, and splayed in her own nascent womanhood.

You’ll come to think this a lot. Tashi Duncan, the impenetrable infanta. She tries not to show any inkling of vulnerability, if she can help it.

That’s why you always remember. You’re always recalling that blood.

And so part of you that is purely little girl thinks, I saw her first.

Even though Adidas singled her out as showing great promise. Even if Patrick Zweig won her number, and Art Donaldson, in some primevally spurning way, will have her as his bride. It was you who saw her, truly saw her, for the first time. Weeping in her own carmine deluge in a girl’s bathroom stall at Blue Vista High.

And, if you saw her first, shouldn’t you get to keep her?

You cannot bear to see her be wed.

What you’d really said, when she told you she was engaged, was a frayed and hollowed: Congratulations.

Dear God, please, no came later. It came clawing rotten from your throat like the undead, while you curled in on yourself yourself like a woman wounded, in the dark, beneath your covers.

“Dear God, please, no,” you’d whispered, lachrymose.

Your first dream, as it were, takes place on the shore of Virginia Key Beach, twenty minutes south of your neighbourhood in Allapattah.

It doesn’t look real, though.

It’s more like a film set.

That could be due to the fact that you haven’t been home in a year or due to the fact that Tashi is there, and she hasn’t been home in longer.

But you know it’s Florida because the air’s so thin and friable in California. Like the sun hasn’t fully seeped through. You know it’s summer because there’s crickets chirping in the trees behind you.

It’s dark, but the moon is bright, and, without looking, you know Tashi is just behind you, sitting on a rock halfsubmerged in the water. You’re sitting in the water right by her. You can feel her presence on your arm as you lean back. You guys are stripped to your bras and panties, like you always were. Her hair is curly.

There might have been more happening; you have a vague impression that there was talking at some point in this dream, but the details fade in the minutes after waking up. What you do retain is distressing. 

You are saying something when you are suddenly supine, and you see that Tashi is atop you, straddling you, though you cannot necessarily feel any weight of her. She doesn’t even feel warm. Her skin against you isn’t a temperature, it’s a sensation. Buzzing, like the vague shock of an electric socket.

“Hi,” she says, her voice low. 

And you’re about to say something, and then you are silenced. You wake up soon after your lips meet.

The dream haunts you for a week, until you go to a party and find a boy and kiss him instead.

The dream is not a revelation, not by a long shot, but you had thought they were a thing of girlhood. And, too, you thought Tashi was impenetrable to such things as your little desires. You’d thought, for a wretched moment, that you could be normal about a beautiful girl.

And you’re usually better at controlling yourself.

You usually can go about your day without suddenly remembering the image of Tashi leaning in.

When you do find a boy that Saturday—a short, slight, facetious glasseswearer named Noel, who prides himself on being a silent, occasionally witty observer the same way you do—you talk with him and laugh with him and kiss him and feel the world right itself. Nothing has changed, and nothing will change, if you can just get a fucking grip.

You go another few weeks without incident, until there’s another dream.

A few others.

Tashi chalks up your odd behavior to anything from exam season to homesickness. You let her.

No one knows about these dreams, with one exception.

Patrick Zweig figures you out embarrassingly quick.

All it takes is one night on the town, the three of you. A couple hours watching you replenish and rotate her moscow mules and vodka sodas and ace pineapples with a surgeon’s precision. Like forecasting weather. And he feels sure enough in his conclusions to corner you as you’re emerging from the putrid bathroom of the dive bar and say, “You got it bad for Tashi, don’t you, kid?”

You are on the drunk side of tipsy, at this point, and you blink a few times before you remember to zip your fly and respond.

All you come up with, for your part, is a weak, “Sorry?”

Patrick smiles. It doesn’t seem particularly mean, but you don’t presume to know him well enough to bet on it.

“I’m just saying,” Patrick says slowly. “Seems like you like her an awful lot. Kid.”

Your gaze goes bonehard. You don’t like him. You don’t like that you can smell his nausea-siring wintry cologne. You cannot conceptualise the scent, but it can’t be natural. He is so pretentious, he probably has it shipped from Marseille or somewhere.

He’s cracked open your ribs and plucked a raw nerve, just to watch you writhe. And there’s that obnoxious little smile, only half his mouth. Though not outright hostile, it’s not friendly.

You open your mouth. But you are so furious, you’re unable to speak. What’s more infuriating, Patrick patiently waits for you to find your words.

“Well,” you say, steadying your feet like you’re prepared to brawl this guy, “What are you gonna do about it?”

“Not a goddamn thing.”

And you must look surprised, because Patrick laughs.

“May these be the worst of our days.”

The pub is a dive, just a short stumble from the wedding venue. The air is dense with the acerbic musk of piss and spirits, danker than the worst of times. It’s a visceral contrast to the beauty of the union, and it’s one of which you both feel deserving.

You sit on a slightly cracked stool at the mucky wooden bar. You nurse a beer, and a broken heart, and Pat is on his third scotch in as many minutes. The bartender keeps giving him these nervous glances.

He gurgles out a pfft as he tips his glass to you, “Yeah, and the best of theirs.”

You regard the middle distance with a sort of weary disgust. A miserable guilt. You know what he’s portending. It’s all downhill from here. But you cannot deny that these are not unkind heights from which to fall. Garlanded by intricate golden sconces casting pristine white marble awash with warmth and love. You two cannot wish them ill in a way that even means anything.

“Fuck, they’re so happy,” you moan, “We suck.”

You feel your lungs grow achy. You are drowning in selfpity and selfpity’s lesser endearing cousin, envy. Patrick seems to bear it better. He releases a noise. A laugh maybe; a bitter, bloodaddled thing.

“Hey, I think the one of us wearing the bridesmaids dress places significantly lower on the Ultimately Fucked Over scale.”

He spins his glass around on the sticky tabletop. The scraping sound makes you envision ground bonematter.

“This colour wouldn’t suit you,” you mumble, swinging your beer idly by its neck.

Patrick’s brows seem to knit at this.

“Yes it would,” he grumbles.

“I always hated you.”

He quirks a brow, looking at you askance.

“I don’t think that’s true.”

You make a face. “It is.” Your eyes close for a moment, as though envisaging which set of words would spurn him best. “And he’s better for her than you.”

Patrick’s mouth parts into a slackened smirk. He laughs again. “And you think you’re better for her than both of us.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Always the bridesmaid…” he singsongs.

You feel your skin heat with something sore and cloying.

“Oh fuck you.” Your eyes roll as well as they are able without you getting vertigo. “I fucked her last.”

His smile grows like a burgeoning parasite. His head is still hung between his shoulders, but he peers up at you through the dark veil of his lashes.

He tongues the inside of his cheek like he’s suppressing laughter, like he now thinks it wouldn’t be kind. “No kidding.”

You frown at this, at his amusement.

“What, you don’t think I fucked her?”

Patrick shrugs. Hums vaguely.

“Wow.”

“Not in, like, a homophobic way, or—“

“Wow.”

He snorts.

“I’m sorry.”

You shake your head. “You’re not.” You swig a mouthful of beer, relishing faintly in the acrid aftertaste. “And I’m not either. Fucked her after you broke up, licked you clean out her pussy, you’re nothing.” You stand up and close the distance between you, stumbling into him, your forehead thunking against his as you draw the word out childishly. Nothingggg-uh.

He chuckles noiselessly. “Oh yeah?”

You straighten clumsily, leaning back, but you’re still stood between his open legs, and you brace your hand against his thigh. “Yeah,” you say.

Patrick narrows his eyes at you. He inhales a breath with an air of the long since victorious.

He gives it a moment before he says it. You’re lifting your bottle to the seam of your lips.

“I fucked her two months ago.”

You slam the green glass against the bartop, eyes wide as canyons as you turn to look at him, your forgone sip dribbling down your chin. “What?” you enunciate sharply.

He leans back in his chair, raising his hands as if shirking blame. But something wicked gleams in his eyes.

You scoff. “Bull. Shit.”

He tilts his head to the side, resting an elbow against the bar, his gaze flickering between your face and the beer trickling down your neck.

He shrugs. Hums.

Your eyes search his face frenetically. Your fingers claw into the flesh of his thigh. “He doesn’t know?”

Now, something like guilt manages to sniff him out. He glances off obliquely, his throat working around a swallow. His expression is hard to discern. Swimming between guilt and a strange sort of defiance.

“Wow,” you drawl protractedly. You’re almost impressed. “You’re an ass. You said that because you wanted to make me feel bad, you wanted to one up me, like you get points for fucking her—“

“A game that you started, by the way.”

“Hey.” You lean into his space again, finding his eyes with a sniper’s determination. “Hey. You’re a piece of shit.”

His jaw works against his skin.

“Uh-huh.”

“No, you are. You are, and you know it.” Your nails embed themselves in his thigh, your other hand coming to place a finger in the hollow of his chest. “Because no matter what,” your voice is low and gravelly now, “You’re done. You’re out. I’m in.”

You lean back to look him over, as though admiring your work, but he only wears a plaintive, resigned sort of smile.

“You think that’s better?”

His voice is so soft as to seep like smoke down your spine. Your nails unearth themselves from his skin. You have not drawn blood, but morning bruises would not startle him.

A long few moments pass.

“This is what you do now, you’re all profound?” you murmur.

He shrugs, a rueful simper on his mouth. “Eh,” he hums dismissively.

You sigh. Remove your hands from him and stumble back onto your stool.

“You’d look like shit in this dress,” you say, at length.

“Maybe.”

You tip your beer into your mouth, even though it has run dry.

There’s a bit of a moue on your face. You trace the sticky outlines on the tabletop, focusing intently on the grooves. “I look amazing in this dress.”

“You’d look amazing out of it.”

Your brows furrow. You look up at him. “Dude, what?”

Patrick blinks. He seems genuinely surprised.

“Aren’t we gonna…?”

“No, what? Why would you—?”

“Oh, I just—“

“What?” Your face is skewed confusedly.

“Because we—“

Your phone trembles against the bar.

“Hold on,” you say, and then, grin growing, “Darling Ms Duncan,” you croon melodically as you hoist the device to your cheek.

Her verdant meadow laughter on the other end. “Donaldson,” she chuckles. You can hear the vague commotion of the festivities ensconcing her.

You frown.

“Don’t hurt me, Starshine.”

“You missed your speech.”

You gasp, your voice going all light and airy the way it does when you’re feigning guilt. “What?” you drawl, “No…”

Tashi cottons on, and you can hear her teasing smile as she indulges you, “Oh,” she hums in fauxsympathy, “Oh, yeah, uh-huh.”

“No way,” you grouse softly, “I’m so sorry.”

“Come back before we cut the cake,” says Tashi, “Where are you, by the way?”

“Oh, I’m in a bar, you won’t believe who I ran into.”

“Who?”

Patrick steels to alertness in front of you, shaking his head in abject alarm.

You smile.

“Patrick Zweig. I think we’re gonna have sex tonight probably. Compound our sadness. It’ll be really pathetic.”

Patrick looks at you like you’ve walloped his puppy.

Tashi is silent on the other end. You know well the firm, seraphic way her face has set in anger.

“That’s not funny,” she says, and it occurs to you that, if what Patrick’s told you is true, then it really isn’t funny.

You bite your lip. “Oh.”

“That’s—“ she takes a breath; you can picture the heat wash off of her. She can be very purposeful with her emotions. “Hey, listen,” her voice has softened, “Please come back.”

“Okay, Ms Duncan.”

“Come back and eat the cake, you chose the cake.”

A simper slithers over your lips. “We chose the cake.” Your husband was somewhere sticking his prick in a green juice, you don’t add. “It’s kind of our cake, in a way.”

“Well,” Tashi hums, unconvinced, but you can hear her smile.

“Yeah, I’m coming, worry not, my dear. Save me a dance.”

You drop the phone.

Patrick is still looking at you like the apocalypse has been announced.

You roll your eyes.

“Put your dick down, she didn’t believe me,” you say. “Because you showing up to her wedding would be crazy.”

He chuckles dryly, but you do not miss the relief in his bones.

He cocks his head wryly, “Not really, considering…”

You stand up again, elbow leaning on the bar, your temple against your knuckles as you gape at him, sort of mystified. “You’re not bullshitting me,” you say, the corner of your open mouth quirking up incredulously, “Like actually.”

Patrick shrugs. “Yeah.”

“Where?”

“Atlanta.”

“Fuck!” You smack your hand down on the table, looking around as though to share in your disbelief with a makebelieve audience. “And since then, have you…? With anyone?”

“Dude, that was two months ago,” he says, like you’re a bit slow, or perhaps like he’s offended by the notion, “Yes.”

You click your tongue. “Ah, shit. You should’ve said no. Would’ve sucked you off, seen if I could taste her.”

Your hip ghosts absently against his spread open knee.

“You can still try,” he offers.

You shake your head, stifling a smile. “Nah.”

“God, we’re the worst.”

“You’re the worst.” You let your smile divulge itself.

“We should get married.”

“Fuck no.”

Patrick lets himself look putout by this, eyes going downcast. You’ve always thought his smile—really his whole face—looks vulnerable, like soft bread. He looks like the perfect sad boy, the victim rather than the perpetrator.  

“Oh,” says Patrick.

You hit him in the arm. “Don’t do that. You know it’d suck.”

“I don’t think so, actually,” he muses.

“What do we have in common? Like, sincerely. Besides her. You can’t build a marriage around a person who isn’t in the marriage.”

He makes a face as though to say this is an evidently incorrect statement. He gestures vaguely in the direction of Art and Tashi’s wedding venue.

That gets a laugh out of you.

“Oh, you pathetic asshole.” You steady yourself on his thigh again, this time with your fist. “No one has mentioned your name once today.”

You know it’s a low blow.

He returns your smile, though his is sad and weird again. They’ve all forgotten about me, it seems to say, Maybe you’ve forgotten about me, too.

Ugh, you think. Fucking Patrick who can’t stop being fucking neglected by everyone.

You clear your throat softly. “See? You don’t wanna marry me.”

Patrick lets out a depleted sigh, like he, too, is not so thrilled with the notion. And you’ve heard better proposal stories. He looks like a Labrador who’s figured out he has to go to the vet. He kicks the edge of the barstool with his sneaker.

“I do. I still do. That was fucked, but I still would.” He looks angry and lonely and resigned, and a little happy too, weirdly. “We should have one of those, ‘by the time we’re thirty—’”

“Thirty?”

“Fifty.”

You like how quickly he bends, in that moment. It has you picturing flower arrangements. But you narrow your eyes, a wry gleam to your smile.

“I think I’ll still have a shot, at fifty.”

“I won’t,” he says, with the smile of the recently condemned.

“I think you will, actually.” You regard him sort of pensively. And maybe it’s a bit clinical. “I think age is gonna humble you. And then you’ll be fifty and grey and, like, penitent. Plus fifty’s still virile, generally. And I’ve heard good things about your situation down there. Just—“

You push off the bar, your fist leaning down more heavily on his thigh as your other hand comes up to his forehead, as though checking his temperature, before sweeping upwards and pushing his hair back. You’re on your toes—further on your toes, considering the heels—assessing his hairline closely, your nose grazing his forehead and your hips certainly slotted between his.

Patrick makes an insincere attempt to push you off. “Hey, what—“

“Did your maternal grandfather have hair?”

He hesitates, “What, my mom’s dad?”

“Mhm.”

He feels that breath against his brow.

“To this day,” he shrugs, “But he’s an asshole.”

“That’s good news.” You lean back.

“That my gramps is an asshole?”

“No, the—“ You gesture to his hair again, “That’s how you know, I think. If you’ll bald. Is your maternal grandfather.”

“You think? Didn’t you do health science?”

“Didn’t you do fuck all and doesn’t everyone hate you?”

He seems unharmed, if enchanted, by this persistent claim.

He points again in the general direction of the wedding beyond the brick wall of the bar.

“They may hate me. You don’t hate me.”

You follow his finger like everything between you and that marble dance floor will collapse, and you will be given a clear view of that proprietary, knowing way Art Donaldson holds her as they dance.

You look back at him. “You really seem to believe that. It makes me concerned.”

“For me?”

“No, for myself. I don’t like that I’m putting out such false vibes.”

He is charmed by this verbiage.

He laughs, like he’s still unconvinced. “Okay.”

He holds it against you, of course.

He doesn’t do a goddamn thing, as promised, but he holds it against you.

Patrick doesn’t like the college parties, but he manages. He doesn’t like feeling like an interloper, really. Doesn’t like that Art and Tashi have this fully functional ecosphere in which he cannot take root—like he’s some sort of invasive strain of alien vegetation.

As soon as he can, Patrick excuses himself from the purgatory of social interaction with whichever set of strangers Tashi calls her friends. He extricates his arm from around her waist and catches your eye as he goes to stand, mimes taking a drink, and watches with relief as you narrow your eyes but push out of your chair and head toward the bar. You order four shots of something.

“You’re lasting longer than I thought,” he says as soon as he’s close enough to you. He takes one shot—vodka, he thinks as it slides down his throat—then another from the bar top. “You were making that face, though.”

You scowl up at him. You know exactly what he’s talking about. “I was not.”

Patrick snorts. “If that helps you sleep at night. I know I won’t be sleeping.”

He bites his lip and does a crude mimicry of delivering backshots with his pelvis, his hands holding an imaginary set of hips, and you suddenly feel beset with a strange nausea. You defeatedly slide toward him another one of those shots.

“What’s the point of her having you as a friend if you aren’t going to support us?”

“I bought you three fucking shots,” you say. You quickly throw the last one back before he can get at it, because, by now, you at least know Patrick well enough to know he’s nearly about to make a grab for it. 

He grins. “Kid, if Art had won that game, I’d make my pass at you ten times over.”

That’s enough to turn the nausea into chunder, and you quickly push past him and book it to the bathroom as it blooms up your throat.

You see your tendons as racketstrings, as you crouch over the toilet.

Taut and crossed over one another inextricably.

He’ll always have that over you, the tennis. You never had the tenacity for it. But it means he has a whole other way to upset her, too.

You take comfort in the fact that Tashi is quick to stand and take you into her arms when you reappear, halftorn, wrung out. She’s happy to take you back to your room, and nurse you for the night.

Patrick doesn’t begrudge. He’s fine to let you have your little pleasures. She’s still his, is the thing.

You’re confused about the Art Donaldson of it all.

He has a warmth in his eyes. And a mischief and a validation. He’s like Patrick, in that he watches—he watches very closely. But where Patrick has always seemed content, in this strange, visceral way, to take what he can get, Art feels like he’s waiting for… something. He’s sort of always fighting with Patrick, but they’re taking care of one another, strangely. He has this weird, symbiotic desire to know more about Tashi and Patrick’s relationship, which—well—you’d be canting to pass judgement.

Grey, grey skies out the windows of Tashi’s dorm room. It’s the most neutral space for you all. Bundled in jackets and hats on beer runs. Fingers freezing as you sit on the floor and play UNO, bumming and trading all of Patrick’s cigarettes because it’s all you can think to do. It rains all day. Patrick tucks his fingers under Tashi’s thigh, kisses the corner of her mouth.

Art has a cold, passes it on to Patrick, and now you’re all incubating it in this cloistered space that soon becomes littered with used tissues and cough drops and tornopen packets of TheraFlu.

Patrick is glad to help no one feel left out. He announces as much—I don’t want you guys to feel left out—with this quizzical simper, as Tashi places down a wild drawfour and declares blue. And maybe she’s doing something foul and saccharine like looking right into Pat’s eyes when she says that.

“I don’t think you have any blues,” says Art, sliding four cards from the deck, wearing his own quizzical simper. “I think you just want us to think you have blues, I think you’re playing smart.”

You can tell by the way Patrick grips his beer bottle that he thinks Art is flirting with her.

There seems to be an odd, prophetic thought you two share.

If the two of them—Tashi and Art—were to get married, they would have golden brown babies like Renaissance cherubs while you and he sat in the dark with the rest of the godless degenerate art.

So, in some way, perhaps, you’d seen it all coming.

When Patrick picks up the phone, shoves it between shoulder and ear, and takes the sorelyneeded, sweetyolkdripping, heavily hotsauced bagel sandwich out of his mouth so he can mumble, “Yeah?” he does not expect the first words across the receiver to be,

“Hey, you fuck. I have your shit.”

Patrick rolls his eyes and takes a large bite, craning over his open palm to keep egg and cheese off his Puma shirt. This is a time when brands like Puma still want Patrick Zweig wearing their shirts.

“Uh-huh,” he says.

“You know, this feels like Christmas. Do you know that? This feels like Christmas day for me. You think you’re this special boy who can have whatever he wants. You’re bullshit. The bell tolls for thee. Your ex, I should note, has bent over and spread her cheeks for me.”

And you feel a way, about the coarseness of your words, the fissures in your mouth. But this isn’t about demeaning Tashi. It’s about flaying him.

“Dude.”

“Her beautiful, soft, floralscented cheeks.”

Patrick hangs up on you, which feels like how you imagine the President feels after election day.

You wait for him to call back.

It’s less than a minute before your phone shudders. He puts you on speaker.

“Are you done?” he says.

“Dude,” you say, “Never ever. Never ever ever.”

“How much for shipping?”

“Fuck you, coward, you’re still in town.”

There’s a revolting, wet sort of noise as he chews. And it is between these chews that he says, “You want to see me, then? Make sure I’m miserable?”

“I don’t need to see you to make sure you’re miserable, your whole life is miserable,” you say.

Patrick chuckles, the sound garbled by his food. It’s not the noise that makes you recoil from the receiver. You are more disgusted at the prospect of him being fed. Okay, sure—you, in your sadism, have been picturing him gaunt and desolate on the floor. And perhaps you are unmoored by how coherent and gutful he sounds now.

It’s harder to hide sorrow in your eyes. Maybe you do just want to see his eyes, and make sure.

“You’re real classy, kid, I think I’ll miss you most of all,” he swallows. “Where d’you want to meet?”

When you return to the reception hall, the cake is still unsevered and the music has gone slow. Otis Redding, ‘These Arms of Mine’.

Tevin keeps a clammy hand on your midback, the other slackly holding your fingers up.

You’re blinking brine from your eyes and sniffing shallowly. Tev’s giving you a chary sort of look, slightly frowning. He clears his throat.

“If things don’t work out with Lainey, I could marry you.”

But he doesn’t sound too keen on the idea. Which you think is a bit comical, because you've smelled his room, and you've seen him in braces, so, ostensible case for grooming aside, even you're not so desperate.

Still, you squeeze his shoulder lightly through his blazer. You clear your throat, roll your eyes. You let this child sway you side to side, and think of yourself at seventeen, varnishing Tashi’s toenails and daubing them clean with mephitic acetone. Over and over. Trying every colour. One time, you forgot to open a window, and the fumes had you two flaked out on the carpet.

“That’s nice, Tevvy, how’s that promposal coming along?”

In the bar a dozen minutes off campus, you slide the sloppily taped Amazon box across the table.

A microcosm of his pathos condensed into 18 x 12 inches. Each item in isolation meaningless, but altogether painting an intimate lithograph of a man discarded. All tender and immiscible.

Jacket. Toothbrush. Edgefrayed leather wristband. An old iPod with cracked plastic. A pack of cigarettes, crushed and reformed. A small bottle of aftershave. A few crumpled receipts. Unbranded notebook. Expensive fountain pen he probably stole from the bank. A plastic cardholder and a wallet, both empty. A pack of gum.

It feels a bit stupid that Patrick should come all this way for a couple knickknacks. You could have just let him Venmo you for the shipping, and it may have hurt his pride all the same. But you take pleasure in knowing that he was hoping you wouldn’t be the one to meet him here.

“How’s Tashi?” he asks.

You give a small, malicious laugh.

The predictability dissolves none of the abject carnal rapture there.

Of course it’s why he came. He wants to know all about your (singular) dear Ms Duncan. He still has a glimmer of faith that she will change her mind. Even though you both know the girl well enough to know that’s not a thing she does too often.

If you hated him, you would tell him that Tashi is thriving. Healing like a child of God. She’s a new woman, never better, can’t wipe the smile off her face.

But maybe you don’t hate him that much after all.

“She’s a fucking wreck. Moping, crying in the lecture halls, shouting your name in the rain. It’s pathetic.”

A twinge of a smile crosses Patrick’s face, the petty bitch.

“You know I meant her knee,” he says, then takes a sip of his beer.

You cross your arms on the table, then retract them with a wince once you feel how sticky the wood is.

“I don’t know,” you say while rubbing some gunk off your elbow. “I don’t know that, Patrick. You know I think you’re a raging assface.”

Patrick raises his eyebrows. “Have you guys ever fucked?”

His faith, glimmer as it may, is not without its fractures. He has a needling, bonechewing suspicion that this may be the last time you two ever see one another, that you occupy the same orbit. So he thinks he’s allowed to ask.

You just glare at him in cold annoyance. Probably fantasising about smashing his beer bottle over his head. Patrick is familiar with the expression.

“Patrick, please don’t talk to me that way.” There’s violence in your voice that’s probably not just aggrieved feminism.

He knows you’re a woman mutilated about Tashi. He considers saying something even shittier, but what’s the point? You’re not a threat to him anymore. He’s out of the running.

“Fine. Have you guys ever made love?”

Before you can bite his head off, he raises his hands in defense.

“Not trying to be disrespectful, or suggest you have casual pussy and not committed long term lesbian relationship pussy. It’s just… if I figured it out.”

There’s a moment of quiet.

“And, y’know, if she’s single and clearly in a bad place, maybe it’s worth… taking advantage.”

You are at once shocked and maybe even appreciative of his forthright shittiness. It gives you slight confidence, despite yourself.

Call him oldfashioned—or, well, remarkably progressive—but he’s rooting for you kids.

You’re both the perfect combination of hot and insufferable. Stupid and insane.

He knows you weren’t lying; Tashi probably is a wreck. It sometimes makes his tongue go metallic, the thought of her rendered so still and helpless. Maybe it’s better he only got a glimpse of that anguish.

So he’s been ousted, that’s fine. That doesn’t mean you need to dump the baby out with the bathwater. He knows she needs someone.

You sigh. “I’m getting a drink.”

You stand and walk toward the bar. You return with the same beer he’s drinking. He wonders if you got it just because it’s the cheapest, or if you actually like it.

“We never did anything,” you say, picking at the moist label with your thumbnail. “Well. We did everything. But not that.”

Patrick nods. “There’s time.”

“She’s hurt.”

“She’d be lying down.”

She is lying down.

The sky goes gold in Allapattah.

You’re by her desk, looking over her colourcoded portfolios and notebooks and Stanford paraphernalia and assorted photos and inspirational posters. You smile amusedly as you trace your finger over a WINNER cheer banner and a Never Give up, Give 100% Instead! placard.

“Mom says stay over for dinner,” Tashi mumbles, rifling through a Teen People. “Should I ask for ‘Writing’s On The Wall’ or ‘Fanmail’ for my birthday?”

“Mmm...”

You pick up her Girl Scout badges, look them over.

“Put them back in the same order!” Tashi warns, unable to help herself. But she’s spent a lot of time sorting them.

You look up. You give her a blithe, nervous smile.

You shuffle to the bed and knee onto the mattress, collapsing into her. The two of you an interwreathed coalescence of tepid girlskin.

“I have ‘Fanmail’,” you mumble into the skin of her neck.

You hear Tev and Tre roughhousing like dogs in the living room.

She gets you alone in a small, ornate sidehall before the ceremony.

She slides her arms around your shoulders and hugs you tightly. Her skin is soft, balmy and fragrant as summertime honey. The flowery milk aroma of her hair imbues you.

“You remember Ozymandias?” she says, withdrawing and placing her palms upon your shoulders. There is a conspiratorial twinkle of glee in her eye.

“… The poem?” Your brows draw in with a vague scepticism.

Your throat is still fleshtender with the sobbing. Your eyes moist and caustic. But your makeup, for Pauline’s part, looks great. You’re determined to maintain your ramshackle semblance of civility for as long as possible.

Tashi kneads your skin. “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

She clasps your shoulders and spins you around so your back is against her, and you stumble shakily to keep your strappy gold stilettos off her satiny white train. Her arms slink back around you, her thumb caressing the faint protrusion of your collarbone. You feel the sly grin on her lips as she creeps her fingers beneath your hair, sweeping it away and pressing her mouth softly against the gossamertender skin beneath your ear.

“That’s what I’m going for,” she whispers, making a flourishing sort of gesture with her hands in front of you, as if mapping the splay of a billboard. “A grand, glorious, eternal, and yet ultimately doomed endeavour. Something that stands tall and proud, resplendent and beautiful, but, in time, all turns to dust and fades into nothing but a vague memory.”

You shudder with laughter, the bare skin of her chest heated against that of your shoulderblade.

“What?” Tashi giggles softly against the shell of your ear.

“Nothing,” you grin, shaking your head.

You like, in fact, the tender morbidity of her words. That there is a melancholy in her hope. This union, like any, may well be ephemeral. Tashi Duncan, your romantic realist. You hope those are her vows. Wouldn't that throw the kid for a loop.

At the altar, you set your gaze heavenward, determined not to weep once more. This way, the sorrow has nowhere to fall but back within you. And so you do not even see her, as she flows down the aisle and embarks upon her ethereal odyssey.

You don’t think you’d have even been able to take it, anyway.

To bear witness to her metamorphosis under hallowed eaves.

But you feel it. The transience of power. Nothing beside remains.

Pam drives you two to Virginia Key Beach every Sunday after service at the COGIC. You are dithering, at first, about shucking off your clothing. The sea is such a vast, living thing. Nothing like a poky stall in the school bathroom. But, by week three, your Sunday best is sandstrewn, and you and Tashi are giggling things of cotton panties and training bras and seawater.

The waves feel giant and warm.

It fills your mouth and nostrils. The ocean envelops you. The water lifts you up. She mounts your back and drags you under. You laugh so hard you choke a bit, coughing up salt. She laughs even harder as she slaps your back unhelpfully. Her head is bent over yours, ducking to check that you’re okay, but she’s still simpering impishly. The next wave pulls you under and your lips brush against her lips, almost by accident.

You hear her small, hiccupy gasp.

You can feel the way her fingers scrabble against your shoulders. She sinks her little nails in. That Thursday, you had painted them blue.

You lie in a nest of towels afterwards, exhausted and depleted, like children after a bath.

You reach out with your hand and take a few of her wet curls between your fingers.

“When I’m tennis famous, I’m gonna marry Justin Timberlake,” she murmurs, resting her head on her arm, still panting.

“Can I be your flower girl?” you say, running your fingers through her hair.

You were a flower girl at your aunt’s wedding last Summer. You found the job so enchanting. All the doting gazes, the petals between your fingers. It doesn’t occur to you to want for more, at this time.

“You can be…” she mumbles, peeking at you over her arm. “Everything.”

It’s a strange, untenable idea, a thing not named. There are things you cannot be.

But you understand completely. “You too.”

“I wanna be a butterfly,” she hums to herself. “And fly away.”

Your lips twitch. “With Justin?”

Tashi’s face glows a little. “With you.”

Like all Floridian nights, the one of the wedding is humid. You can picture the way the feathery curls along Tashi’s hairline will start to rouse. You can picture, too, the way Art Donaldson’s stupid nose will caress that soft hair, how he will breathe her in. You don’t much want to picture anything beyond that.

There is so much moonlight to see by. It spills across Patrick’s skin in soft luminous beams.

The sand is damp between your bare toes, the satin of your dress growing wet beneath your bum. You are ensconced by a warm, saline squall.

The sea laves the shore like a hungry tongue.

The cake is a pistachio sponge, bedaubed with rosesuffused cream, the layers laden with a tart raspberry treacle, and the frangible ivory of white chocolate. You filch two slices, wrap them in monogrammed serviettes. A&T. Awful and tragic, he had joked bleakly as you clumsily took off your shoes on the foreshore. Agonising and traumatic, you’d offered. You went back and forth like this for a bit.

Patrick’s cigarette gilds his face in a copper glow. His eyes are trained pensively on swathes of sea foam.

Your phone garbles between your feet. Hums—bleary, melancholic—with Amy Winehouse.

And now, the final frame. Love is a losing game.

The cake is good. The cake is fucking amazing. You’d said that, at the tasting. Fuck, this is amazing, had been your honeyed moan. It was enough for Tashi to make the decision. You feel bad, now, lapping frosting off your fingers in her absence, your sugarcoated teeth.

Patrick blows the smoke away from you, disperses the acrid cloud with a fan of his hand. The wind will waft, though; sweep some of that fetor back to you. And all you do is breathe.

Selfprofessed, profound…

Patrick spares you a glance. Then does gawping a doubletake.

“Fuck, you’re not crying.” He sniffs deeply, his hand swiping roughly the wet skin of his cheek.

Your eyes widen.

“Oh, shit, did we start?”

He breathes a dilapidated, spitladen laugh, scrubbing harsh his cheeks with his fingers.

The heavy rivulets keep cascading. Washing his skin.

“Yeah!” he scoffs wetly, sweeping his wrist beneath his nose, sniffing again.

You stifle a rueful simper, wiping your fingers off on the napkin. “Ah, fuck, sorry.”

He gives another watery laugh.

“You’re a dick,” he grins.

And then you’re grinning too, though your brows quaver with concern, “No, oh my God, sorry! I cried a lot earlier.”

He’s shaking his head, freshets of tears still trickling down. “You’re an ass, I can’t believe—“

“I’ve never seen you cry,” you smile, something like wonder misting your eyes.

He chuckles, his cig singeing down, the smoke pirouetting upwards.

“No one has.”

You beam, but your shoulders tense with guilt. “Fuck!” you giggle, rumpling the serviette and resting it in the sand, shifting where you sit, and straightening as if centring yourself. “I’m sorry, I’ll do it now.”

“No, you won’t. You’re laughing.”

You laugh loudly, dropping your forehead to your hoisted knees.

“That’s closer than you think!” you say.

Patrick takes a deep, terminal drag of his cigarette—the ember coruscating violently—before extinguishing it in the sand beside him.

“Fuck,” he whispers, dipping his face into his shirt collar and using the fabric to swipe at his nostrils, snivelling more.

Then his shoulders fall. Elbows resting on his knees, hands falling slack between them.

The song starts up again.

For you I was aflame…

The ocean whispers soft susurrations against the beachfront.

You are struck, suddenly, by his silverveiled visage. Your gaze strokes the slope of his nose, the arch of his cheekbone. You are so enthralled by this wet gleam of his milky skin. There’s something about that; about his unencumbered tearflood and the faraway joy of the party.

Before you can stop yourself, you move in.

Your noses bump. There’s a moment where your teeth clack together and Patrick makes an annoyed noise, but it’s quickly replaced by something that sounds more like pleasure as he turns to fit his mouth against yours more easily.

You taste his tears and mouth and tongue. His hand comes to cradle the back of your neck. Your blotchy eyes flutter closed. You dig your fingers into the sand and close your fists around it. You taste the smoke and the cake and the oceanfront. It’s all a bit warm and desperate.

You think of the seaspray, the burgeoning goosebumps on your arms. You think of your mouth, mollified against his own, his hot spit on your gums, his tongue, hotter still, stroking yours. How he tips your head back so your jaw can fall further, so there is more of you available. You think of mouths. Of course, you think of Tashi’s mouth. Her smile in the mirror.

There’s a poignant tremor to Amy’s voice, as she sings,

Memories mar my mind.

And you are struck by this phrasing. And this is, perhaps, why and when the tears find you. And the sobs come soon after.

Patrick pulls away with a damp little noise.

“Oh my God.”

You’re weeping. Your shoulders start to tremble with spasmodic sobs, and you are bawling. Your face swims hot with a mire of tears and snot. He is not overtly repulsed. Well, you would not know for sure, because you cannot see him. But you feel him shift a little closer, and put a hand on your bare shoulder, his palm flushed and calloused. He gives you a few resigned pats.

“This is not what I wanted, for the record,” he says, unbothered by your head falling against his chest. “Because now I’m gonna feel like shit. Thinking, wow, was the kiss so shit that it made her cry like a baby?”

You lift your hands and cover your face, sobbing harder.

“Which,” Patrick continues, thumb caressing idly the sweat-tacky skin of your shoulder now, “I know that’s not it.”

A beat.

“Do you wanna tell me that’s not it?”

“That’s not it,” you blubber, smearing mucus off your lips.

You pull away from him dragging your hands down your face. When you look at him, you’re sure you look a sorry sight. Tender with despair, all messy, smeared, and febrile. You sniff shallowly.

“You were right,” you say weakly, “It’s not better.”

“What’s not better?” His voice, you note somewhere in the miasma of your sorrow, is uncharacteristically kind.

Your lip quivers, “I’ll have to be there when he puts a baby in her.” Your face has twisted in anguish and you are wailing once more, sobbing loud and earnest.

Patrick blinks at you, “Jesus.”

But he pulls you closer again. Turns your body, in fact, so you are leaning back into his raised lap and he is halfway cradling you like a baby. You weep into his shirt, painting it wet and viscid, and the scent of his awful cologne only makes you sadder.

“Oh my God,” Patrick says again, rubbing up and down your arm, and he sounds a bit amused, which is a little fair. “He might not,” he offers.

You snivel loudly and pull back, swallowing your sobs and casting him a disappointed glower.

“Yeah, ok. He probably will.”

You fall hard against his soaked front again, whimpering feebly. Patrick looks down at you.

“Hey, we can do that, too,” he offers now, in a pick-yourself-up sort of tone that juxtaposes so fiercely with the proposition he’s actually making, you nearly laugh. “We time it right, they can be the same age. Then we’ll put ours in the same school as theirs, and teach ours to just fuckin’ decimate the shit.”

And now you are laughing. You’re still teary and frail so it hurts all the same as a sob, but he can see you’re smiling, so he continues,

“Just everything. Fuckin’ grades, boom. Sports, boom. Instruments, boom. Our one’s gonna play two cellos, a piano, a guitar, and an oboe, all at the same time. He’ll use his fingers, toes, and dick,” says Patrick, and he sounds utterly sincere and emphatic, even as he’s sort of smirking now, because you’re laughing even harder. “And we’ll tell him to bully theirs, too. Every day just ‘oh you’re a piece of shit, you’re ugly, your parents’ marriage was doomed from the beginning’, and their fucker’ll be like ‘no I’m not’ and ‘fuck you’—”

You’re tickled, too, by the voice he puts on to imitate these fictitious children. How he talks all low and churlish like he’s instead caricaturing a worldweary pensioner.

“—and ‘I wish you weren’t so much cooler and better than me, and didn’t fuck my girlfriend, and my mom’.”

You make a face.

“Don’t make it weird.”

“Alright, fine. He won’t fuck her,” Patrick concedes, “That’d be fucking legendary if he did, though. But he won’t.”

You are, again, charmed by this, by how easily he yields. It makes you think of a nursery and fresh, boneless toes.

You rest your face on the wet of your weeping on his chest, and you feel a bit humiliated. But this isn’t so bad, as far as humiliations go.

“What if it’s a girl?” you croak, your words halfway muffled by where your cheek is squashed against him.

“Even better.”

“Where would we live? I don’t wanna go to New York, I don’t have the fortitude.”

The worst of your sobbing has waned to stillness, but he’s still rubbing your arm.

“We can shack up in the Midwest. Somewhere chill.” His leg starts shifting beneath you, and you think he wants another cigarette, but he doesn’t move. Instead, “Omaha?”

You shrug. You hated not being in Florida, but still. You shrug. “Sure. And what’ll you do? Coach? Or become like a blue collar fuckin’…” you trail off vaguely. “I can’t even picture it.”

“I always wanted to be a fireman.”

“That’s sexy.”

His laugh, when it sounds, echoes through his chest like there’s a cavern where his heart should be. Which you don’t think is such an unthinkable idea.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” you nod. You clear your throat. “Especially because you could die at any moment. So if we end up hating each other, I can just wait for you to die in a fire, and, that way, I don’t have to murder you. Then our kid doesn’t lose both parents at once.”

He pauses as if considering this. His leg shifts again. “Fuck,” he murmurs after a while.

“Sorry.”

“No, don’t ruin it.”

You clear your throat again. “And a dog,” you say.

“Fuck, yeah, a dog,” he says in his most New Yorkian fashion. Like a traveling salesman who needs you to look at this vacuum and do it quickly. It’s pretty funny. “It can eat theirs.”

You make a reproachful sort of noise. “Not everything has to be—“

“Okay, fine, yeah, just a dog,” he cedes again. The nursery, in your mind, is astralthemed. “Just a dog for the two of us. And our Nobel Prize winning child. I’ve always wanted one named Bagel.”

You think he can somehow hear your mildly scathing New York musings.

“A kid or a dog?”

“A dog.”

“We can name the dog Bagel,” you shrug, as though agreeing to dinner plans, and the tender pulse of a postweep migraine begins to encroach upon you, like the waxing sea. “Can we name the kid Bagel?”

“No.”

The song is still on loop.

Five story fire as you came…

You think of Patrick in sootscuffed bunker gear and a fireman’s helmet.

“Bagel Zweig,” you mumble wryly, your skull beginning to thump with the ache of your patheticism.

Patrick laughs. Lifts you off his knees, unceremoniously but not unkindly, and begins to rifle in his pockets for his Camel pack.

A sudden bout of cheering sounds from the reception, flashing taunting beams in purple hues. You wonder what the fuck they have to be so happy about. You sigh. Perhaps, too, did people cheer, at the mortal fall of Ozymandias. You think about that. That loss of power. That loss.

[amymbona]

Soft launching a relationship with Tashi Duncan - social media au

(I couldn't find certain faceless pictures so whichever random girl u see, pretend it's y/n)

tashiduncan thank you @.stanfordtennis for the promo pics 🎾

❤️ 6 739 💬 398 ➡️ 1624

view tagged

view comments:

stanfordtennis we are glad to have you! 🙌

y/n.serves who's that sexy girl I see over there? ;)

➔ tashiduncan @.y/n.serves me??? 😇

artiedon these are good! :O when do I get my promo @.stanfordtennis?

➔ stanfordtennis @.artiedon you have to be the best

show more...

y/n.serves just two girls playing some tennis! 😜

❤️ 2382 💬 79 ➡️ 143

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tashiduncan i wonder who's the other girl

➔ y/n.serves @.tashiduncan and who's the first one 🤨

pzweig69 y'all getting too close

show more...

y/n.serves hard preparations

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pzweig69 not the only thing that's hard

➔ artiedon @.pzweig69 what???

➔ y/n.serves @.pzweig69 i'm blocking u

tashiduncan couldn't u have put some filter on? :( i look silly

➔ y/n.serves @.tashiduncan shut up you're gorgeous 😡😡😡

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y/n.serves WE ACTUALLY WON GUYS!!! @.tashiduncan love u love u <3

❤️ 5 203 💬 197 ➡️ 1265

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tashiduncan we're the best!!!

tashiduncan love u y/n!!!

artiedon good job girls :) did good and looked fab!

➔ y/n.serves @.artiedon <3

pzweig69 two tennis girls bouncing on it

➔ y/n.serves @.pzweig69 perv...

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pzweig69 we kicked their ass!!! @.artiedon ure short

❤️ 2 392 💬 247 ➡️ 1875

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y/n.serves shut up

tashiduncan don't care didn't ask

pzweig69 @.y/n.serves @.tashiduncan u guys are so mean :(

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y/n.serves went to an art gallery and she started taking selfies with the paintings???

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tashiduncan now u can say i have a selfie with van gogh :D

➔ y/n.serves @.tashiduncan you're so stupid i love you [this comment was deleted]

➔ y/n.serves @.tashiduncan you're so stupid

artiedon the paintings are so pretty!

show more...

tashiduncan we tried to match

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artiedon so cute! :3

pzweig69 gay

➔ tashiduncan @.pzweig69 i've reported this comment and your whole account

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y/n.serves quality time ❤️

❤️ 💬 ➡️

[this post was deleted]

tashiduncan sleepover :)

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y/n.serves my gorgeous wife

y/n.serves oops

y/n.serves you look good 😁

➔ tashiduncan @.y/n.serves thank u baby <3

pzweig69 two girls playing with each other at a sleepover

➔ tashiduncan @.tashiduncan kill yourself

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[fallbhind]

CHALLENGERS BOT RELEASE

✧ | art donaldson — stepdaddy ✧ | patrick zweig — what a perv! ✧ | tashi duncan — attitude adjustment ✧ | tashi duncan — stepmommy ✧ | art and tashi — such meanies ✧ | art tashi patrick — young n pretty

want to see what i'm working on? here !

[girliism]

dating stanford era!tashi.

you guys met at orientation becoming fast friends. despite how painful obvious the flirting between you two was neither of you made a move. you guys sort of danced around each other for a bit before you eventually asked her out.

tashi was definitely the possessive type. she just wanted to be with you all the time (not that you complained) and you practically lived in her dorm, purposely leaving your favorite pairs of clothes there so you had a reason to come back.

you became like a lucky charm for tashi, something about you standing in the stands with your stanford red duncantor t-shirt screaming her name louder than anyone that just made her play better.

you liked kissing tashi. her lips and skin always so soft against yours. the reason she was late to so many practices since dating you was because you didn’t want to let her go always promising to only after one more kiss which turned into five which turned into your hands in her shorts, fingers pumping in and out of her core. doesn’t matter that she’ll have to stay a little later to make up for lost time cause she just sneaks you onto the court to keep her company.

tashi constantly begged you to let her teach you some tennis stuff and you eventually gave in only after having lost a bet. you had not one athletic bone in your body. you missed every single ball she hit at you and for some reason the racket was annoyingly heavy. you felt like a baby deer trying to walk for the first time, tashi thought you were cutest thing ever. you didn’t let one bad day stop you though, you let tashi drag you day after day onto those courts cause tennis was such a big part of her life and you wanted to experience that with her.

tashi ended up bringing you home with her for winter break that year. your nerves were going crazy the whole ride but tashi reassured you that her family would love you and they did. the second her parents opened the door, big hugs were given as her mother ushered you inside. the whole trip her mom doted on you, constantly asking if you comfortable if you needed anything and that she didn’t mind if slept in tashi’s room as long as actual sleeping was the only thing happening. she told you stories about tashi growing up and showed you photo albums of baby tashi while you tried not to die from the cuteness.

tashi said ‘i love you’ first on that winter break trip. christmas morning when just the two of you were together she wrapped her arms around your neck and whispered it in your ear.

[maduncan]

⠀ა ⠀ ♱ ⠀　. tashi d. hc’s

little note: this is my first ever piece of writing! and also this is not proofread

( nsfw at the bottom )

safe for work :

• tashi has to be near you— no, she has to be touching you; whether that’s holding your thigh, holding your hand, hand around your waist. she can not stand being two feet away from you.

• she’s so possessive over you, like that dial is turned to the maximum. she is the only one for you, forever. whether you like it or not, your only ever gonna be known as ‘tashi’s girl’- people know that if they even think about flirting with you or asking you out tashi will always know about it. (and most likely give them a talking to no a beating)

• she’ll do anything for you, and yes anything. she will kill for you, she’d hurt people for you; she’s done it before, but did you know about it? no. she’d never let you know that, she thinks that if you knew you’d see her some sort of monster or weirdo. but god would she never even think about hurting you. she wouldn’t be able to lay a finger on you. she could put a finger in you though.

- you two barely ever disagree or argue— but when you do, it’s bad. she’ll be gaslighting you into thinking your the one who went wrong, but it was really her.

- (^continued^) but as soon as the argument ends and it hits her that she made you feel bad, or hurt you she’d be holding you in her arms and tell you how sorry she is and comfort you until she feels better about both you and her.

not safe for work :

( minors dni )

- she 100% is completely and shamelessly obsessed with marking you. the thought of everyone knowing your hers— even if they already know, it makes her even more cocky.

- best aftercare ever— she’ll be grabbing a towel almost immediately after, and after that she’ll be holding you, kissing your neck, and comforting you.

- lowkey she has a mommy kink, but she definitely loves degrading you. she’ll call you the most dehumanizing things ever, and of course you’ll eat that up— well she’s technically the one eating here.

- after a really hard and stressful day of either training or games or even both, she’ll have such sloppy but good sex. she’ll be mumbling sweet nothings that are so badly put together it’s adorable.

- if she gets really horny in public and she doesn’t want to take you to the bathroom or anywhere else because then they’ll know. she’ll just finger you under your skirt, starting slow and then after a minute or two fastening up the pace. she loves how your holding in so many noises and how your toes curl. oh how she just wants someone to notice but not say anything.

[ultralightpoe]

Challengers Master List

All my Challengers fics posted here!

MY MAIN MASTERLIST HERE

Last Updated: 11~2~24

"What makes you think I want someone to be in love with me?"

[Thank you for the gif @tennisarchives ]

Tashi Duncan

Art Donaldson

The Hex Hold [Halloween 2024]

Patrick Zweig

In The Deck [Halloween 2024]

[ervotica]

you’re an angel, i’m a dog — a.donaldson

pairing; older!art donaldson x fem!reader

warnings; roughly written, badly edited, not beta’d (because when is it ever?), allusions to smut, implied age gap (reader is early 20s, art is early 30s), slight tashi x fem!reader if you squint, infidelity (but tashi is kinda cool with it), just some thoughts about older!art and his pretty girl

a/n; this concept has been eating at me for daysss so i had to write it at least roughly! should we make this a series? (maybe get patrick involved?🫢) let me know what you think! ART & CHALLENGERS (poly!art & patrick) REQUESTS ARE OPEN! any questions / conversation starters about this particular au are highly appreciated and encouraged!! please come to my inbox 📥 <3

older!art is fucking obsessed with you— you, who comes to every one of his matches, who sits next to his wife in those adorable little tennis skirts you sport just for him, who whoops and cheers from the stands whether he wins or loses.

you’re forbidden fruit. so, naturally, he adores you.

tashi knows, because of course she does. she never pries, never so much as spares you a second glance when he wraps his arms around you and buries his face in your neck and huffs hot air against the shell of your ear. she doesn’t care — you’ve made art better at tennis.

his confidence has skyrocketed since having a pretty thing like you cheering him on, his biggest and most enthusiastic supporter. he plays better, he second guesses himself less, he’s more relaxed.

you’re what’s been missing. the last piece of the puzzle.

an obedient little thing, glued to his side, wagging like a dog at his every command.

he fucking loves it. loves having someone relying on him for love and validation. loves the way you preen under his fervent gaze and flutter your lashes at the slightest touch.

when tashi asks you to join art’s team officially, you almost keel over.

“look, i don’t care that he’s fucking you… or that he’s in love with you. he has a shot at the us open this year, and he needs you by his side to do it.” she says. you’re quick to agree, ever obedient and desperate to please.

“he’s in love with me?”

she scoffs. “you’ve seen the way he looks at you. he almost creams his pants every time you’re in the same room as him.” she tilts your chin upwards with a crooked finger, giving your cheek an affectionate - albeit condescending - pat.

“you two can have your fun— but he has to win this year.”

art’s perched against the doorframe when you turn, corded forearms crossed over his chest. you scrunch your nose, pushing back a smile that crinkles at your eyes despite your efforts.

fucking smitten.

tashi rolls her eyes, a half smile tugging at the corner of her lips, and she nudges you towards him.

“go on.”

he opens his arms in greeting and you’re quick to fall into them, your fingers knotting in the shorn hair at his nape. his chest expands beneath your own as he takes a long breath, and he presses his nose to your pulse point, shuddering.

“love you.” he murmurs into your skin.

“love you more.”

he could cry; he doesn’t remember the last time someone told him they loved him and meant it. you’re obsessed with him, almost as much as he is with you.

at his next match, you carry his rackets and send him off with a good luck kiss that has him breathless, grinning as you roll his wad of gum between your teeth that you sucked right from his waiting mouth.

he wins.

how could he not with his pretty girl watching?

and that night, he rewards you with a thorough fucking, whispered love confessions against your lips, and a breathy moan as he cums that you won’t be forgetting anytime soon.

so, yeah. maybe this life isn’t so bad, after all.

[artssslut2]

This side by side.

[midwestprincesss]

how did it end?

part 1 || patrick zweig x fem!reader

"you cannot love somebody into loving you"

summary: your relationship with patrick has been on and off for ages. you knew him and he knew you. you love him but he only loves you when he can get something out of it. but then, can that even be considered love?

a/n(READ THIS BITCH): random ass specific fact about the reader but she is skincare obsessed like me. acne prone girlies yk what im talking about. btw I KNOW PATRICK DOESN'T GO TO STANFORD BUT WE WILL PRETEND HE SPENDS A LOT OF TIME THERE OK. also this series will only continue if u guys give me feedback. and hype me up. cause i have no motivation. patrick girlies help me i know ur out there💪 also this first chapter is like. they're friends but pining. no angst yet oopsie

2004, stanford college.

being in love with patrick was difficult. really, really fucking difficult. it was almost like you had to put in an effort to be in love with him. nevertheless, you didn't. to you it just felt easy. you wish you could get rid of the feeling, but it doesn't seem to want to go away.

patrick zweig could be very easily described in one word: player. and by that i don't only mean tennis player.

but he was easy to love, too. if we ignore all the mixed signals he always gave you, he's actually a sweet guy.

he remembers your coffee order. he listens to your problems. he calls you to check up on you. and he takes care of you while you're out partying. and after that. and in the morning. he holds your hair and rubs your back as you puke out whatever the fuck you drank last night. he gives you his clothes. out of all the girls he knows, he gives you his clothes.

this was one of those times.

saturday morning.

you woke up with a horrible headache and with a certain curly-haired boy next to you. you try to remember what happened last night, but you give up after about three minutes of staring at the ceiling in silence. who cares, really? at least you woke up in your bed, and not on a random bench outside. not that patrick would ever let that happen.

he has the key to your dorm. he spent most of his days with you, so you figured it would be totally fine for him to have it.

you rub your eyes sleepily as you look to your left- patrick was not sleeping either.

"morning." he said, simply. you groaned in response.

"glad you asked, and you're welcome." he said sarcastically. "you got fucking wasted, like usual. i had to carry you from the party. not that you couldn't walk, but you just insisted on it. when we finally got here you threw up all over yourself. and then in the toilet, like three times, i think."

your eyes widened in disgust. you looked down at your clothes, expecting to find a now vomit-stained white dress on. to your surprise, you were wearing a dark green tee - you remember you've seen it on patrick once- and a pair of uncomfortably large boxers. you're surprised they didn't fall off while you were sleeping.

"patrick." you said, terrified. "please tell me i took my makeup off before sleeping. or at least washed my face." patrick sighed. 'blah blah blah i have sensitive skin blah blah blah i'll break out if i sleep with my makeup on' you always told him, whenever he was sleeping over.

"you didn't." he said. then went quiet for a few seconds, but just for his own amusement. he thought you looked cute when you were worried. but worried was not a big enough word for the look on your face- you were more like, mortified, maybe? so he decided to stop joking around. "i took your makeup off. i couldn't find those circular white thingies you do it with so i used a towel-"

you cut him off with a laugh. you could actually kiss him. maybe you shouldn't, though. your breath smelled like actual shit. looking to your right, at the nightstand next to your side of the bed, you noticed your earrings and necklace and rings arranged neatly next to eachother and you swore you felt your heart flutter.

you knew patrick cared about you, but you didn't think he would be so attentive. usually, you don't get so drunk, so you can actually do what you need to do by yourself. even then, he insists he should do it for you. but you always refused him, partly because you didn't want to bother him but you were also pretty convinced he would not do things properly. he proved you wrong.

"for how long have you been awake?" you ask him.

"i'm not sure whether i even slept. you kept talking on your sleep. and tossing. and turning. and stealing the blanket. i think you even slapped me once-" he started laughing as you started muttering apologies, but he immediately told you not to worry about it.

you sighed, then you both went silent. you examined his face- he really did seem tired- droopy eyes, dark eyebags, eyelids partially closed. but still smirking at you. no one and nothing could ever wipe that shit-eating grin off his face.

"you look cute." he broke the silence, letting his thumb linger on your cheek.

"i feel like shit." you snickered, hiding your face in your hands but he immediately pulled them away, kissing your knuckles.

that took you by surprise. sure, you and patrick were affectionate with eachother, but this felt way more intimate than usual. what was going on with him?

suddenly, you looked at the time. 10:30 am. you were late for breakfast. like, really late. you figured there wouldn't be anything left in the cafeteria by now.

"shit. we'll have to starve until lunch, patrick" you told him, a hint of irony in your voice.

"don't worry, i'll go get us something from the supermarket." he said as he got up, pulling a grey hoodie over his head. he took his keys and wallet then looked down lovingly at you as you still rested on the bed. "call me if you need anything else" he said , kissing your forehead then leaving. leaving your dorm, but also leaving you swooning over him.

you were in it for good.

[abbysbunny]

⋆𐙚 being tashi and art's sugar baby 🎾

warnings: implied hyperfem!reader, sugar mommy/daddy dynamics, fluff !

notes: TASHI ONE CHANGE PLEASE PLEASE

˚⊹♡ tashi who loves loves spoiling you!! as much as art loves spoiling you it will neverrr compare to how much tashi loves it, she will buy you absolutely anything, even if in art's eyes it's too expensive she's buy it for you !!!!>_<

˚⊹♡ they make you do little fashion shows for them^^ when they take you on a shopping spree they have you try everything on and show them, even making you give them a little twirl in skirts and dresses:3

˚⊹♡ you're always there at art's tournaments! you sit by tashi, she always has her hand on your thigh and is stroking it with her thumb, you always wear the shortest jean shirt and sometimes when you stand up it distracts him:((

˚⊹♡ they're sooo protective over you!!!! you are 100% theirs and they get so pissed when someone flirts with you or asks you out when they're not with you

˚⊹♡ they're both so clingy, they make sure that most of the time they're around you, they don't like having you not in sight, when you're out with them they always have you in the middle of them with tashi's hand on the small of your back>3<

˚⊹♡ they will buy you any clothing style you want, whether it's goth, coquette, grunge etc... they will buy it for u!!!! no matter what!!!!

˚⊹♡ they're always cooking for you, they try to make sure you never lift a finger . they're both so incredibly sweet with you, whenever you're sad they run to comfort you, when you're crying they hold you and shush you:(

˚⊹♡ they love you soso much and they will do anything to protect you and keep you safe!^_^

[dropitpunk]

thinking about art donaldson

cw: art donaldson x gn!reader, suggestive content, fluff overall.

you first saw him at tennis practice at stanford, snapback on his head and a playful smile adorning his concentrated face.

strawberry blond hair dripping with sweat, staining the red college shirt.

he looked like a professional, tennis and him conjoined as one.

"who is that?" you asked your friend, suppressing a giggle. your eyes followed his racket hitting the ball with impressive strength.

"art donaldson. you don't know him? fire and ice and all that." she said as if it was obvious. you sighed, still watching his strong legs running towards the tennis ball.

you weren't that much into sports to know anyone besides the rising star tashi duncan, but after that night you couldn't help but read every article and book related to tennis.

"hey! is anyone sitting here?" your face was all red, ears burning and fingers aggressively tapping the lunch tray in your hands.

"no, she just left." art donaldson smiled kindly at you, eyes crinkling.

he looked beautiful, skin and hair shining under the sun coming from the big windows. you felt awkward, taking the seat across from him. but the cafeteria was so full and that seemed like the perfect opportunity.

"so... i heard you play tennis."

and art was so simple to talk to. he was enthusiastic to talk about any topic, putting much thought into every answer to your questions and even more effort into getting to know you. it was impossible not to become instantly friends with art when he was so likable.

you started to sit closer to him and tashi duncan at lunch and breakfast, and you came often to watch his tennis practice. you went to tashi's games with him, walked around campus with your bag on his shoulders, you drank from the same gatorade bottle after the gym.

it was too easy to create intimacy with art when he was so thoughtful to you.

you never explicitly admitted your attraction to him, and he never seemed embarrassed about the way his eyes would linger on your lips, on your chest.

how his fingers caressed your arm when you were distracted or the long kisses on your cheek when it was time to say goodbye. you two never talked about any of this, but it wasn't necessary.

"wanna come over later? my room?" you asked all in one breath, nervously scanning art's expression.

he was caught off guard, swallowing and nodding quickly. "you got snacks?"

"what do you think?" you two smiled.

and he knew just how to kiss you right from the first time.

you were sitting in your bed, one of his hands squeezing your thighs and the other lost in your hair, pulling you against him. you tasted his hunger on your tongue, lips bruising you with his passion.

your hands clinged to his shirt, trying to bring him closer and closer. his arms were strong, never letting you go.

he was reluctant to be away from you even to breathe, lips red and pouty and glossed over eyes. art almost whined, gripping your waist to put your body against his again.

"want you." he whispered against your ear, kissing your neck.

from that moment, art was devoted to you.

there wasn't anything you could ask that art wouldn't move mountains to give to you.

his first gift was a promise ring, a beautiful stone on your ring finger meaning you were only his. his lover, his priority.

he asked you to come to every game of his wearing his clothes, sweaty kisses all over your face when he wins.

art kissed every part of you, love burning in his eyes so intense it left you breathless.

"you looked so cute cheering for me." his smile was wide and happy, hugging your waist from behind as you picked a book from the shelf at the library.

"i could say i'm a fan." his energy was infectious, making a laugh bubble in your chest.

he patted your head, looking around before stealing a kiss and mumbling against your mouth "my number one fan."

and you were. you made signs with his name and took pictures of him on every game with your camera. only his best angles, smiling when he posed and sent hearts at you.

he was just as supportive of your studies, picking up different books and buying different colored pencils, writing his name on the pages of your notebooks just to annoy you.

would make you tea and buy you sweet treats after you were finished, kissing your temples and forehead if you complained about headaches.

he rested his head on your chest and lap a lot, looking up at you so you could get the hint and pet him.

art wanted to spend every second of his free time with you, so he was extremely satisfied when you asked him to teach you how to play tennis.

he went easy on you, extremely careful with his explanations so you wouldn't hurt yourself. art would stand behind you and place his hands on your fingers so he could correct the way you were holding the racket, strong chest glued to your back.

"you are already better than me." he was being kind. art smiled, he enjoyed praising the people he loved.

"you look so pretty with your hair like this."

"you smell so good, i can recognize you anywhere"

"you are so smart, i'd never have thought of this."

"wanna kiss you until you're sore and tired from my love." he said to you one night, voice calm and muffled as he had his head burried on your chest.

"m' not gonna get tired, art."

"you promise?" art looked up at you, eyes shining with emotion and face flushed.

you placed a hand on his cheek, the stone on your promise ring reflecting the moonlight. he leaned into your touch, kissing your palm with eyes closed.

"yeah, i promise."

a/n: not often into blondes but a hot man is a hot man #teamart

[pparacxosm]

stream of green

(stanfordera!tashi duncan x fem!nursingstudent!reader; tw injury; me taking my headcanon and furtive desire to be an english major and making it everyone’s problem; tw art donaldson typical guard dog behaviour; tw iced matcha dependency; anyway you get it; some of you have seen this before; everything is about wanting to kiss tashi duncan, except for wanting to kiss tashi duncan, which is about war and peace by leo tolstoy)

Tashi's Literature course is doing Tolstoy.

In the book, Natasha frolics in fields in a dandelion dress. She sings on her balcony at Otradnoe.

Natasha simply sits in an opera box, and she inspires white hot desire like dribbling crimson from a fresh wound. Raw and unequivocal.

Everyone could hate her. Hate this beautiful thing wrapped up in silk in lace and purity; Natasha has all the opportunity in the world. And there is something to ruining a beautiful thing.

Smouldering rose petals. Butchered sonatas.

Destroy it so nobody can enjoy it.

But they can't. They can't, right?

Because Natasha's vivacity persists like a man parched and desertborne. And Natasha's tremendous joy exists independent of any external condition. And Natasha is a courageous young woman who is willing to pay the price for giving her heart. And it pays off. Her kindness and tenacity and charm and dreams of flying to the moon will pay off. It all pays off. It has to.

And—okay—Tashi hasn't finished the book. She's bad at finishing books. Always has this lingering sense of dread that something's bound to give. So she'd like to think that Natasha's passion will pay off, in the end.

But her knee gives in the second set.

With a visceral pop that makes her gaze fizzle like static TV.

The poky infirmary is tucked away in a hushed, tepid corner of the school. Tashi stares at the smudged carcass of a smacked bug, a fingersized smear against a gleaming white brick on the wall across from where she sits and rots. She thinks of things once living and now dead, and her eyes, pinkrimmed and tender, begin to water again.

Art hangs his head beside her, wincing when she whimpers as her leg twitches. Tashi is glad to know that he feels so bad over what's happened.

Natasha is beautiful, young, ripe for the taking. She's engaged, sure, but not taken yet. Anatole doesn't let Natasha's commitment to Andrei get in the way of his wanting. Art chases Patrick off like a stray hopefully pawing at the door. Tashi is glad for that, too, as much as she can be. She gets the sense she won't be too glad at anything for a long while.

Your sneakers squeal against the linoleum floors as you walk in, clipboard held comically close to your face. You've only just gotten new glasses frames, but they pinch your nose bridge like a bitch, and you keep taking them off and forgetting where you've set them down.

“Okay...” you trail off, lowering the page, having gleaned fuck all from Nurse Roche's already hieroglyphic handwriting. “Uh, who's the patient here?”

One of them strikes you as more of a Natasha Zola Duncan (Deacon? You squint at Nurse Roche's scrawls. No, Duncan, definitely Duncan) than the other, but you're taught not to make assumptions, in your field.

Tashi is halfprone on the bed, stiff as sediment. Her knee is cloistered in thick layers of bandages, propped up upon a folded towel. Her face is pale with shock and steelsolid.

She parts her dry lips, a quiet ferocity in her tearweary gaze, but what comes out is a thin whistle.

“Maybe the one whose leg is wrapped up in enough gauze to clothe an inuit village.”

It's pretty stark imagery. It's sort of funny, but you think better than to laugh. She sounds harsh. She sounds rattled.

You have this sudden flash—a fragment of a memory of a large, sprawling poster on the cafeteria wall, the aptly emboldened text of DUNCANATOR!!! printed beneath a picture of a girl, clear and hot as freshblown glass, crowing like a gladiator with a racket in her hand.

You can't be certain it's even her. You're not good with faces, nor have you ever cared about tennis.

This girl, pensive and seething and lachrymose, her blonde acolyte seemingly too scared to dote on her properly, even as he clings to their proximity, bears little resemblance to the indomitable Duncanator who is said to glissade across campus with all the grace of Misty Copeland and the colonydecimating rage of Joan of Arc.

You only smile.

“Exactly. So why the friend?” you say as kindly as possible, gesturing vaguely toward him with your pen.

There's a pretty strict rule about nonfamilial tagalongs. One too many drunken partygoers convinced they're practically kissing the gates of death, ushered in by two dozen members of what they claim is their inner circle. The room is only so big.

“He's emotional support,” she says firmly.

You raise an eyebrow.

You hate to be anal. But you'd rather be a bit of a bitch to a peer who won't remember you than shoulder another warning from Roche and risk losing this shadowing gig.

“Boyfriends really aren't allowed in here,” you try again.

“What are you going to do, kick her out of the ER?”

It's the boy now. He's glaring at you with all the intensity of a water jet. You glance off to the side, halfawkward, halfjaded. You've seen your share of the white knight playlet.

Tashi pays him little mind. “I want the nurse.”

“Unfortunately, she's quite busy today,” you smile, “So it's me, or another hour wait.”

Her eyes narrow to serrated slits of amber. “Fine.”

You round the bed to stand to the right of her. The boy sits in direct obstruction. You gesture to a seat across the room with your pen.

“Could he sit over there? Might be a bit easier to see your...” you trail off, squinting at the clipboard again, “Right leg.”

She nods at him sharply, and you're a little tickled by his silent obedience, standing from his place at her side and jogging around the bed to sit at her... other side.

“Not quite where I pointed,” you note.

“Can you just order an X-ray or something?” Tashi's voice is frayed at its edges and clinging to its hardness. She feels like crying again, like letting loose those tears stuck at the corners of her eyes. But she doesn't. If she started now, she'd never finish. “I'm in pain and I have work to do.”

“Sounds important,” you say, reaching for the little first aid box latched to the wall beside her and unsheathing a disinfectant wipe.

She scans your profile, and you cannot tell if she wants you to notice her scrutiny. “Because it is.”

She doesn't seem to believe herself.

“If I had talent, I don't think l'd bother with coursework,” you muse aloud.

She seems, at once, pleased and disgusted by this sentiment.

“Well, people need skills beyond just hitting a ball with a racket.”

Beside her, the boy shifts at this choice of words. He runs a pale, feverish hand over and through his wheat field hair. He blows a thick and heavy breath out of lips bitten raw.

“Maybe,” you shrug at length, snapping on a pair of gloves. “Now, let's see what we're working with...”

Tashi, with a barely concealed wince, shifts her leg closer toward you, and you sweep gently over her skin with your hands. Her skin is very warm.

“Are you a nurse? Or, like, an intern?” she asks.

You smile, crouching down to be eye level with her knee. “Neither. Student.”

“So you're aspiring,” her boy supplies uselessly. You can't be sure if he's inquiring or stating. You hum an acknowledgment in any case, shrugging. To aspire seems such a daunting word.

Tashi levels you with a look laden with... something.

Then she hisses in pain when your thumb prods a little too hard through the bandaging.

“That's the most painful area,” you say, and it's more of a statement than a question.

“Obviously!” she groans, and the boy beside her fixes you with a territorial glower.

You think to try telling him to kick rocks again, but you only sigh, pursing your lips to the side pensively.

“On a scale from one to ten, ten being the worst, how bad is the pain?” You're still holding her leg, but you're no longer pressing.

“One hundred,” she replies.

“Is she always like this?” you smile, and cast her golden consort a wry glance.

He seems to have some choice words for you.

“Art, go,” she says.

Was it something I said? you want to say. But he's gone—hesitant, but dutiful nonetheless—before you can land. Probably for the best. Tough crowd, the two make.

“Just get me a brace and call it a day, please,” she huffs.

“I don't have that kind of authority,” you muse, which isn't totally true, but you need to follow the checklist of wound assessment protocol before you make any sort of call. Even though she will probably be needing a brace. “Can I ask you to rotate your leg for me, like this?”

She watches you straighten, and gather a bit of the fabric of your skirt, drawing the hem upwards and twisting your leg in demonstration. She shakes her head promptly and firmly.

“We need to be able to determine what we think is wrong, to specify what the techs are X-raying. If you could move your leg, l'll have a better idea,” you say, cringing sympathetically. And you mean it, the sympathy, but she's sort of not buying it.

“It's going to hurt. I don't want to do it,” she says.

“Are you crying because the pain is that severe?” you frown. “Or do you just want me to feel bad for you and stop asking to move your leg?”

“I'm not crying,” she grunts, wiping the tears on her cheeks. They quickly replace themselves. Like this perennial stream. Like she has just emerged from water, over and over.

“Right...” You give her a look. “So that's, what, spontaneous moisture on your face?”

You write something on the clipboard, and she makes an obvious effort to see what it is.

“You shouldn't be a nurse. You're too annoying.”

You don't know, yet, if you're gonna let that hurt your feelings.

She hadn't meant it meanly, just honestly. She could be nice—she is nice—but you're, decidedly, not making her bad day much better.

You smile, sort of laughing. “Move your leg. Please? I can give you something if it's that serious, the pain you're in.”

“Of course the pain is serious! Why the hell else do people come here?” she snaps. She's snapping now. Gnashing teeth like a cornered dog. But, really, you think she reminds you more of a wounded bird.

Tashi feels something queasy in her stomach, the prelude to dryheaving. She feels a new set of tears well in her eyes. She feels betrayed by her body. And that stings. Of all the things that have happened to her, of all the bruises, scrapes, of all the disappointments, that probably stings the most.

“You'd be surprised,” you smile. “Let me go find a real nurse.”

Natashas are meant to repent. Or, at the very least, suffer a tragic, agonising loss of self. The world is their oyster, but they can never see any of it through. All they can do is accept their miserable lot in life. It's pure prose.

“Alright, here we are,” you walk back in with a backpack on your shoulder. You should be knocking off in a few minutes time.

You're holding a little paper cup with two pills inside.

“What is it?” Tashi holds it under her nose.

“They're pills, they don't smell,” you say. “And they're an extra strength ibuprofen. Might make you a bit woozy.”

“Sounds like a real trip,” she mutters. She swallows the pills on their own, and takes a courtesy sip of the water you offer after.

“Roche is gonna come soon to undress and clean your knee,” you say, slumping your bag on the edge of her bed, careful not to disturb her throbbing leg. “So I'm gonna try and move it now. Can you bear it?”

“Have I not been bearing it?” Her teeth are gritted like padlocked prison bars.

In the dim room, one small window casts a narrow shaft of light across her face. The whirring AC renders every breath of air glaciercool and clinical. But Tashi's skin seems clammy with fever, her face beaded like a tapestry with the sickly sweat of pain and shock. You don't quite like the look of her. Especially as your fingers ghost her wound.

“You take ELIT?” she asks, her voice thick with saliva and strained like tensed elastic. You think she's hoping to distract you as your fingers approach the painful spot again. You hope she's distracting herself, even if it's inadvertent and spiteful. “1048?”

“Uh,” you pause, holding her leg. You're a bit unnerved at the pointedness there. You can count on your two hands how many times you've attended your English Literature lectures this semester. “Yeah.”

You clear your throat.

“You're flunking,” she grits, eyes closed, and she's not really asking. You don't totally appreciate her tone, but you don't suppose you can hold it against her in her state.

“Uhm... no, actually,” you say.

“You're just, like, antisocial?” And that does sound like a question, at least. Or maybe an assessment.

“Maybe,” you say, at length. Then, “Yeah.”

She clicks her teeth. “Gotta come to the lectures,” she says, and you don't make the face you want to make out loud. “You don't get a pity degree for being antisocial.”

“I'll keep that in mind.”

“You read the book?”

She doesn't say it in any sort of way, and you try not to take it in any sort of way, but you are stricken with the sudden biting suspicion of her opinion on you. Does she think you aloof, or uncaring? Maybe you're a little uncommitted. You're no star athlete, that's for sure. Tashi's knee throbs like a beating heart in your hands.

“Um. I mean, I read it in high school,” you say. You cough.

Her eyes shoot open, but they are narrowed and pained and maybe growing fatigued.

“Did you just cough on me?” Tashi pulls back. “You're a nurse, you should know better.”

“Sorry, sorry,” you mutter, “Aspiring.”

“Oh, sure.”

A pause.

“You should read the book,” she says.

“Yeah,” you nod, reaching for your bag and slinging it back over your arm. You know better than not to wear it on both shoulders. Your first year portfolio for your Health Systems Sciences course was on scoliosis awareness. But still.

She is either subsumed by a sudden ache, or she is displeased with your dismissal of her advice, because she sort of grimaces. And are you being dismissive? Maybe. But she's talented and beautiful and probably clever. And you're not a nurse yet. So you think you get to be a bit shitty.

“I have to leave you,” you say. “Think of me while you get better.”

Tashi's eyes linger bitterly on you, like she's trying to calculate whether she'd feel better if you dropped dead before you made it out the door.

She settles that, in fact, she would not.

When her shoe's sole gave way like it was on ice, Tashi had been struck. Not by the pain—there hadn't been pain right away, though; in that moment, that wretched, fleeting moment, she had felt a strange sensation of nothing at all—but by the noise. A horrifying crack like a wet towel smacking a wall in a fetid locker room. Echoed and nauseating.

And she thought, in that moment, she heard Patrick's voice in her ear, whispering sort of feverishly, okay, I'm sorry, you psycho!

It had sounded like something worth clinging to.

But what she hears now doesn't sound like Patrick at all.

“Just breathe, young lady.”

She wishes you'd have told her, before you left, how Nurse Roche is a heavyhanded, unsympathetic, cigarettestenched shrew.

Tashi thinks she's fighting off the medicine. She can almost imagine her fists swinging wildly, even has they lay stiff beside her, gripping the sides of the bed with the absent ferocity of a corpse.

It's almost like she wants to punish herself. Scratch that, of course she wants to punish herself. She's a Natasha, after all.

Nurse Roche unwinds the wrappings around her knee.

They cling to her stubbornly with a putrid crust of brownred. She's been bleeding, and the thought makes her a little uneasy. Nurse Roche has to tear the cotton from her skin.

A fresh trail of tears cut a swath through Tashi's face.

She cries like a waterfall.

Nurse Roche is binning the gauze when Tashi sees it.

The swelling, a violent red and angry purple like spilt wine. The bruising, a deep blue and the blackest black. The joint itself, deformed and swollen. Swollen as it is, a few parts of the structure of her knee are still visible. Should she take a closer look, she wonders, through the miserable morass of her drugaddled brain.

Nurse Roche says she's seen a few swollen knees in her time. But nothing quite this bad.

Even in her suffering, Tashi Duncan is remarkable. She'd laugh if she had the strength.

“Fuck...” is all she manages, before her head falls back on the pillow and she closes her eyes.

When she opens them again, it's late afternoon and the room is empty. Vivid orange light pours in through the window and washes the walls in panels of warmth and sunheat. Tashi can hear birdsong. She thought she'd be happy to see the sun kissing the tops of the university buildings through yellowgreen leaves, but she's just okay about it. Coming back from what she was sure, for a moment, was the brink of death hasn't changed her outlook that much, it seems.

Tashi lifts a heavy hand to her bruised knee. They've rewrapped it now, tight and neat. Still, the bruises pulse angrily, making themselves known to her. She scratches a little under the top seam of the gauze, even though she knows she shouldn't.

“You shouldn't do that.”

Someone is standing in the doorway. Coming in, to be precise, and holding a cup of iced coffee? No, matcha. Tashi feels her dry mouth go slightly damp. It's you. You, with your backpack on both shoulders now. A sweater you weren't wearing before. You're smiling. Tashi feels so relieved she nearly falls back asleep.

“Hey, sleeping beauty. Your parents are here. They're gonna take you to the hospital to get your X-ray,” you inform her, coming close to the bed.

You rest your fingertips on her forehead briefly. Tashi turns her head to avoid your touch, but not in any earnest way, and your fingers move to her jaw, then under her jaw. It’s almost clinical, but, if it were, you’d be using the backs of your knuckles. This feels sort of tender, Tashi thinks.

“Your fever's down, at least,” you say, sitting down in the vacant chair beside her. “Roche's glad you got some sleep. She said you were basically speaking in tongues while she redressed you.”

Tashi wets her lips. She feels feverish anyway. She tries to speak. “Where'd you go?”

“Good question,” you reply, and she's sure you're being friendly, but she still bristles a bit in her fogginess.

She's so muzzy and paranoid, when you reach into your bag, she thinks she wouldn't even mind if you unsheathed a pistol and put her out of her misery. But you don't. You take out a dense paperback novel that has seen better days. You hold it in her field of vision like that's supposed to mean anything to her.

“Bought it just now, at the secondhand library,” you say. And then, feigning longsuffering, planting your elbow on the hard, thin mattress, just beside her head and resting your cheek in your palm, looming over her, “I thought you'd be pleased.”

Her eyes flutter closed, but she turns her face toward you, a sheet of copper sunlight catching her eyelash and gilding it. She is, actually, so beautiful. You were able to give her poster a proper look today, when you left, and you think it doesn't even do her justice. Even as she lays here, lifeless and forlorn. Her skin is absolutely smooth. Like tepid, gleaming, milky tea. Her lips look like fruit flesh in early summer. When she notices you admiring her, she makes this pout, like a reproachful duck.

Her eyes, three-quarters-lidded, are watching you, through her lashes, with the intensity of a wildcat. She is not in the mood to be admired, they say. But they're pretty all the same.

“And I ran into your boyfriend,” you smile, your finger idly tracing the clothed bend of her knee.

Tashi looks like she wants to kick your head off. But she remains as still as midnight in a prairie, a light clench of her jaw the only indication that she's heard you at all.

“Patrick?” she whispers after some time.

You make a face. “No,” you say, dragging out the syllable. You don't know what you're supposed to do about that. Well, you guess you don't need to do anything. It's not like you're her boyfriend. Instead, patting her knee and eliciting a tiny, shuddering whimper, you say, “He told me you don't drink coffee, only matcha. He asked if he can come see you.”

Tashi resents being asked after by fucking Art, of all people. But her curiosity takes precedence. “What did you tell him?”

You look down, embarrassed. “I said he can't come see you...”

“You...” she starts, but cannot repeat the whole sentence, as if the words are part of a madeup language.

“You didn't seem any more or less emotionally supported when he fucked off, is the thing. And Roche says it was like an exorcism, getting this stuff on you.” Your fingernail scratches almost imperceptibly over the coarse beige surface of the crepe bandage. “Said you were sweating and spitting and cussing her out like a flank eruption.”

Tashi's body twitches. Once. Twice. And it is with a guttural moan that she heaves her body, seeming at once leaden and weightless, to face you, curling in on herself with what strength and dexterity she is able, like a stilltailed foetus. Shuddery and nascent.

“I wouldn't want my boyfriend to see me like that,” you say.

Tashi feels something like nausea, even as her belly whines with hunger.

She reaches an aimless hand up, and it flails in feeble slowness until it lands on your shoulder.

Her face must show that she is absolutely pleased, because you laugh. And the motion of it makes her hand drop with a lifeless thunk against the mattress.

“Don't worry,” you say, turning to grab her matcha, and the rattle of the ice against the plastic cup makes her eyes, mucus laden, flutter fully open like an activated sleeper agent. “I don't expect a thank you,” you say, “If it makes you feel better, I didn't go to that much effort. He seemed a bit spooked about the whole thing anyway.”

It doesn't make her feel better. You stab the straw into the lid of the matcha. You carefully lower the mouth of it between her teeth. She sips in earnest, and a stream of green dribbles down the side of her face.

“Patrick?” she asks again wearily. You tug the hem of your sleeve over your hand and use your clothed knuckle to swipe at her cheek. She is so pallid that her skin blooms with a faint streak of red where you'd wiped. But it's hard to see. The room is getting dimmer.

“Patrick...” you repeat in thought.

You have a bit of a guess. There was a tall, dishevelled, dark haired guy, skulking out the room all shellshocked and marooned shortly after what sounded like a bit of commotion in here. You think you'd heard a yell, something that sounded like ‘Patrick’, but you can't be sure. Still,

“I wouldn't leave the light on for Patrick,” you say, bringing the straw to her parted lips again.

She suckles with the breathy listlessness of a newborn. She doesn't appreciate the commentary on her love life, but she knows she asked.

“Why are you here?” she says, teeth green and voice, despite the lingering slur, as fullbodied as it's sounded in a while.

You glower down at her in wry disapproval, using your damp sleeve to swipe her lips again. Little flecks of skin come off, clinging to the fabric of your jumper.

Tashi regards you. “You said you didn't expect a thank you,” she reminds you.

You two stare at each other in silence for a few uncomfortable moments.

At length, you speak. “I couldn't not come back. I felt bad. I feel guilty. I don't know.”

You have no reason to feel guilty, but Tashi nods as though you do, anyway.

“Oh, poor you,” she says.

You smile.

“How's the pain now?” you ask, “On a scale of one to ten?”

Her leg twitches again. Like a bug smeared against a wall. Halfway alive. You glance at the amorphous slope of it beneath the bandaging.

“Twelve. It's at twelve,” she hisses.

You look up at her face, a little taken aback.

“That's a lot better than a hundred,” you say encouragingly.

“Fuck you,” she returns.

“I'm sorry for hurting you,” you sigh.

“I'm sure you had a very hard time.”

You bring a palm, cool and wet with the condensation from the cup, and splay it upon her forehead. You drag it up, upwards, slicking her tousled hairline. On the poster, she has a slicked back ponytail, a thick, dark braid cascading down her back like a foetal tail.

“Duncanatorrrrr,” you whisper in a low growl, the corners of your lips twitching.

Tashi scowls. Her eyes trace your form as you stand, taking the book—War and Peace, she is now sound enough to discern—and stuffing it into your bag.

She nods, a curt, jerky, miserable motion. She can hear her parents' warbled voices from beyond the door. Her red eyes scream with the sting of going damp again.

“You have a boyfriend?” she asks.

You sling your bag over one shoulder. You're about to thread your other arm through, but you pause at that, humming in question.

“You said...” she trails off, blinking blearily.

“Oh!” you say.

You smile, shaking your head.

It takes the strength of a battalion, but she hoists her head just barely, and swivels her neck to trace your receding form. When you reach the door, you wave goodbye, your shadow turning bright and disappearing in the sunlight.

Natashas everywhere must suffer.

Tashi drops her head heavily back onto the bed as it if were the chopping block. She eyes the iced matcha, condensation creating a wet ring on the sidetable, the bitten straw. She lets herself feel the torment. It's survivable, as tortures go.

Clung to the side of the cup, gathering water, is a little sticky note. Tashi makes out the first few digits of a phone number. She closes her eyes and hears her parents bustle in. They sound relieved, and concerned.

“Oh, Natasha!” wails her mom.

[amymbona]

There is a severe lack of works about Tashi Duncan

[castiwls]

fortnight - a.d

Paring; art x reader

Prompt; 'I touched you for only a fortnight. I touched you, but I touched you'

Requested; anon

Warnings; infidelity implied

Notes; reqs and inbox are open !

Masterlist | Taylor Swift masterlist

You’d believed that you could be a home wrecker.

The idea alone left you feeling slightly nauseous. The thought of being the single reason a person’s whole life crumbled before their eyes only made that pit in your stomach grow more.

But he’d insisted that it wasn’t home wreaking. You couldn't wreck a home that was already crumbling. 

And you’d tried to be the better person. You really had but even the strongest people crumble eventually, and maybe you weren’t as strong as you’d believed.

The solid weight behind your chest served as a constant reminder of just how weak you truly were. “What time’s your flight.” His breath ghosted your neck as he pressed his lips to your neck for a moment. 

“Nine.” You hummed turning in his arms. Blue eyes met yours as you settled back down in his hold. Art frowned humming quietly under his breath. “Can’t you push it back?” 

“I already have once.” You sighed. “People are going to get suspicious.” You’d already overstayed your welcome enough that people were starting to question why you were even still here.

For the last few days, you’d been able to brush them off, simply saying that your boss wanted more material for another article but as the tournament began to finish up that excuse was quickly drying up.

Art huffed quietly brushing a hand up your leg as he thought for a moment. He knew this would happen eventually. That he could only live in this small bubble you had both created before reality came crashing down.

He hated it.

“I know.” He shifted slightly moving to lean closer. His breath fanned your lips for a moment as his eyes seemed to run over your face, memorising every detail as he did. “I really need to go. My flights in three hours.” The words were strained as you spoke. You wanted nothing more then to melt back into his touch but you knew if you did you’d never leave.

Art’s eyes flicked to the clock behind you before his nose brushed yours. “We have time.” He whispered, a hand coming up to cradle your cheek.

Your lips parted, ready to disagree but the words died on your tongue as he pressed his lips to yours. Any argument you’d had about leaving seemed to melt away as he moved impossibly closer, his free hand squeezing your hip.

You’d never admit it out loud but you knew you’d fallen far too deep. You’d managed to become caught in a web you truthfully didn’t want to leave.