#tashi duncan fluff | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

pparacxosm · 3 months ago

Text

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.

168 notes · View notes

amymbona · 4 months ago

Text

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

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

❤️ 2382 💬 79 ➡️ 143

view comments:

tashiduncan i wonder who's the other girl

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

pzweig69 y'all getting too close

y/n.serves hard preparations

❤️ 1571 💬 152 ➡️ 324

view tagged

view comments:

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 😡😡😡

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

❤️ 5 203 💬 197 ➡️ 1265

view comments:

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...

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

❤️ 2 392 💬 247 ➡️ 1875

view comments:

y/n.serves shut up

tashiduncan don't care didn't ask

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

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

❤️ 2 835 💬 37 ➡️ 496

view comments:

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!

tashiduncan we tried to match

❤️ 4 209 💬 271 ➡️ 1438

view comments:

artiedon so cute! :3

pzweig69 gay

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

y/n.serves quality time ❤️

❤️ 💬 ➡️

[this post was deleted]

tashiduncan sleepover :)

❤️ 2 340 💬 173 ➡️ 742

view comments:

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

#tashi duncan #tashi duncan x reader #tashi duncan fluff #gf!tashi duncan #social media!au #instagram!au #soft launch #challengers #zendaya #patrick zweig #art donaldson #patrick zweig x reader #art donaldson x reader

148 notes · View notes

girliism · 18 days ago

Text

LAST CHRISTMAS.

pairing: tashi duncan x reader

summary: in which tashi goes back home for christmas.

note: childhood friends that fell out to lovers, it’s 2013, use of y/n, tashi sexuality confrontation, ugly sweater party, me yearning to experience my childhood christmas again is manifested in light shows and tree mazes, semi proof read but only the beginning, word count idk i wrote this on tumblr but it’s kinda long (sorry), divider by @ issysh3ll

it’s cold. that’s the first thing tashi thinks when she steps out of her car and onto the snowy driveway of her childhood home. she hasn’t spent a christmas here since she left for college, but all the decorations are the same. save for the mini tree that her younger self would personally decorate. that was missing.

—

“tashi!” her mother greeted her at the front door. “we’re so happy to have you back this year.” it’s warm now, with the heat coming from inside the house and her mothers arms wrapped around her. she felt at home.

“we’re so glad you decided to come.”

“you’ve been gone so long.”

“how was the drive?”

“oh, tash we missed you last year.”

her family spoke all at once to her as her mother placed another plate of food in front of her. “you must be hungry from the drive.” she had said.

tashi answered their questions with a smile, just glad none of them had asked about art yet.

“so, where’s my future son in law? will he be joining us later?” she felt the eyes of her mom, dad, and little brothers staring her down. tashi harshly swallowed the food in her mouth before placing her fork down. she knew what they were expecting to hear, and it was not…

“we decided to call off the engagement.”

no one said anything, they just looked at her, processing what she had said. “good, i always knew he was a douche.” her little brother said, breaking the silence. “nico!” her mom let out a groan, smacking him on the head. she watched her scold him for the comment he made. he sent her a wink and tashi gave him a nod, silently thanking him for taking the focus off her and the bomb she just dropped.

—

tashi tucked herself into her old bed. her room hadn’t changed a bit, the same poster still littered her walls, fairy lights she put up at thirteen still working to make her room feel a little less dark.

her dad and brothers were gone by the time she woke up, only her mother sat in the kitchen writing what she assumed was a christmas dinner menu.

“morning.”

“good morning honey, how was your sleep.” tashi made her way to the coffee maker.

“good.”

her mom watched her move about the kitchen. filling up her cup with coffee, opening the cabinet to grab a bowl and some cereal then to the fridge for some milk. after assembling her breakfast tashi could still feel her mothers eyes on her. tashi slowly brought her graze from her bowl to her mom.

they had a silent staring match. tashi could tell her mom was holding back from asking her about what she said last night.

tashi rolled her eyes. “ok, go on, ask.” tashi’s mom shook her head turning her attention back to her menu pretending not to know what she was talking about. “i don’t know what you’re referring too.” another eye roll. “mom.” her mom let out a sigh taking off her glasses. “ok, fine. what happened? you two were perfectly in love the last time i saw you, and now you’re no longer together?”

she understood her mother’s confusion. on paper her and art were perfectly in love but behind closed doors tashi felt like she was trying to keep up with art’s affection for her. it also didn’t help that she made an unforgivable mistake in atlanta that still eats her up inside two years later.

“the engagement itself was already kinda rushed and after awhile it stopped feeling….right. i guess.” in the beginning tashi was happy to be engaged but then the more she thought about it the more out of control she felt, like she was suffocating. the title of future mrs. art donaldson reaching out and choking her.

tashi shrugged playing with the now soggy cereal in her bowl. “it was a clean break up. art was upset, i mean who wouldn’t be. but he uh… wants me to keep coaching him so i guess he doesn’t completely hate me.” she let out a sighed laugh. “oh, tash.” her mom placed her hand on top of tashi’s fidgeting one. “the two of you are so young anyway. and hey, if it ever starts feeling right again there’s still time.” tashi gave her mom a sad forced smile.

the air around them had turned all depressing and sad until her mom cleared her throat. “on a happier note. dad put an order out for a mini tree that’s waiting to be picked up. usually we’d go get and decorate it ourselves, but you’re here now and we thought maybe you could revive this old tradition?” her mom poked lightly at her cheeks with a small smile.

“yeah, i’d like that.”

—

tashi left her mom to go shopping while she made her way to tree shop across the street.

the smell of pine from the array of christmas trees took her back to when she was younger. running through the maze of giant trees with her brothers while her parents bought the tree.

“tashi?”

a voice calls her name. a voice she hasn’t heard in over seven years.

tashi turned around to be faced with you.

you had been coming back from helping a family load a tree into their car where you saw a tall figure standing near the entrance. you were going to pass her off as just another costumer but the way she was standing always with perfect posture felt too familiar.

“tashi, wow. i thought that was you. what are you doing back home?”

“y/n, hey.” after all these years your name felt for so foreign on her tongue. “i’m just back for the holidays.” tashi hadn’t prepared for this interaction. which she probably should have since this is your families christmas tree farm she’s shopping at.

you smile at her. you had stopped expecting tashi to come back after the first two years you spent knocking on the duncan’s door, not so discreetly asking if tashi was home. but she was here now and you had really missed her, even after everything.

tashi cleared her throat. “so, your dad still making you work.” you huffed a little laugh. “yeah, expect now he actually has to pay me.” having a family business that thrived during christmas ment spending your winter break freezing your ass off in a little christmas tree outfit, or twirling a sign, to now helping sell actual trees.

“it really isn’t that bad-”

“tashi duncan is that you?” a loud voice cut you off, turning your focus from each other and onto the person it belonged too. your dad.

“yes, sir it’s me.” tashi made her way towards him. “how have you been?” your dad immediately pulled her in for a hug, catching her off guard. “how have i been? no, how have you been? gosh it’s been years. you know, y/n complains constantly about how we had lost you to the superficial california life.” he let out a full belly laugh. tashi’s eyes flicked towards where you were standing, cheeks showcasing a slightly blush that’s could either be from the cold or embarrassment.

your dad turned to look at you. “y/n, why don’t you go and get tashi her tree while we catch up.” the man gave you no room to argue back, with an eye roll you stomped your way through the snow.

when you come back, your dad and tashi were laughing like a pair of old friends. topbled over clutching their stomach, you could hear their mixed laughter from the few feet away that you were.

“i got the tree.”

you and tashi carried the tree across the street to her car yourselves. her at one end you at the other. you could see her breath in the the cold air whenever she huffed.

the back door to her car is slammed shut after the tree is mounted onto the top of her roof.

“well, it was really nice seeing you again tashi.” the smile you gave her was tight lipped. “don’t be a stranger.”

tashi watched you walk away and it was giving her a sick sense of deja vu.

“y/n.”

you stopped and turned around.

“did you wanna help me decorate this tomorrow?”

it was a childish ask, helping decorate a tree but tashi was desperate. desperate to keep talking to you, desperate to try and mend the one good thing she once had.

“i don’t have anything better to do.”

numbers were exchanged and goodbyes were said. you made your way back across the street leaving tashi at her car.

“hey, was that y/n?” tashi’s mom came back with groceries in her hand. her voice snapping tashi out of her head. “huh? oh, yeah it was.” her mom opened the car door, dropping the bags inside. “hm, she was always a nice girl.”

—

you sat in your car outside tashi house, your thumbs anxiously drumming on the steering wheel. you eyed your watch a couple times until the hands read 12:00 before stepping out into the cold.

even in the day time the duncan’s lavishly decorated house looked amazing. candy cane sticks stuck out of the ground lining the driveway all the way up to the porch.

three knocks were delivered onto the door. you waited, staring down at the brown mat when the door opened.

“give me just one minute i’ll be right out.” tashi told you, disappearing back into her house.

you’ve done this a million times in your youth. waiting outside on the porch swing for tashi so the two of you can go play. old habits must die hard, because here you were falling into easy motion of swaying back and forth. the wood creaking every so often while you waited.

tashi finally stepped out in a white north face coat with matching gloves. she was carrying a big box full of christmas tree decorations, a wide smile on her face.

you silently wrapped the tree with light while tashi kneeled over the box rifling through the balls of ornaments, picking whatever caught her eye.

you cleared your throat. “so, what’s life like for you nowadays.”

tashi hummed, thinking back on her day to day. she’d wake up unbelievable early, train with art, take a break to answer emails and check schedules, another training session with art, have dinner together, then do it all over again tomorrow.

“to be honest, really fucking boring.” you both laughed.

“what, not having fun planing your wedding?” you cringed at how your words came out a lot snarky then intended.

tashi sighed, standing up and walked over to you with four ornaments in her hand. she passed two to you. “that’s actually not happening anymore.” she spoke softly, dropping one of the shiny plastic balls onto the tree.

“oh.” you bit at your lip and mumbled. “sorry.” tashi just shrugged.

“at least now you don’t have to send me a pity invite.” you joked, trying to lighten the mood. which seemed to work because tashi shot you the look she always gave when you would distract her. that unimpressed, slightly amused look that had you biting back a smile.

“shut up. you would have gotten a real invite.”

you gasped overly dramatic placing a hand over your heart. “are you saying i was really on the guest list?”

“of course you were.” tashi scoffed. “you’re supposed to my maid honor. remember.” she nudged your shoulder.

like most girls, you and tashi spent a lot of time planning your weddings. tashi’s wedding would be first then yours the day after because having a wedding on the same day was cliche in tashi’s eyes. though you wanted the wedding to take place on the same day for a totally different reason.

“i also remember you wanting a pink wedding dress. does that still stand?” tashi let out a loud laugh, shaking her head. “god no!”

the rest of the decorating went on like that. light laughs and joking until if was time to put on the star.

you passed the star off to tashi but she pushed back into your hands. “you put it on.” she insisted. you shook your head. “it’s your tree, you should but the star on.” tashi sigh obnoxiously, putting her hands on your shoulder. “exactly, it’s my tree meaning my rules and i want you to put it on.”

she was looking you right in the eyes and it was making your beat a little faster than normal. never being able to deny tashi, you place the star right on the head of the tree. “pretty.” tashi muttered, looking at the newly decorated tree while you looked at her. “yeah, pretty.”

tashi walked you to your car. “so, are you coming tomorrow?” tomorrow. the duncan’s annual christmas eve ugly sweater party. “yeah, i’ll be the one in the ugly sweater.” tashi laughed again and this was probably the most she’s laughed in the past year. “i’ll keep a look out.” you nodded and got in your car.

—

“do you think i should have brought more wine?”

“mom.”

“honey, one bottle is more than enough.”

“i should’ve brought the rosé”

you rolled your eyes as you mom argues with herself over which alcoholic beverage she should have brought.

the front door to the duncan house opened. tashi parents greeted yours then pointed you in the direction of the kitchen where tashi was.

inside the house was warm from the fireplace burning and the amount of bodies in it. christmas music played throughout the home and you followed the smell of gingerbread to find tashi hunched over a freshly baked try.

“nice sweater.” you said loudly over all the music and talking.

tashi playfully rolled her eyes at you. she knew her sweater her wasn’t nice it was incredibly cheesy, santa playing tennis. typical. “not as nice as yours.” she pointed out, handing you a glass of eggnog.

“doesn’t get as nice as santa on a stripper pole, does it.” you took a sip of the obviously spiked drink. tashi shook her head smiling and you couldn’t help but smile as well.

the party went on as it does every year. very intense games of charades are played, the team with you and tashi winning multiple times. the adults getting way to hyped on the spiked eggnog causing a very unserious but very heated discussion on what christmas movie is truly the best.

“you wanna get out of here.” you jumped at the sound of tashi’s voice echoing through your ears. you look up at where she was standing above you nodding her head to the back door she started walking towards.

you slowly slipped out your chair, grabbing your shoes from the front door and making your way to the kitchen, slipping out the doors to find tashi waiting for you.

snow covered the entire ground and in the distance sat the treehouse tashi’s dad built her years ago. it was still standing, looking in perfectly good shape. you eyed the treehouse then tashi, nudging her shoulder.

“last one there is a rotten egg.” you stated. tashi gave you a competitive look wasting no time bursting out in a sprint to the treehouse. you immediately chased after her, the cold wind blowing against your face. you won by a landslide, climbing up the ladder and into the house.

“wow.” you muttered to yourself. not a single thing had changed. the same bean bags and drawings filled the tiny space. tashi finally pulled herself up with a slight struggle. she rested her back against one of the walls, her head thrown back and eyes closed as she tried to steady her breath.

you placed yourself next to her watching as her hands massage over her knee. her knee. you knew what happened, everyone knew what had happened.

“does it hurt?” you spoke softly. “sometimes. only if i push myself to far.” you chewed on your bottom lip, a nervous habit you had yet to kick. “i wanted to call you know… when it happened.” tashi scoffed. “yeah, well you didn’t.” you flinched, her words were harsh.

“i know, and i’m sorry for not being there for you. i just—we hadn’t talked since that day.” you sighed, eyes locking with tashi’s brown ones. “i just figured i was the last person you wanted to see.” tashi moved her hand from her knee and slotted your hands together, fingers interlocking. her face was so close to your, noses nearly touching, you could smell the peppermint candy cane she was eating earlier on her breath.

“i wanted you there. god, i wanted you there so badly. probably would have felt less alone.” you squeezed her hand. “i’m here now.”

tashi would probably—definitely hate herself for doing this later but right now it felt right to inch her face closer to yours. you slowly mirroring her movements. your lips so close to touching, eyes closed… then a loud knock rang though the treehouse before the latch in the floor opened causing you and tashi to rip away from each other.

a head of brown curls popped through. “tash, mom’s looking for you, time to say goodbye to guest.” her little brother looked over to you. “hey, y/n.”

“hi, nico.”

the two siblings left the treehouse but you stayed for a while until the cold got unbearable.

“it was such a lovely party, thank you again for having us.” your mother and tashi’s hugged while your dads made plans to get beers together soon. you zipped yourself into your coat, making you way over to tashi.

“bye, tash.” you whispered. she gave you a short wave and closed lip smile. and you and your parents were out the door.

—

it was christmas morning and tashi hadn’t got out of bed yet. all night and all this morning she replayed in her mind what happened, or rather almost happened in the treehouse. what if her brother never interrupted, would she really have kissed you? her train of thought was stopped when her phone pinged with a message from you.

[from: y/n]

good morning, merry christmas.

tashi closed her phone, pressing the palms of her hands into her eyes. she couldn’t respond to you, not yet. not while her was swimming with things she thought she got over.

making her way down the stairs, she could hear laughter coming from the kitchen and elf playing in the background from the living room tv.

“there she is. thought we were gonna have to have breakfast without you.” her mother placed a hand on her cheek and passed her a plate. the both of them moving to join everyone else in the living room.

seating here watching her family open presents, laugh and crack jokes had tashi questioning herself. why had she taken so long to come home?

every year you town sets up a light display where you come drive through and see all the decorations. and every year you and tashi would have your parents drive through the past all the displays before meeting up in the middle where hot chocolate was for a dollar was served.

you didn’t even know if tashi was coming, but you still stood outside the hot chocolate stand with a tiny wrapped present in your hand. then a black suv that you knew belonged to the duncan family pulled up and exited the vehicle, tashi being the last.

she wearing that same north face coat and you made you way to her.

“hey, did you get my message?” tashi hummed. “i did, merry christmas.”

you nodded, taking a deep breath holding out the present you had in your hand for her to take. tashi’s eyes widened as she took the box from you. “oh, you didn’t have to get me anything-” you stopped her. “it’s fine, i technically didn’t get this for christmas. it was the supposed to be the gift i gave you after you won the us open juniors.”

tashi’s heart fell at that. us open juniors. the open she met art and patrick at. the open she practically forbade you from coming to.

—

“ok, so we’re all set. i’ve made the playlist to last us the whole plane ride.”

tashi slammed the truck of her parents car shut before walking over to you. “about that… um, do you mind if you miss this on?”

you stopped what you were doing. “why?”

tashi shrugged, playing with a lose thread on her shirt. “it’s just, i really need to focus and you being there would throw me off.” you rolled you eyes. “i’ve been to every single one of your games, tash. how is this one different?”

tashi really didn’t wanna fight right now she just need you to listen to her. “it just is, ok.”

you narrowed your eyes. “is this about what happened last night? is that why you’re being all weird?” tashi’s head immediately snapped up to look at you. “no!” yes. the kiss that happened the night before had really messed with tashi’s head, a lot more then she could handle. “last night was nothing, it doesn’t have to do with anything. you just distracted me and i can’t afford distractions.”

you scoffed, not having the energy to argue with her. “whatever, tashi. good luck at game.” you walked away from her.

—

that memory played like a movie in tashi’s mind as she looked down at the box in her hand.

“anyways, it’s probably pathetic that i kept it after all these years but i thought you should have it.” you didn’t notice the tears had started to well in tashi’s eyes until she looked up at you. “tash?”

“i’m sorry.” her voice cracked. “i’m sorry for shutting you out like that.” you shook you head with widen eyes. “it’s fine, it’s ok. i’ve gotten over it, really.” you tried to reassure her.

“but it’s not ok. i was mean to you, i basically cut you out of my life because i was scared. scared of what that kiss ment. scared of what would happen after.” she took a deep breath. “i was scared of myself and fucking terrified of my parents. and i took it out on you. you, the only person to this day that makes my stomach feel all weird and my insides warm. so many times i wanted to call you or reach out to you but i kinda thought you hated me-” tashi’s rambling was cut short by your lips on hers. your lips that were warm despite the freezing cold.

for that moment where yours and tashi’s lips moved as one everything felt right, like the last seven years had been leading up to this moment.

tashi broke the kiss to look you in the eye. “sorry for being a bitch to you.” she apologized again, prompting you to roll your eyes. “just so you know i could never hate you.” you bumped your nose on hers. tashi let out a huffed laugh, bringing one of her hands up to your cheek to pull you in for another kiss not caring that you were standing were anyone could see because right now it was just you and her.

—

#girliism #challengers #tashi duncan #tashi duncan x reader #tashi duncan fluff

93 notes · View notes

maduncan · 3 months ago

Text

⠀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.

#tashi duncan #tashi donaldson #tashi duncan x reader #tashi challengers #tashi duncan smut #tashi duncan headcannons #tashi duncan fluff #tashi duncan angst #challengers x reader #challengers x you #challengers x y/n #tashi duncan x you #tashi duncan x oc #tashi duncan x y/n #tashi donaldson x reader

74 notes · View notes

ultralightpoe · 2 months ago

Text

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]

#tashi duncan #tashi duncan smut #tashi duncan angst #tashi duncan fluff #tashi duncan imagine #patrick zweig #patrick zweig fluff #patrick zweig smut #patrick zweig angst #patrick zweig imagine #art donaldson imagine #art donaldson fanfic #art donaldson smut #art donaldson fluff #art donaldson angst #challengers imagine #challengers smut #challengers angst #challengers fluff

10 notes · View notes

ervotica · 7 months ago

Text

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.

4K notes · View notes

artssslut2 · 3 months ago

Text

This side by side.

#art donaldson #art donaldson x reader #art donaldson x you #challengers fic #art donaldson fluff #patrick zweig #tashi duncan #challangers #make first x reader #art

496 notes · View notes

castiwls · 30 days ago

Text

my number one .ᐟ

Paring; art x reader

Synopsis; You'd always been your own worst enemy. Your anxiety liked to jump out at the worst times yet your ever-doting boyfriend was determined to be there every. single. time.

Even if that meant missing his match.

Requested; anon

Notes; tysm for the request <3 i kinda based this on my own anxiety and the methods I've been taught over the years

Masterlist

“I don’t wanna be annoying.”

“You're not being annoying.”

No matter how many times he says it, you never believe it. How could you not be annoying, especially when you’ve woken him up at 3 a.m. for what must be the third time this week?

Art sighed, pulling you closer to his chest. His hands rubbed over your back in soothing circles as he pressed a kiss to your forehead. “Just follow my breathing, okay?” It was a saying so common that it seemed to fall from his lips without a thought. It was almost like a lifeline of sorts knowing that no matter what you’d always have the steady beat of his heart only a phone call away whenever your own decided to forget how to beat on time and needed reminding.

It was equally a blessing and a curse. A blessing to have someone like Art who would drop everything to come at your beacon call but a curse that you needed him in that way.

Even now when he should be preparing for another tournament - against which school you can’t remember but then again your only thought right now is being able to focus enough to breathe - he’s here with you tucked around a corner from your class as you try to calm your breathing.

The moment he’d gotten your text.

Please come

Need you

He’d left the court without a second thought and made it to the building in record time. “You’re okay.” He soothed running a thumb over your cheek as he held your gaze. “You’re okay just breathe. In and out.”

He hated seeing you like this. No matter how many times it happened he’d never shake that feeling of nausea that would swim in his stomach whenever your breath seemed to catch and your eyes grew distant. It made him want to just wrap you in his arms and protect you from anything and everything that left you feeling even slightly anxious.

You were his entire world and it hurt him to know you were your own worst enemy.

“C’mon.” His hand intertwined with yours as he grabbed your bag. You both walked quietly back to his dorm your heart rate slowly going back to normal as you both walked.

“Don’t you have practice?” You frowned as he placed your bag on his bed turning to watch as you shut the door. “It’s fine.” He smiled trying to reassure you as he opened his arms. “I can practice later you’re more important right now okay.” He sighed pulling you against his chest.

The practice could wait right now all he cared about was you.

⋆·˚ ༘ *⋆·˚ ༘ *⋆·˚ ༘ *

Not now, please god not now.

Art had already been so busy the last few days that you’d purposefully tried to leave him alone. He needed to train and you didn’t want to get in the way and worry him more then he already was.

He’d only left his dorm an hour ago to get ready for the match and you’d been fine. Better then fine actually you’d had a great morning and for a moment you’d thought that maybe you’d go three full days without your anxiety rearing its ugly head.

And then it proved you wrong.

“Art I’m fine.” You could hear his concern down the phone as you sat on his bed, mentally counting your breaths to try and keep some semblance of calm. “You sure? I can come back for a-”

“No. No stay there and just relax okay? I’ll come find you before it starts.” You could almost picture the concern in his eyes as he sighed before relenting. If you said you were fine you were fine, pushing you would only make it worse.

“Okay but call me if you need okay? I love you.”

“I love you too.” You smiled slightly tracing shapes over his covers as you ended the call. The room was starting to feel too small as you sat, the air almost stuffy. Nothing had even happened and yet you could already feel the anxiety building.

The pit in your stomach swirled as your hands grew clammy no matter how many times you wiped them on your jeans.

You were fine.

You had to be fine.

Taking a breath you stood pacing the small space as you tried to halt the attack. Breathe in for 10 out for 10.

In for 10 out for 10.

“Fuck.” Your voice shook slightly as tears began to prick at your eyes, your chest heaving as you tried to pull in a breath that wasn’t there.

Your eyes darted around the room as you looked for anything to help but came up empty. You couldn’t call him. You knew the minute you did he’d drop everything and you didn’t want that.

No matter how bad this was - and it was bad by your standards - his match was more important.

Wiping the tears you sat back down closing your eyes as you tried to talk yourself through it.

You were fine.

⋆·˚ ༘ *⋆·˚ ༘ *⋆·˚ ༘ *

The breath he’d been holding since you’d spoken on the phone a few hours ago seemed to finally release as he spotted you in the crowd. His eyes lit up and a bright smile pulled at his lips as he made his way through the crowd towards where you stood, your own eyes lighting up when you noticed him.

“Hey.” He grinned pulling you in for a chaste kiss. “You came.”

“Of course I did.” You laughed but it was strained. Your smile slightly too tight as you fixed the cap over his curls. “You ready?” You asked pulling back ever so slightly.

“You're shaking.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are I can see your hands.” Art sighed his smile pulling into a frown as he took your hand in his. “Your freezing as well.”

Your face was still pulled into a tight smile but he saw right through it. The slight draw in your brow and the redness around your eyes gave you away almost immediately. Before you could say anything else he was pulling you through the crowd and behind the bleachers.

You swallowed back the tears which burned at your eyes. It had taken the whole two hours since the phone call for you to calm down even an inch and even now you still felt sluggish in your own body.

“Art m’fine.” Your voice shook as you closed your eyes.

“No your not.” He shook his head pushing a strand of hair from your face. “Why didn’t you call me?” You always called! It was bad enough knowing you’d walked from the dorms to the court like this but knowing you’d very possibly been like this since he’d last called you?

His own heart was racing at the thought.

“I didn’t wanna distract you.” His hand was now rubbing over your shoulder as you wiped at your eyes. “I know how much this means to you-”

“The match doesn’t matter.” He shook his head gently, tilting your chin up. Part of you already felt better just being near him, his presence a comfort in itself.

“Nothing matters more than you.” He smiled his eyes filled with warmth as his thumb flicked away a tear. “I’m not playing until I know you're okay. I can’t play knowing you're feeling like this.”

He pulled you closer rubbing a hand over your back. The match would never be more important than you - hell tennis would always come second to you. The fact the thought even crossed your mind was enough to have him debating putting the racket down and pulling you back to his dorm.

“Promise me you're still gonna play.” You whispered tucking your face into the crook of his neck as you breathed in the gentle scent of his aftershave for a moment. Your lungs seemed to work again as you pressed closer, sinking into his body.

“We’re not talking about tennis.” He murmured balancing his chin on your head. “You're all that matters.”

He meant his words, every single one of them. Sure he would play in the tournament but only once he knew you were okay, until then it was the last thing on his mind.

Tennis could never hold a torch to his love for you.

260 notes · View notes

dropitpunk · 7 months ago

Text

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

#art donaldson #challengers #mike faist #tashi duncan #zendaya #art donaldson x reader #art donaldson x you #challengers fic #team art #fluff #mike faist x reader

543 notes · View notes

cannibalistickitty · 7 months ago

Text

⋆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!^_^

#art donaldson x female reader #art donaldson x you #art donaldson x reader #art donaldson imagine #art donaldson smut #art donaldson fluff #tashi duncan x reader #tashi duncan x you #tashi duncan x art donaldson #challengers fic #challengers fanfiction #challengers x reader #challengers x you #challengers smut #challengers film #challengers

802 notes · View notes

urlibragirl · 8 months ago

Text

summary : art and reader come back at the hotel after he lost another match

warning/content : sfw, fluff, gn!reader, kissing, just the reader reassuring art

word count : 445

“You did a great match Art,” you reassure him. “You cannot always win, and it’s okay.” Actually, it has been some time since Art has won a match, but it really doesn’t matter to you. You’ll always support him because you know he's, in fact, an amazing tennis player.

Art doesn’t respond to you, doesn’t even look at you, and goes straight to your hotel room. What disturbs you the most is the fact that he did not want to see your daughter before going to bed, which is something he always does. You open the door of your shared bedroom to see him sitting on the edge of the bed, his head buried in his hands. You approached him quietly. “Art I-,”

“I’m deeply sorry, Y/N,” he interrupts you. “I thought I could do it, but all these matches I've lost made me realize I was just a failure.” He looks at the floor saying all this. The words he just said make your heart sink, how can he think that of himself?

You sit next to him and hold his hands. “Baby, I don’t want you to think that of yourself,” you say “Please look at me, baby.” you ask him, because you wanted him to see how much you loved him. When he finally looks up at you, you see tears running down his cheeks. Your heart sinks at the sight of his tear-streaked face.

“Art,” you whisper, gently placing a hand on his face. He looks at you, his expression a mixture of defeat and sadness. Without a word, you wrap your arms around him in a comforting embrace. “Art, don’t beat yourself up, you played your heart out there.” Art leans into your embrace, his shoulders shaking with silent sobs. “I just…I wanted it so badly, I always play my matches for you,” he admits, his voice shaking and thick with emotion.

You hold him tighter, your heart breaking for him. “I know baby,” you say softly, “But you gave it all on the court, and that’s all anyone could ask for.” For a moment, you guys sit in silence, the only sound being the steady sound of Art’s breathing. As Art’s sobs slowly stop, he pulls away from your embrace, whipping his eyes with the back of his hand.

Art gaze intensifies, his eyes locking with yours in a silent acknowledgment of your shared vulnerability. In that shared moment, the air between you crackled with unspoken desire. Without a word, Art leaned in, capturing your lips in a tender yet passionate kiss, his love for you expressed in the warmth and intimacy of the moment you guys just shared.

a/n ; i just wanna say that english is not my main language so i'm sorry if there is any grammar mistake :) i might also write a part 2 where Y/N and Art are doing spicy stuff but idk

563 notes · View notes

pparacxosm · 3 months ago

Text

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.

#challengers #challengers fic #tashi duncan #tashi duncan x reader #tashi duncan x fem!reader #tashi duncan x you #tashi duncan fluff #in a way #tashi duncan angst #tashi duncan a girlfriend could have saved you #real ones been waiting for this drop #leo tolstoy was team tashi

116 notes · View notes