I Want To Line Them Up And Tuck Them Into Bed With The Blanket Just Below Their Chins All Snuggly

I just wanna be nice to Patrick when he has no one left. When he doesn’t know what kindness is anymore. When he doesn’t think he deserves it. I wanna be nice to him even though he takes advantage of it, even though he’ll try to take and take until there’s nothing left to give. Until he finally feels safe enough to let me in and give it all back.

WIFE JUST DROPPED SOME BOTSSSSS

MISC BOT DUMP ⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ˚

15/04/25

featuring characters from: challengers, west side story, panic, house of the dragon & marvel

prefacing this with a big fat thank u for 700 followers <3 not proofread in the slightest and very badly tagged but that's okay!! got drafts for fics for a lot of these so. Hmm eventually

still have other reqs to get through but saving those for after anniversary :) rafe lovers u r not forgotten.

gender neutral unless specified otherwise. have fun

enjoy ! <3

CHALLENGERS

SERVE(ING PAPERS)

patrick zweig x user

Your marriage was doomed from the start. Everyone pretended otherwise, and it took you a decade to come to that conclusion, but hey. Frontal lobe development, and all that. The point is you're sick and tired of the fighting and infidelity on both sides. Time to get a divorce.

ANOTHER ONE?

art donaldson x user (m4f)

Art's happy with his life, don't get him wrong. He loves likes his career, adores his wife, and Lily is the absolute light of his life. But it's because he loves your little family so much that he's been thinking about expanding it... how about another one?

WEST SIDE STORY

PLEASE DON'T GO

riff lorton x user

Fancy fuckin' school you managed to get yourself accepted into. All was well and dandy before you dropped the news that it meant you'd have to move away and leave him behind. So instead of telling you he'll miss you, he takes the childish route. What happened to loyalty, huh?

NOT ON MY WATCH

riff lorton x user (m4f)

Pretty girl like you is too good to be seen hanging around with the likes of him. You have a future ahead of you—you don't need to be wasting time with some boy you took pity on as a kid for having a crackhead momma. Cutting you out of his life is a necessity, he tells himself... until he spots some member of the Sharks hitting on you a few months later. Absolutely-fucking-not.

LONG TIME NO SEE

balkan x user

It's been a hell of a long time since you've seen him. Keeping a roof over your head is tough, and Balkan is in too deep with the Jets to worry about maintaining friendships. But when he gets into a fight on the wrong side of town, you're the person he turns to. Maybe he just misses you.

PANIC

DADDY'S LIL ANGEL

dodge mason x user (m4f)

Dodge willingly attending church? Unheard of! But when he realises how pretty the preacher's daughter is, he finds himself attending worship. (Not for God, of course. For you.) He's on his best behaviour around you, he swears, but it's getting increasingly hard not to test how hellbent you are on saving yourself for marriage.

A SHOULDER TO CRY ON

dodge mason x user

If you asked his sister, she'd tell you Dodge has the emotional intelligence of a rock. Definitely not the most ideal person to find you crying in the kitchen after a rough shift at Dot's, but you mean a lot to him. Maybe he can lend you a shoulder to cry on... just don't stain his shirt, please.

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON

HEAVY IS THE HEAD

rhaenyra targaryen x user (wlw)

Lucerys is dead, Daemon has disappeared with Caraxes, and Rhaenyra's council is driving her up the wall with their arguing. But amidst all that chaos, she's able to find solace in the company of her lady's maid: you.

THE NEW QUEEN

alicent hightower x user

When Alicent told you that she had some news to share, you did not expect this. Perhaps that some knight asked for her favour, or that she had a new prayer book to share... not that she was marrying your father. Seven Hells, what has she gotten herself into?

FRIEND OR FOE?

jacaerys velaryon x user (m4f)

In theory, Jacaerys should be avoiding you at all costs. Your father is a supporter of the Hightowers, openly expressing his favour for Aegon on the throne. And yet despite it all, he finds himself seeking out your company more often than not—you aren't like the rest of them, he's sure of it.

MARVEL

PETALS AND PENITENCE

peter parker (tasm) x user

Surprise! Your best friend is Spider-man! And you are not happy about the fact he's kept this very life-altering secret from you, his closest companion. When you decide to ignore him after his accidental reveal, he realises he has to take matters into his own hands—a grand gesture, maybe. It's a pity the flowers got so wrecked in his bag, though.

LAST ONES STANDING

natasha romanoff x user

In the aftermath of the Blip, everything changed. But, five years after the initial disappearance of half the world's population, things are returning to some form of normalcy. Or, at the very least, you're still as infuriatingly optimistic as Natasha remembers.

OH CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN

steve rogers x user

When you enlisted as a medic during the Second World War, Steve was proud of you. He couldn't serve his country, but you could. That was, of course, until Dr. Abraham Erskine took a chance on a poor kid from Brooklyn. Now you're both changing lives for the better, and he's never been more happy to see an old friend.

It viscerally pains me whenever someone says Tashi pushes Art to do tennis. Pushes him to perform on that level specifically because she wasn't able to. Not only is just a bad take on the characters, depriving Art of autonomy and Tashi of nuance, but also...do people not realize how painful it would be for her to see that? to be close to every achievement she knew she would have reached in half of the time, and knowing she can't even claim it for her own? It's masochistic just to read, and Tashi is many things (strong and ambitious, to name a few) but never masochistic. She starts to coach Art because he asks for it, she continues because he wants it. It is a mutual choice, one that ends up hurting both of them in their own way, but still a mutual decision.

Whatever pleasure some people like to make it seem like she'd gain from pushing Art to his brink is truly nonexistent.

happy challengersversary angels!! i'm so endlessly grateful for all the lovely friends i've made here, you truly do mean more to me than you know. i'll try and repost any and all old fics of mine from the previous account, though i do have several reposted here if you choose to scroll down a bit. i'm still a bit shaky on my feet, but i'll be back to writing soon. regardless, this isn't about me. this is about my little babies turning one. and i love them. happy birthday to them.

smooches for them. and smooches to my friends.

annie can we kiss under the slide

Snippits from "Endure" [sfw]

A longer piece I'm slowly working on, exploring Patrick's life. It jumps back and forth from the past to the present as he recalls moments from his childhood while also visiting his family properly for the first time in years. If you've stuck around, you've seen me post bits from this before.

I'm taking a mini-break for school right now so I don't have anything new and complete, but I'd like to give you guys a little more from what I've shared before. This is my favorite work in progress right now!

Patrick has a small list of memories he allows himself to think about. He prefers the company of the time he first kissed a girl ('02, Cindie McLoud), or the last time he got a ribeye steak, imagining how the juice pooled down his tongue and throat, the rosemary butter in his nose and the meat in his teeth. They were bittersweet, but they passed the time and dulled the ache in his heart.

His longing heart. How it begged for Patrick to remember more.

There are times he lets himself remember, crystal clear recollections that he calls to only when the cold of winter nips at his bones through the door of his CR-V, the heater cranked too high and Hot-Hands stuffed everywhere he can get them. When the memory of a ribeye does nothing for the groaning rumble of his stomach, as his account mocks him with $27.89, and his tank teasing E. It was a different kind of pain to feel than the freezing bite of cold.

He's biting the end of an unlit cigarette so hard he can taste the filter and even the nicotine, grimacing and spitting it out onto the sidewalk. When he moves to grab another one to light, the pack's empty. Everything Patrick has left is for gas and something to eat tomorrow, so he leaves it, going back to staring at the house before him.

Patrick hasn't been here in almost fifteen years, but it feels like the most familiar place on Earth. He could still map it out, give every corner and every secret and every detail with his eyes closed, tell you the best spots to hide. It almost feels good to be back, like something died in him is giving its last croaking breath and reaching out to that house, and he wants to just shove it back in and turn around.

His father, narrow-browed and imposing at the head of the table, sipping from wine as he fired accusations across to him.

"How's your forehand? It better be improving."

"I've spoken to your coaches, do you think you're doing good? Don't lie to me, boy"

"Your teachers say you've been slacking off. Is this how your mother and I raised you? A slacker. A failure?"

The last one spoken as he loosened his tie, the table quiet and as tense as a pulled bow. Everyone waited for his fingers to slip, for the arrow to shoot. Patrick could feel it strike him right in his heart. His longing heart.

"Your mother and I've decided you're staying during the breaks. It's a waste of time— I'll pay someone to keep coaching you there."

He was bleeding into his lap, sputtering onto the table, pooling across the floor beneath him and soaking into his socks, and nobody cared to ask.

The next Christmas break is spent on the court, hitting targets and biting the inside of his cheeks. Going back to climb into his empty room with his arms screaming exhaustion and legs shaking with every step, Art's side silent and empty, with a small envelope on his bed and $500 inside. Flipping the envelope upside down. Maybe, just maybe... no. No card.

His eyes stayed on the flashing red and green lights out his window, wondering what they're doing back home, listening to Backstreet's Back low on Art's stereo. Imagining the taste of his grandmother's challah and brisket and wishing his father was pulling that bow and pointing it to his chest at the table. Patrick whispered what he thought he'd say, harsh and cutting and accusatory, the words seeping into the wallpaper and holding them for him.

He couldn't look at it, at those walls holding his pain in its pores. Patrick could hear them spoken back like an echo, and covering his ears did nothing to stop them. The words like water seeping through the cracks in his fingers, pouring and absorbing into him until they became everything he is. His whole body the voice of his father across the table. Even now, at thirty-one, he's never been wrung dry.

tears of joy streaming down my supple cheeks and gorgeous thighs

now playing: ava's challengers anniversary playlist

TRACKLIST 01. lollipop – atp x reader 02. lavender haze (acoustic) – art x reader 03. wassup - artrick x reader 04. let’s be friends – tashi x reader 05. a kiss – patrick x reader 06. harder to breathe – art x reader 07. ever since new york – patrick x reader 08. love me harder – art x reader 09. princess of china – patrick x reader 10. where were you in the morning? – art x reader 11. like real people do – tashi x reader 12. bodyguard - patrick x reader 13. morning light - art x reader 14. my boo - atp x reader

BONUS TRACKS 01. grow up – art x patrick 02. we cry together – patrick x tashi 03. hum hallelujah – art x tashi

2 fics per day • links will go live as fics post • celebration hosted by tacobacoyeet • songs are linked to numbers • celebration will take place from april 19, 2025 - april 27, 2025 • i will not be answering requests during this week

The war has returned again, Gaza is under bombardment and my area is being subjected to heavy shelling. We have lost hope in our rights. We must evacuate this city where there is no security. Donate to my family again, you are our only hope.

Donate here

raised 50$/10000$

Vetted by : 90-ghost

i wrote this for so long i have no mildly witty intro. i love patrick and he's romantic to ME. comments and critiques welcome as always

He could stare at the curve of your shoulder all day and the thought is entirely foreign. Foreign but most certainly not unwelcome. In fact, when it made its way into his brain he welcomed it with open arms and walked it into the corner where he kept all the other you-based things he had stored. You on the day he’d met you at that stupid party you most definitely didn’t want to be at, you the first time he kissed you (the first time you’d been kissed, period), you just an hour ago when you asked him to spend the night. Now here he is, watching you watch some shitty movie he’d stopped paying attention to about 15 minutes ago. He’s watching the muscles beneath your skin bend at the will of your bones, watching your shoulders shake each time you laugh, hearing you steady your breath to prevent any sound from coming out, softening entirely when you fail. He remembers you saying you hate your laugh, and he thinks that’s just about the dumbest thing you’ve ever said. It’s not entirely shocking to him that he could feel this way for someone like you, because really, how could he not? Even he had some domesticity tucked under all that bravado, he just needed the right person to coax it out. And god, were you the right person.

Patrick forgets, sometimes, that you’ve never done something like this before. Shared yourself down to those ugly, nasty bits of your soul (though that only really applies to his half of your partnership, in his opinion). Inexperienced was what you were, and remain to be. He only forgets because it’s all come so naturally to you. You love like it’s the simplest thing in the world to be vulnerable. You love him like it takes no effort to, and it warms him up a little. He hadn’t been easy to love since he was 12 and found someone equally eager to be a man as him. His mother had always insisted he’d have to mellow out for someone to accept him, his father telling him to keep himself in check, women don’t like a man without that trademark stoicism. You’d proved them wrong. So he’s fine with just tracing the shape of your arm with his fingertips, eventually finding yours. He likes to think maybe, just maybe, if he held your hands long enough, your fingerprints would become one and the same. 

“Hey… I’m sorry, you know. For being slow about things.”

He looks up from your hands, which were so soft in comparison to his it made him feel ill, to the smallest bit of your eye peeking over your shoulder. 

“Why are you sorry?” 

He knows you, mind included, well enough to know the slew of stupid answers you can supply. ‘It’s embarrassing to have so little experience under your belt at my age’, ‘you’re you and you have sex all the time, so waiting for me is stupid’, so on and so forth. He knows these things because you’ve said them all time and time again, over the course of the 3 months he’s been doing this with you. 3 months went by quite fast. 3 months has never been so blissful. He’d also never experienced a longer wait in his life, not that he’d admit it. But he’d wait till his hair ran gray and his bones could hardly hold his own weight anymore. He could be happy just to see the orange hue to your skin in the dim lamplight of your room. 

“Don’t be, ‘kay? Don’t wantcha to be.”

You open your mouth to speak, but all that comes out is a sigh. He hopes it’s not a sad one. You turn over to place your cheek to his chest, stretch, bend, and soon fall asleep. He knows the sound of your breathing well enough to know the pace it takes in unconsciousness. He reaches out a careful, steady arm to turn the lamp off, his skin tingling with lack of contact until he places it back in its rightful place around your waist, exposed with your lack of a shirt. He’s more than happy to follow your lead in this, and he feels his eyes flicker closed in rhythm to your soft puffs of air against his skin. 

“Hey… Patrick, you awake?”

It’s darker out now, a dark that bleeds into the room enough that he doesn’t see you even if his eyes are open. He rubs at them until you come into a view, and he settles a bit. 

“M’yeah, what’s up? You alright?”

The digital clock you never actually use flashes the time: 3:23 A.M. Late enough that he’s more concerned to see you awake than happy to have this time to talk to you, though he’s happy with any time at all. 

“Patrick, I was thinking… well, you know, I had this dream and…”

You’re heated like a small sun under the palms of his hands, enough that he can feel a thin layer of perspiration at the points of connection between the two of you. And he’s listening as well as he can, what with his tired brain and general boyish inattentiveness, but he thinks he’s got enough of a grasp on things to understand where this is going. He’s grinning in the dark like the Cheshire cat, and he wouldn’t be shocked if all that was visible was the shine of his teeth against the moonlight. 

You’re still talking, though he’s not quite making the words out anymore, blood running past his ears in waves. He still registers that soft tone that you only adopt with him, though, and he’s trying to use it to pull himself out of the sunken, warm ocean of a wait coming to its end. He’s pulled to the surface with a gasp when your lips meet his, not unlike the times previous, but it’s not a feeling he thinks he’ll ever get used to. He’s gripping into your hair just as tightly as he can without hurting you, attempting to mumble something reassuring against your lips for the millisecond you pull away, but it’s swallowed up just as soon as it’s spoken. At least he’s sure that you’re sure. 

He’s well aware he’s been growing harder since the second you woke him up, he’s fairly certain you know it, too, but he refuses to let you acknowledge it yet. He slowly shifts his lips to your cheek, jawline, neck. He can feel your pulse thrumming in the vein in your neck, feels your skin jump against his nose with the strength of it. He can die happy just knowing that he made your heart race, but he’d live happier to continue doing just that. He’s soft, provoking, easing you into things. A gentle lead rather than a harsh tug. It’s what his girl deserves. He wants to bury himself in you until he’s beneath your lavender scented skin. He wants to watch each new crease, furrow and wrinkle in your skin appear in real time. He watches your head dip back, your hair shielding him from the outside world, caging him in possessively, tenderly housing him in. He sees your front teeth press into the plump flesh of your bottom lip, sees it dimple under that pressure. Hears the sigh that forces itself through that gap and he thinks that’s the sound he’ll hear when he goes to heaven.

He hears the relief in just the way you sigh when he opens your bra, and he doesn’t understand how you possibly could have kept the sight of you bare away from him. It’s almost cruel that he’s been in the presence of what could only be a goddess and you hadn’t proved as much. But he’s got the confirmation now, if your sweet, loving demeanor hadn’t been evidence enough, and he’s got all the time in the world to worship you. He trails kisses over the divots of your collarbones, between the newly exposed skin of your chest. He peeks through his lashes at you, sees the mess of your sleep-tossed hair against your shoulders, the glossy, half-lidded flutter in your eyes, the way your stomach jumps beneath his affection until he’s pressed between your thighs and he can feel how warm you are and he wills himself not to be selfish. You don’t pull away, but he refuses to move until he knows your mind is made up. He feels knuckles brush against his cheek, snake through his hair, and that’s all he needs before he’s pulling fabric over the width of your hips, the plush of your thighs and off your legs. He can see some unfamiliar scars and freckles scattered about, and he tracks them the way an astronomer would a constellation. 

“Fuck, I love you so much.”

He’s almost painfully gentle and it’d be frustrating if it wasn’t so sweet. Each brush of his tongue makes the muscles in your thighs constrict, and he’s whispering his apologies about the added intrusion of his fingers against your skin. He can feel you twitch around his face, watches your mouth fall open, your cheeks flush, your chest heave. It’s a bit of encouragement that he’s doing well, which he’s only ever been concerned about with you, and when the pitch of your gasps heightens, their frequency picks up he pulls away just as unhappy to ruin your incoming peak as you are not to experience it. His fingers are slick, lips wet, and the scent of you left on him is enough to have his eyes rolling back.

He lays you down, cradling your head despite there only being pillows beneath you, and with a kiss to your forehead and a nod from you he’s kicking himself out of his painfully tight boxers and slowly pressing into you. He chokes back a gasp, stills himself on his forearm, watches your brows pinch together in discomfort. He kisses you soft, slow, until you’re sharing gasps between your open mouths, and he doesn’t stop moving until he hears that same high-pitched cadence and watches you fall apart. He’s never seen something so beautiful as you writhing around.

“Wait- Wait, you didn’t-”

“Babe, it’s fine. All that matters is that you did so well.”

You look at him, visibly exhausted, and he looks back. You fall asleep just as easily as you did before, a quiet mumble of an ‘I love you’ into his skin that he returns. He doesn’t need to tell you that he finished in his boxers about an hour ago, even if he knows you’d laugh about it. Right now, he’s content in just having you close, watching your body move. He could stare at the curve of your shoulder all day.

three celebrities that aren't dead:

michael jackson

talia asheepinfrance

someone else probably

I Could Be a Good Mother

or: What the process to Lily was

an: thank you to all beta readers for the first paragraph. not proof read. comments always appreciated. love you all.

warnings for mentions of pregnancy loss

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When she was young, the plan was to name her daughter something exciting. Something reminiscent of herself. She contemplated Natasha, of course, the name her parents had originally planned on placing on her. Identifying herself as Natasha, after living so long under her actual name, felt wrong now, but she wouldn’t mind giving a piece of what could’ve been to her future daughter. She always wondered what made Tashi come about, a heat of the moment decision on her mother’s part. When she asked, tugging at the hem of her mother’s shirt as she read a novel too dense for a girl of Tashi’s age, the response was plain. Because she just knew. She gazed down at a small body, smaller than even now, a head of soft, curling hair, and eyes as warm as melted chocolate, and knew her daughter’s name. She placed it upon her with a kiss to her forehead, and there she was. Tashi Duncan. Her mother smiled down at the girl, so big and so small all at once, and said she’d know, too, when the time came. She’d know, just like she had. Like mother , like daughter. And when daughter became mother all her own, the chain would continue to grow. 

When she was just a bit older, smiling with missing front teeth, not whole but feeling complete, she wanted to name her daughter Billie. Billie who she read yellowed biographies on her knees in the library, leaning against the shelves. Billie who ran the court like it was hers to own, and as far as Tashi was concerned, she did. Billie, who her parents reluctantly let her admire, but told her that even if she was a great player, one of the greatest, she wasn’t necessarily someone to be admired. Tashi didn’t quite understand it at the time, being young enough to understand when subtext was present, but not old enough to decipher the code behind a restless hand toying with a cross necklace. Nevertheless, as long as Tashi was passionate about tennis, she’d be passionate about Billie Jean King. She always thought it funny, the queen of tennis with ‘king’ for a last name. Maybe it was intentional irony on the universe’s part, something to rub men’s noses in. Or maybe she was both a king and a queen in her own right. Tashi wanted that. She wanted a court named in her honor, because for all the world knew, tennis had been reinvented under her capable hands. She wanted the world to watch as the courts molded beneath her feet like clay, precise, aggressive, and see the potential for what the sport could be. Her daughter, with this name, might gain that power through it. Be a king and a queen all the same. 

At her confirmation, a knee-length skirt bursting around her like a blooming flower, beaming with pride, she decided her daughter’s name would be Joan. Joan after her chosen saint, Joan of Arc. It felt appropriate for her. Fitting to choose a name of someone so dauntless, so unmistakably determined to stick by her beliefs. Even at twelve, everyone knew that Tashi was not a girl, but a force of nature. She functioned more like the wind did than a person, graceful and elegant in its lightest forms, biting and unforgiving at its harshest. She wanted to be a dichotomy. The less people understood, the more she could work against another person without their realizing, on the court and off it, if need be. She found herself imagining, just for a moment, that the beaming faces of proud aunts, uncles, cousins, even strangers, were watching her burn at the stake, just as her namesake of sorts had, and she liked to think that it was a rite of passage to undergo something so painful. It was what made Joan of Arc the saint she now is, was it not? Perhaps to become something, the present you, the good in you, had to die. Maybe that’s what makes a person matter. So, she hoped to change. She hoped to leave old her behind. And when she stepped down to greet family, kiss cheeks and shake hands, and people asked her who her role model is, she felt her hands fidget with the golden cross settled on her sternum when she said Billie Jean King. Her grandmother, warm and soft with old age, took her by the hand that day and thanked her. Thanked her for becoming a woman of God, as she was intended to do. For being a great future wife and mother. She didn’t like the lack of ‘tennis player’ in that list, but it would have to do. After all, it’s what she was made for. 

After Patrick, after her knee, she thinks she knows what Joan of Arc felt like when she looked down from heaven. She had to die to become something. What she had become, she wasn’t sure of. A coach, yes, and Art’s coach no less, but what else? She hoped that by falling from grace, she would land on some other variation of it. A fall from one pillowy, cushioned world to another. She tried, really, not to hate him for it. His successes that should have been hers, and they were in a way. She’d liked that after all, his malleability. He was becoming her. He was pressed and folded into serving with the power of her muscles and winning with the ease of a body which knew nothing but victory. They were her victories if he was her. But, when all is said and done, and she sits in bed while he sleeps, she knows he loves him more than she resents him. She loves that he stayed, despite no longer being the Tashi he’d met at that Adidas party. She loves that he holds her up, even when she lies and says she needs no support. She loves that in all his softness, he could love something so cold as her. She felt no fear when he proposed, because she wanted it to happen, and that meant he’d want it, too. And she wanted that daughter she’d dreamed of as a girl. She wanted her Joan to have an intellect like her own and a tenderness like her father. She wanted flowing brown hair and eyes that crinkle at their corners when they lift with a smile. She wanted a daughter, so Art would want one, too. 

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When they discussed it the first time, her ring felt heavier. She knew he wanted a family, that much was clear. He was more obvious than she’d been, all lingering eyes on small children and brushes of hands against tiny clothing. He never addressed it outwardly, not directly the way she does, but he showed his desire in his own way. He nearly cried when she asked him, and if she hadn't been smart enough to specify that she meant after the wedding, he would’ve begged her to start right away. He needed to be a father the same way she needed to be a mother. He needed to see himself create something worthwhile, he needed to know that he’d leave something beautiful behind when there was nothing left for his body to give. Tashi needed something, someone, to stare at her with the wonder that she felt from the stands as a teen. She wanted to know her life hadn’t amounted to a ‘should’ve been’, an unhappy accident, an act of God. She needed something tangible to place her love on, and just her love on. No living vicariously. No resentment. He wiped his eyes and kissed her like he had never been more in love with her than in that moment, and things felt simple. No arguments, no questioning, not a lick of concern for the future. She was going to get her daughter, her Joan, and she was going to be the most wonderful thing the world would ever know.

Her ring, the larger, newer one of the two, weighed heavy on her hand as she rolled her fingers in little waves against the marble sink. Two minutes. Two minutes that she hardly breathed for. They’d been trying and trying for months. Months of intimacy as a means to an end, rather than based on desire. Months and months and nothing seemed to stick. She felt sick each time she felt the telltale nauseating warmth of blood between her legs, the sharp ache of a cramp, like a mace swung at her insides. She felt sick when she knew she wasn’t doing the one thing she was put here for. Each time she spoke about it to her mother, she’d just sigh through the speaker of the phone, say that everything happens for a reason. That God gives his hardest battles to his strongest soldiers, and it’d only make her victory that much more deserved. She felt no desire to be strong anymore. She hoped to be weak so that things became easier. But two minutes was up, and when she flipped the small plastic figure over in its place, two red lines down its center, she practically kissed the ground she collapsed to. Art found her there, attentive even from the other room, with her shoulders heaving and her back arched in on itself, as if shielding herself from the world. When he sees the positive test, he folds himself into the same position. He might just cry harder.

Imagine her shock when the screen was flipped her way and she saw three little shapes. Not one, but three. Three little girls. They had to be. The nurse had crinkled her nose when she said so, said it was still far too early to tell, but she knew. Tashi knew that there was never any other option for her. Three. The perfect number. Her own holy trinity to praise. Truly, they would be what she devoted herself to. She had won her battle, even though she’d never asked to fight it. She searched for Art’s hand to take in her own, and when her eyes met his they were fearful, yes, but delighted all the same. It was perfect. The ideal number. Her Joan, her Billie, her Natasha. He looked at that blurry image, all black and white fuzz and imagination-filled gaps, with the reverence of dog to owner, student to teacher. If they thought about it hard enough, they could feel their place in the world shifting. They could see each object come into itself, particle by particle. Each edge seemed a bit softer now. She felt a prayer on the tip of her tongue and silenced it with a sob. There was no time for piety. She felt the battle was won, and the war wasn’t even over.

Tashi was an analytical woman. Everything through a scrutinizing lens. Each detail perceived, judged, shuffled away to be dealt with. And as she analyzed the look on the doctor’s face when he came in, she knew. She knew and wanted to hear none of it. There was nothing to be done. No medication, no procedure. Her relief would come when they’d finally stop suffering. She didn’t tell Art, couldn’t tell Art. She didn’t tell him on the car ride home, tears stagnant in her waterline, lips pursed and trembling, but never breaking. She didn’t tell him when he saw the expression on her face. She didn’t have to. She needed space. Air. Sleep. A hug. A better body. A kinder God. She needed to be stronger. She needed to be weaker. When out of his line of vision, surrounded by the bed that could only have been where the lives still within her were born, she squeezed her eyes shut and hit. She hit, hit, hit and hoped it developed sentience just so it could feel the pain of each impact. But she wouldn’t lay there. She crumpled like an old flower, browning and dry, and for the first time in her life, there were no prayers to be said. She unclasped the thin gold chain from around her neck, holding its limp form in her palms. She cupped it beneath her lips, whispered ‘please, please, please’ until all that came out was air. But she felt no different. She felt no change. She threw it across the room, landing with a small, metallic tink. She hoped she’d been wrong all her life. There was no God. No God would let her suffer so much and be rewarded with so little. No kind, loving God would treat her this way after spending so much time praising him. No God would not let her serve the purpose she was put her for. Be fruitful and multiply. Why not her? They slept quietly that night, backs against each other. She slipped out from beneath the covers to scoop the chain up in her palms and tuck it into the drawer of her nightstand. Just in case, she didn’t want to anger him either.

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When those two lines did appear again, her thumbnail dragging up and down the length of them, she didn’t quite feel joy. Because it was never supposed to be her. Of course, she was happy, somewhere, beneath that clouded, murky water of grief. For her babies. For herself. For what ifs and should haves. But, she would take it. She would hold her girl proudly in her arms upon arrival, she would watch herself change, grow, widen, and not be horrified by such a thing, and she would hate this little girl as much as she loved her. She wouldn’t recycle a name. She couldn’t make this child identify as another. And she knew, as her mother had, that when she arrived, she’d just know who she was. For now, though, she made her way to her nightstand, slipped open the drawer, and connected the clasp of the chain behind her neck again.