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lollipop | tashi duncan x patrick zweig x art donaldson x reader

warnings: SMUT 18+, porn with very minimal plot

The bass is sticky-sweet and sinful, the kind that slides down your spine and coils low in your stomach. Lights strobe like they’re trying to catch secrets midair, but none of them land on you—yet.

You’re leaning against the bar, mouth wrapped around a cherry lollipop and eyes scanning the crowd like you’re on the hunt. But you already know exactly who you’re waiting for.

You haven’t seen them in months. Not since New Rochelle. Not since you told them to lose your number, and Patrick laughed like it was a challenge. Since Art told you, with terrifying calm, that you’d come crawling back. Since Tashi just kissed your jaw, eyes unreadable, and walked away.

You hadn’t planned on seeing them tonight. You’d heard they were in town for the tournament, sure, but you weren’t stalking their schedules anymore. You’d come out with friends. You’d worn this dress for yourself. The lollipop had been a joke. A dare. Something stupid.

Except it wasn’t a joke. Not really. Everyone who knew you knew the lollipop meant something.

You used to walk onto the court with one in your mouth. Superstition, maybe. Distraction tactic. Or maybe it was just habit—your particular brand of psychological warfare. Patrick used to call it bait. Tashi called it smart. Art never called it anything. He just stared.

And now they’re all here.

Art sees you first.

He stops walking mid-stride, mid-laugh. His mouth still shaped around something clever, but no sound comes out. Tashi clocks the shift instantly, turning her head and following his gaze. Her eyes narrow.

Patrick, as always, takes the longest. But when he sees you, his mouth splits into a grin that’s all teeth and no kindness.

You raise the lollipop to your lips and bite down hard enough to crack it.

They cross the club like gravity. The crowd parts. You should leave. You don’t.

“You’re really here,” Patrick says, breath warm near your temple. “Cute dress.”

You twirl the lollipop between your fingers, not looking at him. “I wore it for someone better.”

“Yeah?” Tashi’s voice is close, cool, a whisper by your ear. “How’s that working out for you?”

You turn, smile too-sweet. “Pretty well, actually. Until now.”

Art doesn't speak. He just watches you like he’s memorizing something he plans to wreck.

Patrick leans against the bar beside you, close enough that his shoulder brushes yours. “Still sucking on candy like a baby?”

You roll the stick over your tongue, slow and deliberate. “You're just mad I'm not sucking your dick anymore.”

“Not mad,” he murmurs. “Only a matter of time.”

Tashi’s hand slides to your hip. Her grip is possessive. Familiar. “We should talk,” she says, but she’s already pulling you toward the VIP section, not waiting for permission.

Art finally speaks. “She doesn’t want to talk.”

Patrick snorts. “Not with words, anyway.”

You go because it’s easier than fighting. Because you want to. Because you’ve already lost.

The VIP room is low-lit and velvet-lined. Music muffled. Private.

You’re barely inside before Patrick sits, spreading his legs like he’s home. Art leans against the wall, arms folded, gaze locked on you. Tashi pulls you to the center of the room and turns you to face them.

“On your knees,” she says softly, like it’s a suggestion. Like you won’t do it unless she asks nice.

You smile, sickly sweet. “I don’t take orders.”

Art pushes off the wall. “Sure you do. Just not in public.”

You sink. Slowly. Lollipop still between your fingers, now sticky with sweat and anticipation.

Patrick unzips with a lazy smirk. “Show us what that smart mouth is really good for.”

You glance up through your lashes, tongue dragging along your lower lip as you stroke him once, slow and warm, before you wrap your mouth around the head of his cock.

The lollipop clatters to the floor.

Patrick groans. “Fuck, I forgot how good you are at this.”

You hum around him, smug, spit already slipping down your chin. He grabs your hair, not hard yet, just enough to let you know who’s in control.

Tashi kneels beside you, mouth at your ear. “No teeth. No attitude. Be useful.”

You glance at her, eyes glassy, and she kisses your cheek like she means it.

Art unbuckles his belt with one hand. The sound is enough to make you clench around nothing.

“You’ll take all of us,” he says. “You love your lollipops, don't you, baby? We’ll see how sweet it tastes with three different flavors in your throat.”

And then there’s no more pretending.

Patrick thrusts shallow and slow, easing his cock past your lips, but it doesn’t stay gentle for long. His grip tightens in your hair, guiding your head, dragging moans out of his throat with every wet, messy stroke.

“Don’t stop,” he pants. “You wanted attention? Fucking take it.”

Tashi’s nails dig into your scalp as she holds you still. Her other hand slips down, trailing under your jaw. “Messy little thing,” she murmurs. “You look better like this.”

You choke when Patrick pushes deeper. Your eyes water. Spit drips down your chin, onto your chest, and you don’t care.

Art is behind you now. You hadn’t even noticed him move. His hand slides down the back of your neck, soothing for a second—before he pushes your head farther down Patrick’s length.

“She can take it,” he mutters. “She’s done worse with less incentive.”

Patrick grunts. “Fuck, I’m close.”

Tashi pulls you off his cock with a pop just before he comes. You gasp for air, blinking through tears.

“Not yet,” she tells him, then turns to you. “Open.”

She climbs onto the couch beside Patrick and leans back, spreading her thighs. Her underwear is already discarded. You don’t remember when she slipped them off.

She smells like heat and sweat and control. You lower your mouth between her legs, tongue dragging through her slick folds, and she sighs like she’s been waiting for this since the moment she saw you tonight.

You lap at her slowly at first, just the tip of your tongue, teasing over her clit until she grabs the back of your head and rolls her hips into your face with zero patience.

Her moans are sharp and indulgent. One hand in your hair, the other pinching her nipple beneath the fabric of her shirt. She rides your tongue, thighs clamped around your ears, telling you exactly how she wants it.

"Faster. Right there. Don’t you fucking stop."

Your tongue aches. Your jaw burns. You flick and circle and suck until she gasps, trembling, thighs shaking as she clamps down, grinding into your mouth with a low, shuddering whine.

She comes like it hurts, like she’s been holding it in for far too long. And she keeps you buried between her legs until the aftershocks fade.

When she finally lets you go, you’re breathless, chin glistening, and Patrick is already grabbing you by the jaw.

“You ready now?” he rasps.

You nod, lips red and swollen.

He fucks your mouth without mercy this time, fast and brutal, his cock slamming against the back of your throat as he growls, “Don’t waste a drop.”

You swallow every bit of it.

Art is the last.

He pulls you into his lap on the floor, tilting your head up. His hand strokes your cheek—almost gentle.

“You think you’re still in charge?” he whispers, brushing your hair back from your face like he doesn’t want to see a single thing in the way.

You nod, breath catching. Barely.

He smiles. “Then prove it. Make me come without using your hands.”

He doesn’t push. Doesn’t guide. Just waits, watching.

You sink onto him slowly, tasting salt and heat, letting your lips wrap around the flushed head of his cock. He exhales like you’ve knocked the wind out of him.

You go slow. Excruciatingly slow. Hollow your cheeks. Twist your tongue on the upstroke. Let him feel every second of your mouth, every flutter of your throat.

“Jesus,” he murmurs. His head tilts back, hips twitching upward as you swallow him halfway, then deeper.

You look up at him as he starts to lose control—his mouth parted, chest rising fast, hands gripping your hips like he’s fighting the urge to fuck up into your throat.

“Keep going,” he growls, voice wrecked. “Don’t fucking stop.”

You don’t. You push until your nose brushes the soft skin at the base of him, until his breath catches in his throat and he chokes out your name.

He comes with a groan, hand tight in your hair, cock twitching as you milk every drop from him. You swallow because you want to. Because he told you not to use your hands, and you want him to know you listened.

When he finally lets go, you slump against his thigh, dazed, used, lips slick and trembling.

Tashi crouches down and lifts your chin. “That’s better,” she says, like it’s a reward.

Patrick chuckles. “Told you it was only a matter of time.”

You close your eyes.

Sticky. Breathless. Satisfied.

And craving another taste.

-----

tagging: @kimmyneutron @babyspiderling @queensunshinee @hanneh69 @jamespotteraliveversion @glennussy @awaywithtime @artstennisracket @artdonaldsonbabygirl @blastzachilles @jordiemeow

sometimes i think i’m truly mellowing out and then i see these pictures and i turn into a degenerate that wants to lick his armpits

Mmm life so beautiful

line cook!art donaldson headcanons ‎𐂐◯𓇋

line cook!art who lights his cigarette with the flames of the cooker before going out for his break and you think it's the hottest thing you've ever seen

line cook!art who always makes extra fries for you whenever it's on an order, sometimes you let him playfully feed you one

line cook!art who fucks you slow and tender, who loves nothing more than watching you slowly come undone on his cock

line cook!art who steals alcohol from the kitchen and the two of you share the bottle after a long shift

line cook!art who makes you a mean grilled cheese for breakfast when you wake up tangled in his sheets

line cook!art who deftly ties your hair up before you give him a blowjob, cracking jokes about 'health and safety'

line cook!art who after you sleep together, he always moves your tickets to the front of the line

line cook!art who has got a sleeper build and you only notice his arms when he's grabbing stuff from the back or leaning on the doorframe

line cook!art who doesn't eat anything on shift because he's 'only hungry for your pussy'

tags: @ellaynaonsaturn @blastzachilles

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.

chewing on him like a ravenous wolf

Casual dominance but with dilf!patrick???

the same as art in the sense he wouldn't bat an eye if you went out in a short skirt. he takes pleasure it in it, actually, a hand on your backside to give everyone a peek of your panties. when you send him an affronted look, he just gives an unrepentant smirk. whoops! probably the wind. he DOES like to choose your clothes. prob like the sluttiest thing possible when you're meeting his parents (a huge fuck you to them).

definitely into the whole "bimbo girlfriend thing." makes you make eye contact with him when you're talking... or fucking. "ah-ah-ah, eyes on me." and never lets you get away without verbally asking him for something. "c'mon, use your words if you want something. my baby has good manners."

knows how indecisive you are and calling the shots just comes naturally to him. doesn't even bat an eye when the waiters give you a concerned look after he gives your order for you. just knows you inside out at this point. or if he's grabbing himself something from the kitchen, he doesn't bother asking if you want one, he just grabs two by default (because he knows you'll say no and end up asking for a sip of his water or stealing his chips)

doesn't matter where you are, he's always touchy. a hand on your thigh when he's driving, or around you while you're walking. if he has a pretty thing on his arm, why not show you off? always whispering filthy things to you when you're out and about just to watch you avert your eyes when your cheeks heat up. you never scold him, though—you both know you love it.

also loves manhandling you. guiding you when you're walking, or big hands on your hips to move you out of his way in the kitchen or throw you over his shoulder to carry you off to bed. if you aren't walking side by side, he's always keeping an eye on you. never more than an arm's length away. follows the sidewalk rule religiously.

comes off as a little controlling sometimes, too. patronising as fuck when he wants to be. he bought you a drink? you have to finish it, otherwise you're ungrateful. going out with your friends? either he's coming with you, or you don't go at all. he just loves you too much!! if you’re gonna be ogled, he has to be present for it. he’s just looking out for his pretty girl <3

always zips up your dress for you or helps you put your jewellery on. he doesn't even need to ask; as soon as he sees you getting ready, he's behind you to lend you a helping hand (and probably a playful pinch to the ass for his troubles)

anyways shoutout to oomfs in diya's the queen's gambit watchparty for thirsting over patrick w me for this <3

the lgbt community wants to fuck him 🤐

my angel princess

As a slut for Tashi I feel so bad that in most challenger stuff she's always the least picked. Where's the love for my pretty princess? 🥺

right!!! :( </3

seems v apparent she is Not gonna win my last poll but i do have a few reqs for her so... tashi stuff on the horizon! but yeah i get the white boys are hot and u want to see them kiss but cmon... the original fujoshi is right there and i want her just as bad

ugh just look at her... my baby :(

i don't like this, nor am i really sure of what it is, and it is certainly not i wanted it to be, but it exists as it does, and maybe that's alright for now.

As a child, Art spent a lot of time in the nurse’s office, complaining of the typical childhood ailments that Ms. So-and-So, name and face turned beige and fuzzy in the backlogs of his memory, was so weary of seeing. Headaches from staring too long at small font and big numbers, scraped knees from trying just a little harder than everyone else in gym, and stomachaches. Mostly stomachaches. Whenever she asked him to describe the feeling, voice tinged with the sticky-sweet honey of thinly veiled aggravation, he found himself struggling to. It wasn’t pain, per se, or at least not in the traditional sense. No feeling a pulse where there was no heart beneath skin, nothing to dig at with bitten down nails. All that was there was the awareness that something wasn’t normal, or if other kids his age felt that way, they’d never made it known. He chose the word nauseous, usually, and took the time to lay on the old leather bench in the corner of her office, covered in a thin sheet of paper which crinkled each time he moved. The stomachache would never really leave before he went back to class.

When he thought about it, it wasn’t just a feeling beneath the skin that he wasn’t normal, because they clearly felt it, too. Not that he couldn’t hold conversations, tell the right jokes to pull a laugh from a light, youth-filled chest, he could. In fact, he did so quite well. Nana’s little comedian. But he never had friends to come home with after school, crammed in backseats next to the booster of a younger sibling. No one to giggle with over carrot sticks and crustless peanut butter sandwiches at lunch, over girls, sports, maybe just nothing at all. No one who’d send him smiles sans front teeth without having one sent their way first. 

His Nana always said he was perfect, his mother always said it was a maturity thing. The other kids would catch up someday, as if he existed on some superior form of youth more akin to adulthood. An incoming peak in college. But he didn’t know that that was true. He was born a middle-aged man, ready to sleep his days away and eat more than his fill to distract himself from that ache emanating from his very core. And if he was already that old, by the time his peers reached that age, he’d be dead in a living body. He hoped, though, that his mother was right, more for Nana’s sake than his own. He doesn’t think she could bare the weight of a second unlovable child, even if he’s not truly hers.

Tennis had given him something, though. An outlet, in all the ways that didn’t matter. A means of venting his frustrations with himself, his family, his ‘friends’. In the ways it did matter, however, it was medicinal. A balm to alleviate that inherent wrongness within him. The discomfort from being thirty at the age of seven. The overwhelming anger he never showed to anyone, because a boy his age should have no reason to be as upset with the world as he was. It worked magic, though, making strength from thin arms, chiseling stronger features into the stone of a hard-set jaw, pulling new muscle from old bone. It was the youngest he’d ever been, when he was on the court. He hurt afterwards, yes, from soreness, but it felt righteous. Like his suffering, in some form, was meant to be there, even if he hadn’t learned what it was all for yet.

It gave him Patrick, too. The first person who met his eyes and seemed to see through him, not just see what he presented. Patrick was smart, even if he pretended not to be. Art couldn’t understand that for the life of him, why Patrick so often pretended to be stupid. He was naturally more open, confident, out-spoken than Art, yes, but in the quiet of their dorm he found Patrick could be quiet, too. Soft-spoken, gentle if need be. And no one would believe him if he said the boisterous Patrick Zweig had it in him to be soft, much less sweet. But he learned, eventually, as Patrick must have done at a younger age. When Patrick spoke, loud enough to swallow up a room and fill it with himself, and just dumb enough to give people something to poke at, he got attention, validation that he was worth looking towards. Art learned to understand. Art learned to be dumb, too. He learned to become what he wasn’t, or more accurately, who he wasn’t. He felt sick most times for it, the restless, hungry pit in his stomach not necessarily satiated by it, but it quelled it some days. 

When Patrick slung his arm around his shoulders one day, likely only in an effort to show off the corded muscle to the giggling blonde across them, he spoke for Art like he knew what he wanted. 

“We’re going to pro together, y’know, after this is up. Don’t you wanna be able to brag about fucking a tennis player?”

The language made Art wrinkle his nose a bit, but he laughed anyway, entranced by the way Patrick followed up his words with a swig of whatever it was in his cup. Maybe to wash away the gluey, cloying feeling of significance. Maybe just to wash down the guilt. They’d never discussed the matter together, come to think of it, because Art didn’t know what he wanted. He loved tennis, yes, loved Patrick just the same, but he didn’t quite know what it was he wanted to do with himself. It felt like he’d figure himself out if he just waited a bit, after all, that incoming college peak was nearer and nearer to rounding the corner and actually being his life. They still didn’t discuss it when Patrick came home later that night, tugging a shirt back into place where it clearly hadn’t been seconds ago, and he dropped onto the pillow with a heavy sigh, nuzzling his face into it. That asshole couldn’t even be bothered to stay the night. And still, he knew that if asked, he’d do it. After all, who was he without stitching himself to Patrick’s side? He wasn’t sure he knew. It made the offer he’d accepted from Stanford feel that much worse.

After Patrick came Tashi, bright, beautiful, lovely Tashi. And after that Tashi came the hardened one, legs always crossed at the knee like anyone could forget what was hiding. And Tashi saw him reborn into his own greatness, shaky on his knees like a foal. Each time she looked his way, he felt some jagged piece within him, one he’d never known to be out of place, click into position. Maybe it was that she’d kissed him like he thought he’d wanted when he was eighteen, bright-eyed as he could be, but never quite as bright as the other hopeful suitors surrounding her. Maybe it was that he got the attention which she gave out so sparingly. Maybe it was the surgical precision which she stared at him, like she was peeling back each layer of skin to find the brown, softened beginnings of rot. She was like a scalpel in that sense, always opening, opening, opening, and never quite cracking in return. Not even a chip. Each remark, about him, about his game, the occasional reference to a boy they once knew who would never truly be a man, nameless like it’d kill them to say aloud, was a knife. Sometimes, if he thinks hard enough, she can practically feel a stab wound forming where their tongues brush in a kiss, the rising copper from it. He thinks she’d still look beautiful with crimson-soaked teeth. She’d be beautiful if she hurt him.

He called Nana about Tashi quite a bit, her voice always shakier than the last time. It always took more and more effort for her to speak, and less and less words would come out. But he took each one gratefully, like a small gift which he’d never done anything to deserve receiving. Just like Patrick’s stolen personality, or Tashi’s stolen career. After all, where he was was just an amalgamation of his only loves’ stolen dreams. He sometimes wonders where he’d be if he didn’t naturally suck the life from all he touched. Nana seemed to like Tashi. The usual questions always came: marriage, children, the future proposal plans. He always laughed about it, huffed and shook his head like he was already an exasperated father, saying ‘someday’ to placate her. Maybe he would make that true, and maybe he wouldn’t. Because when he looked to Tashi, Tashi brushing her hair, Tashi tying the laces of her shoes, Tashi humming just a bit too loud at six in the morning as she brews her coffee, he thinks he’s never deserved anything less. Then again, maybe it’s not about deserving things. Maybe love can genuinely be unconditional, even if it’s for him. He shudders to think. He feels warm. His stomach hurts.

i want to line them up and tuck them into bed with the blanket just below their chins all snuggly

meet… STANFORD ERA LESBIAN!ATP .ᐟ ★

a/n: hi guys the much promised part two of lesbian!atp headcanons… stanford edition! so sorry it took me three weeks to get these out i am in an insane slump right now…… i’ll be free soon (hopefully) i have so much i want to get out. and also thank you @peariote some of these are taken from conversations we have had… and thank you @diyasgarden my lovely for helping me flesh out tashi. anyway. please enjoy. smiles. 

CW: hints at nsfw

ART - VISUAL ARTS MAJOR .ᐟ

– VISUAL ARTS MAJOR ART who swears you’re her muse. Always begging you to let her use you as a model for whatever she’s working on, he’s positive her work simply turns out better when it’s of you. Nevermind the fact you’re almost always nude. 

– VISUAL ARTS MAJOR ART who is always covered in charcoal and paint, to the point he’s like a magnet. Even if she’s not doing a project with those mediums, it still finds its way onto him. Little do you know it’s because you said you loved the way she looks with it one day, and she’s never looked back.

– VISUAL ARTS MAJOR ART who loves that he has to learn photography because it means she can always capture moments of you for forever. Always has a camera on him whenever he’s with you to make sure she doesn’t miss anything. Anything from being in the shower to falling apart under her. She even teaches you photography just so you can take photos of her between your thighs or when her hands are too busy elsewhere to hold a camera.

– VISUAL ARTS MAJOR ART whose exhibitions always feature at least one piece of you, whether it be painting, photo, or sculpture, and are always dedicated to you. Whenever he sneaks you in for ‘early access,’ he always shows you these with the biggest grin on her face. She swears one day he’s going to do an exhibition solely of you (Never including the nude pieces. Those are hers and hers only). You know she will.   

PAT - FINANCE MAJOR .ᐟ

– FINANCE MAJOR PAT who went into finance for his parents, who want her to take over after graduating. He absolutely hates it, but listens and goes for the four years anyway. Their grades are average, simply because she cannot care enough to do more than scrape by. Despite the hatred, she still becomes the biggest finance bro possible. 

– FINANCE MAJOR PAT who has in fact been attempted to be recruited to a frat before. Walking past a tent during rush week had them handing him a form until they opened their mouth and spoke. This is his favourite story to tell when trying to get someone into her bed (“Come on, I was basically a frat brother. I can show you a good time too.”).

– FINANCE MAJOR PAT who is somehow at a new party every night. Brings a new girl home every night too, partially in thanks to the frat story above. Is known around campus for being the biggest sleazebag ever, but no one really cares if it means they get a night with her. 

– FINANCE MAJOR PAT who meets you and decides maybe you can change them. A one night stand where you treat her the best he’s ever been treated absolutely changes her world, and one night turns into two, and then three, and then she decides maybe there is more to life than just sleeping around and finally locks you down for herself (but it does take time for her to get used to just the one person, and there are some flirting incidents in the beginning). 

TASHI - COGNITIVE SCIENCE MAJOR .ᐟ

– COG SCI MAJOR TASHI who is the most disciplined person in college. Like poster girl of discipline level discipline. She creates a schedule and actually sticks to it. As you spend more time with her, you eventually catch onto it as well, and start doing most things together.

– COG SCI MAJOR TASHI who is incredibly dedicated to her studies. One of the top students in her classes. She is always studying whenever she has time, but hates not being around you. Her favourite kind of date is studying with you at a library or cafe, where she doesn’t need to choose between you and her work. 

– COG SCI MAJOR TASHI whose favourite courses are the natural sciences, particularly chemistry and biology. Something about learning how the body’s natural chemicals and processes draws her in, but she wants to make a difference with it, to make it mean something. So she minors in sociology alongside cog sci. 

– COG SCI MAJOR TASHI who eventually takes the MD and PhD route, so she can do research and help in a medical setting. She spends her time in class one day, volunteering at a hospital and shadowing a doctor the next, and uses what she learns to do exactly what she wanted to. To do something bigger than herself.

tag list: @artstennisracket @glassmermaids @jordiemeow @cha11engers @kaalxpsia @apatheticrater @tacobacoyeet @tigerlilywl @newrochellechallenger2019 @compress1repress @artspats

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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

im going to kiss you on your incredible, beautiful brain

Good Luck

This is basically the beginning of The Atlantic City Story verbatum, with you as Jane, and some differences + personal touches. Because of this, you don't need to have seen ACS to understand what's going on (in my opinion). Just a little thing I wanted to write to warm up my ACS writing muscle since I plan to write for Arthur more in the future.

SFW

2.3k words

If you haven't seen it, Arthur has a gambling addiction, and you participate in gambling at a casino. Reader (Jane) grows up with an implied neglectful and sometimes abusive mother, and there are flashbacks to this childhood. Reader is in a strained marriage. I picture you being around Arthur's age and married young instead of Jane's age in the movie.

It felt like you’d caught him; finding him out there, sitting in the quiet rain on a lone bench, the streets abnormally still for the city. Maybe it was like tunnel vision, all that you could hear or see was him, whoever he was.

The rain made dashes in the air like stitches, straight diagonal lines cutting through to the asphalt, illuminated by the single streetlight by the fence. The grass behind it looked like it went on forever, like an ocean you could swim through if you wanted. You’d never seen the sky so pitch black, the light pollution of the city sucking the light from the stars like parasites. The streetlight was the only star in the sky, strong and bright and sturdy. There under the starlight, just a little to its left, was the one bench. One star, one bench. It was curious. Even more so that on that one bench was him, that man from the roulette table. Him alone, under the star and under the rain, staring off into the ocean and lightless night.

It was a rash decision, one you couldn’t help but make. There was always something wrong with you and you’re well aware of that– self awareness must count for something– but knowing that you have a tendency to fuck things up didn’t stop you from fucking things up again.

When you were a kid you’d run away regularly, packing your little school bag with the things your small mind deemed the most important (a change of clothes, a juice box, your favorite toy, some sidewalk chalk) and sneaking out the back door of your childhood home. It was easy when all you had to do was wait for your mother to drink her favorite juice and fall asleep by the TV, oblivious to the program and to your footsteps creaking the floorboards. When the screen door was shut and it was just you and the cicadas, your little feet ran, carried you as far as they could take you.

Down the block and through the grass, running and running until your legs gave out. Then you’d choose a tree to sit under, catching your breath under the summer sun and pull out the juice box you’d packed. Drinking it slow, letting it sit on your tongue cause you knew that you wouldn’t be able to get another one out here on your own. In the meantime, you’d watch ants crawl beneath blades of grass, earthworms crawl around the gargantuan stones in their paths, birds land on the branches above you. You could hear those cicadas sing and the birds caw and the worms slither in the dirt, and all you could think of is “I wonder if she’s noticed yet.”

Now you were running from your home. Not the one with the box TV and the drunken mother on the floral sofa, where your presence and lack-thereof were felt the same, but the one you’d grown to call yours. It was modest and it was owned, and it was all thanks to your husband Michael. You’d never be able to afford it without him.

When he’d be gone, for work or for play, you found yourself revisiting those times under the trees. Wondering how long you’d really be there until a neighbor found you or a patrolling cop who thought it strange to see you there, alone. Had it been minutes? Hours? Surely not days, never a full one. You were never that lucky. Even now. The day would end and you’d look up from your thoughts and find Michael home, and eventually he’d end up on the couch asleep, the TV flashing frames on the wall.

You don’t really enjoy gambling, if you’re being honest, so you’re not quite sure what led you to Atlantic City. Maybe it was the lights, maybe it was because it was so far away from that couch, The hotel bed was admittedly nicer than your own. The bathroom was also nicer, much larger than the one back home, the mirror spanning wide across the wall above the double sink. Drying your hair from the rain, you mind stayed on the man on the bench. How his eyes weren’t quite at the roulette table, how his hands fidgeted with the chips. They were strong, his hands, the skin smooth and uncalloused or scarred. His fingers long and nervous, always moving against something or each other. You’d watched his hands almost the whole time you were there. You kept picturing those hands as you got ready for bed. How they worried, how they gave up when he didn’t win and left for the rain.

The bed’s so much emptier without someone on the other side. Michael, is he asleep on the couch again? Has he noticed? The tears fell freely, there was no one there to hide them from tonight. In the quiet, the never ending quiet, you almost missed the sound of his breathing behind you. Almost. You noticed he wasn’t there, you always did.

It’s hard to sleep with a mind like yours, but you managed.

There’s a nice view from your window, a perfect one of both the sea and the pier. Just to the corner peaked the ferris wheel, big and silent and unmoving. You’d smoke on the balcony if you had a pack with you. There at your bedside your phone finally buzzed, and from here you could see the contact name pop up. Maybe you should check if they sell any at the gas station a block down.

They do.

It’s quickly stuffed into your coat pocket, leaving straight from the gas station to the casino, your phone still back in your room. There’s something appealing to you in that loud, depressing trap. The ringing machines, the clicking sounds of chips on tables and balls spinning to determine someone's fate, the shuffling of cards and nervous laughter of the patrons. This could be their shot, the temporarily embarrassed millionaires. One more time, pull the level one more time. Play the cards one more time. Toss the ball one more time.

What really led you there was him, the man with the hands and no name. Something told you that he would be there again today.

He is. You spot him at the same roulette table, in the same hat and shirt but dry now. The jacket he wore last night is gone, though. Last night you watched, so today you decided to play. Observing silently at the table was weird, anyway, so you set down two twenties. Surely losing that won’t hurt as bad. Pink chips totaling forty dollars slide to your end, the head of the table, and you find your own fingers flipping them with worry. So is he. He’s watching the wheel with this almost acceptance that he won’t win, yet he’s clearly still here, still trying. How long as he been there? He puts down his number, then the other participants, and you just choose a random one. You’ve never done this before, having no clue if this is a game of chance or skill but you can only assume the former. You bet 44. He bet 24.

The wheels spins and the ball is tossed. Round and round and round forever. The casino feels so loud, it’s like you can hear every anxious prayer to whatever higher being will have mercy on them today. There’s a machine a ways away that rings loud, someone shouts at another one about it being rigged. The dealer is reminding people no more bets, not until it lands. He takes a breath, hitched and ready to release when it’s allowed, but he doesn’t. He holds it, never taking his eyes off the ball. You never take your eyes off him.

“Six. Black and even.”

It takes him a moment to let it go. Someone else won, another woman at the table, and the dealer hands her the chips. You do it all again, and when you place your bet on twenty-six, he does too.

The ring of the ball falling into place sounds like a dim bell. Everything else goes quiet when you hear it, and this time you let your eyes hopefully fall to where it spins and stops.

“Twenty-six. Black and even.”

Someone at the table stands and leaves and you find a smile growing on your lips. How unexpected. You were ready to lose again, you were alright with it. It felt good. He finally looks away from the table, letting another breath go. Looking up, catching your eye and dropping it, you see the hint of a smile on his. When he speaks you’re surprised.

“Thank you.”

You’ve moved to stand next to him, next to the wheel, as the dealer hands you your chips. “Me?”

“Yeah, you had the twenty-six.”

You don’t really think about it when you move to the newly empty seat next to him, removing your coat and hanging it on the back of it. “I guess I’m lucky.”

Again. This time, several numbers: Thirty-six, three, twenty-nine, eleven. He places them on the same spots you do, like you’re his good luck. The bets are set, the wheel spins again, and your eyes fall back to his hands. They’re closer now, and maybe you’re confident enough to think they worry a little less as they still on the table.

He properly looks at you when it lands, the corner of his mouth pulling up. His hands grip the edge of the table slightly before letting go, tapping the green fabric on it proudly. He’s got a pretty smile when he lets it. Maybe you are lucky.

“Thirty-six. Red and even.”

When you’d come home it was always a mess. Whether it was a neighbor or a cop, your mother would open the front door with her unbrushed hair and bitten lips and stained nightgown and scold you right there in front of them. “Fuck, kid. How many times I gotta tell you to stop running off? I can’t sleep five minutes without you trying to kill yourself and worrying the neighbors. I got work, you know.”

She worked long shifts at the bank and then the diner, trying to make enough for the two of you. She was always tired by the time she got home. You always had to walk to and from school, pack your own lunches, learn how to do the laundry yourself. She always said she just needed a minute to relax, give mommy a minute to relax and she’ll be right there, but that minute would stretch until she had to get ready for her shift the next morning.

“My feet and back are damn tired and I don’t have time to follow you around this house, watching if you’re gonna go off and get hit by a car. I hope you have a kid like yourself one day, you’ll finally understand how hard I’ve got it. Get to your room.”

You’d lie on your belly on the floor, tracing patterns into the old carpet of your bedroom. There wasn’t much to do. Toys were expensive. You had a few, sure, but not the ones in the commercials that would play. Hot Wheels with customizable racetracks and big Barbie Dream Houses and shiny little action figures with movable arms and legs. You had Legos that the kid next door stopped playing with, and a hand stitched doll your mother made, your teddy bear from infancy, and a bike that’s had a flat tire since last spring.

There was a small bookshelf by the door with books you either finished reading or didn’t care for, some stolen from your mother’s room that confused you and spoke about things you’ve never heard of. Behind the dresser that you’d move, there were crayon drawings on the yellowed walls you’d sometimes add to before moving the dresser back. When you didn’t want to do that, it was back to lying on your stomach and tracing on the carpet.

Sometimes you’d hear kids next door playing, yelling at the other to pass the ball or to watch their cool trick. You’d look out your window but they’d always be just out of view. It was like a radio show with no dial to switch stations. Then you’d smell the cooking coming from downstairs and hear the knock at your bedroom door, and your mother would pass you your plate. She’d sit there on the floor in front of the bedroom door with hers, and there you’d eat in silence.

The next day, your mother would have forgotten about it, and you’d already start wondering about how far you could get next time.

He doesn’t play Poker, says there’ll always be someone there smarter than him. “I’m not smart but I’m smart enough to know I’m not gonna be the smartest.”

Hearing that, put that way, makes you laugh. You guess he has a point. It’s not about skill. You don’t need skill to have luck, you suppose. You either have luck or you don’t, and you’ve thought until now that you’ve had none. You like how he puts it: “With roulette it’s all chance. It’s just you and the universe.”

The chips are turned to cash at the counter. $900 for him, $950 for you. Considering your starting bet was forty, you feel pretty good. Good enough to stop. He chooses to stop today, too. It’s like he walks lighter down the hall with the cash in his pocket. He offers to take you to a cheap diner he knows, like a celebration of your win. Taking his good luck out to dinner, and he doesn’t even know your name.

He almost floats across the floor. You think about him just the other night, under the rain, under the single stranded star. He’s a different man with money in his pocket, that much you can tell of the stranger. Your phone is still on the nightstand back in your room, but you know by now that Michael’s stopped calling. Stopped trying. You wonder when he noticed.

He tells you his name is Arthur.

nibbling him politely

patrick zweig x fairy!reader where he just kind of corrupts her and when they're fucking he's like 'you're just so /stupid/' but he's smiling about it all the same

+ FAIRY READER AND PATRICK PLEASE

fairy!reader x patrick zweig

summary: patrick loves making you dumb from his touch

cw .ᐟ nsfw, creampie, slapping

you were the easiest girl patrick had ever gotten. too busy batting your lashes to notice the way he’d ruined you. letting him grope you in public, art’s seen your naked pictures more times than he can count.

you were so fucking cute about it too. always giggling away as patrick shoves your hand down his shorts during parties. pushing you onto your knees in locker rooms, he couldn’t give a fuck that there were still people in there. you looked too pretty with mascara running down your cheeks as you choked around him.

but nothing beat the feeling of you around him. cock drunk and drool dripping down your chin, letting him do whatever he wanted to you. high pitched pants, screams of his name, it was even better when art was in bed five feet away.

“so fuckin’ stupid, baby,” he smirks, hands boxing you in beneath him. cock pounding into you without a care in the world. head empty, filled with only his name. mindlessly nodding along to his words.

you’re always so complacent, patrick eats it up. saying the meanest things while you’re tight around him. “just need my cock, don’t you? nothin’ else.” he taunts, damn near splitting you open.

one harsh slap across your cheek wakes you up from the fucked out space he’s put you in. “hmm, yeah— hnnph! just your— your cock.” you finally answer, jaw slack as moans echo around the room.

“c’mon baby, bounce on it, know you like it.” he mumbles, dragging you into his lap. you’d like anything if he was telling you that you did. your rhythm was off, too dumb off his cock to control your movements. hands groping at the flesh of your ass, forcing you up and down on his lap.

one hand moves to your face, pushing your cheeks together. "such a dumb little slut," he mocks, he fuckin' means it too.

lips too squished by his fingers to murmur out a coherent response, just mumbles of agreement and a nod of your head. "couldn't live without me, could you, babygirl?"

"mm hmm," you mumble, pouting through his grip on your cheeks, shaking your head. his hips start to rut up into you, sounds of skin slapping loud in the small dorm. "know you couldn't," patrick grunts between thrusts.

"too fuckin' stupid." he smirks, both hands digging into your waist, forcing you to bounce up and down. his skin is sweaty, sticking to your own as his hips pump up into you once more. painting your walls white, he loves watching it drip out of your cunt. too dumb to tell him to pull out.

throwing your body down onto the mattress after he's finished, grinning at the wet spot forming on the sheets below you. god, he can't wait to fuck you again when art's back from training.

© 222col. do not steal or repost my work without permission.

꒰ taglist ꒱ @khartalks @bluestrd @appleaali @chrattvibe @tacobacoyeet @lexiiscorect @glassmermaids @voidsuites @donteventry-itdude @matchpointfaist @stanart4clearskin @s0ftcobra @artaussi (to be added)

a revival

OKAYYYY 😝😝😝😝😝😝😝

new zendaya louis vuitton campaign i’m UP

Two Birds On A Wire || Art Donaldson x reader

Rating: Explicit (18+) Warnings: SMUT (Oral, fingering), drinking, very slow burn, I swear it's too slow, once again- I really don't know what's going on here

Word Count: 9.9k

Two birds on a wire

You and Art became friends only at Stanford. You had opportunities to be friends before; it’s impossible to ignore the fact that both of you studied at the same school since you were 12. But Art was friends with people like Patrick Zweig, and you, well, you were one of the people Patrick Zweig spent too much time laughing at.

So when you both get accepted to the same college, you’re aware of his presence because he’s on the tennis team, and his ugly face (even in your thoughts, you find it hard to lie to yourself so blatantly) is plastered on every poster, in every corner. He finds out you’re there at the beginning of the second semester, when you both end up at the same party. If anyone asks him, he came there with a purpose- to get drunk and forget that Tashi Duncan exists or that she’s dating his best friend. If anyone asks you, you got there by accident- you were practically dragged, and you planned to leave after half an hour. But then he saw you, and his confused expression turned into an amused one, then into a challenging one, and then into a series of other expressions that, to this day, you keep in a small box in your memories of Art Donaldson.

“This is weird,” was the first thing he said to you, and you could see from his flushed cheeks that he had already been drinking. Probably more than one beer. “What’s weird?” you asked in response, and he leaned his curls closer to you, expecting you to ask the question again because it was impossible to hear anything with that music blasting at such volume. “What’s weird?” you repeated directly into his ear. For a moment, you wondered if your breath could reach his nose. If that was something he would even notice. If that little breeze made his hair tickle the nape of his neck. If, if, if. “That you’re here, I guess?” You weren’t sure if there was a question mark at the end or if it was just his facial expression studying you intently. As if you had committed a crime, but he was both the cop interrogating you and the lawyer defending you. All roles at once. The thought made you swallow down a chuckle.

“I study here,” you said briefly and took a sip from the drink Josie had made for you. It had more orange juice than vodka because she knew otherwise you wouldn’t even agree to hold it. “I study here too,” he said, and now it was your turn to raise an eyebrow at him. “I know that, Donaldson,” you replied with staged ease. It took a lot out of you. This was probably the longest conversation you’d ever had, if you completely ignored that one time in ninth grade when he saw you crying over something one of his friends had said and just sat down next to you. Actually, there wasn’t much to ignore- he hadn’t said anything to you back then. He just waited for you to stop crying quietly, as if there was nothing he could say that would actually make things better. He placed his water bottle next to you and left when he saw that you were able to open it and drink on your own.

“You just know that?” he was amused. He didn’t seem angry to see you. He didn’t seem like your presence annoyed him, just that it confused him to his core. “Your face is on all the posters,” you shrugged, because it was obvious. Everyone knew Art Donaldson. He never tried to stand out. He never did anything special to make it happen, not even in high school. While people like Patrick Zweig reeked of effort, Art Donaldson drew people in effortlessly and quietly. With a calm that radiated from him in all directions. “Well, if your face were on all the posters, I’d know you were here too. What are you studying?” he asked, with a lightness that was impossible to explain. As if you had been friends your entire lives. As if the fact that he hadn’t known you were so close to him was a crime against humanity.

"Bio-chem," you said concisely, wondering if this would end the conversation, but his face said otherwise. There was genuine amazement at the subject. “Damn, (Y/N), I knew you were smart, but I didn’t know you were planning to save the world one day,” the amused look returned as you rolled your eyes. “What are you studying?” you asked, because it was the polite thing to do, and if there was one thing that could definitely be said about you- it was that you were very polite. “Tennis.” He shrugged and chuckled, as if it was the best joke he could tell. He saw the confusion on your face and quickly added, “Not really, Sports Management. But it’s not even a plan B. If I don’t make it pro, then all of this is pointless,” he explained. You wondered if he also felt this wasn’t a conversation suited for a party. If he, too, was asking himself why he was speaking to you so openly.

You nodded, assuming the conversation would end there, especially when one of his friends approached him, but Art stayed by your side, even introduced you- like you were an old friend from high school. Like you two go way back. Talking with Art was effortless and funny. His humor was on point. His manners weren’t far from yours. He didn’t touch you too much, only pulling you slightly closer when he felt you were drifting away. Almost marking territory when one of your friends came over to say hi. When Josie gave him a scrutinizing look, he simply smiled and introduced himself. She nodded, handed you a fresh cup of the same drink, and disappeared just as quickly as she had arrived.

“I could’ve made you a drink, you know,” he said suddenly, the amused look never leaving his face as he studied you. “Josie makes the perfect drink,” you replied, and he took it from your hand, taking a sip without breaking eye contact. “The perfect drink is just orange juice?” He raised an eyebrow as he handed the cup back to you. “There’s vodka in there,” you rolled your eyes, trying to regain some of the dignity you felt you had just lost. “Do you want to dance with me?” he asked. “Where did that come from?” You couldn’t hide your surprise. “We’re at a party, and I want to dance,” he shrugged for what felt like the millionth time, speaking as if every word coming out of his mouth was an undeniable fact. “I’m fine right here.” You tried to wrap up the conversation, assuming that would be the end of it and that he’d just let you stay in your quiet corner and eventually go home, just as you had planned when you first arrived.

But he took a few steps back, keeping his eyes on you. “Why settle for fine when you could be having fun?” he asked. And there was something about Art Donaldson, you learned in that moment- he always operated exactly like that. ‘Why settle for fine, when you could be having fun?’

So, you downed the drink in one gulp and decided that this time, you’d dance with him. After all, you wouldn’t see him tomorrow anyway, and you’d both go back to acting the way you did two hours ago. Life would return to normal. So, you danced- sometimes ridiculously, sometimes seriously. His hands were on your waist, and he quietly asked if it was okay. All you could do was nod, because why settle for just "okay" when you could have fun? And with Art Donaldson, you thought you might actually have fun.

An hour later, you were already on your way to your dorm. His fingers brushed against yours, each time a different one wrapping around one of your fingers, gently hinting that maybe he’d like to hold your hand but giving you the option to pull away. You were both half-drunk- him more than you, of course, otherwise you didn’t think he’d be walking away from that party with you. You tried not to focus on intrusive thoughts about high school or Patrick Zweig, because no one else deserved to intrude on this moment. You always knew Art wasn’t like them. He never acted like them. He always looked down, turned away when someone was messing with you. You appreciated that.

"Can I come in?" he asked, half-amused, looking at you. Completely prepared to hear the word 'no' if necessary. "Well, you're already here." For a moment, neither of you could believe you’d said that, but he didn’t wait for you to change your mind and stepped inside. He studied your room like he was looking for secrets. He stared at a framed childhood photo longer than you were comfortable with. He examined the posters your roommate had on the wall and the books you had on your shelf.

His lips were on yours a few minutes later- minutes that felt like an eternity. It started hesitant, restrained, almost cautious. You couldn’t believe you were kissing Art Donaldson. That was all you could think about- Fuck, fuck my life, I’m about to sleep with Art Donaldson. I’m about to lose my virginity to Art Donaldson. And the more you spiraled into those thoughts, the more intense the kiss became. His hands found their way to every exposed inch of your skin as you both settled onto your bed, never breaking apart. He kissed your neck like a starving man, like you were his last meal before execution, like his very breath depended on the exact spot where you had sprayed perfume before leaving for the party.

"I’m gonna go to the bathroom for a sec, okay?" Your voice sounded strange even to you for a moment. "Now?" He sounded confused but not upset, speaking into your neck, making it seem like physically separating from you would be painful. "I have to pee," you blurted out the first thing that came to mind, and he pulled back for a second, looking at you with sparkling eyes- whether from alcohol or something else, you couldn’t tell. He nodded, and you stood up, hurrying to the tiny bathroom attached to your room.

You looked at yourself in the mirror as you applied deodorant, shaved your legs quickly (knowing you’d regret it tomorrow), gargled mouthwash, and stared at yourself again, psyching yourself up to walk back out in nothing but a bra and panties to have sex with Art Donaldson. A sentence you had to repeat to yourself over and over just to believe it was actually happening.

When you walked out, you tried to move as seductively as you knew how. Like in the movies. In Josie’s heels, which were a size too small but, for some reason, were in the bathroom, and panties with a flower on them- but at least you had a lace bra on. You had to work with what you got. You hobbled toward him while he lay in bed with his back to you. He didn’t react at all, which made you frown in confusion and step closer.

"Art?" You murmured toward him, but he didn’t move an inch. That’s when you realized that while you had been shaving and putting on heels that made you wobble, Art Donaldson had simply fallen asleep in your bed.

The level of humiliation you felt in that moment could have been worse if he had been awake to see you limping toward him, half-naked, in those ridiculous heels and questionable underwear. So, all you did was throw on the oversized T-shirt that said "Science is Sexy" (you had your doubts, but it made Josie laugh, and she had bought it for your birthday a month ago), took off the heels, and climbed into Josie’s bed- she had already texted you earlier that she wasn’t coming back to the room that night.

By morning, Art Donaldson was gone, and if you hadn’t slept in a different bed, you might have thought you had imagined the whole thing. . . . Almost a week had passed since Art Donaldson fell asleep in your bed before you found him sitting on the steps outside the Faculty of Exact Sciences. His wave in your direction was hesitant as you kept walking toward him. "Hey," was the first thing that came to your mind to say, because what else could you even add? You felt your heart pounding, and you knew you weren’t doing a great job of hiding your confusion- hiding emotions was never your strong suit. "Hey," he smiled- that same familiar yet foreign smile. The kind that had never been directed at you before, and you had always wondered what it would feel like to be on the receiving end of one of his smiles.

"What are you doing here?" you asked. You didn’t mean to be rude, but seriously, what the fuck was he doing here? "Finished practice early and thought it’d be nice to invite you to eat at our cafeteria. The food there’s better," he said. If there was any hesitation or nervousness in his voice, you couldn’t pinpoint it. "Oh." Again, you weren’t really sure how to talk to people like Art. "I have a four-hour lab now, so I don’t think I can. But thanks for the invite, Donaldson." The more you spoke, the steadier your voice became.

"Maybe tomorrow?" His hand moved to the back of his neck as he shook his hair, still not fully dry from the shower. "Maybe," you nodded, because what else was there to do. "Are you on Facebook?" he asked as you started walking toward the building, and he walked beside you. "No, why do you ask?" You threw the question back, it felt safer. "Everyone's on Facebook. How are you not on Facebook?" he replied, amused, nudging his shoulder against yours. "I don't know, it just feels like a waste of time," you said, half-truthfully. The full truth was that you had no one to keep in touch with. All your friends were here, at Stanford, and opening Facebook just to stay in touch with your dad felt pathetic.

"Well, do you have a phone?" His voice cracked for a second but quickly recovered. You nodded briefly, and he reached out his hand, waiting for something. "Oh, right, one sec," you said, digging through your oversized bag, which held far too many things that had no business being there, like star stickers and shoelaces. "Here," you handed him the device, and he typed in a number, calling himself so he’d have yours too.

"I wanted to apologize for, you know, falling asleep. I feel like a dick." His hand found its way to the back of his neck again. You decided to start paying attention to when he did that. "Don’t worry about it," you waved your hand dismissively. "It’s a funny story we can tell someday if anyone asks what’s the weirdest situation you’ve been in after a party," you added with a chuckle, completely ignoring the fact that he didn’t laugh. "This is my lab," you said, pointing at the classroom in front of you. He nodded, furrowing his brows slightly, but still nodded.

When you agreed to sit with Art for lunch, you didn’t understand that you had committed to a soul friendship, but when you think about it sometimes, you suspect that he already understood. Sometimes you think he planned it all with endless devotion, from the second he saw you at that party. That he decided to tie his fate to yours without giving you any way to escape. The conversations were deeper than any you’d had with someone your age before. You found yourself telling him about pets you’d had and listening when he told you about his grandmother, who raised him when his parents didn’t have the patience or ability.

The only taboo between you during those months was the years you studied together before. You didn’t bring it up with particular persistence and he didn’t know how to bring it up without feeling self-hatred and remembering bad choices and thinking about the time he wasted. The only time he said Patrick’s name near you was when he introduced you to Tashi as his girlfriend, and even then, he said it and stared at you as if he expected you to fall apart just from hearing the name of his best friend. But you didn’t fall apart, you smiled at Tashi the warmest smile he’d ever seen. And you started a conversation about her scholarship, joked as if you had no worries. As if any connection between you and the quiet girl sitting in the back corner of the class was purely coincidental. As if no one had ever laughed at you. . . . “Do you hate the fact that I’m here?” Art asked as you sat on a carousel outside a fancy building where there was a party he’d heard about by chance. “What?” you took another sip of the wine you were passing between you and mostly didn’t understand where that was coming from. You’d hardly been apart for the past few months; you went to his practices when you had free time and he sat with you in the library during his. On weekends you studied together (you were studying and Art was dozing off on your bed or his, depending on whose room you were in).

“You know what I mean,” he shrugged like a carefree person, even though his brows were furrowed and his hand brushed the back of his neck. “Here on the carousel? Here on the planet? Here in-” you started listing all the things he could’ve meant, because who even knows what Art Donaldson ever means. “Here at Stanford. Here; where you are.” he clarified. “Why would I hate that?” you were even more confused than before. “Sometimes I think you really hate me and just don’t know how to get rid of me,” he tried to chuckle but his expression gave him away. He was really scared of that.

“I don’t think it’s possible to hate you, I don’t think anyone could even not like you, Art” you sighed toward him, and it was the truth. Art pulled people in so naturally. A magnet for humans. He made everyone around him feel like they were lucky at any given moment. You weren’t an exception. The fact that he chose to spend time with you or be around you never stopped surprising you. “You’re full of shit,” he smiled his signature smirk and took another sip from the nearly empty wine bottle. “You never talk about the fact that we already knew each other. It’s like I met you here,” he got to the heart of it.

“You don’t think you really met me here?” you asked. Because to be honest with yourself, you’re not even sure he knew who you were in high school. “I always knew who you were,” you saw in the dim lighting of the park that he was shrugging, guessing exactly what was going through your mind. “Knowing who someone is isn’t the same as knowing them,” you tried to explain, “I knew who you were, I knew who your friends were, I knew you played tennis,” you said all the dry facts that characterized Art Donaldson, “but I didn’t know you. I didn’t know you liked comics, I didn’t know you talk to your grandmother three times a week, I didn’t know you prefer writing in a notebook instead of on a computer. I didn’t know you’re in love with your best friend’s girlfriend,” you said the last part casually, even though he had never told you about his feelings for Tashi. “How did you find out?” He didn’t look scared that you knew. He looked calm, like you’d just told him it was going to be sunny tomorrow. “Because I know you now. I know how you look at people you love,” you said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Art nodded to himself, like someone who just reached a deep realization he had no intention of sharing with you. “Do you really hate him? Patrick, I mean,” he tried to break the imaginary silence pact between you two.

“I don’t hate him at all,” you said. There was a time when you did hate Patrick, because he was the villain in your story. But truthfully, you probably weren’t even a character in his. So, you learned to let it go. The anger you carried was mostly toward different life circumstances, toward the fact that some people start from a certain point, and others don’t even have a way to start. You could hate Patrick when you thought about how much luck it took for you to even get to where you are, compared to the fact that Patrick had everything handed to him to get into the best college in the world, and he decided to throw it all away to play tennis.

“How can you not hate him? He was so awful to you,” Art sounded like he was, in a way, demanding that you hate him. Like he needed someone to tell him it was okay not to always love Patrick. He knew you were the right person to tell him that. He wanted to share with you his anger and disappointment and frustration and all the negative emotions that chewed him up every time he thought of his best friend. He wanted you to give him permission to be mad. But that’s not your way. You’re not an angry person- you’re forgiving and calm and level-headed. You don’t have time to be mad. Life will leave you behind if you waste it on negative feelings.

“You know, we never had much money at home,” you started to say, while Art drank you in with his eyes, just wanting to learn more about who you are. “My dad was a taxi driver and my mom used to work three jobs at once,” you explained quickly. “When Damon Jenkins, the headmaster of the Academy, called my mom in for a meeting, he told her I was gifted and that he was willing to cover all the expenses for me to transfer to the boarding school he ran. It was like a gift dropped into our laps. Like winning the lottery, in a way- realizing I could have a different future. That I wouldn’t be stuck in that same cycle. That if I played my cards right, I could actually do something with my life. Something a twelve-year-old shouldn’t have to understand, but I did,” you added, because twelve-year-olds shouldn’t worry about money. But you’d seen your parents worry since the day you were born.

“My mom sewed me two dresses, and to me, they were perfect. Most of my clothes were hand-me-downs from my sister and brother, so two new dresses were basically part of the celebration. My dad sat me down before we left for the academy. He told me people would always have something to say. Always. But as long as I hadn’t done anything wrong, that wasn’t my problem.”

“In our first week at school, there was this welcome party- you probably don’t remember. But Patrick laughed at my dress. The same dress my mom made for me. He said it looked like something someone bought secondhand because it was so ugly. Everyone laughed, but I didn’t care, because Patrick didn’t know how much my mom loved me. He didn’t know how much effort she put into that dress. And he didn’t know that that was his problem, not mine. Because I didn’t do anything wrong.” You took a deep breath.

“So no, most of the time I didn’t hate Patrick. I was too busy being grateful for the chance I had to one day get to Stanford. He thought we were playing some power games, but the truth is- I was never playing.” You shrugged and took the last sip from the bottle.

Art looked at you like someone would look at a protected flower. And he knew it was his job to protect you. He didn’t quite understand when that became his role, but people like Patrick weren’t going to get close to you anymore. Even if it cost Art his best friend. . . . The first time you ran into Patrick was completely by chance. He walked around campus like the place belonged to him. Like he was born there- but you suspect that people like Patrick walk that way everywhere. While life taught you to be grateful for opportunities, it hadn’t taught him the same lesson. Your eyes met in the cafeteria and for a second, he looked surprised, but you looked away too quickly for it to mean anything. It shook you enough to lose track of the conversation you were in. It shook you enough to make you want to skip lunch and head back to your room.

You’d promised Art you’d come to his game, and you’re the kind of person who, for some reason, keeps promises. So you dragged Josie along and hoped Patrick wouldn’t notice you in the crowd. You wondered how Art would act if he saw you. You wondered if his personality would shift completely. You wondered if the guy you’d gotten to know over the past few months- like any of your other friends, maybe a little more, to be honest- would suddenly become unrecognizable. You wanted to believe he wouldn’t. But you didn’t want to test that belief, so you didn’t go up to him after he won.

You texted him something short about a paper you had to finish but that you stayed through the end of his game and you were sorry you couldn’t stick around. He replied with a simple "okay". And the knock on your door came after two long hours of reading an article.

“Did he say something to you?” was the first thing Art asked as he stepped into your room without waiting for an invite. “What?” “Patrick, did he say something, and that’s why you left?” He tried to explain himself, but what came out was mostly a stream of half-sentences as he paced back and forth. “Why would Patrick say anything to me?” You looked at him with the most indifferent expression you could manage, not betraying how heavy his best friend's presence sat on your soul. “He’s supposed to go back on tour in two days. He came to visit Tashi,” Art rolled his eyes. “He didn’t even tell me he was coming, otherwise I would’ve told you in advan-” He didn’t even stop to breathe in the middle of his apology. “Art, I’m a big girl. I’m not afraid of Patrick Zweig,” you cut off his guilt with a necessary sharpness. “Besides, you had a good game. He’s probably feeling threatened seeing you play,” you added, trying to ease the tension as Art dropped himself onto your creaky twin bed. “I don’t think Patrick’s ever felt threatened by anything,” he laughed, a bitter laugh that didn’t quite suit him. “I think Patrick feels threatened all the time,” you said almost in a whisper. And even if Art heard you, he chose not to answer. . . . A year and three months later, you walked into your new apartment carrying yet another box of your stuff. Until that exact moment, you still hadn’t fully understood how Art had convinced you to start your third year of college sharing an apartment with him. It had seemed like a terrible idea at first. But over the past year, Art had planted the idea slowly and patiently. Like someone who had all the time in the world to let it grow inside your head. He talked about scholarship money. About Nike showing interest in him and offering to invest in his living conditions while they considered sponsoring him after Stanford.

“It’ll be cheaper than the dorms, and you’ll have your own room- you won’t have to share with Josie,” he’d said so many times throughout the past year. “We can do movie nights with a real TV, not on my crappy laptop,” he’d add little things he knew you liked. Your privacy. Quality time- which you barely had at all during your second year.

Until you gave in. Until you found yourself carrying boxes into an apartment with two bedrooms, a living room, and a kitchen you wouldn’t have dreamed of in a parallel universe.

“Hey! I told you not to carry the heavy boxes,” he shouted from his room, running toward you and tripping over trash bags full of clothes scattered on the floor. “I can carry a box of books, Art,” you almost rolled your eyes at him. “You can also watch tennis matches with me- it doesn’t mean you actually do it,” he said, grabbing the box from your hands and walking it into the room that was about to become yours. It was almost ridiculously bigger than the room you used to share with Josie on campus.

“I can’t believe we’re actually here,” you said, sticking your head into the empty freezer to cool off. “Took me a whole year to convince you to live a life of comfort. You’ll never be able to go back to the dorms now- not after sleeping on a real mattress and a double bed. I’ve ruined you forever,” his voice was amused as he drank from the cold water you’d left out for him. “I don’t get spoiled that easily, Donaldson. You should know that by now,” you replied, not lifting your head from the freezer to look at him. “I’m working on changing that,” he said with the same playful tone. But if you’re honest with yourself, you didn’t look his way to catch the determined look he threw at you. . . . You stood in front of your open closet. Not really looking, just letting your eyes settle on fabrics so you wouldn’t have to think about what was going to happen in an hour. The conversation you’d have with someone you barely knew, the measured smile, maybe a glass of wine to help you forget you didn’t actually want to be there. You pulled out a white shirt, slightly misshapen from the last wash. You laid it carefully on the bed. You didn’t love it, but it was neutral. And right now, that’s what you needed. From the kitchen came the sound of a drawer slamming shut. Too loud for a drawer full of utensils. “How much quinoa does one person need to survive?” Art’s voice came from the hallway- not so much through the question itself, but the way he closed the cabinet. Like he was trying to say something without saying it. “It’s not quinoa. It’s whole wheat couscous,” you answered, not raising your voice. Not looking away from the shirt.

Twenty-seven seconds passed (you counted) before you heard his footsteps down the hallway. He showed up in your doorway with an open water bottle and a towel dragging on the floor. Standing there like it just happened to be on his way. “That new?” he asked, nodding toward the shirt on the bed. “Not really.” He didn’t move. Just looked. And you didn’t ask why.

You pulled out another shirt. Maybe jeans instead of the nicer pants. Not because you were changing your mind- just testing. “What’s this guy’s name again?” he asked, one hand resting on the doorframe like he needed to hold himself back from walking in. “Jamie. I told you already, he's in my lab.” “Huh.” There it was again. That silence. Not heavy. But not easy, either.

You sat in front of the mirror. Looked for earrings. Found a small gold pair. Put them on without using the mirror. When you looked up, you saw his reflection in the hallway mirror. Leaning there, drinking water, checking his phone- or pretending to. “You think you’ll be gone a while?” “No idea.” “Because if so, I might invite people over. Or just leave the apartment dark and play depressing music. See which one messes with your conscience more.” It was a joke. Almost. You smiled, but it was too brief to be convincing. “You want me to leave the light on for you?” he asked. “Or is this one of those nights where you come back only if you really need something from the house?” You didn’t answer. Just grabbed your bag, walked out, and closed the door quietly behind you. The date wasn’t terrible. Jamie did everything right. He wasn’t too focused on himself, didn’t go on about chemistry or your shared lab. He let you lead, which you didn’t even know you needed. You don’t think you’ve ever led anything outside of your lab. You might not say it out loud, but it was nice. Being in a position where you got to decide.

He walked you home after no more than two hours. A completely acceptable amount of time. Kissed you on the cheek. Very gentlemanly. Very modest. You didn’t know whether to be glad or disappointed that his lips didn’t land on yours by the end of the night. Maybe you were hoping for more and didn’t want to admit it. Maybe his choice to “respect” you affected you the opposite way. You deserve to be respected, your inner voice said. It’s great that there was chemistry and he didn’t kiss you. It’s exactly what you need. To take things slow.

When you opened the door, Art was asleep on the couch in the dark living room, earbuds in. Listening to music at a volume loud enough to reach the hallway. It was metal—something he didn’t usually listen to. Like he was trying to drown out any unnecessary sound, no matter if it burst his eardrums or gave him a migraine. He was blocking out noise like his life depended on it. And all you could ask yourself, as you gently pulled the earbuds from his ears and covered him with a sheet, was what awful thing he thought he’d have to hear when you came back home.

When you woke up, Art was already on his feet, coffee cup in hand. Over time, you’d learned that Art wasn’t really a morning person. Not like you, at least. “You’re not gonna ask how it went, Donaldson?” you tried to start a conversation, and he handed you a cup of coffee exactly how you liked it—with soy milk he couldn’t stand. “Are you going to see him again?” he replied instead. “You don’t want to know where we went? How it was? What time I got back?” you tried to pull a reaction from him, anything. “I’d rather stab myself in the eye with a fork than talk about that nerd before I finish my coffee,” he said flatly, placing his cup in the sink. On his way out, he passed by you, pressed a quick kiss to the top of your head, paired it with a half-hug that clearly meant: end of conversation. He threw his tennis gear over his shoulder and left the apartment without another word.

You couldn’t shake the feeling that Art was acting like someone who knew something neither of you was ready to admit. . . . “Do you want to come home with me for the holidays?” you asked one evening while you were sitting on the couch watching another episode of Friends. “What?” You could guess from his surprised tone that he was looking at you with a confused expression. “Look, we don’t really do Christmas or anything- Hanukkah is the big thing at my house. And you might have to sleep on the couch ‘cause there’s no guest room, but-” you started rambling, wondering why you even brought it up. You just figured his grandma in the nursing home wouldn’t be able to host him, and two and a half weeks in a house like his sounded lonely. “I figured I’d just stay here, maybe get some extra training in or something.” You could tell he was embarrassed, and for once, you actually looked at him. “That’s dumb. I mean- my house isn’t big or anything, but it’s full of people and everyone’s loud and yelling, and there’ll be food ‘cause my mom’s an amazing cook and-” You tried to pitch something you knew wasn’t exactly appealing: your family. “Okay,” he cut you off. “I’d really like that, (Y/N). Thanks.” You’d known Art for almost two years now, and you couldn’t imagine a more sincere look than the one he gave you just then. So you just nodded, and the two of you went back to staring at Jennifer Aniston talking, without hearing a single word she said.

“So, just a reminder- my mom’s name is Sarah, and my dad’s John. My uncles will probably be there, and my grandpa’s this grumpy guy who complains about everything, but he means well. They’ll talk about Hanukkah like the miracle happened in our living room or something. You can ignore ninety percent of what they say and still understand everything.” It was a mantra you’d repeated at least ten times over the past week. But to his credit, Art didn’t comment on it while he drove. You left at six in the morning and stopped twice for coffee, and Art insisted on picking up flowers and a bottle of wine on the way, because apparently he couldn’t show up empty-handed.

“Wanna drive?” he asked at some point. “No,” you said too quickly, making him glance over with a raised eyebrow before turning his eyes back to the road. “I don’t know how to drive. It’s not that I want you to do the whole eight hours,” you added, feeling like it was kind of rude to dump it all on him. “You’re twenty-one. How do you not know how to drive?” He sounded more amused than judgy, like he didn’t actually hold it against you- just wanted to understand. “My dad tried teaching me one summer in high school and I crashed into Meredith’s trash bin -she's our neighbor- and cried for three straight hours. After that I decided driving wasn’t for me.” You said it fast, like it was a totally obvious decision.

“That’s insane. You know that, right?” He wasn’t trying to insult you, and honestly, you weren’t even offended. “I can’t believe I didn’t know that. Feels like something I should’ve known,” he added, and you just shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. A lot of super smart people never got a license. I manage just fine,” you said, with your usual conviction. “You could manage in an igloo. Doesn’t mean you should live in one,” he chuckled, and you gave him a light smack on the shoulder. “You sure you wanna pick a fight with me while we’re on the way to my house, Donaldson? My dad will poison you,” you said, and his laugh got louder.

You parked in front of your house, and it looked exactly the way you remembered it. A small garden your dad put way more effort into than he had to, an even smaller set of front steps, and beige-colored walls. You smiled without meaning to, but you knew Art was watching you, so you looked back at him. “It’s smaller than you’re probably imagining, okay?” You tried to prepare him. You didn’t want him to be surprised. Didn’t want him to hold anything your parents lacked against them. “I’m sure it’s perfect.” His smile didn’t waver for a second.

Your mom hugged him before she hugged you, which in a parallel universe might’ve been concerning, but you knew the woman who raised you well enough to understand that she showed love exactly as she felt it- with no delay. “These are for us? You’re sweet, but you really didn’t have to,” she said, taking the flowers and wine from him. “You both look way too skinny. Fancy college and they don’t feed you at all,” she concluded after giving you both a full once-over, acting like she’d known Art since birth. “Ben, Daniela, and Lily are already here. Becca’s coming tomorrow,” she gave you the general update, nodding as you and Art followed her into the house. Your brother, Ben, is nine years older than you and married to Daniela. Lily was born two years ago. They live not far from your parents. You’d never been especially close to Ben- the age gap, the boarding school, the constant distance. But Lily was like an angel dropped into the family.

You and Becca were a different story. Three years apart, and she never got the kind of chances you did. She’d always had to give up clothes she loved so you’d have something to wear, and she was never good enough in school for anyone to offer her a scholarship. College wasn’t in the cards for her. She worked mornings at a checkout counter and evenings as a waitress. Sometimes, when you thought about it too much, you wondered if she resented you for it- for all the times you heard “yes” while she heard “no.” You could cry just thinking about it too much, because she’d never done a single thing to make you feel like that.

Dinner was full of humor, just like you remembered your home to be. Every now and then you glanced over at Art to see if he was overwhelmed by the shouting, the crude jokes, or even Lily’s crying. But he was simply present, weaving tennis stories with his usual charisma. Drawing the room in with every word out of his mouth. You could feel his hand occasionally pinch your knee, a quiet reminder that he was here with you- even as his attention stayed perfectly inside the conversation.

“Sunny, can you get some fruit from the fridge?” your mom suddenly asked. “Sunny?” Art asked, shifting a curious look from her to you. “It’s just a sill-” “When she was little and started making sense of things,” Ben cut in, “she realized the sun goes down every day. And for weeks, she’d wait for sunset, hoping maybe this time it wouldn’t happen. And then when it did, she’d cry for hours about how unfair it was that for us to sleep, the sun had to leave. Every night, for weeks. The nickname stuck.” You hadn’t known Ben remembered the story in all its embarrassing detail.

All you could do was roll your eyes and ignore the way Art’s eyes sparkled as they stayed fixed on you while you pulled out fruit from the fridge. By the time your mom basically shoved you and Art into your childhood bedroom, tossing a couple of blankets your way, it was already late. “You can sleep on the bed, Donaldson,” you told him firmly. “Don’t be stupid,” he shot back. “You’re a guest in my house and you were expecting at least a couch. I didn’t know my grandpa was staying with us for the holiday,” you said, starting to lay out a layer of clothes on the inflatable mattress you found in the storage room a few minutes earlier. “Your room’s cool,” he said, ignoring your comment as he looked over the books on your shelves and the pictures you’d once pinned to a corkboard. You felt absurdly exposed. “It’s fine. I decorated it when I was six,” you rolled your eyes, and he raised an eyebrow at you.

The compromise was that every night you were there, you’d take turns sleeping arrangements. One night you on the crappy mattress, the next one, he will. You didn’t say it out loud, but you suspected the actual mattress on the bed probably didn’t meet Art’s standards either.

“Your house is perfect,” Art said into the dark, almost whispering. It was his way of erasing the awkwardness he knew you felt, and you couldn’t bring yourself to say “thank you,” because you weren’t sure if he meant it. “They really try,” you whispered back. “I don’t think anyone in my family, besides my grandma, ever tried,” he admitted. “I’m sorry,” you said the only thing left to say. “Thanks.” And you didn’t know if he was thanking you for the chance to see a family different from his and be part of it, or for letting him say what he felt without being ashamed.

“Art?” “Hmm?” “I’m glad you came,” you tried to tell him he had nothing to thank you for. “I’m glad I came too, Sunny,” he wrapped up the conversation, and each of you closed your eyes in your corner of the room. . . . It was one of those days where you felt the wind knocked out of your sails. Your last lab was a total failure, showing the exact opposite results from the research you’d been working on, which meant you’d have to redo it over the weekend. The discussion section you TA for part-time, refused to take you seriously in any way, mostly because you were, well... a girl. Which honestly made you imagine those first-year guys going up in flames. So after experiencing failure, catching the lingering sad glances Jamie kept throwing your way since your half-baked date, and a heavy dose of misogyny- you finally made it to the apartment you shared with Art around 9 PM. Wondering if he’d finally bought a corkscrew, because that bottle of wine had been yelling at you from the fridge for two weeks.

“Did you buy a cork-” The person sitting on the couch wasn’t Art. There was no sign of Art. The person sitting fully spread out on the couch, shirtless like he owned the place, was Patrick Zweig. “Oh.” You felt stupid for walking in like that.

He looked at you like you were the one who barged into the wrong apartment, even though this was your living room. Your safe space. And now, suddenly, Patrick Zweig, of all people, was in it. “Art’s in the shower,” he said quietly, and all you could do was nod and head to your room- feeling your heart beating way too fast for someone who shouldn’t mean anything to you anymore.

You were pretty sure you heard Art mutter something like, “I told you to wait in the room, why can’t you ever just do what you’re asked?!” right before you recognized the familiar rhythm of his knock. “Yeah?” you tried to keep your voice steady as you stared at your laptop screen. There was an article open in front of you that you hadn’t read a single word of- just there to make it look like everything was normal. “I didn’t know he was coming, I swear,” Art’s voice was laced with a kind of panic you’d learned to recognize by now. “He got into a fight with Tashi and had nowhere to go, and you weren’t answering your phone all day and-” “Art, breathe. It’s fine. He’s your best friend and this is your home. You can have whoever you want here. I don’t mind.” You looked at him with a calculated calm, hoping it was enough to cover what you were actually feeling. “Wanna go get dressed?” you added, smiling as you slowly took in the sight of him- wearing nothing but a towel.

“Do you want him to leave? I can find him somewhere else to stay-” He wasn’t buying the smiles or the focus on your screen. Sometimes you thought nothing you staged ever fooled him, that he could read you like an open book. “It doesn’t matter, Art. It’s been years since he was part of my life; and even then, it was barely a role.” It was a full-on lie, but he didn’t push. Just nodded and stepped out of the room, like he already knew why you needed him to do just that. You woke up earlier than usual, hungry because you hadn’t eaten anything the day before, and mostly hoping that by some miracle, Patrick would already be gone from your apartment. But there he was. In your kitchen. Holding your favorite coffee mug and drinking from the fancy tea Art bought you half-jokingly when you were both drunk. But the point stood- the tea was yours.

You felt your jaw clench at the sight of his half-smug smile. Your body tensed in front of this person who, just three years ago, made it his mission to make your life miserable every chance he got. “Art went to practice,” he said, like he was trying to break the most painfully awkward silence either of you had ever taken part in. “I’m not his babysitter,” you answered, defensive in a way that didn’t even match what he said.

“Do you want some coffee?” he asked. “I can make my own coffee,” you replied, trying to move toward the machine behind him. “It’s fine, I’ll make it- I’m already here,” he said, and somehow, in the middle of the dumb little coffee standoff, his hot tea ended up on your shirt, and your favorite mug shattered on the floor.

“I hate you.” It came out of you half-whimpered, way out of sync with your usual control. Frustration took over every part of your body, along with tears that he didn’t deserve to see- but he saw them anyway. And he looked terrified. “You just have to ruin everything, huh?” you mumbled, crouching to pick up the pieces of your mug.

“I’m sorry,” Patrick sounded lost. “I really am. I- I’ll get you a new glass. I’ll bring it to Art next time I see him,” he said, stepping back while you gathered the broken ceramic. “It’s not a glass. It’s a mug. And it has sentiment. But you wouldn’t get that, because if you had any sentiment at all -anything beyond arrogance and smugness- you wouldn’t be such a piece of shit,” you snapped, dumped the pieces into the trash, and headed to your room to change your shirt and breathe for a second.

You tried to remind yourself that you had a long day ahead. That you needed to finish your lab work. That Patrick Zweig showing up in your life like some cursed reminder of who you used to be would vanish just as easily. That he was the weak one now. The lost one. The one who didn’t know how to appreciate anything. You didn’t need his pity. You didn’t need his apologies. You had friends like Josie and Art. You liked the life you’d built for yourself. You tried to remind yourself that people like Patrick didn’t get to shake you anymore.

“I really am sorry,” he muttered when you came out of your room again. “I could not care less, Patrick,” you said in a firm voice that didn’t sound like you at all- and slammed the door behind you, hoping that when you came back, he’d be gone. . . . When you came back to the apartment, almost at the exact same time as the night before, the one sitting on the couch, alert and ready, was Art. “Hey,” you mumbled as you walked in with way too much stuff in your hands, which made him get up to help you without needing to be asked. “You want this in your room?” he asked. “If you could put it on the desk, that’d be nice,” you said and opened the fridge. You relaxed a little when you realized Patrick wasn’t there. You felt Art’s hands on your shoulders within seconds, his lips on the top of your head, making you close your eyes for a second in front of the half-empty fridge- typical of student life.

“Hey,” it was his turn to say. “I’m a shitty roommate. I should’ve at least warned you he’d be here,” he said quietly. “Art, he’s your best fr-” you sighed. “You keep saying that, but it’s not true. You’re my best friend. And I should’ve thought about you yesterday, and I didn’t. Just accept the apology.” He said it formally, still speaking into your hair. “I’m hungry,” you replied. “I made pasta and a salad,” he said and stepped away from you. It made you wonder when you’d gotten so used to his presence that you actually felt his absence the second his body heat pulled away.

“Patrick and Tashi broke up,” he said after you’d nearly finished the bottle of wine you’d been dreaming about since yesterday, and were sitting on the couch together in front of the TV. “Oh. You gonna shoot your shot, Donaldson?” you asked what you felt like you had to, but you didn’t want to hear the answer. You didn’t want him to say he was going to try with Tashi. “I don’t need any more luck than what I’ve got, Sunny,” you caught the smirk in his tone. “I’m not into Tashi. It ended the same way it started. Some things are more important than chasing someone who used to date a guy who used to be my friend.” His hand was on your knee, giving a light squeeze with a meaning you couldn’t afford to examine. You felt that if you thought too hard about it, you’d start crying.

“He’s still your friend, Art,” you said, not moving your leg away from his touch. “I don’t think so,” he replied quietly. “Why?” you asked softly, assuming the answer would be Tashi, or distance, or time. The things life just naturally leads you to. “Because I can’t love someone who treated you the way Patrick did. I tried. I can’t,” he said with a kind of honesty that sliced through whatever defenses you had left. “Why?” you asked again, your voice even softer, slightly shaking. “You know why.” Where your voice trembled, his steadied. And his face was suddenly in front of yours so fast you didn’t fully understand how you ended up at this point.

“I-” “Can I kiss you?” Art looked at you in that moment like you were holding the universe in your hands. All you could do was nod, and his lips were on yours. His hands explored every inch of your body they could reach. It felt desperate and deep and right. Like oxygen after the two days you’d both just been through. “This is all I’ve wanted to do since the second I fell asleep in your stupid dorm,” he mumbled into your neck, running his tongue over a spot just after biting it gently.

“This makes no sense,” you managed to say as you pulled his shirt off. Your hand wandered over the muscles of his stomach like a sculptor admiring his most precious work of art. He didn’t answer, but the two of you moved silently toward his room, only breaking apart to breathe and keep shedding layers of clothes. “You’re so beautiful,” he said as his hand unhooked your bra and cupped your left breast.

It was ridiculously erotic, the kind of thing Josie would giggle and roll her eyes at when you told her about it- but you didn’t care. His mouth was on your right nipple, and for a second you forgot your own name. The high-pitched sound that came out of you came from deep in your stomach. You tried to stay composed, to hold on to some dignity, but Art’s eyes met yours just as you saw your nipple in his mouth, and your breathing completely fell apart. Your hand found one of the curls at the back of his neck, and somehow you got a groan out of him without even doing much.

His mouth kept moving across your body exactly like you’d only ever let yourself imagine in your most repressed nights over the past two years. “Can I?” he asked as his face hovered near your underwear, his voice so turned on it sounded like speaking actually hurt. You were the reason. Maybe the blame. Depending on who you asked. “You can do anything,” you declared. And it was true. You felt like if he wanted to start painting you fully nude right then, you’d let him. “That’s the sexiest thing you could’ve said to me,” he said, and your underwear ended up on the floor.

“No one’s ever-” You felt a little embarrassed as you started to say no one had ever been where he was right now, but you caught the look in his eyes. Calming. “Do you want to stop?” he asked, with a calm you had no idea where he summoned from. “No!” It came out almost as a yell.

“Okay,” he nodded, and his mouth started to explore your pussy- first in light, teasing licks, then in slow, swirling motions you didn’t think a human tongue could make. The sounds coming out of you made him moan into you. His fingers joined in, and you could feel the intensity of the orgasm building so fast you didn’t even have time to warn him, but he stayed exactly where he was, whispering into you that you were perfect. That he’d never tasted anyone like you. Only when your legs stopped trembling did he start kissing his way up your stomach, soft and slow, until his forehead rested against yours. It felt like a small victory. You didn’t know whose, but you wanted to believe neither of you had lost.

“Do you want me to...?” you asked softly, reaching for the waistband of his boxers. He was clearly struggling. But he only shook his head. “Tonight was about you. I want it to be about you.” He smiled and lay down beside you, playing with your hair while you felt your eyes start to drift shut.

You think this might be the definition of peace and calmness. And somehow, all these years had been hiding it from you. . . . In the morning, you were hit with panic when you woke up and Art wasn’t next to you. Even if you weren’t in his bed, you knew you wouldn’t be able to forget the night you’d just shared. It wasn’t like the first night -at that party- when he’d fallen asleep and you never talked about it again. This time, there was intimacy. The kind you were scared to lose. A person so deeply part of your life, it sometimes felt like he filled every inch of you.

When you came out to the kitchen, you saw your broken mug on the table, glued back together with what you could only assume was some shitty glue he found at the house. 'Went to practice. Tried to fix it, but water still leaks through the cracks. Sorry, Sunny. We’ll get you a new one.' The note was short, the handwriting barely legible. But you looked at that mug with tears in your eyes and knew that the sentiment had completely changed- and somehow you loved it just as much.

Maybe even more. . . .

So, I honestly don’t even know what this is. As always, I’d love to hear from you- my DMs are always open. And hey, I hope at least some of you weren’t bored out of your minds reading this...... Talk to me ❤️

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

MICHAELLLLL DON’T LEAVE ME HERE MICHAELLLLLL

i am so... i just... this is my wife...

We moved on from young dad!art too fast his sexy ass

I NEED HIM!!!!!

Young dad!Art who takes his baby to the little gym every Wednesday (the one day he doesn’t have an afternoon practice) to make friends and play :(

Young dad!Art who coordinates his outfits to match when he takes the baby out for shopping or to run errands

Young dad!Art who constantly gets told he’s such a good older brother by total strangers for taking care of his own baby

Young dad!Art who tastes every single jar of baby food before he makes his baby try it because if it’s gross he can’t make them eat it :((

He’s just so…. And it’s getting really…..

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.

bang bang bang punch punch pow pow. hair up, earrings out, etc etc.

AVA congratulations on 500! *dances*

for ask game > 🐓 you are in a fight, which tumblr account are you getting to help you?

HI THANK YOU SO SO MUCH!!!!! <3

this was honestly very easy for me to get down to two people, but i can't narrow it down any further:

@patrickzweigette and @jordiemeow i feel like we'd be a dream team. varying genres of humor and deadpan stares in a lethal mocktail.

i would let standford!patrick literally do whatever the fuck he wanted to me. he wants to treat me like shit? okay!! i need him in a way that sets feminism back a hundred years. his biceps during the scene in tashi’s dorm… i’m like a rabid dog!!

three celebrities that aren't dead:

michael jackson

talia asheepinfrance

someone else probably

doc.... is she gonna make it

prolly not

ava. ava. ava. ava. ava. ava. ava. ava. ava.

crack in the door | patrick zweig x reader

a/n: i have maternal instincts for patrick zweig in the sense that i want to bear his children. had an idea and had to get it out literally tonight

warnings: SMUT 18+, pregnancy mention, not proofread

There’s a knock at the door that doesn't belong to Sunday.

You know the rhythm of your mailman’s hands, the two quick taps of the UPS guy, the heavy slap of your neighbor’s fist when he’s locked himself out again. But this—this knock is soft. Hesitant. Like it doesn’t want to be heard.

You set Levi’s plate down—half-eaten grilled cheese, blueberries arranged in a smiley face—and pad over barefoot. You glance through the peephole.

And your heart stutters.

Patrick.

You haven’t seen him in four years, and yet, there he is, standing in the yellow hallway light like a memory that refused to stay dead. The light buzzes above him, casting long shadows across the floor, washing him in a hue too warm for how cold it feels. Your stomach flips. Your knees lock. Seeing him again is like stepping into a dream with teeth—familiar and sharp all at once. He looks older—leaner, scruffier, more hollow around the eyes. A duffel bag slung over one shoulder. His hands twitch at his sides, curling and uncurling, like he's not sure whether to knock again or bolt down the hall and disappear.

You open the door slowly. The air between you is thick and sour with things unsaid.

He speaks your name like a confession. Soft. Sacred.

Your voice doesn’t come. Your stomach tightens. Your throat burns.

And then, behind you—

“Mama?” Levi’s voice, high and curious, drifts out from the kitchen. “Mama, where’d you go?”

Patrick’s entire face changes. He stiffens, like someone just knocked the wind out of him. His eyes—those same eyes that used to kiss every inch of your skin—dart past you.

And then he sees him.

Tiny feet padding across hardwood. A flash of soft brown curls and wide, blinking eyes. Your son. His son.

“Is that—?” Patrick breathes, but the question dies on his lips.

You step halfway in front of Levi, like instinct, like muscle memory. Like heartbreak.

“His name is Levi,” you say. “He’s four. He likes dinosaurs and peanut butter and books with flaps. He’s shy at first but never stops talking once he starts. And he thinks thunder is just the sky saying 'I love you' too loud.”

Patrick’s mouth parts. Closes. Opens again.

“I—” He’s not crying, but his voice sounds like it wants to be. “I didn’t know how to come back.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

Silence.

“Mama,” Levi whispers, wrapping his arms around your leg, looking up at Patrick with open, trusting eyes. “Who’s that?”

Your heart breaks cleanly in two.

You look at Patrick. Let him drown in it.

“That’s no one, baby,” you lie. “Just someone I used to know.”

---

Patrick always used to knock on your window, never your door.

The first time he did it, you thought it was a rock or a branch. The second time, you nearly screamed. The third time, he was already halfway in your room, grinning, breathless, tasting like cigarettes and strawberry gum.

“You should really lock your window,” he said, pulling you in by the waist.

“You should really stop breaking in,” you answered, but your smile gave you away.

Those were the good days. The days when he was still fire and promise and you believed you were the only one who saw the man behind the racket. When he played like he had something to prove and kissed you like he had something to lose.

When the world hadn’t taken his shine yet.

You lay together in your tiny bed, limbs tangled, the night soft around you. He whispered dreams into your collarbone. You traced his jaw with your fingertips like a prayer. He said he’d win for you. Said you made everything feel less heavy.

And you believed him.

Even as the losses came. Even as the press called him a burnout. Even as he lashed out, shut down, pulled away.

Until one night, you held up a stick with two pink lines, and he couldn’t even look you in the eye.

“I can’t be this,” he said. “I can’t be someone’s dad when I don’t even know who the fuck I am anymore.”

You begged him to stay. You told him love would be enough.

He left anyway.

The door slammed so hard the windows rattled. You stood there, frozen, stick in hand, the silence ringing louder than any scream.

It wasn’t just the leaving. It was what he took when he left. The belief that things could still be okay. The sound of his laugh echoing through your walls. The security of two toothbrushes in the cup by the sink.

He didn't say goodbye. He didn't say I love you. He just looked at you like you were the one hurting him, and walked out like he had somewhere better to be.

You didn't sleep that night. You laid in the bed where he used to lie, and wondered what was so unlovable about needing him.

In the weeks after, you didn’t tell anyone. You couldn’t say it out loud, not yet. Not until you had something to show for all the ache.

You kept your hand over your belly every night, like a promise. Like maybe, if you held it long enough, the ache would shift into something softer. You whispered into the darkness what you never said aloud: that you hoped the baby wouldn’t inherit the hollow. That you prayed they would never learn the weight of being left. You imagined holding them for the first time, imagined the sound they might make—laughter, a cry, a breath taken for the first time and given to you. Some nights, your palm rose and fell with the gentle flutter of movement beneath your skin, and you let yourself believe that maybe you weren’t completely alone. That maybe something was listening.

If he wouldn't stay, you would.

The pregnancy was not kind. Morning sickness that didn’t stop in the morning, aches in places you didn’t know could ache, and a hollow, gnawing loneliness that settled behind your ribs like mold. There was no one to rub your back when the cramps came. No one to hold your hand at appointments. You learned to read ultrasound screens like maps to a place you were terrified to reach alone.

You taped the first photo to the fridge and stared at it through tears. A blurry, black-and-white smudge. Proof. Anchor. Punishment.

You bought a secondhand crib off Facebook Marketplace and put it together yourself, swearing softly when the screws wouldn’t line up. Painted the walls a soft sage green, not because you liked it, but because it felt like the kind of color people chose when they still believed in peace.

At night, you whispered to your belly. Told him stories about heroes. About bravery. About love that stayed.

You never said Patrick’s name aloud, but some nights, when the air was too still and the weight of it all was too much, you dreamed of him walking through the door. You dreamed of forgiveness. Of soft apologies and strong arms and maybe’s that could still be real.

And then you’d wake up alone. And cry in the shower where no one could hear.

You didn’t get flowers when Levi was born. There was no one pacing outside the delivery room, no hands gripping yours through contractions, no voice telling you it was going to be okay.

But you did it. You screamed him into the world, heart breaking open and filling all at once.

And when they placed him on your chest, tiny and warm and blinking up at you like you were the only thing he knew—

That was the first time in months you remembered what it felt like to be loved without conditions.

Motherhood came at you like a tidal wave: no warning, no mercy. The nights were the worst. Not just because of the crying, but because of the silence in between. When the world went still and you were left alone with your thoughts, your fears, your memories. You held Levi in your arms like he was both shield and sword.

You learned the patterns of his breathing, the way his body curled into yours like he’d been there before, in another life. You learned to eat with one hand, sleep with one eye open, cry without making a sound.

The first time he smiled, it was crooked—just like Patrick’s. It hit you so hard you had to sit down. You laughed and sobbed into his blanket and told yourself it didn’t mean anything. That it was just muscle memory. A coincidence. Nothing more.

But everything reminded you of him. The curve of Levi’s jaw. The way he furrowed his brow in sleep. The quiet intensity in his gaze when he was focused on something—like building blocks or pulling the cat’s tail. He was made of you, yes. But he was stitched together with pieces of a man who had vanished.

You tried to be enough. Every bath time became a ritual. Every bedtime story a litany. Every scraped knee a prayer.

You never let Levi see you cry. You waited until he was asleep, until his breaths came soft and steady, until the lights were out and the apartment felt like a stranger’s house. Then you let the grief in. Let it climb into bed beside you like an old friend.

There were days you hated Patrick. Hated him for leaving. For making you strong when all you wanted was to lean. For making you lie when Levi asked why he didn’t have a daddy like the other kids at the park.

You always said the same thing: "Some people take a little longer to find their way."

And then you held him tighter. Because you knew—when Levi looked at you like you hung the stars, when he clapped after you made pancakes, when he said, “Mama, I love you more than dinosaurs”—you knew you’d do it all again.

Even the heartbreak. Even the waiting.

Even the door that never knocked—until today.

---

He comes back on a Tuesday. You’re still in your work-from-home clothes—soft pants, yesterday’s sweatshirt, hair twisted into something barely holding. Levi is at school, and the silence in the apartment feels like a held breath.

When you open the door, Patrick’s hands are stuffed into the pockets of his coat. His eyes flick up, then down, like he’s not sure where to look. He’s shaved. Mostly. Still looks like he hasn’t slept.

“I didn’t want to do this in front of him,” he says.

You nod once. Then step aside.

He walks in slowly, like the space might bite. You close the door behind him and lean against it, arms folded. He turns in the center of your living room, gaze moving across the walls like they might tell him what he missed. There’s a drawing Levi made of a green scribbled dinosaur taped beside the thermostat. A tiny sock abandoned near the coffee table. A photograph on the bookshelf—your smile tight, Levi’s toothy and bright.

Patrick presses his lips together. Doesn’t say anything. The silence stretches between you like a string pulled too tight, fragile and humming with things that might snap if touched. He stares at the walls, the crumbs on the floor, the drawing of a green dinosaur taped beside the thermostat like it’s a museum relic of a life he wasn’t invited to. Every breath he takes feels like it costs him something.

You don’t either.

He turns to you, finally. "I don’t know where to start."

"Start with why you’re here."

His jaw flexes. He looks down, then up again. "Because I never stopped thinking about you. Because I thought leaving would protect you. Because I hated the version of me I was becoming, and I didn’t want him to ever know that man."

"You don’t get to talk about him like you know him."

The words come fast. Sharp. You weren’t planning to say them, but they’re out before you can stop them. Patrick flinches like they cut deep.

You swallow. Try again. Quieter.

"You left. And we stayed. That’s the only truth that matters."

Patrick nods. Doesn’t argue.

"I want to be in his life," he says. "If you'll let me. I—I know I have no right to ask. But I’m asking. Anyway."

You look at him for a long time. Long enough for your throat to ache. For your eyes to blur.

You think about Levi’s face when he colors in the sun yellow every time. The way he runs down the hall with his shoes on the wrong feet. The way he says, mama, mama, look, like you’re the only one in the world who ever truly sees him.

You nod, once. Slowly.

Patrick’s breath catches.

"You’ll start as a stranger," you say. "You’ll earn your way back in. Brick by brick. Word by word. I won’t let you hurt him."

"I won’t," he promises. And you almost believe him.

You point to the couch. "Sit. I’ll make coffee."

And he does. And you do. And for the first time in four years, the apartment doesn’t feel quite so haunted.

---

The change is slow. Measured. Like the seasons shifting before the trees notice.

Patrick starts showing up more often. Not just when he says he will, but earlier. With snacks. With books for Levi. With hands that fold laundry without asking. Sometimes you find your dishes already washed. Sometimes he takes the trash out without a word.

You don’t trust it. Not at first. Not really.

But Levi laughs more. Sleeps easier. Starts drawing pictures of three people instead of two.

Patrick never pushes. Never raises his voice. Never tries to reclaim what he left. He plays the long game—quiet, consistent, present. And that consistency starts to chip away at your defenses in places you didn’t know were still cracked.

You catch yourself watching him. The way he kneels to tie Levi’s shoes. The way he listens—really listens—when your son talks about dinosaurs or clouds or how loud the sky can get when it’s excited. You hear the soft laugh in Patrick’s chest when Levi calls thunder a love letter. You feel it in your bones.

You try not to let it in.

One afternoon, while Levi is still at school, Patrick asks if you want to take a walk. Just around the block. Clear your head.

You almost say no. Almost slam the door of your heart before it even creaks open. But you grab your coat anyway.

You walk in silence. Leaves crunching underfoot. He stays a step behind, like he doesn’t want to crowd your space. The wind cuts sharp through the collar of your jacket.

Out of nowhere, he says, “I should’ve stayed.”

You stop walking.

He keeps going for a few steps before he notices, then turns around.

“I know that’s not enough. I know it changes nothing. But I did love you. I still—” He stops himself. Looks away.

You don’t realize you’re crying until you taste salt.

You press the sleeve of your jacket to your eyes, angry at the weakness, angry at the memory of who you were before. Angry that some part of you wants to believe him.

“I can’t do this again,” you whisper. “I can’t survive loving you twice.”

He takes a step closer. Doesn’t touch you.

“You don’t have to. You don’t have to do anything. I’ll love you from a distance if I have to. I’ll show up. I’ll keep showing up. I just—needed you to know.”

You shake your head, stumbling backward. The tears come harder now. Not the gentle kind. The ragged, breathless, body-buckling kind.

You don’t even remember falling to your knees, but suddenly you’re on the ground, sobbing into your hands. All of it—years of holding it together, of being strong, of never letting anyone see the mess—it all spills out.

And then he’s there.

He doesn’t touch you. Not right away. He kneels beside you, his hands palm-up on his thighs, waiting. Quiet. Steady. And somehow, that’s worse. That he’s learned how to wait. That he’s here.

You want to scream at him. You want to collapse into him. You want to run.

But mostly, you want to be held.

And after a long moment, you let him.

You wake up the next morning expecting silence.

It’s muscle memory now—waking before the sun, padding into the kitchen with half-lidded eyes and heavy limbs, bracing for another day of doing it all on your own.

But the apartment doesn’t greet you with emptiness.

There’s the soft clatter of dishes in the sink. The low hum of someone speaking—gentle, amused.

You freeze in the hallway, bare feet pressed to cold tile, heartbeat thudding in your throat.

And then you hear it.

Patrick’s voice. "Okay, buddy, but the cereal goes in first. Not the milk. Trust me on this one."

Levi’s giggle echoes like sunlight in a room too small to harbor his birghtness.

You move forward slowly, quietly, until you’re standing just beyond the edge of the kitchen. Patrick is crouched beside Levi at the counter, helping him pour cereal into a chipped blue bowl. He’s still in yesterday’s hoodie, hair a mess, barefoot like he belongs there.

He doesn’t see you at first. He’s too focused on Levi, steadying the carton as milk splashes too close to the rim. There’s something soft in his posture. Something heartbreakingly domestic.

Levi notices you first. "Mama!"

Patrick straightens immediately. His eyes meet yours. There’s a flicker of panic there, quickly masked.

"Morning," he says, voice quiet.

You nod, swallowing down whatever this feeling is—this lump of disbelief and longing and something dangerously close to hope.

"I didn’t want to wake you," he adds. "Levi asked for cereal and… I thought I could help."

You look at your son, cheeks full of sugar and joy.

You look at Patrick, standing in your kitchen like it’s sacred ground.

And for the first time, you don’t feel like running.

---

The days start to stack.

Patrick picks Levi up from school on Fridays. He folds the laundry you forget in the dryer. He learns how you take your coffee without asking and starts leaving it on the counter—right side of the mug facing out, handle turned the way you like it. He hums sometimes when he cleans up, soft and aimless. It makes your chest ache.

You fall into rhythms again. Not like before. Slower. Cautious. But real.

One evening, he stays later than usual. Levi’s fallen asleep on the couch mid-cartoon, a stuffed dinosaur clutched in one arm. You’re washing dishes. Patrick dries.

Your hands brush once.

Twice.

By the third time, neither of you pulls away.

You look up. His eyes are already on you.

Something lingers there—warm and pained and dangerous.

You open your mouth to say something, anything, but he speaks first.

“I miss you.”

The plate slips from your hand into the sink. It doesn’t break, but the splash feels final.

“I can’t,” you say quickly, too quickly.

“I know,” he says. “But I do.”

You dry your hands and turn away, pressing your palms flat to the counter to steady yourself, trying to remember how to breathe like you used to—before he walked back in.

“You don’t get to say that to me like it means nothing,” you whisper. “Like you didn’t leave. Like I didn’t have to scrape my life back together alone.”

“I know I don’t deserve it.”

“Then stop acting like you do.”

He’s quiet for a long moment. When he speaks again, his voice is low. “You think I haven’t punished myself every day since?”

You spin around, suddenly angry. “And what, I’m supposed to forgive you because you feel bad? Because you missed a few birthdays and now you want back in?”

“No,” he says, stepping closer. “You’re not supposed to do anything. But I’m here. I’m not running this time.”

“You broke me, Patrick.” Your voice cracks. “And now you want to build something new on the ruins like it’s nothing.”

He’s in front of you now. Too close. The space between you charged, buzzing.

“I don’t think it’s nothing,” he says. “I think it’s everything.”

Your breath catches. The air shifts.

His hand lifts—hesitates—then cups your jaw.

And you let him.

Because the truth is, you’ve wanted this. Wanted him. Even if it terrifies you.

His lips brush yours, tentative, like a question. When you don’t pull away, it deepens. He kisses you like he remembers. Like he regrets. Like he’s starving.

You back into the counter. His hands find your waist. Yours find his hair. You pull him closer.

It’s messy. It’s breathless. It’s years of anger and ache colliding in one impossible kiss.

When you finally break apart, his forehead presses to yours.

“I still love you,” he breathes.

And you close your eyes.

Because maybe, just maybe, you still do too.

---

He kisses you again, harder this time.

But it’s different now. Slower. Like mourning. Like worship. He takes your hand, and you follow, barefoot through the dark.

The two of you stumble back toward the bedroom, the one you once shared, where his cologne used to cling to the pillows and laughter used to live in the walls. Now it smells like lavender detergent and your son’s shampoo. Now it holds the weight of everything that’s happened since.

He kicks the door shut behind you with a soft thud, and the silence that follows is thick with ghosts.

You lie down first. He joins you like he’s afraid the bed might refuse him.

Your mouths find each other again, and it’s like no time has passed, and also like every second is a wound reopening. His kiss is deep, aching, soaked in apology. You pull at his hoodie, and he helps you out of your clothes with hands that remember everything—every freckle, every scar, every place you used to let him in.

He touches you like you might slip through his fingers again. Fingers grazing your ribs like a benediction, lips following like he's asking forgiveness with every breath. The inside of your knee, the curve of your belly, the dip of your collarbone—he maps them all like he’s afraid you’ve changed, and desperate to prove you haven’t.

When he finally sinks into you, it feels like grief.

He gasps like he’s never breathed without you.

You wrap your limbs around him like armor. Like prayer. You hold on because if you let go, you might disappear.

He moves like he remembers. Slow. Deep. Devotional. Not trying to make you come—trying to make you stay.

Your eyes lock. His forehead rests against yours. And it’s not lust anymore. It’s penance.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, voice threadbare. “For everything I lost. For everything I made you carry alone.”

Your fingers press to his jaw, tremble against his cheek. “You don’t get to be sorry now,” you breathe. “But don’t stop. Please… don’t stop pretending this could still be real. Don’t stop making me feel like I’m not the only one who kept the light on.”

You fall together like a storm collapsing. No crescendo, no clean ending. Just trembling limbs and bitten lips and all the years that weren’t spoken finally breaking open between you.

After, he doesn’t move. You’re tangled up, forehead to collarbone, his thumb brushing soft circles into your spine like he’s trying to say everything he can’t.

You don’t speak. Words feel too small.

You fall asleep in the bed where he first kissed your shoulder, in the bed where you cried alone, in the bed where you dreamed he’d come back.

And this time, when you wake up, he’s still there.

His eyes already on you.

Like he never stopped looking.

---

The morning light is soft, gray around the edges. You blink slowly, still tucked against him, your body sore in ways that feel almost sacred. There’s a pause before reality settles, before memory floods back in. His chest rises beneath your palm. He’s warm. Solid. Still here.

You sit up gently, careful not to disturb the quiet. But Patrick stirs anyway, eyes still on you like he was never asleep.

“Good morning,” he murmurs, voice low, gravelly.

You nod. Swallow. You don’t trust your voice yet.

There’s a beat. He doesn’t push. Doesn’t ask what last night meant. Just watches you, eyes soft, full of something he doesn’t dare taking the risk of naming. Something close to hope.

You slip out of bed and grab your robe, tying it loosely as you move through the morning light. You half-expect him to vanish while your back is turned, but when you glance over your shoulder, he’s still sitting there, eyes trailing after you like they never stopped.

You make coffee with shaking hands. The kitchen smells like warmth and cinnamon, the candle you forgot to blow out last night still flickering quietly on the counter. You pour two mugs, unsure if the gesture means too much or too little.

When you return to the bedroom, Patrick is sitting on the edge of the bed, shirt tugged over his head, hair wild from sleep. He looks up like he wants to say something, but doesn’t.

Instead, you hand him the mug.

He takes it like it’s sacred, fingers brushing yours with a hesitation that feels reverent, his gaze catching on yours with something close to disbelief. Like he’s afraid the mug might vanish if he holds it too tightly.

And then, footsteps.

Tiny ones.

The soft shuffle of socks against hardwood. A bedroom door creaking open. Levi’s voice drifting down the hallway: “Mama?”

Your breath hitches.

Patrick stands quickly, not panicked but present, like he knows this is delicate. You move toward the hallway just as Levi turns the corner, hair a mess of curls, pajama shirt twisted from sleep. He rubs one eye and stares at you, then at Patrick behind you.

He blinks once. Steps forward.

And then, small and serious:

“Are you gonna be my daddy again?”

You exhale like someone just punched the air out of your lungs.

Patrick lowers to a knee, eyes level with Levi’s. “Hey, buddy,” he says, voice soft, unsure.

Levi looks at him like he’s made of starlight and storybooks. Like he’s a wish come true.

Patrick’s throat works. “I… I’d really like to be. If you want me to.”

Levi nods, serious, like it’s a very important decision. Then he climbs onto the bed and curls himself into your side, tiny fingers finding Patrick’s hand.

You don’t say anything.

You can’t.

But when Patrick squeezes Levi’s hand, and Levi doesn’t let go, something in you cracks open.

And for the first time, the pieces don’t scatter.

They start to fall into place.

---

Later, after breakfast is made and half-eaten, after Levi has gone back to coloring at the kitchen table—his tongue poking out the corner of his mouth in concentration—Patrick lingers by the sink, coffee mug long since empty.

You wash dishes beside him, quiet.

“I used to lie,” he says suddenly, voice barely above a whisper. “To everyone. About why I left. About what I was doing. About you.”

You pause, fingers wet and soapy in the sink.

He keeps going, eyes fixed on a spot just above the faucet. “I told people I wasn’t ready. That I needed time. That I didn’t want to hold you back. But the truth is… I was scared. Not of being a father. Not really. I was scared of what you’d see when everything in me started to rot.”

Your chest tightens.

“I thought if I stayed, I’d make you miserable. That you’d look at me one day and see someone you pitied. Someone who used to be something. And I couldn’t—I couldn’t take that.”

The silence blooms, wide and brittle, as Levi hums softly in the background, his small voice painting innocence across the sharp edges of the truth hanging in the air.

“I would sit outside playgrounds,” Patrick says, his voice thinner now. “I’d watch kids run around and wonder if any of them were mine. I used to see this one boy who had curls just like Levi’s. And I’d imagine what it would feel like if he looked up and called me Dad.”

You stare at the bubbles in the sink. They pop, one by one.

“I thought I was punishing myself by staying away,” he says. “But it was cowardice. It was me choosing the version of pain that didn’t involve looking you in the eye.”

You set the dish down. Turn off the water. And you say nothing, because there’s nothing to say. Because guilt is not a gift, and grief is not a currency. But hearing it—letting him say it—somehow makes it heavier.

And still.

You don’t ask him to leave.

But you do walk outside.

The morning has shifted. Clouded over. You sit on the steps, arms wrapped around yourself, the chill crawling into your sleeves. You hear the door creak behind you and then close softly. He doesn’t follow. He knows better.

There’s a lump in your throat the size of a fist.

You think about all the versions of yourself he never met. The woman in the hospital bed, sweat-soaked and screaming, holding Levi against her chest with shaking arms and blood beneath her nails. The woman who sat awake at three a.m. night after night, bouncing a colicky baby in the quiet because there was no one else to pass him to. The woman who pawned her violin, sold the gold bracelet her grandmother gave her, whispered I’m sorry to her own reflection just to keep the lights on. The woman who smiled at Levi even when her eyes were raw from crying. The woman who learned how to fold pain into lullabies and grief into grocery lists. You became a mosaic in his absence—sharp-edged and shining. You held yourself together with coffee spoons and lullabies, with baby monitors and the ache of resilience. You wore your grief like a second skin, stretched tight and stitched through with hope you never admitted aloud.. And now he wants to stay. The one in the hospital bed. The one who learned how to swaddle with trembling fingers. The one who sold her violin to pay for rent. The one who laughed, even when it hurt, because Levi was watching.

You think about what it cost to become someone whole without him.

He didn’t get to see the becoming.

And now he wants to stay.

You close your eyes. Rest your forehead on your knees. Breathe.

Footsteps approach. Small ones.

Levi climbs into your lap without a word. He curls into you like he did when he was smaller, like he’s always known how to find your center.

“Do you still love him?” he asks.

You press your lips to his hair. “I don’t know what to do with it,” you whisper.

Levi’s voice is soft. “Maybe we can love him different now. Like a new story.”

And something inside you breaks.

Not the way it used to.

Not shattering.

Cracking open.

You look toward the door, and through the window, you see Patrick still standing there—his forehead resting against the frame, like he’s praying to the quiet.

You don’t run to him. You don’t forgive him.

But you do stand.

And this time, when you open the door, you leave it open behind you.

Just enough to tell him… ‘try again.’

-----

tagging: @kimmyneutron @babyspiderling @queensunshinee @hanneh69 @jamespotteraliveversion @glennussy @awaywithtime @artstennisracket @artdonaldsonbabygirl @blastzachilles @jordiemeow

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.

Zendaya for On: Zone Dreamers

Get a job. Take some writing classes.

okay, let's talk about this for a moment. a lot of my moots/oomfs have been getting a similar message in their inbox. i don't know if they're coming from the same person or not, and frankly, i don't care.

you are wasting time out of your day to leave a message that you are too cowardly to put an account behind, on a website that was created for the purpose of publicizing self-expression.

i don't care that you don't like my writing. i don't like my writing. i am upset because you are putting legitimate effort into bringing down other people who have absolutely zero impact on your day-to-day life. if anyone needs to get a job, anon, it's you.

i do not know what is possessing you to act with such cowardice, but whatever it is, i hope it gets better for you. in the mean time, stay out of the inboxes of creators who are volunteering their time and their efforts to enrich the lives of others.

i wish you good luck in the future.

death with no dignity; patrick zweig

“ amethyst and flowers on the table

is it real or a fable ?

well, i suppose, a friend is a friend

and we all know how this will end ” - sufjan stevens

cw (18+) : mentions of depressive symptoms, masturbation, and heavy yearning.

wc : 1.9 k

When Patrick was eighteen, he killed a doe. 

It was an accident, it truly was, in every sense of the word. 

He had been driving home from Art’s house around 11 PM and had been playing some stupid song on the radio. He’d thrashed his head and slapped his palms against the leather steering wheel to the stupid beat, carefree and unassuming. It had been so dark, and he was distracted, and then suddenly the deer was in the center of the road. Big, black, shiny eyes and pointed ears and a deep brown coat. She was beautiful. For the split moment that he had before the impact, that’s all he could think about. 

He didn’t have enough time to swerve and avoid her because he’d been speeding, and everything afterwards happened in slow-motion. The skidding squeal of his tires against the asphalt. His heart lurching in his ribcage, almost enough to make him feel sick. The harsh jolt of the car and the brutal sound of metal hitting muscle, followed by the animal being sent hurtling a few feet forward and onto her side, accompanied by the painful sting of the seatbelt digging into his chest. When the car finally came to a stop, Patrick froze. His hands stuck to the wheel, shaking, and his eyes were peeled open wide as he stared through the windshield at the lifeless creature he’d just hit with his car. He was practically panting. He didn’t quite recall ever being so scared in his entire life, not even when he’d played his first professional match. Not even when he’d nearly drowned one summer years ago when he and Art were swimming in a lake upstate. 

He’d never killed anything before. Not like that. 

The aftermath was a blur. He almost called the cops to let them know that there was a large, dead animal in the road on so-and-so street, but he didn’t. To this day, he doesn’t really know why. Maybe it was all of the adrenaline. Maybe it was all of the guilt. Regardless, he’d mumbled a soft, “Oh, god, I’m sorry,” and then slowly pulled off and around it. He never told his parents, or anyone for that matter, that he had cried so hard on the rest of the drive home that he felt lightheaded by the time he was in the driveway. 

Mommy and Daddy Zweig offered–no, begged–to get him a new car the next evening (when they got back from Greece) because his hood and bumper were horribly dented, but Patrick had refused. He’d laughed off the incident in front of them, and then waited until they went to bed to slink into their massive garage and pick all of the little tufts of fur out of the vehicle’s grille.

He’d traced his fingertips along the indentations and the scratches in the paint and blinked away the wetness clouding his vision. Tried to mentally retrace his steps that night, too. What if he hadn’t been listening to that stupid song? What if he hadn’t left his best friend’s place so late? What if he’d been quicker? Smarter? Luckier? 

Could things be different? Could he have spared a life? 

Could he have spared the victim, and himself, the pain?

Patrick’s twenty-one now, and he does a lot of retracing his steps these days.

Tennis is his priority; he’s always on the court, or in a car or a bus that’s traveling to a court of some kind. Forehands, backhands, volleying, serving, smashes–it’s all he lives and breathes. And, of course, it’s easier now to focus on tennis when he no longer has friends. 

Art and him haven't talked in many months (has it really been years?), not since Tashi’s knee had gotten injured during that match at Stanford. 

Fuck that fucking match. And fuck them. 

He didn’t need them, he was doing just fine on his own. 

If his best friend of over a decade wanted to kick him to the curb like he was nothing more than a dog that had bitten him a smidge-too-hard to be loved, then whatever. If his grotesquely-talented girlfriend wanted to break up with him because he didn’t want to be treated like a lesser athlete nor sit in her shadow, then fine. He’d enjoy his tennis career and roll freely in the expendable income he was sure to continue collecting.

But that’s not really who Patrick is. 

And so he can’t help but lie awake at night, trying to pin-point where things went wrong–what he could have done to prevent this outcome–and tracing the indentations and scratches in his relationships that surely were only indicative of his faults. Compulsively picking at the tufts nestled in the wreckage. Eyeing the bloody brutalization, punishing himself by reliving the sting.

Sometimes he drags his fingertips over some of his old, banged-up rackets that he can't bear to get rid of, and he thinks about all of it. Tennis academy days with the shy, funny blonde kid that he became close with from day one. Learning and teaching and discussing with him all of the typical adolescent lessons that gave way to life outside of the bubble. Doubles matches–so many doubles matches. So many wins. First beers, first girlfriends, first cigarettes, first kisses. They shared everything with one another and they (almost neurotically) timed their experiences to happen around the same time so that they'd be able to talk to each other about them afterwards. As they got a bit older though, Patrick began to realize that he was feeling things for Art that he probably wasn’t supposed to tell him about. And he usually told Art everything.

That was his first mistake, he thinks, like when he hadn’t heeded the speed limit that night. Or, maybe, that was like playing the stupid song on the radio and going home late. It was the start of their untimely end. 

When he’s in one of his usual depressive spirals, the kind in which he can’t seem to find his appetite and he forgets to shower and he ignores his manager’s texts, he argues with himself about what exactly could be considered the “impact”. Was it when he had cheekily served like Art during that one casual training session, ball to the neck of the racket, confirming that he had slept with Tashi and thus beginning the festering of that awful jealousy in his friend? Or was it when he praised her in front of Art before her match in the singles tournament that fateful afternoon, igniting his friend's interest? Patrick remembers the look that glossed over Art’s eyes when he first caught sight of her; he had looked at her and suddenly Patrick felt like he’d been forgotten–like he’d melted into those bleachers and disappeared. He can’t really blame him, Tashi was talented and beautiful and ambitious and confident and mature–she was everything that Art steadfastly admired in a person. She was twice the person that Patrick had been back then.

Usually though, he comes to the painful conclusion that the impact was certainly the day of the Stanford match. More specifically, it was when Art had yelled at him for the first time in the entirety of their friendship. 

“Patrick, get the fuck out!” 

Those four words ring through his head on the worst of days.

He knew he’d fucked up by not pushing aside his pride and going to support Tashi after their fight, so he could pretty easily swallow down the discomfort that came with being yelled at by her. They yelled at each other pretty often when they got into their little spats, it was relatively normal. But god.. It was so much different when it was him. Patrick's muscles had locked up; he was shaking and breathing hard like he’d just run a marathon, able to see nothing but that pair of angry, familiar eyes. The vitriol that came spurting from the blonde’s mouth was like the worst toxin he’d ever known. It paralyzed him and began to rot his insides from that very moment on. And then all of the suffocating memories came flooding back as he turned and walked out of that campus health center. 

Giggling under blankets with a flashlight, reading comics until the sun started to come up. Practicing for hours on the courts at the academy, sometimes until they both got sunburns and heatstroke. Sleeping in the same bed on summer nights at Patrick’s house–tiredly watching the way Art’s chest rose and fell with each of his breaths and trying not to look at his lips. Holding each other when Art’s parents got divorced and he cried so hard that he got a nosebleed. Bandaging each other’s blisters. Wearing each other’s clothes. Having each other's back.

He doesn’t understand what he did to truly deserve being treated like that in the end by Art.

He’d been a good decent friend, hadn’t he? 

How could Art’s infatuation with her be enough to snuff out everything that they built together? It was supposed to be the two of them for the rest of their lives. Sure, they could each get married, pursue a career, have kids, but at the end of the day it was always meant to be them, wasn't it? Fire and Ice? Did he get that part wrong?

He habitually questions how much he really meant to him.

When Patrick does muster up the strength to drag himself to the shower, he generally stays in there for at least an hour. “Waste of water” be damned. He closes his eyes and lets the warmth run over his hair and his naked body. He presses his back to the cold shower wall and rubs his eyes until he sees white flashes dancing in the darkness. It’s not uncommon for his mind to wander back to you-know-who. In fact, that’s who’s usually on his mind whenever he’s not trying harder to forget. And it’s easy for Patrick to fixate on those blurry white flashes and suddenly see yellow curls, bright blue irises, deep smile lines, flushed cheeks. Breath smelling of that peppermint gum he always chewed. The sound of his nervous laughter and joyous cheers. Patrick would know him even if all of his senses were somehow dulled or taken from him. He would know Art by the feel of his soul breathing life into his own. He would know him, surely.

And maybe it’s an act of pure filth and desperation, or one of flesh-tearing grief, but many times Patrick winds up touching himself. Slow, steady, tender–the way he assumes Art touches Tashi. The way he had always wanted to touch Art, though he never even gathered the courage to try to hold his hand. He thumbs his weeping slit and keens as he feels the sadness and arousal roiling in his gut. He chokes on little moans that sound like sobs that sound like screams. He’s starved. How is it possible to miss someone when they’re everywhere? He thinks it’s funny that he’s forgotten what Art’s speaking voice sounds like but also refuses to watch any of his latest interviews on TV. He doesn’t want to see if there’s a ring on his finger, and he certainly doesn’t want to think about all of the ways Tashi gets to keep him as her own. He was mine, he unfairly thinks as he strokes himself under the scalding water, he was mine and I loved him and you lured him in and then he was gone.

The orgasm usually comes quick, spurred on by the near-lethal dose of petulant thought. He feels his thighs tremble and then his hand starts to lose its rhythm and then he’s crying out as he comes hard over his curled fingers. Sticky, clotted, putrid evidence of his lack of control. When he finally opens his eyes again, salt spills down his ruddy skin from wet lashes. He gets dizzy from the heat and the steam, he feels like he’s choking on all of it. He brings his dirtied hand under the showerhead and watches as his mess is rinsed away, down the drain in a gurgling spiral. It takes everything in him not to collapse.

“Oh, god, I’m sorry,” he whispers, before he forces himself out of the bathroom and collapses in a wet heap over his bed. His skin sticks to the sheets and makes him feel like some sort of dirty, beastly thing that crawls out of swamps and swallows up all of the good it can touch. He figures that the feeling is not far off from the truth.

When Patrick was eighteen, he killed a doe. 

And that doe followed him for the rest of his life.

note : to anyone who's ever had a childhood crush on their best friend. to anyone struggling with the grief.

This was intentionally written to be a bit "all over the place"; I wanted to show how scattered Patrick's thoughts can be. Also I love, love, love Tashi, I just think Patrick maybe sometimes (early on, before he helped her cheat) blamed her for his and Art's split for unjust reasons.

tags : @venusaurusrexx @tashism @grimsonandclover @diyasgarden @weirdfishesthoughts @gibsongirrl @newrochellechallenger2019 @jordiemeow @artstennisracket @cha11engers ♡

this sucks but i haven't written in a while so. here you go

Everyone was horrified by your lack of tears. You could see it on their faces. You were supposed to keel over with your knees pressing into your stomach and wail, pounding on the floor like the vibrations would shake through his body and start up his heart again. If that was going to work, he would’ve come back days ago. The night you got the call, you wished you’d been more shocked. You hung up the phone politely, always cordial with his mother despite everything, and screamed. Screamed like the release was enough. Enough to feel better? Enough to wake him up? Who knows. Certainly not you. Now, you don’t cry. You hardly move. Where was there to go when pinned down by a loss this big? Not to sleep. Not to the awakened world that reality brings, either. Not to the middle ground. It’d be easier to snap your fingers and just phase out of existence. You wonder how it’d feel to be sucked into a black hole. You wouldn’t necessarily mind if it hurt.

You didn’t want to see the body. The worst thing you possibly could do for yourself would be to see the body. When you first heard, you tried to imagine what he’d look like, all paper white and green like the veins beneath his wrists. You had a hard time picturing it, initially, because how could you? He had been livelier than people gave him credit for. He lit up during movie nights, grinned like the sun had shone down just for him when he got the curve of your nose in a drawing just right. He’d been so alive. Soon it got easier. You could wipe off the cheap foundation holding him together just enough to look lifelike while lifeless and see if your imagination was correct, but it’d do you no good. It still hurt to see him all colorful, rosy like the blood beneath his skin still flowed. He looked the same. It feels like he’d been dead this whole time. You fear he had been.

The dirt in the ground beneath you had hardened with the cold air, bunching in on itself to create an uncomfortable, constant press against your spine. You tossed, turned, and the earth didn’t move. Nothing had ever bent at your will, really. You weren’t one of the lucky ones. You learned about this once, how cold slows down particle movement, hardens things, molds them into one set form. The smell of misty, post-rain air was still dancing around, the remnants now shining, silvery coatings over the deep green blades of grass which tickled the skin of your cheek. 

If you reached out your hand just enough, it would touch his, and it would still feel like lighting on fire from the inside out. The cigarette between his lips, which bobbed when he swallowed around nothing, sizzled a bit on the inhale, glowing redder with each breath in, and simmering down when the connection was lost. You think you understand how it feels. You could’ve kissed him if you wanted to, but you’d never liked the way that cigarette smoke lingers on your tongue, wraps around your hair like ivy and burrows itself between the fibers of your clothes. So you just watched as he breathed life into it, cherry glowing brighter, brighter still, a flaming, striking orange, then reducing down to a deeper red. 

If it weren’t so cold, maybe the stars would;ve seem less hazy. The world always seems muddled this time of year, all soft lines and blending colors, like each texture was bleeding into the other. Then again, maybe it was just your eyes. But still, they glowed for you, for him, maybe for the pair you made up. 

“Do you think that you’ll ever be okay knowing this is it?”

He had a way of speaking that makes everything sound significant, like a weight off his chest comes with each syllable that funneled up from his throat. It’s one of those things you love about him, one of many. Sure, he’d had his flaws, like all people do, but when he made something as simple as a greeting sound like a poem, it’s almost indescribable, the sensation of hearing him say that he loves you. 

“I think that’s fine with me. It’s not like things are stuck here. I can still move around a little bit. You know, make friends, get a job. Things that aren’t concrete.” 

He hums, tilting his head up as if he’s going to nod, but he never drops it back down. He just keeps staring up, up and away. Almost like something is looking back at him. You hope whatever God is holding his gaze is one of the pleasant ones, all white, flowing dresses and feathered wings. 

“Do you think you’ll be ok with it?”

He shrugged, took a breath. 

“It’ll have to be enough.”

You itch with disgust at the memory. The stupidity you’d always had. It’d never be enough. Maybe ‘it’ wasn’t anything you could ever understand. He’d been the smarter one. You step outside of the funeral parlor, hands shaking as they dig through your purse, pulling out a small box of cigarettes you haven’t yet learned to stop coughing around. You hope the smoke which fills your lungs doesn’t leave, settling into a hard soot against you. You settle it between your lips, the lighter setting it aglow. You breathe in, choke at the harshness, and suck in harder. It better stick into each and every hair. It better turn your teeth yellow with damage. It’s like kissing him all over again.