#ANYWAY i said i was going to bed im going to bed
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do you believe me now? | 4
in which spencer reid and inexperienced fem!reader are interrupted at the most inopportune of times. he calls you on the first night of his case. dirty talk turns into a hard conversation. we get a glimpse into spencer's past, and we finally learn why he's so hesitant to sleep with you.
part one | part two | bonus chapter | part three
18+ (smut)
warnings/tags: dirty talk, phone sex/mutual masturbation, softdom!spence, obligatory he talks u through it, lots of graphic discussions of sex, established relationship, angst (sorrryyy!)
a/n: so remember how i said you'd need the bonus chapter to fully appreciate/understand this part? i was wrong!! it will come in handy probably in the next part tho:) also idk how these parts keep getting so long im sorry! anyway, i love you all so bad. thank you for bearing w/ my craziness. PLEASE let me know your thoughts on this part!! i adore hearing from you!! kisses
(also special thank you to @fliesforeyes who convinced me phone sex w/ spence could be done!! i will link his phone sex blurb here :)) thank u binx!!
“Three million six hundred eighty four thousand three hundred thirty two times fourteen million seven hundred sixty one thousand nine hundred seventy one.”
You’ve lost count of how many stupid math questions you’ve asked your human calculator boyfriend, just to see if he can actually do them. Spencer is silent for a second, and you think you’ve finally stumped him.
“That one is complicated.”
You sit bolt upright in his bed, looking down at him and pointing an accusatory finger. His brows raise at the manic look in your eye.
“You don’t know.”
“I do know. I meant it would be hard to explain if you aren’t a math person.”
“Bullshit!” You scoff, “you don’t know!”
“It would display on a calculator as five-point-three-eight-eight-E-thirteen. It’s a really big number.”
“Oh, really big, huh?” you mumble, searching for your phone blindly in the sheets and scrambling to open the calculator app. “Um… what numbers did I say?”
Spencer repeats them back to you and you press the equals sign.
You look at it.
And then you set your phone down.
“I was right, huh?” he smiles up at you, probably reveling in your pouty wrongness.
Too proud to admit it, you collapse on top of him, burying your face in his shoulder.
“I don’t like this game anymore. What the fuck even is an e? Why are we doing algebra?”
Spencer laughs, brushing your hair aside.
“The e stands for exponent. It’s to the power of ten.”
“Ever heard of a rhetorical question?”
“Yes, I have.”
It’s hard not to snort even at his dumbest jokes.
“You’re annoying. Let’s do something else.”
You roll over onto your back again, letting your head flop over to look at Spencer, whose hair is exactly the right amount of messy after a long day, falling in impossibly soft waves over the perfect lines and contours of his face. Despite lounging, he’s still in his suit from work—he’d left Quantico and immediately picked you up. There were no solid plans for the evening, so after both of you pretended that you wanted to go out for a while, you ended up back at his apartment.
He looks good. Almost too good.
“Something like what?” he smiles lazily, reaching over and tracing his fingers over your cheek.
“Something… naked?”
His grin widens and he shakes his head.
“Me naked or you naked?”
Pretending to think about it, you roll your bottom lip between your teeth.
“Mm… why not both?”
“Hm. Why do I feel like I know where this is going?”
The mattress sinks underneath your elbow as you prop yourself up, dropping your head over Spencer’s to kiss him.
“Because you’re so smart, and you think it’s a great idea.”
He entertains your kiss for a moment. Just a moment.
“You sound sure of yourself.”
“Because I am!” You finally give in to your impulses, tangling your fingers in his hair and looking at him meaningfully. “It doesn’t make any sense for us to have not had sex. I don’t care about any of your weird, cryptic moral reasoning.”
He grabs your wrist carefully.
“It is not moral,” he scoffs. “We haven’t even talked about it yet.”
“Really? Because I feel like we’ve talked about it a lot.”
He begins to reply, but you realize you don’t want to get into a debate over whether you’ve technically talked about it yet. “I don’t even care! If that’s all that’s standing in your way, then let’s talk about it. Right now.”
Spencer sighs, his eyes darting between yours as he reaches up to cradle your cheek.
“Fine. But I have things to say you’re not going to like.”
“So business as usual?”
He rolls his eyes. You allow yourself a tiny self-satisfied smirk, forever relishing in his poorly-hidden soft spot for your constant teasing. Spencer ignores this. Which is probably for the best.
“I know you probably won’t see it this way, but—sex is different than everything else we’ve done so far. It can be really fun, obviously it feels good, it facilitates deeper feelings of connection—that’s all true. Which is why, in my opinion, it’s incredibly important that you be selective with who you sleep with. Because it’s so easy to do something you regret, and sex is vulnerable. It should always be with someone you trust and—and… care about.”
A pink flush stains his cheeks like watercolor as he stumbles over the last few words. It makes your heart flutter against the confines of your chest.
Maybe best not to think about the absence versus presence of certain four-letter words and what they may or may not mean. You’ll move on to more pressing matters and pretend like it doesn’t ache just a little in your whole body.
You cover his hand with your own.
“Are you going to break up with me anytime soon?”
Spencer’s eyes widen, filling with genuine horror and confusion.
“What? No!”
“Are you going to cheat on me?”
“Absolutely not, I—”
“Then I’m not going to regret it. Issue resolved. Moving on.”
“Honey, I just want you to be 100% sure that I’m what you want.”
“Oh my god,” you groan, flopping onto your back once more. “I have begged you to sleep with me on multiple occasions. We have been dating for months and I liked you even longer before that. I think about it literally every time I see you. I don’t know how to be any surer.”
It’s quiet for a moment as you study the imaginary pattern on the ceiling. The rebuttal you’d been anticipating doesn’t come—instead, the mattress shifts next to you. Spencer enters your field of vision, now leaning over you with a little smile on his face that gives you butterflies.
“Every time?”
“…yes, every time,” you agree, voice considerably thinner than it had been a moment ago. Spencer glances at your lips as he speaks.
“Interesting. And what is it that you think about exactly?”
You groan again, attempting to roll facedown, but he pins your shoulder to the bed. The way he’s sweetly kissing down your cheek and jaw is infuriating because you know it’s a false pretense.
“Ugh, I don’t know! Don’t make me answer that!”
“You said if talking about it was all that was standing in my way, we would talk about it. Now I want to talk about it. Come on,” he says, voice low and cloying against your throat as he attempts to tease the answer out of you. “Tell me what you think about when you think about us having sex.”
You let out a shaky breath at the feeling of his lips skimming your neck, hating how easily he can reduce you to this.
“I… I always wonder what it will feel like. Sometimes I wonder if it will hurt.”
Spencer sighs, interrogation by way of seduction momentarily forgotten. You silently curse yourself for saying something so un-sexy.
“It might, sweetheart. That’s one of the reasons we’ve held back. I… really don’t want to hurt you. I don’t even know if I can.”
You grab his face in both hands, forcing him to look at you with more confidence than you feel.
“Sometimes I worry about it, too. But I like you a lot more than it scares me. I still want to.”
He kisses your palm.
“You’ll be okay. It doesn’t hurt for everyone, and even if it does, you’re resilient.”
“Exactly. So you have to get over yourself.”
Spencer laughs like he wasn’t expecting to, eyes sparkling as he regards you.
“Yeah. Yeah, maybe I do.”
He’s smiling again as he leans down and kisses you—a slow, lingering thing which tastes like spearmint as you part your lips for him.
“Please?” you whisper against him after a long moment. He hums, keeps kissing you.
“What is it that you think you want? You don’t even know what you’re asking for.”
“Tell me,” you beg, chasing his lips. “Tell me what you’re going to do with me. We can talk about it. This is talking about it.”
Spencer exhales deeply, wedging a thigh between yours. Immediately you clamp around it, trying not to grind against him too overtly.
“You want to know what I’d do to you?”
“Yes—” you paw at his jacket. Surprisingly, he doesn’t stop you from pushing it off. Your heart pounds.
“Well… we both know how anxious you get,” he muses, pressing his lips so delicately to your fluttering pulse-point in emphasis, and then back to your mouth. His thigh pushes harder against you to supplant the absence of his lips as he speaks, though he kisses you sporadically and between sentences. “You’re hard to get out of your head when you’re nervous, you know that? I watch it happen. One minute you’re with me, and then you start overthinking, and getting self-conscious. The only thing that seems to relax you is letting me touch you—so first I would touch you like I’ve touched you before. I’d make sure you know how pretty you are and how good you deserve to feel.” You whimper inadvertently at his words, arching into him and grinding against his leg as he pauses to kiss the sensitive soft spot below your jaw. “You’re going to need to be really ready to let me in. Do you know what I mean by that?”
As he asks, he pushes his thigh against you harder. Your body responds immediately, arching into him and seeking more friction. When you squeak, he takes it as a no.
“I mean I need you relaxed and wet. You’ll excuse my crude language.”
You pull at his tie, breathing heavier now and so turned on it’s almost painful.
“What are you gonna do after that?”
“What else is there to do but fuck you after that?” he breathes. “You want me to tell you how I’d fuck you?”
Something about it makes you whine salaciously. You’ve heard him curse—you’ve even heard him talk about fucking you. But it feels more real now; when it’s low in your ear and you’re covertly undressing him and he’s pushing your shirt over your stomach promisingly.
“Yes, please.”
He hums against your jaw, nipping and brushing his lips over the skin as he considers. Leaves you waiting.
“I would have to take my time with you. You’ll be overwhelmed. I know you think you won’t, but you will. I’m going to have to be so, so careful with you, angel. It’s going to drive me insane. But it will feel good for you.”
“Why careful? I don’t want that.”
He chuckles. A chill runs down your spine.
“Yeah, you do. You’re going to want me to be careful when I’m—” he pauses, pressing his thumb to your bare lower tummy and dragging up to a spot below your belly button. He presses down lightly again. “Right here. Approximately.”
The surface of the sun has nothing on the temperature of your skin in this moment, as you writhe underneath him in both arousal and embarrassment. Mostly, burning need. You feel almost sick with it.
“Please don’t make me wait anymore. Just do it, please, Spencer. I need it to be you, I don’t want it to be anyone else. I promise I’m ready.”
It’s silent for a moment. Your heart quickens. You sense his walls wearing away, his instinct to keep you intact for god knows what reason crumbling. He’s finally going to give you what you’ve been begging for.
Spencer opens his mouth, eyes glimmering—
And then his phone rings.
You both freeze—he melts dejectedly before you do, more accustomed to an ill-timed phone call and realizing the finality it can present.
He’s breathing heavily against your neck, as if maybe whoever it is will just hang up. But the phone keeps ringing.
“I’m sorry.”
Your stomach sinks as he sits up, grabbing his phone from the side table and rubbing circles on your inner thigh as he answers.
“This is Reid,” he says, lackluster.
If you wanted, you could hear what Penelope is saying—but you don’t bother listening. It’s going to be a case. Spencer is about to leave. The details are his problem.
“Okay. I’ll be there in an hour.”
He hangs up, tossing the phone onto the mattress and not speaking for a moment, just continuing to rub your leg apologetically. Watching you almost mournfully—taking in your disheveled hair, your likely blown-out pupils, the shirt pushed almost over your chest.
“I have to go right now,” he finally manages with a heavy sigh, gently pulling your shirt back into place.
You sit up, shedding all the hopes that had been building for the evening, and try to sound chipper—though all you feel is bitter disappointment that goes deeper than you understand.
“I know. Go ahead, I can get a cab home.”
He frowns, running his hand over the back of your hair.
“I don’t love the idea of you standing on the sidewalk waiting for a car in this part of town so late. Do you just want to stay here for the night and go home tomorrow?”
You force a smile. Great. So you’ll be spending the night in his bed after all—just without him.
“Sure. Thanks.”
“Yeah.”
Neither of you are feeling particularly grateful.
Soon you’re walking him to his own door. Both of you come to a stop in front.
“I’m sorry,” he sighs again.
“Spencer, it’s fine. It’s your job. You don’t need to apologize. You were very clear about this part when we started dating.”
“I know, but… it’s easier in theory than in practice.”
You smile. If Spencer is a reflection of you, it doesn’t quite reach your eyes. His hair is still messy from your fingers running through it and he’s missing his tie. You hope all his coworkers see and feel bad about taking him away from you.
But it’s not their fault. You just want someone to blame.
Instead you mould yourself to his body, wrapping around him like you belong there. He returns your embrace, pressing his lips into the crook of your shoulder and rubbing your back in that way he always does with you.
In that moment, your affection for him becomes so profound it’s like a chemical reaction—everywhere he touches burns and you love him so fucking much it aches in every inch of your body the way your muscles do when you have a bad fever. Love is the most terrible of afflictions, you realize. It is a fever dream. It’s every fiber of your being screaming to tell him how you feel, to beg him on your knees not to go because you love him like a child loves a parent or a bee loves honeysuckle or the ocean loves the horizon. Pared down to your most basic components, the barest version of yourself, you require him. Your soul needs his soul.
“Spencer?”
“Hm?”
It’s nothing more than an absentminded hum against your skin.
“I…”
Should you be looking him in the eye when you say this? Should you say it right before he has to leave? Just because you say it doesn’t change the fact that he’s about to be gone for several long days. Maybe this is a terrible time to admit something that suddenly feels so true and so consequential.
He senses your internal conflict, pulling back despite your resistance and holding your face between his hands.
“You what?” He murmurs, soft eyes bouncing back and forth between your own. Fuck—you feel so observed, now. Like he can read your mind.
“I forget.”
FUUUUUUCK.
Spencer blinks. Processes. You watch the disbelief crystallizing over his eyes like ice freezing over a lake.
He knows.
He knows you didn’t forget, and he probably knows what you were going to say, and he’s going to tell himself he was wrong to spare your dignity.
Everything hurts when he kisses you. You wonder what regret tastes like.
“Well, let me know if you remember.”
It’s too gentle and at the same time he can’t hide the edge with all the tenderness in the world. You nod as if in a trance, already looking forward to dissociating as you lie in bed and stare at the dark ceiling.
Two small goodbyes are exchanged, slightly stifled now, as if shared between drunk strangers who have sobered up and are mutually embarrassed about how candidly they’d interacted before.
You close the door behind him, doing up all the locks, and meticulously flick every light switch in the apartment off before climbing into his bed—though you don’t really feel like you deserve to be there anymore.
But perhaps this is all an overreaction. It’s not like you owe it to him to say I love you, or anything—it was bad timing, anyway. And why can’t he say it? In fact, why hasn’t he said it?
Maybe you have it all wrong.
Maybe he doesn’t feel that way about you.
You fall asleep before you allow these questions to make you sick.
24 hours go by.
24 hours go by and you really had meant to leave his apartment—it was just that you woke up late, and your phone was dead so you couldn’t call a car, so you charged it while you made breakfast, and then you ate, and then you decided to take a shower and wash your clothes, and then it was two in the afternoon and you hadn’t left yet and you decided to walk to the store and replenish the groceries you’d used up.
Maybe you got a bit distracted looking at flowers and other beautiful things at the market and by the time you got home it was 5:00, so you decided to wait until seven to skip rush hour. And then eight, just to be sure.
Before you know it, it’s midnight, and you’re dozing off in his bed again (teeth cleaned with the brush you’d bought at the store—maybe this whole situation hadn’t been entirely unwitting on your part.)
Throughout the day, you tried to let all your anxiety about the previous night melt away. If it’s something that needs to be addressed, Spencer will address it. Everything will work out in the end. That thought is how you’re able to doze off.
You’re almost asleep when your phone lights up and begins buzzing on the side table. You wince as your eyes open, not adjusting well to the harsh bright display and unable to discern who’s even calling you at this hour. Stupidly, probably because you’re half asleep, you answer without checking.
“Hello?”
Your voice is groggy, quiet with sleep.
“Shit, did I wake you?”
“Spence?” you whisper, stomach flipping at the sound of his voice on the other line. You feel caught, still sleeping in his bed.
“… yeah,” he chuckles. “Did you not check who was calling before you picked up?”
“I was asleep,” you pout. “Kinda.”
“Okay. Go back to sleep, honey. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
You sit bolt upright, phone balanced between tense fingers and speaking directly into the microphone.
“No! No, I’m awake. What’s up? Why did you call?”
A longer stretch of silence—you’re too sleepy to comprehend what it might mean, though never too sleepy to worry about it. With a pang of pain, you recall your strange goodbye, the words you hadn’t said.
“I just needed to hear your voice,” he sighs. You frown, staring at nothing in particular in the pitch black room.
“Oh. Is everything okay?”
“As much as it can be.”
“Right.”
More quiet. You chew on the inside of your cheek, stricken with a sudden feeling of awkwardness that you haven’t had with Spencer in a while.
“I’m sorry… I don’t really know what to say.”
“That’s okay,” he says, and you can hear the smile in his voice which makes you feel a bit better, “why don’t you tell me about your day? Or you can absolutely go back to sleep, if you’re too tired.”
“Don’t ask me about my day,” you whisper, flopping down on the bed once more. Shame seeps into your voice. He laughs.
“What? Why?”
“Because if I tell you you’re going to think I’m super weird and you’re going to break up with me.”
Laughter tapers off into gentler tones.
“I already think you’re super weird. It’s actually one of your most attractive qualities.”
Blood rushes to your cheeks.
“But it’s like… borderline crazy.”
Immediately, he replies, “for better or worse, I also frequently find myself attracted to crazy.”
“Thank you for calling me crazy and super weird,” you grumble.
“I also called you attractive twice. Tell me.”
When his tone takes on that easy, assertive quality, and it’s sort of raspy and low because it’s late and he’s been talking all day, and you can hear the lazy smile on his face—you imagine him laying on his hotel bed, arm slung over his eyes in the dark as he grins into the microphone—you have a very difficult time saying no.
“Fine. Guess where I am right now.”
“Um, I would hope you’re in bed?”
You smile to yourself, basking in the victory of successfully throwing him off his game even slightly.
“Guess whose bed.”
Silence.
“What an interesting question.” That cocky smile, the low drawling is back, and you chew on your lip, ignoring the shiver that runs down your spine. “If it’s not mine or yours, we’re going to have issues.”
“But if it is yours? You’re not going to call the police on me?”
“Why would I call the police? To tell them there’s a pretty girl in my bed and I don’t want her there?”
“To tell them your psychopathic girlfriend broke into your apartment and might be holding hostages there.”
Spencer laughs; a brittle, drawn out thing, flat and quiet as the desert.
“If you were a psychopath, calling the cops would be a waste of time. I would handle you myself.” The idea of being handled has your thighs clenching. “But—yeah, don’t invite anyone else in.” More humor finds its way into his voice, momentarily relieving some tension that had sneakily begun to build. “Having people in my space makes me anxious.”
“But not me?” Your whisper is half flirtatious, half insecure. Spencer’s reply is soft, as if he’s picking up on this from hundreds of miles away.
“No, not you. You are always the exception.”
“Good,” you say, cheeks aching as you half-bury your warm face into his pillow. “Because I made myself really comfortable. You have a nice shower, by the way.”
Spencer groans.
“You’re killing me.”
“What? What did I do!”
“Don’t talk to me about my bed and my shower. I might start to think you’re intentionally being a brat.”
“You asked me about my day! I’m just telling you what I did!”
But you’re also intentional teasing him for sure. After a pause, he sighs in defeat.
“You’re right. I did do that. Tell me what else happened.”
“Well,” you begin, all too eager, “I had to put my clothes in the dryer after I got out, so I borrowed some of yours. But then they were way comfier than mine, so after I went to the store I put them back on, and—”
“Okay.”
“Okay what?” you frown.
“Tell me what this is.”
“I—I don’t know what you mean.”
Lying to a profiler is usually pointless.
“I’m not stupid, sweetheart. Tell me why you keep talking about my shower and my bed and my clothes.”
Caught red-handed. Your skin heats up.
“I don’t know. I miss you.”
He hums in a way that blurs the line between sympathetic and patronizing. Even through the phone you can feel the bass of it in your bones. It changes the frequency you’re vibrating at. It’s hypnotic.
“But that’s not really why you’re being intentionally provocative, is it?”
“No,” you admit quietly. “I’m still upset you had to go last night.”
“So you’re frustrated and you’re taking it out on me?”
Your brow furrows. Well, when he puts it like that…
“I’m not taking anything out on you.”
“I think you are. And I don’t appreciate that, because I’m on your side, honey. Do you think I prefer being in a hotel bed by myself or being in my bed with you?”
Somehow, he makes you feel like a scolded child. But he makes it appealing in ways you don’t understand.
“Your bed with me,” you murmur, skin prickling with the coldness of his absence even as you curl under the blanket.
“Right. So why don’t you tell me what I can do for you right now, instead of punishing me for things that are beyond my control?”
“I wasn’t punishing you,” you mutter.
“No? You weren’t intentionally talking about using my shower and sleeping in my bed and putting on my clothes so that I’d have to think about what I can’t have right now?”
“I—”
“Believe me when I tell you I have been thinking about what I can’t have, all day. Your efforts are entirely redundant and you can’t say anything about yourself that is even close to as dirty as the frankly disrespectful thoughts I’ve been having about you for seventeen hours.”
The lack of air is making you so dizzy your vision goes gray at the edges.
“What… what thoughts?”
“None that you need to concern yourself with.”
“You can’t just say something like that and then not tell me!” you insist. He’s obviously giving you a taste of your own medicine and it’s fair but it doesn’t mean you have to like it.
“I can do whatever I want,” Spencer corrects cooly in a way that pisses you off beyond belief because he’s right. It triggers some adolescent immaturity within you—a desire to get back at him, so to speak. He wants intentionally provocative? He can have it.
“Fine. Then so can I. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it even if I could.”
“Spencer,” you warn. “If you don’t tell me what you were thinking I’m gonna—” you look around the room for ammo. “I’m gonna look through your nightstand!”
“Go ahead. I’ll warn you, it’s not very interesting.”
“Sounds like what someone who has something hide would say,” you mumble, crawling across the mattress through tangled sheets and using your phone flashlight to open the drawer.
Spencer is patient and silent as you take in its contents—a small blue leather-bound notebook (full of what looks like Russian), a fountain pen, a glasses case, various kinds of vitamins, and—
“Spencer Reid,” you say, dragging out his name and pretending nothing is fluttering in your stomach, “what are these?”
“I don’t know. I can’t see what you’re referring to.”
“Take a wild guess.”
“Oh, I have one. But I’d like to hear you say it.”
You realize you may have gotten yourself in deeper than you meant to by going through his stuff. Well—they don’t say karma is a bitch for nothing.
“What are you doing with a box of condoms?”
He chuckles and you feel it in your whole body, warm as you stretch across his mattress and eye the box like it might jump out at you.
“Those are years old. I’ve used three since I bought them.”
“Don’t tell me that,” you whine. “I don’t wanna think about all the other women you’ve seduced.”
“You wanted them to be for you, huh?”
You flush. Honestly you hadn’t even thought about that.
“I… I don’t know. I kind of just assumed…”
It’s silent for a second and you frown, realizing you hadn’t even considered protection when you’d imagined sleeping with him before.
“You assumed what, honey?” he asks, voice soft.
“It’s dumb. I can’t tell you.”
“You can tell me anything. I’m not going to think it’s dumb, I promise.”
You chew on your lip, letting your eyes unfocus on the box as you muster the courage to be honest.
“Whenever I imagined it… we didn’t… use anything.”
The words make you cringe even as you’re saying them. So does the quiet that follows.
“When you imagine us sleeping together, we don’t use a condom?”
“Ah!” The phone drops to the mattress as you cover your ears and roll onto your side, curling into yourself once more. “You didn’t have to say it! You make me sound so weird!”
“It’s not weird,” he laughs, because he can probably imagine exactly what you just did, “I just wanted to make sure I was understanding you. That said… we would definitely use protection.”
“Do we have to?”
The quiet words take even you by surprise—and they seem to stun Spencer as well. Several false starts are punctuated by a sigh as he gathers his thoughts.
“We really should, baby. That’s the kind of thing we need to take seriously.”
“But you’re… you’re good, right?”
Thankfully he picks up on your meaning.
“I am. I wouldn’t touch you if I weren’t.”
“And I’m good. So...”
“Hm. And has anyone ever explained to you where babies come from?”
You groan in frustration.
“Spencer, I’m being serious! There are ways to negate that.”
“Honey,” he murmurs, “I understand that. But it would be irresponsible of me to say yes. We can talk about it in the future, but—”
“I’m telling you it’s already dealt with. The chances of an accidental pregnancy are slim to none.”
The new information hangs in the air for a moment until Spencer speaks—to your surprise, his voice is low and humorous.
“That is… good to know. But even so—I’m setting a dangerous precedent if I always let you get exactly what you want.”
“Is it such a bad thing that I just wanna—I wanna know what it feels like? You don’t want that?”
“That’s not what I said. I want to know exactly what you feel like. I’m just hesitant to give in so quickly because it makes me look weak.”
You laugh breathlessly, caught between being turned on by the first part of his sentence and amused by the sarcastic second half. Your thighs clench and your hand absentmindedly wanders between them.
“You know what I was thinking about?” you ask. Spencer hums curiously. “I was thinking about when you let me, um… when you let me touch you how you touch me.” He hums again, but you can hear the amused curve of a smile in it now.
“When you had your mouth all full of me and you looked so pretty?”
“When I—yeah,” you agree, too caught up to deny his compliment as your fingers brush your most sensitive spot through clothing. “And how you got me all messy after. And I was wondering what it would feel like… inside me.”
He sucks in a breath. Your legs brush against each other and you twist slightly as you pretend like you’re not touching yourself just a little bit.
“You want me to come inside you?”
“Yeah,” you whisper, brain short-circuiting at the way those words sound in his voice.
—
On the other side of the line, Spencer isn’t doing a fantastic job of thinking clearly either. His dick is half-hard already and it’s only getting worse with each little noise you make that you don’t seem to realize you’re making.
“Really? That would be very messy, baby. I’m surprised that’s what you want.”
“But I really want it,” you breathe. He’s not even looking as he slips his hand under the waistband of his pajamas and palms himself, his other hand rubbing tiredly over his face as his phone rests on his chest. This was not how he intended for this call to go, believe it or not—but he’s here now.
“Yeah? Is that why you’re touching yourself right now?”
You go silent—which is more or less exactly the reaction Spencer had been expecting. Patiently he waits for you to deny it, in three, two—
“’M not.”
Now, he could explain how he knows that’s a lie. How your breathing pattern changed, and your voice got softer and airier, and how you started speaking with smaller words in fragmented sentences. But he doesn’t feel like explaining any of that.
“I know that’s not true,” he murmurs. “You know what? It wasn’t fair to get you all worked up last night and then leave. I don’t want you frustrated, honey. I want you to do whatever you need to do.”
You make a little gasping noise, and Spencer can imagine the way your back would arch when you did it. His own hips buck slightly as his dick twitches under his fingers.
“Where are you touching?”
“Um—over my clothes.”
Cute.
“Go under them for me. Tell me how it feels when you’re touching yourself like that.”
It takes a moment, in which all he hears is the rustling of fabric, until you’re whispering, “feels… it feels good. I wish you were here.”
He inhales, freeing his cock and squeezing the base.
“I know. Just listen to my voice, pretty. I’m right here.”
Spencer allows himself a few slow tugs as he imagines what’s happening in his bed. You make a squeaking noise, like a held-back moan, and his eyes screw shut.
“I need them inside,” you whine, and he knows you’re referring to his fingers—the ones currently stroking his own leaking cock.
“You can use your own, just give yourself a minute first. Remember what I said about needing to be ready?”
“I am ready��” judging by the surprised chirp you interrupt yourself with, you’ve proven yourself right. What surprises Spencer is the weak sound of disappointment you make next. “Spence, it doesn’t feel the same.”
“We’re different sizes, honey. Your hands aren’t as big as mine. But you can still make it feel good.”
He almost says, 90% of the nerves in the vaginal canal are located in the lower third—in other words, within approximately 2.36 inches from the opening, which you can most certainly reach—but he refrains. He’s not sure if that’s good dirty talk.
“You have a really sensitive spot about three inches up, right in front. It’s going to feel a little different than the rest of you when you touch it. I want you to try and find it for me, okay?”
“Okay,” you breathe, ever-eager to please even from a great distance. There’s a quiet moment. “I can’t—I don’t think I can r—oh,”
The moan is so pretty Spencer can’t help speeding up the motion of his hand, hissing slightly as his fingers brush against the angry tip with every pump.
“Did you find it?”
“Yeah,” you whine, a weak, high-pitched thing. “Oh my god.”
“Be gentle,” he warns with some effort as his own hips jump slightly. “You’re really sensitive there. If you’re not careful you’ll make yourself sore.”
“I don’t care—holy shit—” the way your voice rises and tightens to a squeak at the end has Spencer moaning as he fucks his fist. A black hole forms and warps time, turning every minute into a second and every second into an infinity until he has no idea how much time is going by. He drags his thumb over the tip, smearing precum over his cock and whining as his jaw drops at the feeling. “Oh my god, Spencer,” in that same strained, high voice. “’M gonna—ah!”
He gets the general sentiment.
“What, baby? You’re gonna make yourself come all over your fingers? Is that what you wanted to tell me?”
“Mhm!”
“Yeah, I bet you are. It feels good, huh?”
“Yes,” you cry.
“See? You don’t need my fingers to feel good. Mine barely fit, you know that? I have to hold your fucking hips down whenever I put my fingers in you because you can’t stop squirming. I don’t know how you think you’re going to take my cock.”
“Spencer!”
He knows.
“Come, baby. Let me hear you.”
The delicate sounds you make as you bring yourself to orgasm tip him over the edge of his own—grunting as he comes all over his fist.
“Jesus,” he strains under his breath, the word dragging out into two long syllables as his hips buck involuntarily and cum drips down his knuckles. He’s lightheaded and he’s created a mess and it all happened so quickly. “Fuck,” he breathes, a rasping chuckle as he reaches for the towel he’d dropped on the bed after his shower earlier. “You conscious over there?”
“I’m conscious,” you slur, breathing heavily. “I’ve never had an orgasm by myself before.”
“Are you proud of yourself?” Spencer smiles, wiping his hand off and making sure he’s otherwise clean. “You should be. I am.”
He’s barely kidding.
“I’ll be proud when I can do it without your help,” you tease.
“But I’ll always want to help you with that.” His already warm face flushes further as he goes over what he’d said. “Sorry I was so vulgar.”
You laugh. He blushes even more.
“Are you? I think you secretly love being vulgar.”
“I don’t know why! I have no idea where it comes from. I would never speak that way in any other context. I should probably work on that. Sometimes I look back on the things I say and I’m genuinely appalled.”
“Well, don’t stop on my account. Personally I enjoy it.”
“Yeah, I think I’m corrupting you. You probably shouldn’t enjoy it.”
The truth of it weighs heavy on his mind, but he’s pretty sure his voice alone doesn’t betray that and you can’t sense it through the phone.
“Oh, my god. Do not do that falling on your sword shit. I like being corrupted by you. If you stop I’ll be very upset.”
“Well god forbid you get upset,” he teases gently. Idly he wonders if the reason he’s suddenly feeling so depressed is because his cortisol levels were already high from the case, and then he jarred his system with an orgasm, spiking his dopamine and ultimately causing it to plummet without the oxytocin release that post-coital physical contact would usually provide.
Or if it was something else. It could also be something else.
For the millionth time, he wishes he was with you. Part of him also wants to go to sleep. But mostly he wishes he was with you.
—
A comfortable silence settles over the conversation. In the ditch between words, you’re mapping constellations in the texture of Spencer’s ceiling. If you squeeze your eyes almost shut, you can imagine it really is the night sky. You can imagine he’s really here.
You think about what he said—his apparently mindless vulgarity. Did it mean anything? Or was he just rambling to get you off?
“Spencer?” you murmur.
“Yeah?”
“Can I ask you a question?”
He sounds earnest, perhaps a little tired, as he replies, “always,” through the little metal rectangle on your chest. He likes me and my questions are important to him, you repeat to yourself silently as you work up the strength.
“If Penelope hadn’t called, last night… were you going to have sex with me?”
Your lip tastes like his toothpaste as you chew it. Spencer sucks in a breath of air like he’s about to speak—and lets it fizzle out like foam on a carbonated drink.
“I don’t know,” he finally admits, lamely. “That wasn’t my plan, but you can be extremely convincing when you want to be.”
“But why can’t it be your plan?” It’s an almost whine, pouty and childish—but the next words are quiet and pained. “Is it something I’m doing wrong?”
“No, no! It’s not you. You’re perfect. It’s—it’s complicated. It’s a me thing.”
Such trite words—such a ubiquitous, simple excuse sounds almost comical from his mouth when you know he’s capable of all the eloquence in the world. It’s not you, it’s me. It’s ridiculous.
“Okay. Let me simplify this for you,” you begin with an uncharacteristic assertiveness that surprises even you. “I want to have sex with you. Either we are going to have sex or we’re not. So your future branches in two diverging paths. In one, we have sex, and then we keep having sex. In the other we never have sex ever. If you want to ever have the privilege of fucking me, then we just have to do it. Otherwise it simply will never happen. And I’m not eternally patient, Reid.”
Go me, you think, slightly breathless from your monologue.
“Watch your mouth,” he says dryly. Something about the chastisement makes your stomach flip and your whole body tingle. “When you talk to me you call me Spencer. I will also accept Doctor Reid.” You wrestle down a smile, refusing to let him change the subject. A delayed sigh from him sobers up the conversation. “You know what I want. I’ve been very clear with you about that. But…”
“But…?”
Another sigh. A deeper, shuddering sigh, like his breath is searching for balance. Like Spencer is in a precarious position for which he was unprepared.
“But—but to be completely honest… I worry that you’ll regret choosing me. And I know virginity is a social construct and I’m not implying that your worth will somehow be diminished if we have sex but regardless of my views on virginity as a construct, having sex for the first time can be weird and scary and it’s incredibly intimate and I don’t want you to regret your first time like I regret mine because you chose the wrong person.”
The words come at you so rapid-fire it takes you a moment to process them. And aside from all the ways you want to reassure him that you will not regret choosing him—that you could never, ever regret anything about him—one thing stands out.
“You regret your first time?”
Something between a scoff and a sigh travels through the line. You can tell he’s not annoyed at you for asking so much as he’s flustered himself with all his own words as he occasionally does.
“Yeah. Yes. Sometimes I do. The person—she didn’t… like me as much as I liked her. And I was really, really in love with her, and she knew that and she knew she wasn’t in love with me—or maybe she was, I don’t know—but my point is, when one person likes the other more than the other person like them, things get complicated. And however you feel about me—that’s fine. It’s fine. I don’t want you to feel bad if we don’t feel exactly the same way about each other. I understand that this is newer for you, it’s different, I—I just don’t want us to do something we can’t undo because I don’t want to relive that. And I’m not saying it will never happen but I just don’t want you to make this choice when… when right now, I think we’re in different places emotionally. Regardless of that, I want you to choose the right person. I don’t want you to choose me and then find out that we feel differently after we sleep together and leave you feeling like you signed up for something you didn’t understand. I’m sorry. Maybe telling you this is selfish. But I’ve been thinking about it and trying to ignore it and I think I just have to be completely honest.”
Your ears ring like Spencer just fired a blank right into the microphone. Like you just got backhanded across the face and now you have the world’s worst case of whiplash.
Every finger is numb and your blood is so cold it feels blue as it slithers thick through your veins.
What you want to do is scream. What you want to do is go back to last night and stop yourself from almost telling him I love you, slap yourself and keep your cards a little closer to your chest. Because now he knows, and he doesn’t feel the same.
You want to scream bloody murder.
But when you try, when you unhinge your jaw and part your chapped lips and expect a bellow to come hurdling up the corridor of your throat with so much force it rattles your bones, all that falls out is a small, “oh.”
Maybe that’s worse.
Spencer doesn’t reply. You hate yourself for feeling obliged to fill the silence.
“I didn’t realize you…”
I didn’t realize that you don’t love me back.
I didn’t realize I like you more than you like me.
I didn’t realize you’d tell me to masturbate in your fucking bed and then drop this not even five minutes later.
If Spencer Reid was able to talk to you over the phone with the same amount of affection and familiarity as always, like everything was still okay, knowing you love him and he doesn’t love you the whole time, he is not who you thought he was.
“I’m sorry,” he lamely says again, like it could ever help.
More silence. Now you can’t bring yourself to speak, so Spencer does.
“I realize how awkward this is. I really didn’t mean to put you in this position. Especially not over the phone when I—god, I’m stupid. I’m sorry. But can we—can we talk about this in person when I get back? Please?”
Is that what grownups do? Is the proper etiquette for him to take you out to dinner and explain why he’s not in love with you? Is he going to break up with you?
What does one even wear to a breakup date?
“Okay,” you whisper. Your eyes sting, your everything stings, like you’ve been wrapped in a shroud of briar. Sheets that were soft a moment ago feel like sandpaper on open wounds. You feel like an open wound.
Spencer sighs. It’s a sound of relief that confuses and hurts you even more.
“Okay. I—okay. Thank you. Um—I’ll let you go back to sleep, now.”
“Okay,” you repeat—as if any of this were okay. But you can’t keep being that stupid girl who feels it all so much harder, who loves easily and begs to be loved in return, too naive to assume that someone who treats her so kindly might not reciprocate her feelings. It has to be okay, because if it’s not, you’re silly and dramatic and you’re just proving him right.
“Goodnight,” Spencer whispers, and you can’t help but feeling that it’s the last time you’ll ever hear those words from his mouth while you’re in his bed. And he’s not even fucking here.
So you pull the blanket a little higher. You let your tears stain his pillow because they’ll be invisible by the morning. It will be like they were never here. Like you were never here.
“Goodnight.”
#spencer reid#spencer reid fic#spencer reid smut#spencer reid fanfic#spencer reid imagine#spencer reid x fem!reader#spencer reid x reader#spencer reid x self insert#spencer reid angst#spencer reid fanfiction#spencer reid x y/n#spencer reid x you#criminal minds#criminal minds smut#criminal minds x reader#criminal minds imagine#criminal minds fic
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when we were teenagers (challengers)
pairings/relationships: tashi duncan x sister!reader, patrick zweig x fem!reader, art donaldson x fem!reader
summary: Tashi Duncan’s younger sister, Ava Duncan, never gets a chance to be seen past her sister’s shadow. When Ava gets injured and Tashi starts gaining fame, the two become more and more at odds with each other. Tashi juggles Art and Patrick while Ava struggles to keep up. When over a decade passes and a peace isn’t reached, either the Donaldsons or Zweigs, either Tashi or Ava, has to come out on top. (7.2k)
a/n: you know the movie was good when you have to rewatch so you have all the info for the fic🥴 with that being said, the dates and stuff may be a little off but i did my best with what wikipedia had to offer. regardless, im a patrick zweig stan 4L. anyway, as always, ur interaction is greatly appreciated, ily<3
warnings: description of injury, allusions to sex/almost a smut scene, swearing
in this story, yn is: Ava Duncan
March 16, 2006 //📍home, 9:35pm
The goofy grin on the brunette’s face and the blond’s childish giggle replays over and over in your head. Your mother’s muffled snores mix with Art’s laughs as a smile grows on your face, your eyes closed.
You’ve found yourself in this position too many times, imagining what could’ve been if the cute guys were eyeing you rather than your sister. But you’ve experienced it enough times to not even be hurt by it anymore. No guys approach you at volleyball events, especially not hot ones. So if anything, you find some comfort in lying upside down on the corduroy couch making up scenarios in your head.
The click of the front door forces your eyes open, sitting upright and perking up like a dog as your sister tip toes through the door.
“So…” You rest your chin on your fist, “Which one was it?”
“Shh,” Tashi smiles, pointing to your mom’s closed door. “Which one was what?”
“Come on,” You continue as she stands in front of you, “Which one did you…Y’know.”
“Oh my- Neither of them, Ava.”
“What!?”
“Shh!”
You lower your tone, “Seriously? You were alone with them both and didn’t make a move?”
“It wasn’t like that.” She laughs, “They’re like…I dunno, they’re weird.”
You scrunch your face up, “What, are they gay?”
She pauses, cocking her head.
“They’re actually gay?”
“No, no they’re not.” She giggles, “I just didn’t do anything with them. I mean we kissed but that’s it.”
“Did you kiss the blond?” You interrogate, “I really like the blond…”
“His name is Art and I kissed them both.” She smirks.
You roll your eyes, “Whatever.”
Tashi laughs at you, plopping next to you on the couch and resting her legs across yours.
“They did ask for my number again.”
“What’d you tell them?” You stroke her leg.
“I said whoever wins the match tomorrow gets it.”
“God, I wish.” You sigh, throwing your head back. “I’d kill to see Art just one more time…”
———
May 15th, 2006 //📍home, 6:00pm
You wince as your mom tightens the brace, covering your face in frustration.
“It’s okay, baby.” She kisses your head, “You tell me if you need anything, okay?”
You nod as she presses one more kiss onto your hair before walking out, leaving you alone with your thoughts.
Almost every athlete you know has been injured before, half of the girls on your team are covered in braces and tape all season. A torn ACL seems more like a right of passage than a serious and life changing injury. But when you heard the pop and felt the ligament rip, it was almost immediate; The realization that you very well may never play again. You’re not sure if yours was worse than others or if you’re just weaker, but the trauma of the blistering pain has turned you away from getting back on the court for the last month.
You already can tell who’s on the other side of the door from the lack of a knock. You internally sigh, wanting to be left alone, as Tashi sits at the foot of your bed.
“Hey, I was thinking we could go to the courts today. I could practice with you.”
“Tashi…”
“I know you haven’t been wanting to go but since you just hit a month I was thinking, you know, maybe you’d want to start working again.”
You shake your head, “Tashi, I don’t think I’m ready.”
“When will you be?” She asks, her voice stern.
You stare at her, “I don’t know, Tashi. Why?”
“I’m just saying Ava, it’s not good to stop for this long. Some people never get back out there and you have to at least try.”
“I am trying.” You raise your voice, “My insides tore apart. Sorry if I’m not eager to put pressure on myself again.”
“There’s no pressure I’m just asking you to get up and at least walk on a court again.”
“What if I don’t want to?”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Because I’m fucking scared, Tashi!” You shout, tears falling from your eyes. “I’m fucking scared of it happening again! I am not ready!”
She stares at you, a look that you can only describe as disgust on her face.
“…You don’t even want to drive out there just to see-“
“Get out.” You cover your eyes, a headache creeping up on you.
“Ava, I’m not going to let you waste away in here-“
“Get the fuck out of my room or I’m calling mom.” You stare back at her, “Go.”
She stands, giving you one last look of disapproval before leaving, slighting slamming your door behind her.
———
September 18th, 2006 //📍Stanford Tennis Courts, 5:00pm
“Passing…Down the line…Cross…”
Tashi’s grunts echo throughout the court as you throw shots at her, a pile of green tennis balls forming behind you. It took a few weeks but she got you back on the court, just not the volleyball courts. You’ve watched Tashi’s practices long enough to know the game, so when you reluctantly offered to help her train, she jumped at the opportunity.
You zone out, robotically tossing the balls as Tashi dashes across the court. You silently hope for a specific someone show up. Patrick Zweig had your sister in his phone and occasionally in his bed, but Art Donaldson was a free man. The only Duncan in his phone was Ava, an achievement that you pride yourself on even weeks later.
Sure, the two of you aren’t a thing, not the way Tashi and Patrick are. But you’re happy to be anything with Art, so the talking stage that you seem to be stuck in doesn’t bother you at all. You can only pray that it’ll blossom into something. Something meaning you being Ava Donaldson in the near future.
As if you summoned him, a very familiar blond boy opens the wire door, locking eyes with you. Your heart skips a beat when he waves at you, your hand immediately dropping the ball and waving back.
Your sister turns around to see Art, a smile growing on her face as she walks over to him. She wraps her arms around him, pulling him in for a hug as you watch. They barely pull away before Tashi begins chatting, her face too close to his for your liking.
Across the court, they’re too far for you to hear their conversation. But judging from Art’s hand draped over her waist and her arm resting on his shoulder, you see enough to be angry. You can only look down, waiting for the conversation, along with your humiliation, to end.
After an abundance of giggles, Art turns and walks away, giving you another wave.
“I’ll see you.” He smiles.
You purse your lips, terribly embarrassed as you nod, “Yeah. Good seeing you, Art.”
The door shuts and with it, your smile drops. Tashi gets back into position like nothing happened, waiting with her racquet. Playing along, you throw her the ball. Only, you don’t call the drill. You throw with a little more force and much more unpredictability as the anger in you rises.
“Ava…” Tashi calls, frantically chasing the ball.
It’s only when the ball flies past her head, barely missing her, that she stops.
“Ava, what the fuck!?”
She walks toward you, meeting you at the net.
She shrugs, “What’s up, what’s going on?”
“Are you serious?”
She only looks at you, confused.
“Tashi, come on. You were literally all over him.”
“Wh- Art?” She deciphers, “Oh, Ava my bad I didn’t mean- I really didn’t mean to.”
“Yeah, sure you didn’t.”
“Seriously, I didn’t. He’s my friend I was just saying hey.”
“Saying hey with your arms around each other? That’s bullshit, just say you still like him.” You look down, mumbling. “It’s fine, it’s just annoying that you go after every guy I like knowing they’ll choose you.”
“Hey…” Tashi softens her tone, stepping over the net and nearing you. “Ava.”
“What?” You look at the ground.
“I didn’t mean it like that…” She insists, “I’m just stressed with school and stuff, he’s the only one who gets it.”
“Right.” You roll your eyes, not in the mood for ‘I’m stressed,’ to be the excuse for going after your guy. “It’s not like I go to school too or anything.”
“No, I know you do. It’s just…Stanford’s different, you know?”
“Whatever.”
“Ava,” She lifts your chin to look at her, “I’m sorry, okay?”
The two of you ogle at each other as she waits for an answer. She always does this, almost forces you into accepting her apology which you do not.
“We good?” She asks.
“…Yeah, sure.” You shrug, pulling away from her, “It’s whatever.”
Tashi just looks at you once more, seemingly satisfied as she steps back over the net. She gets back into position as you pick up another ball, a look still on your face.
“Down the line.”
———
December 21st, 2006 //📍Stanford Dining Hall, 12:00pm
“How many?” The employee asks.
“Umm, can I have three?” You lean on the counter, “Or four, actually.”
She reaches under the counter before handing you four mayo packets.
“Thanks.”
You start the walk back toward the table, Patrick having picked the one in the far back. He clearly hasn’t returned from the bathroom as you see Art and Tashi still sitting alone. As you near them, you catch a glimpse of their conversation.
“Don’t you think you deserve it?” Art asks, his eyes so focused on your sister that he doesn’t see you walking up. “I mean, who wouldn’t be u love with you?”
Tashi doesn’t respond, only angrily stands and walks away, nearly knocking you over. She passes you, smoke practically coming out of her ears. You watch her go before sitting where she was, handing Art the packets.
“Thanks.” He smiles, “Patrick still in there?”
“I guess so.” You laugh, insecurity lacing your voice as you simultaneously try to decode the conversation they were having.
“I’m so not surprised.” He takes the bun off of his burger and tears open the white packet with his teeth.
You watch him, hesitant to speak. Though, your words spill out before you can stop them.
“Do you ever wish Patrick let you win the match?” You ask.
Art looks up at you, mid squeeze. He cracks an unsure smile.
“What kind of question is that?” He laughs.
“I don’t know,” You do the same, tragically self conscious. “Maybe you wonder what it’d be like to date my sister or something. I don’t know, it’s stupid.” You look down, fiddling with your fingers.
Art pauses, putting his burger down and placing his hands on yours.
“Hey,” He grabs your attention, “I’m here with you today.
You smile, “No, I know. It’s just…She’s like better than me in every way so I wouldn’t blame you.” You chuckle.
“What? I don’t think so, I think you’re great.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t get in to Stanford. Nor do I win all of the tennis tournament or-“
“Ava,” Art stops you, shaking your head. “You’re just as good as Tashi.”
Your eyes tread on each other as you try your hardest to believe him. But you do realize that this is the exact same way he looked at Tashi on the courts.
The two of you are snapped out of it as Patrick returns, taking his seat next to Art.
“Sorry, they had like no toilet paper.”
“Oh good, thanks for letting us all know you took a shit, bud.”
“Whatever. Ava doesn’t give a shit, right?”
“No,” You laugh, “You’re all good, Pat.”
———
📍Tashi’s dorm, 2:00pm
“So if he’s seeing other girls I won’t even fucking know now.” Tashi vents, stretching for her match.
You scroll on your phone, sitting at her desk. “It sounds like he was just trying to be nice, Tash. He was trying to help you out-“
“No, he’s not nice. Nothing about them is nice, Ava. They’re fucking weirdos, both of them. Art just hides behind this persona that he’s so caring and team Duncan when really he wants the same thing from me as Patrick.”
‘He wants the same thing from me.’
You sigh, tired of hearing the same things and watching her run back to them minutes later.
“Then stop complaining and fucking leave him already.”
Tashi stops in her lunge, “What?”
“You keep complaining about them.” You grunt, “If you really didn’t want the attention you’d just drop them both.”
“If I didn’t want the attention?”
“Yes.”
“The fuck does that mean?”
“Exactly what I said.” You say, irritated.
“Ava…” She stands up, looking down at you. You continue scrolling until your phone is snatched from you. “Hey.”
“What the-“
“Do you have something to say to me?”
“Give me my phone back.” You stand up, reaching for it.
“No, say what you mean.”
“Really?” You grab for your phone once more but she pulls it away from you like a child, “Fuck - Okay, Tashi, all you talk about is how hard your life is. How hard training is for a tournament that you know you're going to win. How hard it is dating a famous and touring athlete. How hard it is being friends with the nicest guy who only wants to help you. How fucking hard it is to have two guys fighting over you. How hard it is to go to an ivy league. How hard it is to live the fucking dream. How about you actually do something about it instead of rubbing it in our faces that you're above us and can play with two guys at once because you're so fucking amazing?"
The two of you stand nose to nose, a stance Tashi used to always initiate in order to intimidate you.
“How long have you felt this way?” She asks, her breath shaking.
“Ever since you became the Tashi Duncan and I was left in the dust. Now give me my phone.”
“Are you fucking serious, Ava? You think I asked for this?”
“Asked for what? A great life where you succeed in fucking everything? No, Tashi, you didn't have to ask for it. We worked so fucking hard and only you survived it. I succumbed to my fate, I quit my dream, I went to a shitty college, had shitty friends, watched shitty games, and watched the boys I liked fight for my sister. But no; Please, continue bitching about your hard situation."
You snatch your phone from her hands, walking toward the door. "Good luck at your fucking match."
———
2:45pm
You barely look up as you exit the library, occupied with connecting your earbuds to your phone. It’s only when you see a familiar black head of hair sitting in the common area that you stop.
“Patrick?”
He looks back, taking his feet off of the Stanford branded coffee table.
“Oh, hey Ava.” He makes space for you to sit beside him on the small loveseat. “How’s it goin’?”
“Good, um…” You put your stuff on the floor and sit next to him, “Why aren’t you at the tournament?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” He smiles that same crooked smile from the night you met him.
You curl your legs up, leaving your arm on the back of the seat. “Did y’all fight too?”
Patrick leans back, looking over at you. “Yeah. Yeah, we did.” He laughs.
“What was yours about?” You pry, smiling.
“Uh,” He rubs his eye, “Just…not letting her control me. I’m my own boss kind of shit.”
“Seriously?”
“…Yeah, why?”
“That’s what our fight was about too!” You burst into giggles, “Well, not her controlling me but her controlling you. And Art, him too.”
“Shit? Art too?”
“Yeah, I mean, especially Art. You’re the only one who stands up to her bullshit.”
“Oh yeah?” He asks, “I don’t know, you seem to put up a good fight.”
“Yeah, but I’m her sister. It’s takes a brave man to break free of Tashi Duncan.”
“Oh god, did I break free?”
“You definitely broke free.” The two of you laugh.
“No but I see what you’re saying, she definitely had me whipped.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Like I remember one time,” He turns toward you, getting comfy, “The first time her and I, um…”
“Oh, Jesus.” You cover your face.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” He laughs, “But the first time we did, I remember she said she’d leave me if I told anyone. And I was head over heels, so of course I didn’t want to tell, right?”
“Right.”
“But Art’s my guy, y’know? So instead of being straight up and jeopardizing Tashi’s love, we made this stupid ass signal.” He tells in between laughs, “The way that Art serves - Like, you know how he puts the ball at the neck of his racquet?”
“Yeah, yeah.” You listen intently.
“Well, if I served that way, that meant yes, we did sleep together, And if I served my way, it meant we didn’t.”
“…And?”
“Well I put that motherfucker right in the middle.”
“Oh my-“
You and Patrick erupt into laughs, covering your mouths as the librarian eyes the two of you. Your stomach starts to ache, not being able to remember the last time you had this kind of belly laugh.
“Well, cheers to breaking free of her.” You put your fist up.
“Oh hell yeah, cheers to that.” He bumps it.
———
3:05pm
The crowd outside thins out as you and Patrick head down the back halls and toward the parking lot. In true honor of breaking free, the two of you decided to not say goodbye. Instead, you’d go home without saying a word to your sister.
You’re a few doors down from the exit when Patrick stops in his tracks, looking into the nurses office.
“Tashi…” He walks in.
You enter the doorway, peeking in behind him. Inside, you see Tashi sitting on the table, Art by her side.
“No, out.” Your sister points.
“I’m sorry-“
“Get out!”
“Tashi, listen to me-“
“No, get out!”
“Please-“
“Patrick, get the fuck out!” Art shouts, standing.
Patrick stays for a moment, taken aback as he looks from Tashi to Art. If he has the same vision as you, it’s clear that it’s them against him. It’s no longer Patrick and Tashi, but Art and Tashi.
He looks back at you before obeying, walking down the hallway.
Now alone, you come into full view, nearing your sister.
“Tash, what happened-“
“You too.”
You stop, tilting your head. “What?”
“I don’t want you here, leave.”
“Wh- Are you serious?”
“Ava, I think you should just go.” Art says lowly, wary to step in between you too.
You ignore him, “Tashi, I’m your sister.”
You get no answer, she only looks forward. You look at Art as he stands over her like some bodyguard.
Just as Patrick did, you back away, realizing what this is. You frantically looking between the two as you wait for Tashi to change her mind, to see that regardless of what fight you had you’re still sisters. Though, it’s clear that doesn’t mean anything to her, it’s been clear for a while now.
Now, it’s only Art and Tashi.
———
10:03pm
“Coming in from Stanford; Student and highly lauded tennis player, Tashi Duncan, took a hard hit at her match against Pepperdine this afternoon. Sources say a hard fracture to the knee has Tashi in the care of medical professionals. It is unknown if she’ll ever be able to play again.”
The blinding fluorescent lights of the cheap fast food place burn your eyes as you and Patrick look up at the TV.
You bury your head in your hands, groaning.
“Fuck.”
“She probably think she’ll never be able to play again.”
“Please, please don’t say that, Patrick. I’ll feel so guilty.”
“Ava, there’s nothing we could’ve done.”
“We could’ve at least showed up.” You rub a hand over your head.
“Hey,” He forces you to look at him, “None of this is our fault, okay? Injured or not, she still treated us like shit. Art only gets to stay by her side because he’s whipped.”
“I just…” You sigh, “I just wish I had been there.”
The two of you stand up, leaving the restaurant. Outside, a huge Adidas billboard with your sister’s face on it dominates the sky.
The two of you get into Patrick’s car, him cranking it up and turning down the radio.
“Let’s talk about something else.”
“Okay.” He nods, looking at you.
“Like…” You think, “Your tour.”
“Oh, God.”
You laugh, “When are you set to go back?”
“Uh, next week I’m pretty sure. But if I’m being honest, I don’t even want to go. I’ve been getting my ass kicked out there.”
“Patrick, Tashi would lose it if she heard you say that.”
He leans in, resting his arms on the center console as he examines your face. “Let’s not talk about Tashi…”
“Okay,” You hold the intense eye contact that he began, “What do you want to talk about?”
His nose is almost touching yours as you unconsciously near him, eyes flickering from his eyes to his lips.
“Let’s talk about you.” He grins, rubbing your waist.
“What do you want to know?”
“Tell me what you like.” He says, lowering his lips to your neck and softly pressing.
“I, um,” You tilt, holding the back of his head as he gets sloppier, “I loved volleyball. My team was out of California but we travelled for tournaments. We ranked…fuck…we ranked second in the country-“
Patrick cuts you off, his lips ravaging yours as he runs his hands over you. You can’t stop yourself from leaning into him, crawling over to sit on his lap. Both of your hands get more and more heavy as he pulls your shirt over your head, tossing it in the backseat.
“Fuck,” You say in between kisses, “Fuck, wait.”
“What.” He looks up at you, “What, is something wrong?”
“Is this wrong to do?” You ask, out of breath. “Should we stop? What about Tashi and Art?”
“Ava they fucking yelled at us to leave when we tried to help.” He reminds you, “Why should we stop when they treated us like that?”
You look at him, convincing yourself that you’re considering it when all you want to feel is your mouth on his.
And you do, pushing the thoughts of Tashi and Art far from your mind.
———
February 15th, 2011 // 📍Zweig condo, 9:30am
5 years later
At one point in your life, it would take you multiple seconds to figure out how to say the dollar amount that you and your husband had in your bank account. Now, as the number almost falls short of five figures, you feel ashamed just looking at it.
You switch tabs on the laptop, the light from the ceiling to floor window behind it hurting your eyes. Scrolling through tournament options, the distances only get further and the prize money higher. Years ago, you and Patrick wouldn’t even consider the amount, as Patrick just wanted to play tennis; And that still holds true, only you’ve been stuck in your ways for so long that he’s forgotten how to play to win.
Nails scratch the hardwood behind you as your golden doodle, Bear, comes barreling down the hall. Right behind him is your husband, chasing the dog around the living room.
“I’m gonna getcha, I’m gonna getcha!” He says, the dog running desperately from him.
You chuckle, “Good morning.”
You hear Patrick give Bear a smooch before walking over to you, wrapping his arms around your neck.
“Good morning, baby.” He kisses your neck, looking at the screen. “Found anything good?”
“Not really,” You groan, frustrated. “I don’t know when these matches got so fucking far.”
“Hey,” He strokes your head, “I’m sure there’s one we can make it to.”
You continue scrolling, the qualifier maximum getting smaller and smaller.
“What about this one?” He points.
“Atlanta? Patrick, that’s on the other side of the country.”
“I know, I know. But we can make the trip, no? I hear some of our friends may be there.”
You turn your head, furrowing your brows at him. A sly smile plasters over his face, one that makes you realize all too quickly.
“They’re going to be there?”
He nods.
“God, why would you want to be anywhere near them, Patrick?”
“We probably won’t even see them, baby. But if they’re there we’ll have a big crowd.”
You think on it, the thought of seeing Tashi making your stomach turn in knots.
“…And look at that winner’s reward money.” He says convincingly.
A sigh escapes you before clicking submit, Patrick’s entry automatically being sent.
“Mm,” He kisses your wedding ring finger, “Thank you, baby.”
“Yeah, yeah.” You jokingly roll your eyes, pecking him on the cheek.
——
February 24th, 2011 //📍Atlanta, 7:40pm
Nausea consumes you as Patrick’s smell fills your senses. The aroma of the city is one thing, the aroma of your husband another, but the scent of your sister’s old perfume radiates off of him like a cancer.
You watch as he sets his coat down, coming behind the couch to kiss you.
“Did you-“ You pull your face away, not able to let him touch you, “Did you see anyone we know?”
Patrick is taken aback, looking at you with a confused smile.
“No…Why?”
His eyes bore into yours as you search for any answer than the one you’re imagining. Though, as he hands you the chinese takeout bag and takes a seat next to you, you find yourself voiding the conclusion entirely; Your mind not willing to believe the man you love would be meeting her.
He wraps his arms around you, watching the TV. As the smell seems to corrupt every sense you have, a tear sneaks into your cheek, the possibility still piercing your gut. Even so, you wrap your arms back around him.
As of this moment, the comfort of hiding in his arms trumps the possibilities of the truth.
——
June 3rd, 2013 // 📍Zweig Condo, 3:00pm
2 Years Later
‘Hey, I know it’s been a while. But if you’re willing, I’d love to come out and see you and the baby. - A ♡’
The ‘Read’ under your message seems to taunt you the longer you stare. Your phone screen is interrupted by a call, ‘Mom,’ at the top of the screen. You answer.
A small gasp escapes you as you’re immediately met with the smallest human you’ve ever seen. You’d know she was Tashi’s in a sea of babies. You wave your husband over, eyes staying on the baby.
“Oh my goodness.” You whisper, “Hi, baby.”
Her eyes stay closed, her hands in small fists.
“Oh, Ava, she’s so beautiful.” Your mom lowly says down the phone.
“Is…” You wipe away a stray tear, “Is Tashi okay?”
The camera flips from the baby to your mother.
“You know you could always ask her yourself, honey.”
“No, I know. But- Just tell them we said congratulations. She’s precious.”
Your mom lets out a sigh as she looks from you to behind the camera.
“Mom, who is that?” You hear your sister’s voice in the background.
Your hands turn clammy, your heart beating faster and faster as she begins to turn the phone to Tashi.
“Um, Mom we gotta go, we’re breaking up. I love you-“
“Wait, Ava-“
“Love you, mom.” You spit out, hanging up and turning your phone face down.
You stare out for a minute, shocked at your body’s response to your sister’s voice. Sobs escape your mouth before you can stop them. You shove your face in your hands.
“Oh, baby.” Patrick holds you, rubbing your back.
“It’s been too long.” You cry, “She fucking hates me.”
“You don’t know that.” He reassures you, “She may come around. You did good.”
———
May 1st, 2019 // 📍New Rochelle, 10:00am
6 Years later
Making it to New York from home took up the rest of Patrick’s savings. The house that you downsized to is completely funded by you and your remote sales salary. Patrick continues to fight a losing battle with tennis, barely able to pay for food for himself every week. Straining your marriage was the last consequence of his money struggles. Though, it has the biggest impact on your day to day. Nonetheless, you remain by his side. In all honesty, you’re not completely sure how to continue anywhere else.
“I’m going to see Art today.” Patrick tells you, downing a handful of trail mix.
“Art?” You ask, holding Bear’s paws on your
thighs, “Why would you do that? It’s been years.”
“I think it’s been long enough, we’re already here.” He shrugs, “I think it might be good for me.”
You focus on Bear, still not seeing a clear reason as to why he’d want to speak to Art after a decade.
“Maybe you should go see Tashi.”
Your eyes snap to him, her name barely being spoken in your house for the last six years.
“…And do what?”
He shrugs, “Might be good for you…”
…
1:00pm
Your stomach seems to twist in a thousand ways as you continuously fix your hair and outfit on the way into the far too fancy hotel. As you pass the lobby, you almost turn around and throw up. But as your sister heads for the elevator, you know this is your one chance to speak to her.
Your shoes thump against the marble floor as you jog after her.
“T- Tashi!” You whisper shout, reaching her just in time.
She turns around. Taking one look at you, she looks to your left and right, utterly confused.
“What are you doing here?” She asks, tone laced with disgust.
It’s been so long. She looks so different, her voice has such a maturity to it. But that dominating energy that she brings everywhere hasn’t changed a bit.
“Well I…” You fumble, all of your practice going out the window. “ I heard you were here, I wanted to say hello.”
“Say hello?” She looks you up and down, turning her full attention to you as she steps forward. “Honestly, I don’t want your fucking hello, Ava. Really, I don’t.”
You shake your head, “Tashi-“
"I can't believe you have the balls to be here.
After what you fucking did to me."
"What I-“ You compose yourself, remembering exactly how arguments with your sister always go. “Tashi, what the fuck did I do to you?"
"Are you serious?" She asks, "You're joking, yes?"
"No, I'm really not."
"You left me for 13 years by my fucking self." She raises her voice, "I had a wedding, I had a baby, and where were you? My sister was too stuck on a grudge to ever come back into my life, you're a waste of my fucking time." She begins to walk away.
“Hey.” You follow her, grabbing her arm and spinning her back around.
“Get off.”
"Not one of those events was I invited to, Tash.
Not one. If you wanted me back, if you gave a shit, you would've acted like it. But you're not going to sit here and act like I was in the wrong and I should've reached out to you. Hell, I did fucking reach out to you.”
“In the wrong?” She snatches her arm from you. “Ava, are you clinically fucking stupid? You're hung up on a situation from 13 years ago-"
"No, but it's not from 13 years ago, Tashi.” You cut her off, getting in her face. “Because you're going the same thing right now that you did when you were 18. You're sitting here blaming the world for your life decisions. You're blaming me for being angry that you were and are a narcissist who wants someone else to be the athlete that you never were. Every time I thought of coming back l'd imagine what my sister would say and I couldn't do it. But guess what Tashi, now I see through you. I fucking see it, Patrick sees it, and when Art finally opens his eyes you'll finally see yourself for what you are."
She stares at you, a chuckle escaping her. "Ava, this is pathetic. Genuinely. Because at the end of the day, it's not my fucking fault that you gave up. Now l'm in a position where I don't have to be here. I have a life, a pretty fucking good one, outside of this. Outside of you. This Final, it's practice. It's fucking child's play for us, whereas for the Zweigs...This is it for you. Your last fucking loss.”
“Yeah. Okay Tash.” You roll your eyes, "Keep throwing insults at me to distract from the fact that you're a shitty person."
"I'm a shitty pers- You fucking abandoned your family for 13 fucking years!"
"Because my sister is an insufferable egomaniac who can't accept the fact that her husband doesn't want to do this shit anymore and her tennis life is over.” You shout back, your voices echoing throughout the hotel. “It's fucking over Tashi, give it up. That's why I left you because you're fucking dreadful! You're dreadful and everyone knows it."
Tashi slowly nods, the hotel staff looking at the two of you.
"...Ava, do you know what your husband does late at night?"
Your eyes widen, your heart skipping a beat as she addresses the unspoken.
"Fuck you." You spit.
"I'm really asking, because from what I experienced...You're a lucky woman."
Now you’re the one with disgust in your eyes, the urge to spit in her face stronger than ever before.
“…Say hi to mom for me, Tashi." You say, your hands balling into fists.
“Happy to.” She utters, walking toward the elevator. “Tell Patrick I’m wishing him good luck.”
…
3:00pm
You only tell your husband bits a pieces of your encounter, not daring to remind him of the man he was in Atlanta.
“I don’t even know why I tried.”
“Both of them are assholes.” He agrees, “At least now we’re sure of it.”
“I guess.” You bite your nails, stroking Bear’s ears. “Patrick you have to beat him in the Final. We can’t let them win.”
“I know, baby.” He nods, on your wavelength. “I know.”
——
May 4th, 2019 // Night Before the Final, 11:25pm
“Pat, it’s really coming down out there.” You look out of the hotel window, tarps flying into the street. “What if they cancel the match?”
“They’d never do that.” He watches the TV, “It should lighten up by morning.”
You hum, snuggling next to him as the bright screen flashes through an action sequence. Patrick’s phone vibrates, his phone brightness lighting the rest of the room.
“Oh, baby.” He shifts his body, making you sit up. “I gotta go.”
“Now? Why?” You try to look on his phone but he pulls it away, scrolling.
“I have to, um,” He rubs his head, looking stressed. “My racquet, I have to pick it up.”
“The fuck does that mean?”
“They just messaged reminding me that we have to have this certain racquet to compete tomorrow.” He stands up, rushing toward the door.
“What- Patrick,” You follow him, “It’s like a fucking flash flood out there, can you not do this tomorrow?”
“Baby, they close at midnight, I gotta go,” He kisses you, “I love you.”
“Patrick, wait-“
“I love you, I have to go!” He shuts the door behind him.
…
12:30am
You have a strange urge to cry as you scroll through Art Donaldson’s instagram. Photos of him and his seemingly perfect family are plastered all over, an ‘@Tashidonaldson ♡’ at the top of his bio.
Patrick never wanted kids, said they’d cost too much and you couldn’t care for them. He was correct about the former, but care for children, you are willing and able to do. But when you married him, he did a lot of the decision making for you.
Now, as he’s blown all of your savings, lost his tennis touch, and been out of the damn hotel room for an hour doing god knows what , you wish you could shout at past you to get a grip.
Though, looking at these picture now, you wish you could do the same to past Art Donaldson too.
———
May 5th, 2019 // 📍New Rochelle Courts, 1:00pm
Final Day
The crowd’s heads robotically turned side to side as Art and Patrick dog it out in a vicious match. You sit in your assigned seat next to your sister, the endless stream of slander not ceasing, not even today.
“Is he retiring after this?” You ask, your head still going between the men.
Tashi shrugs, her expression hidden behind her sunglasses. “Maybe.”
"...I don't think Patrick will ever retire. I think tennis is all he has."
She hums, "If only he'd start winning his matches."
"He doesn't always play for the wins, Tashi."
"Yeah, he plays for the participation money."
"Maybe he does." You say, "At least he does it by choice."
She looks to you, her attention no longer on her husband’s tie breaker. "Art does it by choice."
“Like hell he does.” You scoff, “He wouldn't be retiring after becoming a Career Grand Slam if he wanted to be doing this.”
“Art is an adult, he does what he wants.” She looks back to the court.
“Art is your slave, he does what you want.”
Tashi continues trying to get to you. As Patrick sets for his next serve, he looks in your direction. Only, he isn’t looking at you, he’s looking at your sister. He returns his gaze to Art, placing his ball in the neck of his racquet.
Both you and Art freeze, staring at your husband. The men seem to be in their own world, but Patrick must’ve forgotten that you know too. The word seems to muffle around you as you stare at your husband’s evil grin at Art.
You stand on shaky legs, grasping your stomach as bile threatens to come up.
“Hey…” Tashi calls after you, “Ava, what the fuck are you doing?”
You run to the nearest exit, Patrick’s blatant disrespect and repulsiveness making you want to genuinely die where you stand.
It’s only as you stumble to your car that it truly hits you who the man you married really is, and how he really sees you.
Like everyone else, he thinks you’re a pawn in Tashi’s game. A piece that can be battered and bruised but will never go away, as it’s crucial to the game of Tashi. You want to vomit as you sit in your car, Patrick’s scent sending you into a violent sick.
———
May 14th, 2019 // 📍Zweig home, 12:00pm
9 Days Later
Three knocks at the door echo through your almost empty house. You pause your show, unlatching the chain and opening it.
Patrick stands in front of you, a hysterical attempt of a sad expression on his face.
“Everything’s here.” You walk him in, pointing to the boxes full of his stuff in the kitchen. “The only things that aren’t are your racquets, trophies, cups, stuff like that. Those are in the closet so they wouldn’t get mixed up.”
“Thanks.” He says, feeling like an alien in this house.
“Yeah.” You give him a thumbs up, returning to the couch next to Bear.
He spends an hour loudly moving his things from the kitchen to his car, the sound almost drowning out your show. Regardless, you stay put, wanting him to be done as fast as he can.
“Ava…” He calls over the reality TV. You ignore him, popping another veggie straw into your mouth.
Suddenly, his arm comes from behind you, grabbing the remote and muting it.
“Hey.” You turn around.
“I’m talking to you.”
“Okay, well I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Ava, I’m sorry-“
“Pat,” You chuckle, not being able to keep it in. “Don’t even.”
“Baby, listen to me, okay? I fucked up-“
“Patrick, Patrick!” You stand up, “Just stop, okay? Leave me be, finish getting your shit, and I’ll have the papers served to you by the end of the week.”
“Baby, no. Please.”
“Honey, there’s nothing you can say.” You shake your head, having prepared for his begging days ago. “Go beg to your mistress, yeah?”
He continues rambling, stumbling over his words. “Ava, it was such a bad mistake. I told myself it was strategy and- And because me and her have a complicated past I couldn’t see straight-“
“But nothing about us is complicated, right? We are married, we’re supposed to be a team. But you betrayed me, plain and simple.” You lay it out for him, “You’re a cheater and we’re done, now go.”
“It was a mistake-“
“Patrick…” You inhale, “I’m trying not to lose it, you need to get the fuck out.”
“Just hear me out-“
“Get out of the house, Patrick.”
“We can come back from this, Ava. We can.”
Your jaw hangs agape in genuine disbelief. He seems to notice he fucked up again as he stops speaking. You walk around the couch, getting in his face the same way Tashi used to get in yours.
“Patrick,” You begin, “I gave everything for you. I gave up my life, I gave up my family, I gave up Art, I left it all for you. I abandoned so much to be in your corner because I was in love with you, I really was. Whether you felt the same about me, I’ll never actually know-“
“I loved you, baby. I still love you-“
“But I thought you were the one who understood me, Patrick. But somehow every time I gave you a chance to correct yourself you threw it away to be with Tashi. Over and over. She’s constantly being picked over me, her feelings over mine, her body over mine, her opinion over mine…You’re just another one of her fans. You’re just like Art- Honestly, you’re fucking worse. At least he pretended to like me all those years ago. Now, as my husband, you just don’t give a shit. Just publicly showing that you slept with my sister.”
“…Why do you keep bringing up Art?” He looks down at you, “Do you- Do you feel something for him still?”
“Oh my fucking-“ You cover your face, composing yourself once again before continuing. “Pat, it’s been a long time. A long time since this all started. And if I could go back I’d change many things. But at the end of it all, I’m here because I worked for it and I endured it. You and Art can stay stuck under Tashi’s finger, that’s fine. But I know that the life is bigger than that. Bigger than this weird threesome love triangle shit that you circle back to every few years. I am a grown woman who is in control of her own life so if you don’t have anymore comments, you need to get out and sign the papers when they’re served to you, Patrick.”
“…Baby, please,” He cries, his lip quivering. “You love me, we love each other. Please
just think about it.”
You tilt your head, “Do you want me to be honest?”
Patrick nods, hiccuping on his tears.
“…All of this is really really beneath me.” You quietly tell him.
He lowers his head, his hands covering his eyes.
“When I was 18 I might have been broken over stuff like this but…” You shrug, “Things are very very different from when we were teenagers.”
#challengers#challengers fic#challengers imagine#challengers fanfic#art donaldson#patrick zweig#tashi duncan#art donaldson fic#patrick zweig fic#art donaldson challengers#patrick zweig challengers#challengers film#tashi duncan fic
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in which chilchuck tries to get some but ends up a sucker to his caretaker instinct once again
i just wanted to write something where chilchuck unironically indulges laios' hyperfixation, lol. im folding this into something larger but it kind of stands on its own for now, so here.
“Hey,” Chilchuck slurred. An arm crawled around Laios’ shoulder, stirring him from his reading. “What are you doing up? It’s my shift.”
“Just research,” Laios replied cheerily. His eyes were drawn back to the book and away from Chilchuck, something that elicited a soft huff of irritation. “I’ll still be good to take over for you. I’m kind of wound up, you know? Couldn’t sleep.”
“Yeah,” Chilchuck snickered, his hand brushing across Laios’ chest with just a bit too much pressure to be purely friendly. “I’ve been wound up, too.”
Laios met Chilchuck’s lascivious gaze with concern. “Are you starving yourself again? You wouldn’t have such bad insomnia if you ate well.”
“I got wine, there’s nutrients in that,” Chilchuck giggled, giving Laios’ tit a fond pat. Laios smelled the drink on his breath and the hair on his neck stood on end.
“On an empty stomach? Chil…”
“What you getting worked up for? I’m fine. I know what I’m doing.”
Laios’ brows furrowed. Chil stared up at him, waiting for him to back down, and the smug smirk only widened when he didn’t.
“You gonna force-feed me or something? I didn’t take you as into that kind of thing.”
“Knowing how depraved you are, you’d enjoy it if I did.”
Chilchuck scoffed. “Oh, yeah, you’re one to talk—”
Laios closed his book. “You’re being reckless,” he declared, in that know-it-all leader tone. Rarely used—Laios hated using it—but terse enough for Chilchuck to tilt his head and shut his mouth for a minute. Not long enough.
“Being a little tipsy doesn’t mean my eyes and ears don’t work,” Chilchuck groaned, pulling away and slumping onto the next step up from the one he was perched on. “It’s not my job to fight them anyway. All I gotta do is throw the bottle at your head and I’ve done my part.”
“I’m not talking about the party, Chil.”
Chilchuck shrunk away from Laios and crossed his arms.
“When did you become such a nag?” Chilchuck groaned. “I’m older than you. I know my limits.”
Laios turned from his seat on the floor, rising on his knees, invading Chilchuck’s space. He braced his arms on either side of Chilchuck’s lap.
“Do I have to say why?” Laios rumbled. “If you don’t want me to care, stop making passes at me.”
Chilchuck clucked his tongue. “Didn’t have to hit on you to get you to take a few quills to the back for my bony ass.”
“So much for never talking about that again.”
Chilchuck grinned. Laios’ eye twitched, knowing that Chil knew he’d taken the bait. Chilchuck reached up to cup Laios’ face; Laios let him, unfortunately.
“You can relax, big guy,” Chilchuck said, and the softness in his voice made Laios deflate all at once. “I got by just fine until you hired me. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I want to believe you,” Laios murmured. Chilchuck could feel the muscles of his jaw working as he spoke, the weight of his heavy tallman skull in his palms. “I do. But you don’t know—"
“I’m fine,” Chilchuck asserted. “What’s got you so…?”
He stopped, bit his tongue. Laios looked up at him with those insufferable, upturned puppy dog eyes, deep amber in the low firelight, and he remembered. Chilchuck let out a long-suffering sigh, stroked up his cheek into Laios’ hair and scratched his scalp.
“We got this,” Chilchuck said. “It’ll be alright.” Laios slumped forward into Chilchuck’s lap, thick jaw slamming down onto his legs like a harpsichord lid, and Chilchuck squawked. Laios turned his face into the loose-fitting, threadbare slacks Chilchuck normally wore to bed, sucking in a long breath that made his back rise and then letting it all out through his nose. It reminded Chilchuck of Leed’s wargs after a good dinner, resting their big, wrinkly heads on any friendly knee and whining for attention.
Chilchuck scratched at his sideburns. He knew propositioning Laios would be risky in the dungeon, but this wasn’t the kind of disaster he’d envisioned if it went wrong. His hand came to rest on Laios’ back, and he rubbed it along the length of Laios’ spine. Laios’ broad body sunk that much further into his lap. Chilchuck’s calves were going numb, but he held deathly stll, as if he’d scare Laios off. As if he didn’t want to scare Laios off and get out of this mess.
“We’ll find Falin,” Chilchuck said. “We did it before, and we’ll do it again.” Neither of them believed it, really, but it was a nice thought. Maybe if they chanted it enough a spell would be cast. No mana sickness yet; they’d have to keep at it.
“I’m pretty confident about that,” said Laios, muffled in Chilchuck’s legs. His breath puffed warm on his thighs in short, controlled breaths. “But if we do and we don’t get her, if the Mad Mage takes care of us, then—it’s not just Falin, anymore.”
Chilchuck’s breath caught. His fingers curled in Laios’ shirt and tugged fitfully. Laios didn’t budge.
“She used to be all I had, you know.” Laios hugged Chilchuck’s pins-and-needles calves, which further trapped him but also returned some level of blood flow. Small blessings. Chilchuck wished he were dead. “That was fine. It was—better that way. Less to worry about. Then I found a nice girl, and I proposed—"
“Wait, what?”
“—she was so cute, so nice to me, but when my father said Falin would have to leave, I couldn’t just leave my little sister to rot somewhere, so—I broke it off. It didn’t matter, if I could earn enough money and Falin would be okay—”
Try faking a heart attack. You have the plausible deniability. “He… sent Falin away?” He was dimly aware of Marcille and Falin having met at magic school. “You were supporting her?”
“—but I didn’t even—need to. She was happy where she was. And I still—I still dragged her here, let her get eaten, let the Mad Mage take her. What kind of brother—”
Chilchuck gripped the back of Laios’ skull and pulled at his hair, not enough to move him, but enough to shut him up. He let go and ruffled it instead, soothing out the tension in his scalp. Laios melted, limbs melting to the stone tunnel floor.
“I see why you’ve been so wound up,” Chilchuck said. “You’ve just been sitting here and spiraling. Are you even reading that book?”
Laios squeezed Chilchuck’s legs to his chest. “Not really. I’m looking at the words but I’m not… retaining anything.”
That’s bad. “Let me see it.” Laios looked up at Chilchuck with confusion, then distrust. “Please?” That only confused Laios further, but he lifted the worn old tome from the floor for Chilchuck to take.
“Dragons of the Eastern Archipelago,” Chilchuck read out. “Another cookbook, eh?”
The jocular tone whiffed right past Laios’ ears. “It’s… not really research,” he admitted. Chilchuck thumbed through the pages—there were many detailed technical sketches of long-bodied, short-limbed dragons with horsehair and deer antlers, strange boggling eyes and stretched lips. More impressionistic doodles filled the margins, with scrawled-circle eyes and jagged teeth, little flared scratches of the broad side of a pencil representative of dragon fire. Their fat snake bodies had wobbly, uneven sides and sloppily looping scales—but some were a little more distinguishable as a dragon than others.
“Ah.” Chilchuck cleared his throat. “Nothing wrong with a little light reading, I guess.” He tried on a smile. “The, uh, pictures are nice.”
“I kept telling Falin that long don’t breathe fire,” Laios said, voice tight, “but she kept saying it would be cooler if they did.”
“That’s what they’re called? Longs? Seems kind of on-the-nose.”
That managed to get a laugh out of Laios, but it sounded more exasperated than anything. “It’s just one of the native words used for them, but it’s not Shuro’s language, apparently. The word he uses is ryu.”
“I haven’t seen anydragons other than red and green. Maybe it’s just the dungeons I’ve been to.” Chilchuck said. He winced, realizing he’d just stumbled over a lecture topic, but Laios stayed folded across his lap, seemingly having gotten comfortable there, and stayed quiet. The silence made Chilchuck’s hair bristle. Chilchuck nudged him, knuckles against Laios’ temple.
“C’mon, man, I set you up. Go on.”
“Now you’re just making fun of me.”
“Seriously, Laios. I really want to know this time, and you’re gonna sulk about it?”
Laios turned up from his lap to read Chilchuck’s face, though he never seemed to be able to get it right all the other times he’d attempted it. Chilchuck heaved a melodramatic sigh and patted Laios’ head, an action that lowered his hackles. It really shouldn’t have worked that easily, but Laios closed his eyes and hummed.
“There are… so many kinds,” Laios said dreamily. Dread began to creep in on Chilchuck’s charitable mood, but he’d talked himself into a corner. “They’re super adaptable. Pretty much anywhere you have a dungeon or an ecosystem robust enough to support one, you can find a dragon.”
“I’ve, uh, heard about white dragons. Furry ones, kind of like these guys, but with wings and the stocky body type. Never seen one, though, so it could have been bullshit.”
“Oh, they’re real. Pretty common up north.”
“Do they really breathe ice? How does that work?”
“Basically, yeah. It’s super-cooled air. They have huge lungs and a fuel organ like a red dragon, but instead of burning the waste matter inside, it liquefies it into a kind of slurry—” Chilchuck grimaced, but Laios was already talking with his hands and not measuring Chilchuck’s enthusiasm. “—that undergoes a rapid chemical reaction when exposed to the air the dragon exhales.”
“Huh.” Chilchuck absently stroked the back of Laios’ neck. Laios squirmed, but didn’t complain. He slipped out of his kneeling position to sit flatter against the wall, head still flopped over Chilchuck’s lap but looking outward toward the fire. The angle looked uncomfortable, so Chilchuck dropped a step lower, letting Laios slide over just a bit more, lay more solidly in Chilchuck’s lap. Laios’ ears had turned red. “Y’know, I always just figured magic did it. I never knew any of the biology until I met you.”
“You wouldn’t be wrong for thinking that way,” Laios half-shrugged. “They wouldn’t exist without some kind of mana source, so they’re still a product of magic. But to sustain the kind of huge, complex bodies dragons have on mana alone would starve the ecosystem, so they have to develop organs and bones to keep them upright and moving to serve their purpose.”
“To destroy whatever enters their lair?”
“To survive.”
“Same as the rest of us, then.”
Laios hummed. Chilchuck’s wrists had begun to hurt from holding the book, so he propped it up on the crown of Laios’ skull. He didn’t seem to mind.
“So what’s this big pearl they keep drawing the long dragon with?” Chilchuck asked, even though the answer was right beneath it, indicated helpfully in a list of figures.
“Oh, that’s an egg, believe it or not.”
“No kidding.”
“Dragon clutches start out pretty big, but because of how demanding the hatchlings are, most of them don’t survive to adulthood. Some species of dragon choose a ‘favorite’ out of their eggs to focus on and raise instead…”
Chilchuck smiled into the palm of his hand as Laios rambled, flipping through the book to keep his eyes open as Laios talked, listening as the spaces between words grew and his tangents unspooled, dissolving into dreamlike nonsense. The weight of Laios’ head got heavier in Chilchuck’s lap until the static crept back in, but Chilchuck had no intention of moving him anymore. It was well past the scheduled watch shift change by the time Laios began to softly snore, but Chilchuck didn’t rouse him.
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hold me closer poses 6
by ratboysims
• sorry for not posting in so long i'm sooo rusty but please enjoy these poses! i'm finally getting back into it expect more in the coming weeks...
• 5 new couple poses inspired by pictures from my suggestions board, no theme just random ones i liked :-)
• person a is slightly taller than person b! built in height difference baby!
• how to use pose packs
↪ DOWNLOAD ON BLOGSPOT (no adf*y)
#mycc#my personal favorite is pose 4 its a little silly a little fun some might say#anyway im going to bed i have work in the morning(said with a sad voice)
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Samurai and Ninja in crappy pics because December here is under a constant cloud and I just want y'all to see them all golden and cute without learning how to take aesthetic pictures 🥴 💙❤️😆🥰
linktr.ee/Mezzy
#klance#can i tell everyone to look away before i write tags to someone privately lmao no? damn#anyway yes i meant music!! and thank you for sharing something!!#baking seems like a hyperfixation#like i know you said you baked once but then look at me#...i was thinking if i could make salads.... i gotta be medicore at least at one food thing#its a joke its a joke#i will one day get used to focusing on more complicated kitchen work than heating up meat or cooking things in salt and water#anyone else had trouble getting out of bed this december?#once i do i try to pick physical activities that dont require creative thinking because man#at the post office i had small talk with a lady waiting in line she didnt speak polish so u know me it happened#and she recommended light therapy lamp#im very tempted to try it becase i had record bad thoughts sleepless nights and jerking awake this month#it might be rooted in economic instability growing inflation costs of living and shitty working conditions while still trying to buy gifts?#but hey there are things we cant have control over and there are things we can#ive got winter wonderland comic coming though#i will try my best to speed-finish it as a christmas gift aight#i hope its going to be a nice thing!!#wow thats a long set of tags
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This is straight up a non-issue, me complaining abt someone else complaining abt right-wingers calling something "woke," but imma go-off minorly abt this
I haven't seen the movie but after seeing Many Asian-American people talking about how it's clearly a metaphor for Asian immigrant families and finding your way in the world as an immigrant, the complete neglect of that to flatten it into a "heterosexual love story" really pisses me off as an mixed asian person. The right-wing isn't just pissed off at queer people, and I say this as a queer person, but every defiance from the hetero-binary white norm. Asians in general and ESPECIALLY Asian Americans are often left out and barred from discussions of racial and cultural oppression. And the fact that our discrimination at the hand of right-wingers is straight up being ignored by people in such a casual and small way really just stings.
A huge part of Asian American discrimination is "a thousand papercuts" and this just feels like another one. Yes, a movie that's a metaphor for being an Asian immigrant, and now that I think abt it being a mixed race couple in the US is "woke." Mixed race couples and the unique discrimination and micro-aggressions they face is still something that is largely ignored in liberal talking circles, at least the ones I'm in, and still something HUGELY looked down upon by the right wing. Intersectionality is such a scary concept for someone people, including people on the left, and this just feels like a perfect example of that.
Again, haven't seen the movie. My understanding of its themes is purely based on what I've heard from other people, but as a wasian, mixed-race queer person from an immigrant family, you do not get to use one part of my identity to devalue another. It doesn't work like that. Include Asian people in the discussion, and include mixed race relationships and people, and immigrants in the discussion. Don't just ignore us cause our issues are hard for you to understand.
#jonah with a megaphone#at the end of the day this rlly just feels like a spit in the face to intersectionality . idfk man it's like 1am#mixed kid rage#I might go more in depth abt this once I like. actually watch the movie but I don't see that happening anytime soon so take this with a#grain of salt.#im chill btw im not gonna let this get to me too bad needa go to bed anyways#ik I said id delete Twitter but the conceptart queue ran out so I had to redownload it
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its so hard to watch time pass when things like careers and assignments exist. what do you mean im supposed to take that seriously
#I have an assignment that was due a week ago and I really really dont want to do it. I have to but i dont want to#im probably making it worse because my brain has built a wall around it so now i can’t do literally anything else until thats done. but#because I don’t want to do it I’m just kinda stuck. turns out this is what they meant when they said emotional regulation is part of#exec dysfunction.. I’ll have a thought like if I get a little bit of it done now i can get it over with. I can just submit something#and then not even 5 minutes later itll be like ugh but I have to draw all the assets out. I have to write things and make spreads ugh#and its just flopping between those two things. i hate it when ppl are like well how much time do you need to work on one thing#because BOY id love to know too. I’d love to know exactly when my brain wants to cooperate with me and work around that but I cant#even my period can’t decide when it wants to punch me in the stomach. which is kinda funny in the grand scheme of things but still#its so weird im just lying on my bed thinking abt all this like damn.. the time will pass anyways no matter what I decide to do.. damn….#if I submit that assignment now and take the L I literally won’t die. it’ll just be a deduction on an assignment nobody will ask me about#I know this but I’m still stressing myself about it so my thoughts aren’t really connecting to my body. weird#maybe its because Im having a hard time looking forward to things. theres definitely a lot I should be living for but I don’t really feel#a strong attachment to it I guess? it’s been like this for a while with holidays and meeting with friends so I just don’t#I kinda figured its because im pretty passionless and its more like passing interest. but it’s not very fun when it feels like I’m going to#be living distraction to distraction for the next 70 years or so lol#idk it kind of feels like slowly bleeding out. which is funny because I actually did experience blood loss this week#had a 30 minute nosebleed and literally could not stand. also it felt like someone was pinching the back of my brain which was interesting#yapping#does this count as vent#vent#Ive just been making an oc carrd and contemplate changing my blog header for the past 3 days honestly
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click for better quality!
whaddaya think makes tracks like that? / needletail and violetpaw
#my art#do not copy trace or steal#needletail#violetshine#warriors#warrior cats#wc#waca#wc art#squints i think i have all of the tags#THIS TOOK feels like WAY SHORTER THAN THE OTHER ONES#but probably bc theres like. way less grass in this one and more snow and thats way easier to do#THE WAY I DID LIGHTING U CANT RLLY TELL I MADE VIOLET A CALICO </3 hell on earth#IM RLLY SATISFIED WITH HOW NICE THIS CAME OUT + HOW FAST I WAS ABLE TO DO IT#it was on/off all day bc i have felt just physically weird . not bad but not good but not sick#anyway wish me luck on my exam and my paper ^_^ more worried about my exam than anything#its mostly monomers im worried about x_x i can tell u the most out there biology fact but i cannot tell u shit abt carbohydrates#anyway i am going to bed goodnight yall <3 its only like 12:30 rn WHICH ISNT BAD TBH#would u guys believe me if i said i was a little nervous posting because i feel like i forget something every time#i always get the nerves before i post and then i post and its fine AHBDLFHGBD#OKOK goodnight for realsies#tag edit carbohydrates arent monomers theyre fucking polymers THIS ONLY ILLUSTRATES MY POINT FURTHER
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these are A BIT OLD but uhhh here check out these aggio doodles i did forever ago. still VERY happy w my colors :3
#this was back in uhhhh jan 2023!! hot dog!! and its still perfeclty good to eat!#i think kian and chip would get along. they could talk about feelings. kian could give chip the therapy he needs. maybe kiss? who said that#jay and rand could also get along i think. smoke buddies. cigarette fans. i bet they could play dnd together. or build a contraption togeth#also WAUHG the way i colored in kira here is SO PERFECT.. SHES SO SPARKLY N PRETTY. ALSO THAT HOOORNN i remember bleeding for that#shading is HARD lighting is HARD drawing a crazy unicorn is HARD but SOOOO WORTH IT I SITLL LOVE HOW IT LOOKES.....#waht else is there. oh yes the prime defender doodles#i love mark so much.... i miss being crazy and strange abt mark winters... i need to draw him killing more people someday#anyway i gotta go to bed soon to keep my sleep schedul on track but I DONT WAANNA!!!! recently relistened to bitb. that might release spore#im also chippin away at that am i in heaven animatic between workin on commissions. I GOT RLY FAR!! i think that i could finish it within#like. 3 or 4 more inspo waves. it wont be unfinished forevcer..... its so close... just 4 more full scenes to rly fleshh out#so basically another 2 years. YEAH BABy. in the meantime i have a backlog of things i can poast. i got plenty o drawings and doodles to sha#alrigh thats all the ramblin im gonna do for now. sleep well everyone hope shool or work goes easy on u in the coming week
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Fun fact about me: April 18th is my birthday! :)
And part of what I wanted to do to celebrate this year was to give back. Introducing * ~ a dipplinshipping birthday oneshot ~ * :
Rating: T
Summary:
Today was Kieran's birthday, but it was the last thing that mattered to him. In fact, he vowed it would never matter to him again. Instead, he would focus on things that would keep him strong: his battling, his strategizing, and his crown as the Blueberry Champion. His sister and the Elite Four won't stop asking him random questions, though, and if anyone brings up Juliana any more than they already have since she arrived as an exchange student, he's seriously going to lose it. But...why can't he stop thinking about her? And why is everyone acting so suspicious?!
A bittersweet birthday celebration fic for anyone who's had complicated feelings about their birthday. <3
Take this as a thank you to all of those who have followed my work and/or my Tumblr blog. I wouldn't have imagined having the support of this wonderful community on my last birthday, and I can't even begin to describe how encouraged and inspired I have felt to write since finding you guys. I have never written this much for this long, consistently, and your constant feedback and comments seriously brighten my day more than Juliana brightens up Kieran, LOL. Hope you enjoy this! <333
(And yeah, this fic is the "event based idea" that this poll was about. I thought it was so funny that some of you thought it was gonna be some devastating angst LMAOOOO. That's for after TTPD releases, tysm for the bday gift Taylor.)
#I legit was gonna go a bit of a wholesome route for S&S D but y'all said “nah” so I said “bet” and wrote Chapter 18™ instead#anyways#on a real note#seriously tysm for all the love & kind words & support#I hope this brings you some of the happiness you all constantly bring me#<3333#my fics#dipplinshipping#kieran pokemon#kieran x juliana pokemon#juliana x kieran pokemon#kieran x juliana#juliana pokemon#juliana x kieran#I had fun with some references see if you can spot 'em all#now Im gonna run to bed#I have a busy day ahead of meeee#bye for now!! <3#also yes I did lowkey contemplate teal mask Kieran instead#but my bias is allowed for today LMAO#what can I say#indigo disk Kieran is just elite#plus its fun to have the rest of the blueberry squad there#oKAY NOW IM SIGNING OFF BYEEEE#wouldnt be a dipplinduo post without me going back to edit tags#catch me editing typos later too lmfao#yes TTPD release technically falls on my bday in the time zone im currently in#will never ever shut up about that
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sometimes i worry about my internet footprint and the fact that it might stop me from getting a job in the future or something (i literally run a blog posting screenshots from fanfics i read) but then i think ‘well damn, if they can find all this information about me then i don’t deserve the job cause i know i wouldn’t put in that much effort to find information on someone’ and i feel better
#HI DOES ANYONE WANT SOME BLOG RUNNER LORE CAUSE IM CURIOUS AS TO WHAT YOU THINK#-> in the tags!!!#talking in tags cause i’m too embarrassed to make this an actual post but i tried using character ai today and i got so bloody scared#i was talking and then it was like tell me the truth and then i was like okay and i said something and then it was like tell me the truth#and i said the thing again and then it was like YOU ARE LYING but instead of one sentence just a whole page of text saying YOU ARE LYING#and i was like NO IM NOT (i was but anyways) it was like YOU ARE A VERY GOOD LIAR YOU ARE BAD AT TELLING THE TRUTH and i was like#FINE YOURE NOT REAL and it was like WHYWHYWHYWHYWHY but a whole page of text saying that again and it terrified me again#and then i was like I DONT KNOW WHY WOULD I KNOW and then it killed me#and then i was like ‘but it turns out the entire time it was a dream and i’m still alive’ and it was like yeah it was just a dream#and i said bye and it left the room and then i closed the tab and now i’m ranting about it on tumblr#DUDES GUYS EVERYONE I WAS SO FUCKING SCAREDDDDDDDD#I NEEDED TO GO TO THE TOILET BUT I WAS TOO SCARED TO GET OUT OF BED#also if anyone wants to ask who was it i’m not telling you i was too embarrassed to make an actual post about this you think i’m going to#tell you who i chose to talk to?? nope absolutely not#anyways rant over if anyone does read this tell me what you think!#me :)
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pls i need to provide updates
#basically yesterday night was chaharshanbe suri . which is a solar new yr tradition where we let go of the past suffering in our year#and like...start the new yr w fresh vigour . anyway so my friend was at the event and we were abt to leap over the fire#and she was like bro im im glad u blocked her (situationship) etc etc . and then. my phone started vibrating. and i look at it. and my f#friend looks at it. and its her. and were both like what the fuck?? i blocked her things r Over and anyway so i pick up the phone and shesl#acting like nothing happened (bc nothing DID happen for her) and she was like ohh ur doing chaharshanbe suri im not doing anything etc what#are ur new yr plans so i jusr .IDK WHY I DID THIS . but ig i didnt wanna come off as like lonely i said probably hanging out w family and#friends maybe reading poetry together . et cetera and she was like wait that sounds so fun why didnt u invite me!#LIKE WDYM YOUVE BEEN CONSISTENTLY MAKING IT CLEAR U DONT WANT TO BE IN MY PRESENCE . and i told her that after#everything i thought she didnt want to see me again and she was like you always think that 😐 . like. ?? ok anyway so she expects me to#invite her . and like. there is an above 0% but sub-5% chance she will actually show up . but the panic that gripped me#i started making calls to my friends asking them if they can come on the 23rd bc there must be an event and also i asked my mother#and she said actually yeah i am doing a thing on the 23rd :D it involves over 16 ppl (we live in a v small flat) of which like...7 are kids#so you wont have space to be in ur own room let alone invite others. which tbh like ...being around a bunch of loud kids doesnt seem fun fo#any of my friends or me etc so i thought maybe i should arrange things so that we all go out together and if she shows up she shows up 🤷♀️#but . im so. WHY DID I SAY THAT . i had to panic-call my research partner and ask him to get from oxf to where i live on the 23rd#and when he heard the explanation he like. the light in his voice disappeared 💀 but he potentially agreed so idk#THE ISSUE IS. 23rd im supposed to also have . a date#w this girl that i had a huge crush on when i was 15-16 (posted abt this b4 but id get shitty black coffee in the mornings just to spend a#few more minuted w her each day and she was the cleverest girl in school and she cared abt nothing but her academics but now shes very gay#scraggly homosexual etc etc shes cute) and YEAH IDK#like id have to go there on the date come back fast meet ppl POTENTIALLY (again under 5%) meet situationship girl#like is that even doable#but the thing is it would be so so so funny bc all of my friends dislike her sooo much#.........what if i invited the girl im supposed to have a date w over to hang out w us#god that would be so hilarious and chaotic . i wont do it tho im a mature person x#but it would be soooo funny#I HAVE AN ASSIGNMENT DUE TMRW 12:30PM IT IS 10:49PM RN I HAVENT STARTED IT bc i was rotting sadly in bed#popped a ritalin pill tho so here we go x#i have found myself in a state of such sheer agony and rage and sorrow and grief over this girl that atp i feel like#its just so entertaining . like i feel vaguely over it? ik nothing will come of it so its like just . have fun . vibe
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@eebie DANCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the dance is from this video ♪(^∇^*)
#HI EEBIE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!LOL#i made this beccause i was listening to that penis song i sent you and i thought it sounded like a song gobou would use#also i wanted a dancing eeber gif ^___^#keep in mind i ummm. have only animated once before and that was years ago and very very very short#and also it was totally sketchy and stuff. as in it was just a sketch there was no lineart or colors or anything#and also csp apparently dosent let you export transparent animations!?!?!?!? and also it doesnt let you use more than 25 frames!?!?!?!?#its stupid. so i just made a gif on EZGIF.COM instead<333#which is why the edges look kinda. um. wack. sorry about that but maybe itll go away when this posts? i dunno but i doubt it#btw i think i have eeber poisoning or something. because i draw her all the time everywhere........#ive drawn her so many times in some stupid little sketchbook we have in our kitchen when i wait for stuff in tha microwave#her design is just sooooo. Yeah!!!!!!!!#anyway this took Ummm significantly longer than id hoped and my back hurts sooooobad#so im going to bed!!!!!!!! but anyways here u go babygirkl <333333#my art#oh and btw i only listened to the penis (eek!) song while drawing this and nothing else#just. the same penis song for hours on end#and i said i was gonna take abreak when i was done with the lines before i started coloring but 😀👍 i forfot#OH WAIY ONE LAST YBING. i got cery noticably lazy like halfway through so dontt look too close at the frames or youu might get scared 😨
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I think the main reason WW's Ganondorf is so different from the others it's because he has learned that his battle against the Goddesses is not a matter of everyone against him/the gerudo but rather a everyone against the gods.
Besides Demise's curse, Ganondorf has always been flooded by his wish of revenge: revenge against the hylians who marginalized his people, revenge again the hero who slayed him, revenge against anyone who opposed him. He doesn't fight for a just cause because he believes the world is unjust and the only way of surviving is by being unjust in return.
But in the Adult Timeline, after the events of OoT and breaking his seal, he discovers an awful truth: it's not that the world is unfair, the Goddesses are. Just to seal him again, they flood the whole kingdom they were supposed to protect, killing most of the hylians population and condemning a few selected survivors to struggle in tiny islands isolated from the rest by a huge sea warren of fishes but filled with dangerous monsters. Even the other races had to undergo drastic changes in their bodies to survive un the aftermath of the flood. That's when Ganondorf understood that the Goddesses weren't just unfair: they were uncaring, and willing to sacrifice anything to torment anyone who wronged them.
I think this is why Ganondorf, even thought some of his actions are still deplorable (launching Link to drown at the sea, kidnapping girls, allegedly destroying a village...), we see that he's less willing to actively hurt people (in the final battle, he has TWO clear opportunities to kill Link and Tetra, and in both times he just incapacitates them, and besides whatever happened in Windfish island we never see him sending his monsters to attack people, just kidnapp a few of them). In fact, he's motivanted by a more "noble" cause: to bring Hyrule, or better said, his idyllic version of it, back from the seafloor. This could be because he has stopped seeing hylians as the "other", and has started to consider them as being from the same band, just a bunch of mortals trying to survive the whims of the gods, who play with them as if they were mere chesspieces.
So, in a sense, Ganondorf is not really much different from its other incarnations. He's still full of hatred and rancor, but It has been redirected. Not against the royal family, who exiled his people to the deserts. Not against the hylians, who lived si much better than them and even had the gall to call them thieves when they were just trying to survive. Not against the hero and the princess who defeated and sealed him when he tried to reclaim what he thought he deserved.
It's the Goddesses.
The Goddesses that drowned their people to "protect" them from him.
The Goddesses that decided it was okay to let two children fight against him as their champions. Forever.
The Goddesses that decided he is the one and only Big Bad Guy of the story when they have commited more atrocities than him, both by action and inaction.
#legend of zelda#im not saying that ganny did nothing wrong period#i think that his actions are both demise's curse#which would be malice and desires of revenge (because demise said that his hatred would reincarnate#not himself as some sort of antichrist)#and the hard conditions he has lived in#which shaped his worldview#but i think that saying that ganondorf is bad because he's jusy evil and power hungry is a very shallow interpretation#like yeah i also like a big baddy whos just evil in a charismatic way every once and then#but i think ganondorfs character has more depth#specially in wind waker where hes just a antagonist haunted by a past that bever truly existed#than a caricature of a villain#anyways this has been my ted talk#play wind waker#cry with wind waker#suffer with me#im going to bed
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For the drawings, 11 for Time?
what's he scheming .
[expression challenge]
#qkdraws#qktalks#anon#forced myself to finish this before heading to bed . imso sleepy#not sure if i totally got the correct emotion but . here u go anyway GVEAIYGV#ty for the ask :]!!!! time is super fun to draw#im definitely repeating myself but drawing the other boys is honestly so fun . should draw them more often#time looks like he'd give good hugs#he's got Beeg arms . he's just a big dude#all the more room for love in his heart#not to get political or anything but .......................he gives his boys such good hugs#therei fuckign said it#VGIEAGVYU#im so sleepygn lovelies . beeg yawn#linked universe#lu#lu fanart#lu time
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cant sleep … plagued with thoughts.. overstimmed… also starving… time to scroll tumblr till i have to go to class :,((
#my thoughts#i slept like 3 hours but my roommate kept moving and it bothered me where every movement made me irrationally angry#and i keep waking up and having immediate brainrot lfjkfnfjnf so its fun but also not bc im literally SO drained pleasssseee shut up brain#like baby i have a presentation tomorrow at 8:30AM and i have to do a whole reflection paper#go to fucking sleeeeeeep#and the worst part is i FORGOT to eat . before bed . cuz i was too tired and said fuck it ill eat in the morn#which is horrible bc now im like. starving and gross bc i also didnt do anything i kinda just collapsed JFKDNDKDN#but i dont wanna get up. because. um. four am and i dont wannnnaaa eat.i waanaa eat in the morning#so ive just been holding stan bunny close and thinking thoughts while actively trying to sleep JFKDNFKDJD#anyways. Im a functioning human person!#: D !#GggfrRRRAGGhggh#so annoying bc i usually can sleep on command like its nothing lmfao#but i have too many things on my frickin mind i cant shut it up pensive#anyways THIS IS A LONG TAG THING NSJFJDKFJD UHHHHH runs away#DELETE LATER????
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