asheepinfrance

Latest Posts by asheepinfrance

you evil, evil, horrible, terrible woman

from the dining table x challengers

made my first ever edit and made a tiktok page... feel free to follow me @ tacobacoyeet!

what is wrong with you

connor murphy perchance with a cheerleader reader who secretly has the same struggles and they bond over that if not them js getting high together and they confess

french exchange student reader with ATP maybe new kid in the academy or player against Tashi, wanting to get all close!!!

hiiii!!! i loved your requests so much. here’s the connor one first 🤭 umm also im sorry i kind of went overboard and felt angsty… don’t hate me

tw: depression, suicide

—

the thing about being a cheerleader is that people assume you’re always happy.

like glitter and pom-poms are a substitute for serotonin. like cartwheels and short skirts cancel out the quiet panic that curls into your ribs at 3am.

but you know better.

and so does he.

connor murphy sits like a shadow at the edge of the world (or at least the school parking lot), head down, eyes daring anyone to look at him too long. you don’t mean to sit next to him. it just happens. like gravity. or like bad decisions.

he looks over, slow and suspicious.

you offer a half-smile and a joint.

“world’s ending,” you say, as explanation.

he shrugs. “cool.“

you pass the joint back and forth like a secret. like a lifeline. smoke curls around you both, and the silence between you shifts from awkward to gentle.

“you don’t seem like the type, you know,” he says finally.

you raise an eyebrow.

“to sit on the ground with me. and do drugs. and not cry about it.”

you laugh. “give it time.”

when the stars come out, you’re still there. his head tilted back, yours resting against his shoulder in a way that feels accidentally on purpose. you tell him things. not the big things—just breadcrumbs. like how you hate pep rallies. how you once cried during halftime. how you wish you could just… not be this person.

he blinks. slow, languid. “same.”

and it’s stupid. and sweet. and kind of sad. and it’s the first time you feel understood in forever.

“hey,” you say softly, voice barely louder than the wind.

he turns to look at you, like the moon’s caught in his eyes.

“i think i’m gonna like you.”

a pause.

“yeah?”

“yeah.”

“okay. good. me too. but like… don’t tell anyone. i have a reputation to uphold. i’m pretty popular.”

you grin. “oh yeah?”

“oh yeah.”

the joint burns out. the night drips quietly on.

—

you start seeing him more. not on purpose, at first. just… by coincidence. or fate. or whatever cosmic joke put the angriest boy in school and the sparkliest girl in the same orbit.

at lunch, you start sitting near each other. not at the same table, not yet. just close enough for the air to feel familiar. for a certain electricity to linger.

he nods at you. you nod back.

it’s stupid. it means everything.

eventually, he lets you into his world. little pieces at a time.

like how his mom keeps pushing therapy schedules into his hands like they’re birthday gifts. how his dad barely speaks unless it’s disappointment wearing a polo.

how his little sister, zoe, plays four instruments, volunteers at a vet clinic, and still finds time to win at everything.

“they love her,” he says, exhaling smoke out the passenger window. “like, it’s easy. natural. with me, it’s like—i have to earn it. and even when i do… it’s not enough.”

you don’t say anything at first. you just reach over and squeeze his sleeve.

later, you say, “my mom makes me smile in photos even when i’ve just had a panic attack.”

and he looks at you like you’re the only real thing in the whole fucking world.

you hang out on rooftops. in empty stairwells. behind the bleachers, where the grass is too long and the world feels far away. you skip class sometimes. not together, but somehow you both end up in the same hallway, sprawled out on the floor like fallen angels.

one day, he mutters, “i’m supposed to be this freak. the scary one. i hear what they say. maybe they’re right.”

you tilt your head. “do you want to be?”

he hesitates. “not always. not really.”

“then don’t be. be whatever you want with me.”

he stares at you like he’s waiting for the punchline. it doesn’t come. just your hand brushing against his. just the ache of being seen.

he starts texting you. a lot.

everything felt perfect. a perfect friendship, a perfect maybe-more-than-friendship.

until it finally snaps.

you’re curled up together in the backseat of his car, parked under the old oak trees near the edge of town where the stars don’t have to compete with streetlights. the blunt burns slow between you, smoke curling like a lullaby.

he’s lying with his head in your lap, eyes half-lidded, mouth a soft line.

“do you ever feel,” he says, “like you were made for sadness?”

you comb your fingers through his hair. “maybe. but then you happened. and now i think i was made for you.”

he looks up at you, eyes glassy but focused. his lips twitch into something that’s almost a smile.

you expect a joke. a typical connor deflection. something sarcastic to break the tense moment.

instead, he says, “i love you.”

quiet. like it’s the first true thing he’s ever said.

your heart stutters. the world stills.

you whisper, “i love you too.”

and for a moment—just a moment—it feels like everything might be okay. like the universe hit pause on the bad parts and gave you this night, this breath, this boy who sees you like no one else does.

he kisses you, and it’s slow, deep. his lips taste like weed and that raspberry slurpee he’s always got and something saltier—regret, maybe, or all the things he can’t say out loud.

his hand moves to your cheek, unsure, like he’s checking if you’re real.

you are. you lean into him like gravity’s made of need.

your fingers curl in the fabric of his hoodie, pulling him closer—not desperate, just aching.

the kiss deepens a little. not fast. just fuller. like an exhale you’ve both been holding since the first time you looked at each other and didn’t look away.

you fall asleep with your head on his chest, dreaming of maybe.

—

friday, no text.

saturday, nothing.

you send a stupid tiktok. no reply.

you try calling. voicemail.

you tell yourself he’s just spiraling. that he does this sometimes.

but not like this. never this quiet.

by monday, he’s not in school. you wait by your locker. you wait in the usual hallway. you check the parking lot.

his car isn’t there.

your texts pile up.

you start asking people. zoe doesn’t answer her phone. neither does his mom.

your chest feels like it’s collapsing in on itself.

you hear whispers in the hallways. an ambulance? a body found?

no.

he could be fine. he could be in the hospital. he could be anywhere. he could be—

you call again. straight to voicemail.

you leave one more message.

voice shaking.

tears falling.

“connor. please. i love you. you said you loved me too. you promised.”

—

eventually it’s confirmed, a monotone, grim announcement over the intercom.

a hushed assembly.

teachers blinking back tears they never showed him in life. posters about mental health taped crooked on hallway walls. a vigil with candles that don’t stop anything from hurting.

no one knows he kissed you like he was saying goodbye. no one knows you held him the night before. no one knows he said he loved you with the stars watching.

and now he’s gone, and you can’t say any of it without sounding insane.

you’re back in uniform the next week.

lip gloss. ponytail. fake smile stretched like skin too thin.

people pat your shoulder. say vague, hollow things like

“wasn’t he that angry kid?”

or

“i didn’t know you even talked to him.”

and you nod. and you smile.

and inside, something is rotting.

you go through the motions like a ghost trapped in the wrong body.

pep rallies feel like static. he was the only one who knew you hated them.

your bedroom walls are too quiet.

his last voicemail is still saved on your phone,

but you can’t listen to it anymore

because his voice feels like a knife now.

you try to tell your mom you’re sad. she tells you to take a bath.

you try to tell your friends you feel like you’re drowning. they say, “we miss him too,” but their voices don’t crack the same way yours does.

that’s because they don’t know. they don’t know you loved him. they don’t know he loved you.

they don’t know that when he died, he took something from you you’ll never get back.

and now you’re stuck.

stuck in this glitter-drenched version of yourself that doesn’t fit anymore.

stuck cheering for teams you don’t care about.

stuck pretending your heart didn’t break in the backseat of his car.

stuck waiting for a text that will never come.

you still walk past that same hallway you always met in. you still glance toward the parking lot.

still half-expect to see him there, hood up, eyes tired, mouth already half-smirking at something only you would understand.

but he’s not. and the worst part?

no one noticed he was your whole world.

and now you’re expected to keep spinning.

taglist of my connor friends

@matchpointfaist @ellaynaonsaturn @elliotlovesmacncheese @newrochellechallenger2019

you already know

fancy

annie can we kiss under the slide

Snippits from "Endure" [sfw]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He’s like a toddler exhausted a long hard day of playing with blocks for an hour

the cry I let out

Im kissing your brain so passionately rn

WHITE COLLAR .

Tashi Duncan, Art Donaldson, and Patrick Zweig were never meant to be criminals.

They were meant to be icons—flawless, untouchable, transcendent. The prodigies of the court. They were supposed to be the kind of legends etched into history books and Wheaties boxes, draped in gold and immortal praise. Together, they were the wings, the sandals, the laurel crown of Nike herself—divine symbols of strength, speed, and victory.

But fate, as it often does, had a different trajectory in mind.

Tashi's career ended in a single, brutal snap—an injury that never quite healed, physically or otherwise. Patrick spiraled beneath the weight of expectation, his once-electrifying talent drowned out by inconsistency and a reputation he couldn’t outrun. And Art, sweet, unshakeable Art, lost the one person who ever made the tour feel like home. When his grandmother died, something essential inside him went quiet. He didn’t walk away from tennis. He simply stopped showing up.

The three of them could’ve faded then. Could’ve let the world move on without them. Could’ve become cautionary tales whispered about in locker rooms and bar corners. But they didn’t. They wouldn’t. Being forgotten was never going to be enough.

The spark came from Patrick, as it often did. He was crashing in another woman’s bed—charming, broke, and always a little too clever for his own good—when he noticed the vase. It stood on a pedestal near the window, backlit by city lights. Porcelain. Imperial yellow. Eighteenth-century Qing dynasty. The kind of thing you see once in a lifetime, if you're lucky—or reckless.

While she was in the bathroom, he did a quick google search. Qianlong era. Estimated value: nine million dollars.

That night, Patrick did something he never did—he scheduled a second date. Then he called Art. Then he called Tashi.

The plan was stupid at first. Then brilliant. Then inevitable.

Ten years later, they were infamous.

The trio had become the most elusive white-collar criminals on the international stage. They slipped through countries and identities like water, leaving behind only splintered champagne bottles, forged documents, and the distinct scent of audacity. Their work was seamless, often beautiful, always just out of reach. They didn’t chase greatness anymore. They stole it—paintings, diamonds, tax codes, ancient artifacts, entire reputations.

And despite the dossiers, the witness statements, the surveillance photos and whispered confessions, not a single case ever stuck. No court ever held them. No handcuffs ever locked.

But there was you.

The head of the FBI’s White Collar Crime Division in New York. Unshakable, relentless, methodical. You’ve built an entire career on patterns no one else sees, on connections no one else believes in until it’s too late. You know them better than anyone else alive. You know their methods, their tells, the rare moments they falter.

They know you, too.

You’re not just a threat—you’re a problem. The kind they can’t buy, charm, or blackmail their way out of. They laugh about you sometimes, over drinks in villas under fake names. But lately, the laughter’s been thinner.

Because you’re getting closer.

And this time, they feel it.

tagging: @kimmyneutron @babyspiderling @queensunshinee @hanneh69 @jamespotteraliveversion @glennussy @awaywithtime @artstennisracket @artdonaldsonbabygirl @blastzachilles @jordiemeow @soulxinxthexsky @voidsuites @elsieblogs @deeninadream

today I offer you this. Tomorrow? Who knows 🩷

im gonna fucking cry

FAIRY!ART HEADCANONS

pairing: fairy!art x cottagecore princess!fem!reader

tags: @destinedtobegigi, @pittsick, @bambiangels, @imperishablereverie, @angeldoll1e, @itachisank, @tennisprincess, @lexiiscorect, @esotericgirlwannabe, @lovefaist, @won-every-lottery, @zionna

⟡ art is the kind of fairy that looks like he was born from a wish—soft-spoken and starlit, with wings that shimmer like frost on spider silk. they catch the light in rippling colors, translucent as soap bubbles, delicate but fast. when he flutters around you, they make the faintest hum, like the air itself sighs in his presence. you swear they glow stronger when he’s near you—especially when he’s flustered. which is often.

⟡ he’s angelic in the way dew is angelic. not perfect. not polished. but fragile and wild and full of wonder. he wears a tunic of moss velvet and sun-dyed silk, stitched with golden beetle-thread. his hair is a halo of honey curls that never fall the same way twice, always a little windswept, like he’s just tumbled out of a flower bed. his cheeks are berry-pink and his nose is dusted with freckles, as if he’s been kissed by clover pollen. he smells like crushed violets and rain.

⟡ “you left out honey again,” he mumbles once, not looking at you. he’s hiding in your herb shelf, crouched behind the rosemary, eyes wide and guilty. “so i… thought you wouldn’t mind if i took a bit.” you don’t mind. not even a little. but you pretend to be stern anyway. just to see the way his wings droop. just to make him pout.

⟡ he calls you “the big one” when he doesn’t think you can hear. like you’re a marvel. a myth. a towering creature of warm hands and soft breath and gentle curiosity. sometimes he calls you “my lady,” half-teasing, twirling a blade of grass like a rapier. but when you stroke his wings—carefully, reverently—he gets quiet. “you shouldn’t touch them,” he whispers once, his voice a tremble. “they’re… they’re very delicate.” and then, softer: “but… you can. if you want.”

⟡ he brings you tiny, ridiculous things: a thimble of moonlight. a moth’s eye, opalescent and still. a string of pearls no bigger than dewdrops, fastened together with spiderweb thread. once, a shard of mirror, cracked and glinting, so you can “see yourself how he sees you.” you don’t dare ask what that means. but your throat tightens anyway.

⟡ he’s shy with affection. not because he’s afraid of you—but because he’s so clearly not. you’re something bigger. older, maybe. like the forest itself whispered you into being. when you brush his curls back or cup him in your hand, his breath catches. when you hum while you work and he lays in the crook of your neck, his whole body stills—like he’s listening to the bones beneath your skin sing. “you smell like warm sugar,” he says one morning, all tangled in your scarf. “and… safety.”

⟡ sometimes you find him asleep on your windowsill, wings curled in like petals closing for the night. sometimes curled in the hollow of your palm, arms tucked under his cheek, breath rising and falling like a cat’s. he mumbles in his sleep. always your name. or maybe just your scent. or maybe the little nickname he made up for you that no one else knows: “my thornless rose.”

⟡ he gets jealous. adorably, irrationally jealous. of squirrels. of bees. of the wind when it tangles in your hair. “i was going to do that,” he grumbles once, watching a butterfly land on your wrist. “stupid flutter-bitch.” he doesn’t mean it. but you still laugh so hard you drop your basket of blackberries.

⟡ he is terrified of cats. once, you came home to find him clinging upside-down to the rafters, shouting: “death beast! orange! hungry!” it took two spoonfuls of honey and three kisses to coax him down. he refuses to speak to the cat now. but he’ll sit on your shoulder and glower at it with his arms crossed like a miniature warlock.

⟡ your favorite thing is how easily he laughs. not giggles. not chuckles. laughs. big, bright bursts of sound like sunlight spilled in a field. like he’s never been taught to keep joy quiet. he’ll dance in your teacups and leap across your rolling pin, leaving smudges of berry juice behind, just to make you smile. “do you like it when i do that?” he asks, flushed and breathless. you say yes. so he does it again. and again.

⟡ “you don’t want a crown?” he asks once, tiny legs dangling from the rim of your mixing bowl. you’re elbow-deep in flour. you shake your head. “good,” he says. quieter. “you don’t need one. you already feel like a kingdom.”

⟡ when you’re sad, he doesn’t ask questions. he just lays himself across your heart and sings in that strange, lilting tongue you don’t recognize but somehow understand. the language of rain and roots and wings. it feels like someone brushing your soul with the back of their hand. afterward, you sleep better. always.

⟡ sometimes he forgets how small he is. puffs his chest out. tries to protect you from bees and beetles and the odd nosy owl. “i’ll hex it,” he says darkly, waving a twig like a sword. “don’t you dare, artemis,” you whisper. he pouts. “that’s not my name.” you arch a brow. he blushes. “but i like when you say it.”

⟡ he leaves you love notes. or what he thinks are love notes. scribbled on birch bark, inked with berry juice, full of half-spelled flowers and symbols only fae understand. once you deciphered one. it said: your laugh makes the trees hold their breath. you folded it into your locket. he pretends not to notice. but he glows the first time he sees you wear it.

⟡ he loves when you hum. loves when you knead bread. loves when your hands are smudged with jam and he can kiss the tips of your fingers like a knight returning from war. “i could live in your pocket forever,” he says once, curled into a spool of thread. “i’d never ask for a crown. just crumbs and kisses.”

⟡ he wants to protect you. in the only way a fairy can. with enchantments. with bloom. with joy so old it tastes like the first spring. he weaves soft spells into your aprons. presses tiny sigils into the mud near your doorstep. he never says what they’re for. but the wolves stay away. and your dreams stay warm.

⟡ “you’re not what i expected,” he whispers, once. you’re half-asleep. fire crackling. his tiny form tucked under your chin. “i thought princesses were cold. porcelain. like glass you couldn’t touch. but you… you’re soft.” his wings flutter. his voice hitches. “you made space for me. in your hands. in your heart.”

⟡ art smells like all the sweetest things in the world—crushed sugar petals, sun-warmed clover, the faint fizz of lemonade in late spring. when he curls into the pocket of your apron, you swear the scent clings to the fabric for hours. it’s like having a piece of a dream stitched to your hip.

⟡ he doesn’t just flutter—he twirls, spins, zips in little loops like a dandelion seed caught in a spell. when he’s happy, his wings sparkle like frost caught on silk thread. when he’s really happy, they chime. softly. like bells far away in a fog. once, you heard it and forgot what sadness felt like for a whole minute.

⟡ when he gets excited, he can’t help but glow a little—literally. a faint golden shimmer pulses under his skin, especially at the tips of his ears and in the whorls of his tiny knuckles. “stop looking,” he squeaks when you notice. “i’m not blushing. i’m—charged. from pollen. obviously.”

⟡ he’s hopeless with doors. they’re too big. too stubborn. so he knocks—gently, rapidly, with both fists—until you come open them. once you asked why he doesn’t just slip under. “rude,” he said with an offended flick of his wing. “besides. you always answer.”

⟡ he nests. shamelessly. your wool basket? claimed. the curve of your favorite teacup? claimed. the bonnet you left on the windowsill? conquered. he drags little scraps of felt and flower fluff into tiny dens, curls up with a satisfied sigh, and guards them like a baby dragon guarding glitter. “this is where i do my dreaming,” he explains solemnly. “it needs to be soft.”

⟡ he sings to your garden when he thinks you aren’t listening. high, silvery notes that make the tomato vines shiver and the snapdragons bloom sideways. you caught him once, mid-aria, standing on a mushroom with his arms flung wide like a tiny opera star. he hasn’t recovered from the embarrassment.

⟡ “you shouldn’t keep me,” he says once, looking up from the curled curve of your palm. “fairies are wild. feral. mischievous.” and then, quieter: “but… i think i like being yours.”

⟡ he once got stuck in your bread dough. just stuck, like a honeybee in jam. you had to carefully peel him out and rinse him with warm water, and he just sat on your drying rack afterward, wrapped in a linen napkin like a soggy prince, pouting and mumbling about “ambush kneading.” you laughed until you cried. he tried to stay grumpy. he failed.

⟡ he gets hiccups when he eats too much jam. tiny, airborne hiccups that make him hover an inch off the ground every time. once he got so flustered, he flew into your cupboard and stayed there until you promised not to tell the bees.

⟡ he’s utterly, completely enamored with your voice. whether you’re talking, humming, sighing—it all makes his wings twitch. sometimes, he’ll pretend to be asleep just so he can lie there and listen to you whisper nonsense to the kettle. “it’s like honey being poured into my ears,” he told you once. then blinked. “that sounded gross. but i meant it nice.”

⟡ he gets tangled in your hair constantly. it’s not on purpose. (except when it is.) he’ll pretend he just happened to land there, but you’ll feel his hands combing through a curl and hear him mutter, “mine,” under his breath like a dragon counting gold.

⟡ when he really misses you—like when you’re out all day gathering herbs or walking into town—he leaves flower petals in your shoes. little folded ones, marked with silvery ink that reads things like come home soon, miss your hands, and i tried talking to the cat. she hates me still.

⟡ you once made him a cloak from the corner of an old silk scarf. he lost his mind. wouldn’t take it off for days. kept swooping dramatically around the kitchen like a leaf in a gust of wind. “do i look noble?” he asked, striking a pose atop your butter dish. you said yes. he hasn’t stopped talking about it since.

⟡ he measures time in pastries. “has it been one tart since you smiled?” “that was three scones ago.” “you promised to kiss me before the next muffin, and this—” dramatic pause “—is a muffin.”

⟡ “i don’t know what love is like for humans,” he says once, brushing pollen from your knuckles. “but if it’s like what i feel when you say my name… then i think i do.”

⟡ he doesn’t like thunderstorms. they make his wings heavy, and the air too sharp. but he’ll never say he’s scared. he just curls under your collar, shivering slightly, and says, “it’s cozy in here.” and you pretend not to notice the way he buries his face in your neck.

⟡ he once tried to impress you by catching a firefly. it ended badly. his hair singed. the firefly escaped. but he held out the glow cupped in his palms like treasure anyway and said, very seriously, “i brought you a star.”

⟡ his favorite place in the world is your shoulder. from there, he can press his face into your neck, listen to your breath, and whisper the tiniest compliments in your ear. “you smell like a story,” he said once. “the kind i’d live in.”

⟡ “if i was your size,” he says once, curled under your chin with his hand pressed over your pulse, “i’d kiss you until the stars begged us to stop.” you choke on your tea. he grins. and adds, “but for now… i’ll just listen to how your heart speeds up when i say things like that.”

⟡ “i think i’m in love,” he blurts one evening, after a honey tart and a lot of staring. you glance at him. he clears his throat. “with… um. teacups. and linen. and… and girls with wild hair and big hands who tuck me into thimbles like i’m something worth keeping.” you don’t say anything. you just scoop him into your palm, and he leans into it like a sunflower.

im about to fucking climax in the pyjama aisle of sainbury’s because yet again they’ve absolutely smashed out a bean flicking collection of pjs

happy birthday jaw chokeonher!

love this goober that i do not know

Josh O'Connor!!!!!!!!!!!

timing repost!

Big Shoes to Fill

or, lily follows in her parents' footsteps.

an: i've only ever written small portions of stories from lily's perspective, and i think this was a fun little challenge at expanding that. i feel she needs more love. thank you @tashism for choosing this story, i hope i did you justice. extra thank yous to @newrochellechallenger2019, @artstennisracket, @ghostgirl-22, @grimsonandclover, and @diyasgarden for their willingness to help me out. it is not unappreciated.

tag list: @glassmermaids

Lily’s new shoes are pink, and the white rubber toes shine when the sun hits. She had wanted the pretty ones with the rhinestones, the ones that light up when she stomped her feet, but Mommy said no. She insisted the tennis ones were so much prettier, baby. That they were ‘professional’, the kind the big girls wear. As she looks down at them now, laces tied in a haphazard tangle by small fingers on the left, and a precise, delicate bow on the right by her mother’s hand, she thinks she should’ve fought a little harder for the light-up shoes. Her skin is tacky with sunscreen and perspiration, cheeks flushed, hands just a bit too clammy to hold the racket the way she’s meant to. 

“Fix that grip, Lils!”

And then a flying yellow blur floats over the net and to her side, she stretches her little arms to reach, and hears that little tink of connection. It bounces, rolls, rolls, rolls… then stops like it’s proud of itself, right against the bottom of the net, the white line amongst the yellow fuzz beaming smug and stuffed to the brim with schadenfreude. Lily hears a sigh, the steady tap, tap, tap of a foot against the clay court, and then the half-hearted smack of hands against thighs. Mommy does this sometimes, when she’s upset at Lily. Or upset because of Lily’s playing, as Mommy insists is different. But, as far as she can tell, it’s still her fault. Mommy wouldn’t be sad if she could just figure out the tennis thing. And she just can’t. Not with all the coaching, or the miniature rackets, or the nights spent falling asleep on the couch because Mommy and Daddy are up too late watching matches to tuck her into bed. 

Mommy went inside, probably for a break, maybe a little AC, maybe to stare at old photos of herself and breathe just a little bit harder. Sometimes, she swaps Lily out with Daddy. In terms of tennis, he’s rare to disappoint the way Lily was. He racked up win after win after win, smothered in trophies and sunscreen and something blue and bruised beneath his skin, and that’s what he was known for. So, he became therapeutic, in a way. A distraction, a lover, a means of vicarious victory, and the target of misplaced frustrations. Lily sits on the grass for a bit and blows some dandelion fuzz into the breeze. She thinks about what it’d be like to be a flower.

Mommy went to bed right after dinner (Mommy and Lily had a burger and fries, Daddy just ordered a salad), complaining of a headache that just wouldn’t quit. Her lips are quirked politely, something like a smile that never quite made it all the way resting on her cheeks. Lily knows that’s a fake one. She’s learned the difference. Lily knows it’s fake because her chest isn’t burning with that warm, golden feeling. Mommy really smiles when Lily makes a good serve, or when her drawings are deemed good enough to hang on the fridge with a little U.S. Open magnet. And Lily watches her face lift and her eyes crinkle and thinks, for a second, she really is as special as her parents say she is. She doesn’t feel that now. Daddy brushes Lily’s back with his fingers when he passes behind her to put the used forks in the sinks, Mommy doesn’t like the plastic ones, and she doesn’t move. 

“What’s going on in that big brain of yours, Lilybug?”

She shrugs, huffs a little bit, doesn’t giggle when he blows a raspberry into her temple. She wants to, but she’s got to make it clear this is serious. Adults never laugh when things are important, she thinks. That’s why Daddy looks so angry during matches. He pulls back and frowns a bit, hands on his hips. She turns his way, and the visual makes her lip puff out and tremble a little. She can’t help it, really, but she just keeps upsetting people. She’s tired of making everyone so sad. 

“Do you think Mommy is mad at me?”

He does something funny then, curves in by his tummy. It looks like the fallen Jenga tower from last week’s game night. Daddy always chooses Jenga, says he’s too good to beat. Lily always beats him, and it’s the only time he looks happy to lose. She thinks that’s silly. He pulls up a chair at her side, and she doesn’t like the way the metal sounds against the wood floor. It’s easier to be sad when it’s quiet. 

“No, baby, ‘course not. Why’d she be mad at you?”

She shrugs, places a small chin in a smaller hand, stares at the granite countertop like it’s personally offended her. Like it’s staring back.

“‘Cause I’m supposed to be like you guys, and I’m not. It makes Mommy angry that I’m so super bad at tennis.”

He wants to smile, but he can’t, not when this little girl at his side is feeling things bigger than her body, than her vocabulary can provide her with a word for. Sweet girl, too, that she cares. That she just wants her mama to be happy, proud, something that isn’t going to wrack her with guilt for being herself. Still, he takes in that miniature pout, the one her mother so often wears in moments of her own frustration, and places his fingers in her hair, puffing up what had been pressed flat by a ponytail moments ago. 

“She’s not angry. She’s just… well, it’s hard. You know what happened to Mommy. You know how bad she misses it. She just wants to see you grow so, so strong, like she was. That’s all.”

Lily nods. She knows. She knows as much as she’s been told, at least. Not with words or stories, but through little tell-tale signs. Through her mother’s insistence on long skirts, or taking extra with her lotion at the bend of her knee, right where the little white line is. She got hurt. Something band-aids and boo-boo kisses couldn’t make go away. She’ll get an ice pack for Mommy next time she sees her.

“But, what if I can’t grow big and strong like she did? What if I can only do it the Lily way?”

He pauses his hand’s movement in her hair, breathes through his nose like the air was pressed out of him. He wants to say that Tashi could take it, that she’s an adult woman who’s worked through these things, because she’s supposed to have done so. She’s meant to be able to feel pride in other people’s successes, rather than hate that they’re doing what she can’t. But, Art knows the resentment. He feels it some days, when he loses a match she’d have one. When Anna Mueller wins. So, he smiles, presses his lips to the curve of her nose, watches it scrunch. 

“Then you do the Lily thing, and we watch you shine.”

She hums when she smiles, the way Daddy does sometimes when things are only a little funny, but mostly make her feel like her head is a balloon, and it’s flying away from the rest of her body.

“But she’d like me more if I did it the Mommy way, right? If I was good at tennis?”

He squeezes her shoulder with his palm, and finds that it doesn’t fit right in the cup of it. He thinks she’s grown too fast, and yet she’s still so small. And she’s too smart to lie to. He’s too dumb to know.

“I’m not sure, Lilybug.”

The answer is yes.

A few months later, Christmas lists were being made, toy catalogues searched, circled, conspicuously left by coffee machines and Daddy’s yucky green ‘First thing in the morning’ drinks. But they don’t make her all jumpy and giggly, the way a good gift should. So, when Grandma calls, her face shaking in and out of view on the screen of Mommy’s phone, and Grandma asks ‘What does our Lilybug want for Christmas?’, she replies,

“I want more tennis lessons.”

And she watches Mommy smile like she’s never smiled before, even though she tries to bend her head down into the paperwork she’s doing at the coffee table to hide it. It’s still see-able, and Lily can feel herself fill with that gold feeling again, from her toes to the top of her head. She just wants to make Mommy smile. 

She’s been staring at this assignment for hours, and for all her might, she just can’t make sense of these numbers. Stupid logarithms. Stupid math. She shuts her laptop, watches her face turn a glowing white to a healthy gold in her vanity’s mirror. She’ll do it tonight, probably. Or in the morning, before early practice. She hopes her eyes are functional enough to write real, understandable symbols at two in the morning. She hopes she gets enough sleep to even wake up in time. She knows she can help it, but she still feels her stomach sink at the sight of a big, red ‘F’ on a page. She’s glad she does well enough in tests to make up for it, or her spot on the National Honor Society would be someone else’s, and, most importantly, Mom and Dad would flip their shit. 

She flips her phone over where it laid next to her laptop, the screen flashing a text from Amy.

“Sorry babe can’t do tonight i’ve got dance and sth with andrew at like 7 :((( tm tho?”

Dance. It’s always dance. She remembers watching those clips of Amy on her Instagram story like they were miniature blockbusters, watching the way the fabric of her skirt moved when she bent her leg a certain way. How her arms flowed like waves, even if they were made up of jagged bone. Fucking dance. It’s not even a real sport, and Amy breathes it more than air. 

“That’s alright :)) tomorrow then”

She pushes herself out of the spinning chair, pockets her phone and snags her earbuds from off the foot of her bed. Ignores the way her knees pop a bit. She’s been sitting for a while. Besides, she could use the practice.

“Where you going, Lils?”

Her mother calls from the kitchen, not looking up from some ad mock-up. Looks like another Aston Martin thing, if she can read it properly from where she is.

“Practice.”

She calls over her shoulder, stuffing one earbud in. She sees her mother nod, hide a smile behind the palm of her hand. Rare Tashi Donaldson, nee Duncan, approval. Her shoulders roll back, and her spine straightens just a little bit before she makes it through the sliding glass door. 

She came back inside at 11 pm. Four missed calls from Amy and a ‘Hey plans got canceled you still free???’ lighting up her lockscreen, blocking out the tennis ball in the photo of a little her, fairy wings, missing front teeth, and a racket half the size of her current one. Maybe she should change it to her with friends. 

She walks past the empty dinner table, bowl of something still steaming and waiting for her at her usual spot in the corner, dropping with a haphazard flop onto the couch, clicking the TV on.

“So, pick me, choose me-”

“Fifteen found dead in Oakland, Cali-”

“And little Ms. Duncan, daughter of famed tennis couple Art Donaldson and the former Tashi Duncan has had a great season so far. So far, undefeated, and with just a few weeks before the Junior Opens, she really has a shot at the win. Thoughts?”

She sits up a little, watches pictures of her flash, half-way through a grunt, braid whipping behind her. There had to have been a better photo of her.

“Well, Rog, I’d just like to see a little more out of her. I mean, what with her mother being what she was, it’s just a shame to see it look so much more aver-”

The TV is off with a click. She shuts her eyes, rubs at her temples, lightly raps her knuckles against her head like it’d knock out the sound. She thinks they’re wrong. She hates that they’re right. She wishes it was more natural. Everyone knew her mother was dead in a living body till she stepped on that court, and it all clicked into raw, animalistic passion. With Lily? Procedure. She didn’t feel adrenaline, or a spark, or anything but duty. Steps. Tired. She falls asleep in the fetal position, alarm unset. She only has enough time to step out the door before early morning practice when she’s up. 

Her opponent’s get a birth mark on her right shoulder the shape of a ballet slipper. It’s just a little darker than the rest of her skin, only visible when she served. Her mother is sat on the stands behind this girl, hands braced on the rails like she’s ready to pull herself over and onto the warm clay ground beneath her if things go south. But, for now, the score’s even, like it has been the whole match, and that wedding ring is glinting in the light. She’s not even the court and she’s controlling it, back straight and face stony like an emperor watching two gladiators in the colosseum. She just hopes she’s not the one ending with her head detached. 

She can’t see Dad, thinks he’s probably gone to get a hot dog, now that he can eat them again, or maybe he’s just too non-threatening to matter to her right now. But, vaguely, she thinks she remembers hearing a ‘That’s my girl’ in that stupid, slightly nasally voice she pretends to hate as much as she can. You’re not supposed to like your parents at her age. Her mother is staring, she can tell. Those sunglasses don’t hide a thing. She can read her mother better than that, and they both know it. She’s thinking. Something. Something sharp, biting, maybe hurtful. Maybe hurt. She doesn’t see her opponent set up to serve, she doesn’t see the birth mark slip into view, just a bright yellow blur headed her way. She lunges as best she can, practically on the tips of her toes to make it, and she hears a tink. And then a crunch.

She kisses the concrete like it grabbed her by the hair and pulled her in, and her teeth scrape her tongue and leave gapped indents there, heavy and bleeding. She doesn’t hear her mother, or the gasps of the spectators, or the medics asking the other girl to clear the ground. She can hear her own breath, her pulse, and laughter. Wild, hysterical laughter she only notices is coming from her when she looks down and sees her stomach contracting with it. And then she sees it, that abnormal, jagged looking leg of hers. Bone not made to wave. And she cries as hard as she’d laughed.

“Hey, Dad?”

It’s later than he’s normally up. Generally, he’s out at 9 p.m., still careful to be healthy where he can be. Where it’s normal. 

“Shouldn’t you be in bed? You’ve got prac… what’s up, Lily?”

She bites her lip, shifts back and forth on her feet the best she can. Her right leg is just a bit more bent than the left, wrapped in soft, beige bandages. She didn’t like the brace. She doesn’t want to look at him, so she looks at the wall. There’s a photo of Mom, fist raised, mouth agape in a scream, dress white and pristine. The Junior Opens. She sniffs.

“Can I just… I don’t know. Can we pretend like I’m little again?”

He shifts, pats his lap, smiles like it’s the only thing keeping something aching and raw at bay. Something that’s needed to be touched for years.

“‘Course, Lilybug.”

And she falls into place like it hadn’t been ages. Like she’s allowed to like her Dad, head on his thigh, eyes trained on the coffee table. There’s a letter from some college there with her name on it, somewhere cold and rainy. Somewhere they could use a name to their tennis team. 

“How’s Mom?”

He tilts his head to look down at her, the side of her head, the shell of her ear, the soft lashes of her eyes that are slightly damp. 

“Oh, Lily… how are you?”

She swallows, places a hand on his thigh and squeezes there, not tight, but firm. Like it was a natural place to settle. Something unharmed and soft and a healthy, functional leg. Her throat tightens. The world looks blurry. She thinks the letter says Yale. The water makes it hard to tell. Her voice is just a bit too quiet when she responds.

“‘M fine.”

It’s silent for a moment, one heavy breath, then his lighter one. A volley. She rolls onto her back to look him in the eyes, and finds a spot of brown in the left one. How had she never noticed that before? It looks like the color of Mom’s eyes. Even he’s got her little territorial marks on him. 

“Can I say something stupid?”

He nods, hums his affirmation, waiting like it’s all he wants to do. To look at her and wait and let it just be quiet. She appreciated the stillness. It’s easier to be sad when it’s quiet. It’s easier to love then, too, melancholic and bittersweet and sticky like saltwater taffy. 

“I always wanted to dance.”

He buries her face into his stomach when her lip trembles. She wouldn’t want him to see. He doesn’t want her to see his watching teartracks. In the room over, Tashi sits with her head in her hands and her eyes downcast. She hopes Lily would consider a coaching position.

FUCK ITS EVERYWHERE

life is the most beautiful it's ever been

you can't look at tashi whenever the two of you are intimate; she's just too pretty (nsfw)

like right now, as she lay on her stomach, hands gripping the fat of your thighs as her mouth went to work on your eager pussy. you can feel her everywhere at once and it drives you insane. the grip she has on your thighs has you hissing in pleasurable pain every time you try to get away from the overwhelming feeling and it tightens, pulling you impossibly closer to her mouth. the feeling of her hair in your hands as you grasp onto anything to keep you tethered to solid ground, silky strands slipping through the gaps between your fingers and framing her devastatingly beautiful face. and of course the feeling of her mouth on you, tongue licking up any trace of arousal before she's gently sucking your swollen clit into her mouth.

you know, without a doubt, that she looks beautiful right now, between your thighs, as she steadily guides you to another mind-numbing orgasm. you also know she's looking at you, waiting for your eyes to meet hers so that she can finally push you over the edge you've been teetering on forever now. yet you can't do it, you can't open your eyes and look down because you know the sight alone will leave you breathless, and this'll all be over way sooner than you'd like.

you still feel her pull away from you though, hand leaving your thigh to intertwine with your free hand that had the bedsheets beneath you in a death grip. she coos at you softly, sweetly urging you to open your eyes and you can't find it in you to disobey her so you do just that, finally willing yourself to look down at the girl perched between your spread thighs.

and when your eyes meet hers, you swear you can see them light up, a small smile stretching across her glossed lips at your compliance. the sight of her alone has you clenching around nothing, the knot in your stomach pulling more and more taut as you watched the way the bottom half of her face glistened with traces of you. the way the loose tresses of hair stuck to her cheeks, baby hairs matted to her forehead from sweat and the way her dark eyes stared at you half-lidded as if the holy grail was right between your legs. "keep your eyes on me, okay?" she says, and you nod without hesitation, yet when you see her head lowering once again, you have to stop yourself from throwing your head back onto the pillow beneath you.

she's licking a slow path up the expanse of your cunt, eyes unmoving from yours and so intense it makes you shudder with a punched outmoan. when her mouth finally meets your clit once again, eyes crinkled in amusement at your blissed out face, you feel the floodgates finally burst, white spots in your vision as your hand tightens its grip on her hair, just to feel her moan against your pussy. your hips buck wildly into her face, drawing out your orgasm for as long as you can and she takes everything you give her, not stopping until she feels your grip in her hair loosen and hears the way your head finally plops down on the pillow. you're beyond fucked out, breathless and drifting on cloud nine, and don't have to look at her to know she's sporting a smug smile.

Big Shoes to Fill

or, lily follows in her parents' footsteps.

an: i've only ever written small portions of stories from lily's perspective, and i think this was a fun little challenge at expanding that. i feel she needs more love. thank you @tashism for choosing this story, i hope i did you justice. extra thank yous to @newrochellechallenger2019, @artstennisracket, @ghostgirl-22, @grimsonandclover, and @diyasgarden for their willingness to help me out. it is not unappreciated.

tag list: @glassmermaids

Lily’s new shoes are pink, and the white rubber toes shine when the sun hits. She had wanted the pretty ones with the rhinestones, the ones that light up when she stomped her feet, but Mommy said no. She insisted the tennis ones were so much prettier, baby. That they were ‘professional’, the kind the big girls wear. As she looks down at them now, laces tied in a haphazard tangle by small fingers on the left, and a precise, delicate bow on the right by her mother’s hand, she thinks she should’ve fought a little harder for the light-up shoes. Her skin is tacky with sunscreen and perspiration, cheeks flushed, hands just a bit too clammy to hold the racket the way she’s meant to. 

“Fix that grip, Lils!”

And then a flying yellow blur floats over the net and to her side, she stretches her little arms to reach, and hears that little tink of connection. It bounces, rolls, rolls, rolls… then stops like it’s proud of itself, right against the bottom of the net, the white line amongst the yellow fuzz beaming smug and stuffed to the brim with schadenfreude. Lily hears a sigh, the steady tap, tap, tap of a foot against the clay court, and then the half-hearted smack of hands against thighs. Mommy does this sometimes, when she’s upset at Lily. Or upset because of Lily’s playing, as Mommy insists is different. But, as far as she can tell, it’s still her fault. Mommy wouldn’t be sad if she could just figure out the tennis thing. And she just can’t. Not with all the coaching, or the miniature rackets, or the nights spent falling asleep on the couch because Mommy and Daddy are up too late watching matches to tuck her into bed. 

Mommy went inside, probably for a break, maybe a little AC, maybe to stare at old photos of herself and breathe just a little bit harder. Sometimes, she swaps Lily out with Daddy. In terms of tennis, he’s rare to disappoint the way Lily was. He racked up win after win after win, smothered in trophies and sunscreen and something blue and bruised beneath his skin, and that’s what he was known for. So, he became therapeutic, in a way. A distraction, a lover, a means of vicarious victory, and the target of misplaced frustrations. Lily sits on the grass for a bit and blows some dandelion fuzz into the breeze. She thinks about what it’d be like to be a flower.

Mommy went to bed right after dinner (Mommy and Lily had a burger and fries, Daddy just ordered a salad), complaining of a headache that just wouldn’t quit. Her lips are quirked politely, something like a smile that never quite made it all the way resting on her cheeks. Lily knows that’s a fake one. She’s learned the difference. Lily knows it’s fake because her chest isn’t burning with that warm, golden feeling. Mommy really smiles when Lily makes a good serve, or when her drawings are deemed good enough to hang on the fridge with a little U.S. Open magnet. And Lily watches her face lift and her eyes crinkle and thinks, for a second, she really is as special as her parents say she is. She doesn’t feel that now. Daddy brushes Lily’s back with his fingers when he passes behind her to put the used forks in the sinks, Mommy doesn’t like the plastic ones, and she doesn’t move. 

“What’s going on in that big brain of yours, Lilybug?”

She shrugs, huffs a little bit, doesn’t giggle when he blows a raspberry into her temple. She wants to, but she’s got to make it clear this is serious. Adults never laugh when things are important, she thinks. That’s why Daddy looks so angry during matches. He pulls back and frowns a bit, hands on his hips. She turns his way, and the visual makes her lip puff out and tremble a little. She can’t help it, really, but she just keeps upsetting people. She’s tired of making everyone so sad. 

“Do you think Mommy is mad at me?”

He does something funny then, curves in by his tummy. It looks like the fallen Jenga tower from last week’s game night. Daddy always chooses Jenga, says he’s too good to beat. Lily always beats him, and it’s the only time he looks happy to lose. She thinks that’s silly. He pulls up a chair at her side, and she doesn’t like the way the metal sounds against the wood floor. It’s easier to be sad when it’s quiet. 

“No, baby, ‘course not. Why’d she be mad at you?”

She shrugs, places a small chin in a smaller hand, stares at the granite countertop like it’s personally offended her. Like it’s staring back.

“‘Cause I’m supposed to be like you guys, and I’m not. It makes Mommy angry that I’m so super bad at tennis.”

He wants to smile, but he can’t, not when this little girl at his side is feeling things bigger than her body, than her vocabulary can provide her with a word for. Sweet girl, too, that she cares. That she just wants her mama to be happy, proud, something that isn’t going to wrack her with guilt for being herself. Still, he takes in that miniature pout, the one her mother so often wears in moments of her own frustration, and places his fingers in her hair, puffing up what had been pressed flat by a ponytail moments ago. 

“She’s not angry. She’s just… well, it’s hard. You know what happened to Mommy. You know how bad she misses it. She just wants to see you grow so, so strong, like she was. That’s all.”

Lily nods. She knows. She knows as much as she’s been told, at least. Not with words or stories, but through little tell-tale signs. Through her mother’s insistence on long skirts, or taking extra with her lotion at the bend of her knee, right where the little white line is. She got hurt. Something band-aids and boo-boo kisses couldn’t make go away. She’ll get an ice pack for Mommy next time she sees her.

“But, what if I can’t grow big and strong like she did? What if I can only do it the Lily way?”

He pauses his hand’s movement in her hair, breathes through his nose like the air was pressed out of him. He wants to say that Tashi could take it, that she’s an adult woman who’s worked through these things, because she’s supposed to have done so. She’s meant to be able to feel pride in other people’s successes, rather than hate that they’re doing what she can’t. But, Art knows the resentment. He feels it some days, when he loses a match she’d have one. When Anna Mueller wins. So, he smiles, presses his lips to the curve of her nose, watches it scrunch. 

“Then you do the Lily thing, and we watch you shine.”

She hums when she smiles, the way Daddy does sometimes when things are only a little funny, but mostly make her feel like her head is a balloon, and it’s flying away from the rest of her body.

“But she’d like me more if I did it the Mommy way, right? If I was good at tennis?”

He squeezes her shoulder with his palm, and finds that it doesn’t fit right in the cup of it. He thinks she’s grown too fast, and yet she’s still so small. And she’s too smart to lie to. He’s too dumb to know.

“I’m not sure, Lilybug.”

The answer is yes.

A few months later, Christmas lists were being made, toy catalogues searched, circled, conspicuously left by coffee machines and Daddy’s yucky green ‘First thing in the morning’ drinks. But they don’t make her all jumpy and giggly, the way a good gift should. So, when Grandma calls, her face shaking in and out of view on the screen of Mommy’s phone, and Grandma asks ‘What does our Lilybug want for Christmas?’, she replies,

“I want more tennis lessons.”

And she watches Mommy smile like she’s never smiled before, even though she tries to bend her head down into the paperwork she’s doing at the coffee table to hide it. It’s still see-able, and Lily can feel herself fill with that gold feeling again, from her toes to the top of her head. She just wants to make Mommy smile. 

She’s been staring at this assignment for hours, and for all her might, she just can’t make sense of these numbers. Stupid logarithms. Stupid math. She shuts her laptop, watches her face turn a glowing white to a healthy gold in her vanity’s mirror. She’ll do it tonight, probably. Or in the morning, before early practice. She hopes her eyes are functional enough to write real, understandable symbols at two in the morning. She hopes she gets enough sleep to even wake up in time. She knows she can help it, but she still feels her stomach sink at the sight of a big, red ‘F’ on a page. She’s glad she does well enough in tests to make up for it, or her spot on the National Honor Society would be someone else’s, and, most importantly, Mom and Dad would flip their shit. 

She flips her phone over where it laid next to her laptop, the screen flashing a text from Amy.

“Sorry babe can’t do tonight i’ve got dance and sth with andrew at like 7 :((( tm tho?”

Dance. It’s always dance. She remembers watching those clips of Amy on her Instagram story like they were miniature blockbusters, watching the way the fabric of her skirt moved when she bent her leg a certain way. How her arms flowed like waves, even if they were made up of jagged bone. Fucking dance. It’s not even a real sport, and Amy breathes it more than air. 

“That’s alright :)) tomorrow then”

She pushes herself out of the spinning chair, pockets her phone and snags her earbuds from off the foot of her bed. Ignores the way her knees pop a bit. She’s been sitting for a while. Besides, she could use the practice.

“Where you going, Lils?”

Her mother calls from the kitchen, not looking up from some ad mock-up. Looks like another Aston Martin thing, if she can read it properly from where she is.

“Practice.”

She calls over her shoulder, stuffing one earbud in. She sees her mother nod, hide a smile behind the palm of her hand. Rare Tashi Donaldson, nee Duncan, approval. Her shoulders roll back, and her spine straightens just a little bit before she makes it through the sliding glass door. 

She came back inside at 11 pm. Four missed calls from Amy and a ‘Hey plans got canceled you still free???’ lighting up her lockscreen, blocking out the tennis ball in the photo of a little her, fairy wings, missing front teeth, and a racket half the size of her current one. Maybe she should change it to her with friends. 

She walks past the empty dinner table, bowl of something still steaming and waiting for her at her usual spot in the corner, dropping with a haphazard flop onto the couch, clicking the TV on.

“So, pick me, choose me-”

“Fifteen found dead in Oakland, Cali-”

“And little Ms. Duncan, daughter of famed tennis couple Art Donaldson and the former Tashi Duncan has had a great season so far. So far, undefeated, and with just a few weeks before the Junior Opens, she really has a shot at the win. Thoughts?”

She sits up a little, watches pictures of her flash, half-way through a grunt, braid whipping behind her. There had to have been a better photo of her.

“Well, Rog, I’d just like to see a little more out of her. I mean, what with her mother being what she was, it’s just a shame to see it look so much more aver-”

The TV is off with a click. She shuts her eyes, rubs at her temples, lightly raps her knuckles against her head like it’d knock out the sound. She thinks they’re wrong. She hates that they’re right. She wishes it was more natural. Everyone knew her mother was dead in a living body till she stepped on that court, and it all clicked into raw, animalistic passion. With Lily? Procedure. She didn’t feel adrenaline, or a spark, or anything but duty. Steps. Tired. She falls asleep in the fetal position, alarm unset. She only has enough time to step out the door before early morning practice when she’s up. 

Her opponent’s get a birth mark on her right shoulder the shape of a ballet slipper. It’s just a little darker than the rest of her skin, only visible when she served. Her mother is sat on the stands behind this girl, hands braced on the rails like she’s ready to pull herself over and onto the warm clay ground beneath her if things go south. But, for now, the score’s even, like it has been the whole match, and that wedding ring is glinting in the light. She’s not even the court and she’s controlling it, back straight and face stony like an emperor watching two gladiators in the colosseum. She just hopes she’s not the one ending with her head detached. 

She can’t see Dad, thinks he’s probably gone to get a hot dog, now that he can eat them again, or maybe he’s just too non-threatening to matter to her right now. But, vaguely, she thinks she remembers hearing a ‘That’s my girl’ in that stupid, slightly nasally voice she pretends to hate as much as she can. You’re not supposed to like your parents at her age. Her mother is staring, she can tell. Those sunglasses don’t hide a thing. She can read her mother better than that, and they both know it. She’s thinking. Something. Something sharp, biting, maybe hurtful. Maybe hurt. She doesn’t see her opponent set up to serve, she doesn’t see the birth mark slip into view, just a bright yellow blur headed her way. She lunges as best she can, practically on the tips of her toes to make it, and she hears a tink. And then a crunch.

She kisses the concrete like it grabbed her by the hair and pulled her in, and her teeth scrape her tongue and leave gapped indents there, heavy and bleeding. She doesn’t hear her mother, or the gasps of the spectators, or the medics asking the other girl to clear the ground. She can hear her own breath, her pulse, and laughter. Wild, hysterical laughter she only notices is coming from her when she looks down and sees her stomach contracting with it. And then she sees it, that abnormal, jagged looking leg of hers. Bone not made to wave. And she cries as hard as she’d laughed.

“Hey, Dad?”

It’s later than he’s normally up. Generally, he’s out at 9 p.m., still careful to be healthy where he can be. Where it’s normal. 

“Shouldn’t you be in bed? You’ve got prac… what’s up, Lily?”

She bites her lip, shifts back and forth on her feet the best she can. Her right leg is just a bit more bent than the left, wrapped in soft, beige bandages. She didn’t like the brace. She doesn’t want to look at him, so she looks at the wall. There’s a photo of Mom, fist raised, mouth agape in a scream, dress white and pristine. The Junior Opens. She sniffs.

“Can I just… I don’t know. Can we pretend like I’m little again?”

He shifts, pats his lap, smiles like it’s the only thing keeping something aching and raw at bay. Something that’s needed to be touched for years.

“‘Course, Lilybug.”

And she falls into place like it hadn’t been ages. Like she’s allowed to like her Dad, head on his thigh, eyes trained on the coffee table. There’s a letter from some college there with her name on it, somewhere cold and rainy. Somewhere they could use a name to their tennis team. 

“How’s Mom?”

He tilts his head to look down at her, the side of her head, the shell of her ear, the soft lashes of her eyes that are slightly damp. 

“Oh, Lily… how are you?”

She swallows, places a hand on his thigh and squeezes there, not tight, but firm. Like it was a natural place to settle. Something unharmed and soft and a healthy, functional leg. Her throat tightens. The world looks blurry. She thinks the letter says Yale. The water makes it hard to tell. Her voice is just a bit too quiet when she responds.

“‘M fine.”

It’s silent for a moment, one heavy breath, then his lighter one. A volley. She rolls onto her back to look him in the eyes, and finds a spot of brown in the left one. How had she never noticed that before? It looks like the color of Mom’s eyes. Even he’s got her little territorial marks on him. 

“Can I say something stupid?”

He nods, hums his affirmation, waiting like it’s all he wants to do. To look at her and wait and let it just be quiet. She appreciated the stillness. It’s easier to be sad when it’s quiet. It’s easier to love then, too, melancholic and bittersweet and sticky like saltwater taffy. 

“I always wanted to dance.”

He buries her face into his stomach when her lip trembles. She wouldn’t want him to see. He doesn’t want her to see his watching teartracks. In the room over, Tashi sits with her head in her hands and her eyes downcast. She hopes Lily would consider a coaching position.

No, Challengers (2024) does not have a train in it

THIS IS SO CUTE :(((((

Having dated Art for a while now, the day finally arrives that you get to meet his daughter, Lily.

𓏲⋆ ִֶָ ๋𓂃 ⋆

You've been anxiously wringing your hands together for the better part of half an hour, the action acting as a temporary distraction from the nerves that were churning deep in the pit of your belly.

When you weren't looking out the window of the diner at the people passing by, your eyes would drift back to the small gift bag placed right next to you on the plush leathery seat of the booth. Its soft pink color, embellished with little sparkly flowers and filled with tissue paper that was carefully placed to both conceal and protect your gift inside.

For the umpteenth time since you've sat down, your hand reached down and gently fixed the nonexistent flaws in your appearance, making sure it looked perfect and presentable. You're running a hand down your dress to smooth out the non-existent wrinkles before returning to your hair and blindly touching and feeling, hoping no flyaways had arised.

You didn't want to seem so vain, but you couldn't help it. You had a habit of double and triple checking things when you were nervous, the need for everything to be perfect and the paranoia plaguing you with every possible negative outcome coming together to create an anxiety unlike any other.

And you were nervous, so much so that you felt nauseous and lightheaded. At some other time it would've been funny to you about how you so nervous about meeting an eight year old, but you couldn't find the humor in the situation right as you anxiously sat and waited for Art and his daughter to arrive to the small diner he had suggested.

Lily could only be described as the sweetest girl in the world, and you haven't even met her yet. You only knew that because of what Art had told you. He always talked about her, the unmissable glint of love and adoration sparkling in his eyes every time he mentioned something she'd like or a story she had told him. He valued being a father above any other trophy or accolade he has ever received during his career and would break his back for his sweet girl, that much was obvious.

He had been building up to this moment ever since the two of you became serious. He knew he wanted you in your life permanently quite early on in the relationship actually, but he knew he had to ease things in a little before taking the big step of introducing you to the biggest part of his life; his daughter.

You've met Tashi, whose first introduction also had you on the verge of passing out from anxiety. She was nice, civil, and treated you well the night the night you came over for dinner in her house. That night, after you had gone home, Art had pulled Tashi aside briefly, and when asked about her opinion on you, she replied with a simple I think she's sweet.

You haven't met Lily though, but you were about to and just before your hand could once again return to fiddling with the gift paper, the little bell on the door rang as it pushed open with a soft woosh. Your back straightened against the chair as you caught sight of Art walking in, his eyes finding yours before a soft smile stretched across his face. Right next to him — you'd miss her if you weren't paying attention — was a small girl holding onto his hand. He briefly bent down to say something to her, and she nodded before he was walking over to your table, a corner booth that sat nice and snug at the back but still had a nice window view.

You scooted out of your seat to stand before Art was greeting you with a hug, his hand briefly letting go of Lily's to wrap his strong arms around you. "Hi, sweetheart," he spoke so softly, pressing a chaste kiss to your cheek before pulling away with a smile. He turned to Lily, the small sweet smile still stretched across his face as he urged her closer.

She looked up at you, big brown eyes seemingly boring right into your soul and a shy, almost unsure smile. "Hi Lily," you smiled sweetly, hunching down to be more at her level. "It's so nice to meet you," you continued, "I uhm—" you hesitated briefly. "I bought you a gift, I hope you like it." You half awkwardly reach to your seat, grabbing the gift bag before you hand it to her. She receives it with an almost tentative eagerness, smile widening before she gives you a quiet "Thank you," You can already feel your heart melt as her hand reaches in between the paper and a little gasp of excitement escapes her when she sees your gift, eyes meeting yours in what could only be described as deep thankfulness and admiration.

She's not as scary after all.

YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

… how do we feel about an all tashi release. need to show that girl some love (and give those white boys a BREAK)

Mel strikes again and we all say thank you

Heartbreak Girl! ib: Heartbreak Girl by 5sos please listen while you read :)

pairing: stanford!art donaldson x fem reader

cw: nsfw(18+), just a lot of yearning fr

i’m right here when you gonna realize, that i’m your cure

It was the same old story. You and your on again off again boyfriend would break up and the next minute you’d call Art. He was honestly exhausted quite frankly.

You sounded like a broken record. Every time it was My heart just hurts Artie or How could he get over me so fast?, until eventually you start crying on the other end of the phone.

Art would push all of his feelings down to comfort you. Lying, saying things like I’m sure he’s not over you yet, she’s just a rebound. In reality he knew your ex didn’t respect you and it was debatable whether or not your ex ever really loved you in the first place.

He prided himself on always being able to make you feel better despite making himself feel worse. Your crying would die down enough for you to say Thanks for always being there for me, you’re such a great friend. That last word always stabs him in the heart.

But he would let you rant about your ex as much as you wanted because at his core, Art really was just a sucker for anything that you do.

It was so draining but he would never say anything to you because you were his best friend. When the two of you had met at Stanford’s freshman student athlete orientation it was like magic. You two vibed so well together and Art hadn’t connected with someone so well, so fast since Patrick. And since moving to Stanford, he had a Patrick size void to fill.

Art developed feelings for you quickly. His friendship boundaries are almost non-existent due to the nature of his only previous close friendship being with Patrick. You two hung out anytime you had free time. Your schedules always aligning since you're both student athletes.

He would constantly be invading your personal space. Whether that was cuddling during movie night or just resting his head on your shoulder or in your lap so you’d play with his hair.

You found it a little weird at first, never really having a guy best friend you were that close with physically, but the novelty wore off as time went on and you grew accustomed to it (after Patrick came to visit you realized where Art got it from).

When Art realized you had a boyfriend he was crushed. But he never let that show. He was still just as ‘supportive’ of your relationship regardless. Draining his energy, going in circles over and over again listening to you talk about the same problems in your relationship a million times over.

The next time you called, he picked up as always. You’re crying, mumbling through your tears about how you and your boyfriend ex-boyfriend have called it off for the so-called final time. You guys are done for real. All Art wants to do is scream out You can be with me now, but he bites his tongue.

It’s not the right time. As much as Art wants to tell you how he feels, it’s too soon. You’re not ready and it’s so frustrating. Your ex treats you so badly while Art treats you the way you deserve to be treated, with respect.

So he tells you what you want to hear instead. More reassurance that he’s sure your ex still loves you and it’s your ex’s loss anyway. You still feel like shit but it helps somewhat. Art always makes you feel better, so you end the call with I’ll call tomorrow at 10 after practice.

And here Art was, waiting for your call the next day, still stuck in the friend zone again and again.

A few months had passed by without any calls about your ex, so Art was hopeful that meant you were over him. He still didn’t feel like it’d ever be the right time to confess his feelings because he didn’t want to ruin your friendship.

It wasn’t until a day that Patrick came to visit Tashi but still tried to convince Art he was really here to see both of them. Sure.

“Did you ever end up asking out that girl?” Patrick questions from his place seated on Art’s dorm bed.

“Huh?” Art was confused because he never told Patrick how he felt about you.

“That girl that you always follow around like a sick puppy. It’s obvious you like her, so did you ask her out?”

Even after two years spent apart Patrick could still read him like an open book.

Art shakes his head no, “You mean Y/N? No, I feel like she just got over her ex so. And I don’t want to ruin the only real friendship I have here.”

Patrick laughs, “You’ve always been such a pussy.”

Art gets defensive because who is Patrick to tell him what he is, “Fuck off. Just cause I think before I speak and realize my actions have consequences? Maybe you could learn a thing or two.”

“All I’m saying is, tell her how you feel. No harm no foul. It’s clear you’re in love with her. Just tell her.”

You had been standing in front of Art’s dorm room for the better part of 10 minutes, eavesdropping. You were meant to be coming over around this time. You didn’t mean to eavesdrop but once you heard your name your ears perked up and pressed against the door.

Your feelings towards Art have always been complicated. Of course you liked him. He was cute and smart and always there for you. But you had been with your ex for so long, you ignored the butterflies in your stomach whenever you and Art would cuddle during movie night.

Honestly a lot of the fights you’d get into with your ex were about Art (and the endless cheating from your ex but you know, also your friendship with Art).

He didn’t like how close you guys had gotten no matter how often you reassured him you guys were just friends and nothing more. In the end it was actually you who decided to break it off. Your ex gave you an ultimatum to choose between him and Art, and you didn’t want to lose your best friend. It still hurt and you still cried to Art about it but you never told him what really happened.

Hearing his confession made your heart rate pick up and your stomach twist in knots. You lose your balance falling against Art’s door with a thud. Fuck.

Before you can soothe where you hit your forehead on the door, it swings open and you’re face to face with Patrick. Seeing Art out of the corner of your eyes sitting at his desk.

Patrick smirks before stepping past you, “Have fun,” he winks. Leaving you standing in the door frame staring at Art.

“How long were you standing there?” he asks standing up from his desk abruptly.

“Long enough,” you respond, walking over to him and crashing your lips together. You didn’t even realize what you were doing until you were doing it. Two years of pushing your feelings down to prioritize your relationship. Two years of denying the way Art made you feel when he’d look at you with those eyes. Two years of giving your all into a relationship that didn’t serve you, needing a change but not realizing it until this very moment.

He’s startled. Strangled moan leaving his lips before his hands fly to your waist, gripping hard. Like he’s scared this isn’t real, and it’s all a dream.

You pull away, pushing his shoulders down so he’s sitting back down on his desk chair. You climb into his lap while he asks, “What about your ex?”

“Over him,” you say shortly before bringing your lips back to his. You're grinding down against him, feeling him grow hard under you.

His hands are back on your waist, before moving down to grab your ass, “Fuck,” he mumbles against your lips.

Breaking the kiss again to pull your shirt off and unclip your bra. His eyes are glued to you, watching your every movement with his mouth hanging slightly open. Now with your tits in his face he couldn’t focus anymore.

You reach down, pulling his hard length out of his shorts. Spreading the pre-cum that pooled at his tip so you can start to jerk him off.

“Shit,” he gasps as you start to stroke him. He leans in to take one of your nipples into his mouth. Flicking his tongue over the sensitive bud. You moan, still grinding down against his lap while picking up the pace of your strokes and tightening your grip slightly.

“Want you inside me,” you whine, your freehand tangling in his curls to pull his mouth off you. You stand up to pull your shorts and panties off quickly before returning to your place on his lap.

He nods quickly and dumbly, like there’s not a single thought behind his eyes. Only thing on his mind is you, you, you, your tits, your ass, your pussy. Everything made him feel dizzy.

His pink tip leaks more pre cum as you guide him to your entrance. You rub it against your hole to cover him in your own juices for extra lubrication. Art almost cums from that alone. He wants to ask about condoms until he remembers you’re on the pill from the various alarms you had that would always go off at the same time everyday. When he asked you about it you explained it to him why.

You start to sink down on him, your walls closing in around his dick. Thank god you fingered yourself when you were masturbating this morning because Art was bigger than you expected. A reasonable length but the girth was a lot. You could feel yourself stretching to accommodate him, “Fuck Art, feel so full,” you moan out.

When you finally sank all the way down to the bottom, Art let out a groan, “Holy shit. You’re so beautiful. Gripping the fuck out of me, fuck.” He pulls his t-shirt up, holding it in his mouth so he can see your hole stretched, gliding up and down his cock.

You start to ride him, bouncing up and down, rocking back and forth , and occasionally grinding down, “Fuck Art, you feel really fucking good.”

He’s watching your tits bounce in his face, and the stimulation of you riding him is way too much, he’s already close. He grabs your hips and starts pounding into you with fast, hard strokes.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” your moans getting louder as he assaults your g-spot. He’s grunting, t-shirt still captured between his teeth. Abs flexing as he lets out a deep breath through his nose. He moves one hand so his thumb can swipe back and forth over your bundle of nerves. “Yes fuck, right there,” you gasp.

His hips stutter, faulting his rhythm. He holds your hips down so he’s completely inside you before spilling inside you, filling you up.

The pressure of his cock against your gspot and the stimulation from his thumb grazing over your clit push you over the edge, “I’m—coming fuck.” You finish right after him, walls spasming, squeezing every last drop out of him.

He drops his shirt from mouth, catching his breath. “A-Are you sure you’re over your ex?”

“Sheesh you couldn’t wait until you weren’t inside me anymore to ask again?” you laugh.

He blushes like you guys didn’t just have sex, “‘m sorry.”

You climb off of his lap to make your way to his bathroom so you could clean yourself up, “Yes Art. I am over him I swear.”

He nods, grabbing a rag from his drawer to clean himself off, “I don’t know, it could've been like a rebound hookup thing and I didn’t…”

“You didn’t what?” you ask, going to grab your shorts to pull on.

“Didn’t wanna get my hopes up,” he finishes, slowly and methodically.

You plop down on his bed, laying on your side, “We broke up because I didn’t want to stop being friends with you.”

Friends. That’s what he was afraid you’d say. The F word haunts his dreams, his nightmares, every second of every day that he’s in your presence. He should’ve never got his hopes up. Fuck. That’s what he gets. Stupid, stupid, stupid. How could he so stupid? Of course sex doesn’t mean anything. He shouldn’t of—

“Hey I’m not done,” you say softly, hoping to pull him out of his head. He was clearly zoned out and you knew Art could get in his head sometimes. He refocuses on you as you say “I want to be with you Art. Not just friends.”

Oh. When those words fell past your lips, it didn’t definitely didn’t feel real. The words he was praying to hear for the past two years.

And so what if he had already mentally planned out your first date? Two years is more than enough time to have planned something.

taglist: @tacobacoyeet @newrochellechallenger2019 @marimacaron @antxnxlla @hanneh69 @urmomsucksfrogs @k4mlg @ctrl-mari

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THIS SCENEEEEEEEEEEE

gripping onto my vintage ghostface figurine and giggling with glee

LOVE ME TO DEATH .ᐟ

part one ・ part two

summary: After surviving the Stanford massacre, you try to start over—move away, change your name. But Art, Patrick and Tashi were never caught. Strange messages and disappearances begin again, and the paranoia you thought you’d buried resurfaces. You’re not sure if you are being hunted… or if they’re luring you back in to finish what they started.

cw: 1.5k words. apt!scream au. paranoia and stalking. psychological trauma. gaslighting. violence (implied). threatening messages. fear and dread. obsession. loss of control.

genre: psychological horror / slasher / thriller.

taglist .ᐟ @blastzachilles, @lvve-talks, @jordiemeow, @strfallz, @222col, @soulxinxthexsky, @diyasgarden, @jinxedbambi, @lexiiscorect, @religionlost, @bluestrd, @jclolz22, @magicalmiserybore, @destinedtobegigi, @fwaist, @idyllicdaydreams, @sohighitscool, @shahabaqsa0310

You don’t dream about the knife anymore. You dream about the silence that came after it. The moment you realized no one was coming. The moment their hands let go of your throat—not because they took mercy, but because they wanted you to live.

You were their final girl. And you didn’t ask for that.

After the attack, the cops found your dorm soaked in blood—whose? You never knew. Your screams woke up the entire west quad after escaping the athletic building lockers. You gave them names—Tashi Duncan, Patrick Zweig, Art Donaldson—and you gave them details. You told them where the rest of the bodies were buried; little secrets the killers had told you before letting you go. Which drawers held the Ghostface masks. What the blood under your fingernails meant.

But they were already gone. No phones. No footage. No fingerprints. Like the whole thing had been a story you made up during a psychotic break.

But you know the truth. They let you live. And monsters don’t vanish forever.

You moved across the country six months later.

New name. New school. No tennis courts. No whispers of Ghostface. You enrolled in a tiny liberal arts college in Vermont where no one had ever heard of Tashi Duncan or her star-crossed boys. You found an apartment—alone this time. No roommates. No shared keys. The walls were thin, and the pipes moaned in the winter, but at least it was yours.

You even got a therapist. Sometimes you lie to her. Sometimes you don’t. Mostly, you tell her you’re fine. Mostly, you try to believe it because life goes on.

But it starts with little things, at first. A knock on your door when no one’s there. A lightbulb unscrewed. A voicemail filled with static. You chalk it up to anxiety. Or trauma. Or both. The mind plays tricks when it’s lived too long in fear.

Then you find a postcard. No return address. No note. Just a photo of Stanford’s tennis courts. You stare at it for hours. Your hands don’t stop shaking for days.

You start checking your locks.

Twice. Then three times. You push furniture in front of the door. You stop answering calls from unknown numbers. You carry a knife in your jacket, one in your bedside drawer, and a third tucked between your mattress and the wall.

You tell yourself it’s just leftover fear; a scar from a time when your life wasn’t your own. But sometimes, at night, you hear the floor creak, and you know you locked the door.

You see her at the grocery store, just for a second. An hallucination, a dream, something real. A flash of dark curls. Her beautiful skin. That posture you could recognize anywhere—the cocky, impossible tilt of someone who never lost anything in her life.

Tashi.

You drop your basket. Run to the end of the aisle. Gone. You ask the cashier if they saw her, they say no one matching that description came in tonight.

You don’t sleep anymore. You stop going to the store. You stop going anywhere.

You install a camera. Just one, to be sure. Outside your door. You check it every night like a drug you can’t escape, refreshing the feed, watching for a shadow that never appears. Until one day it’s turned around, facing the wall.

Your therapist says you’re experiencing PTSD-induced paranoia and you simply nod at her.

But in your gut, you know, they’re still out there. And they’re not done with you.

The power goes out one night during a storm.

You light a candle. Sit in the kitchen. Try to calm the breathing that’s too shallow, too fast. You try not to think of knives or black robes or dripping masks. Then your phone buzzes. A single message. No number that you recognize.

“Still bleeding, final girl?”

You drop the phone. The screen cracks. You throw up in the sink that night, sweat spilling through every pores of your body with the fear consuming you. It’s like an awake-nightmare.

You go to the police the next morning. Again, like you had done before; a few days after Stanford, a week after Stanford, a month after Stanford – remembering the paranoia.

You tell them someone is stalking you. That you’ve received threats. That you survived a massacre and the killers were never caught. They write it all down.

They promise to look into it. They never call back. They never did.

You start to think you’re losing your mind.

You hear music sometimes. A tennis match broadcast faintly through the walls. A whisper behind your head when you’re brushing your teeth. You hear your name in the shower steam. You unplug everything. Cover mirrors to not see behind yourself. Start sleeping in the tub with the door locked, a knife in hand and every noise waking you up.

But they keep getting in. Somehow. They always get in.

You wake up one morning to find a trail of red shoe prints across your carpet and you almost throw up again. They are tiny tennis court prints. A racket on the table of your living room—you haven’t played tennis since Stanford. You never wanted to hear about it ever again.

Like someone dipped them in blood. You call the cops again. They don’t find anything, no prints, no camera footage; nothing.

The next time you see Patrick, it’s in a dream.

He’s sitting in your kitchen. Perfect posture, one leg crossed over the other, sipping tea from your mug like he’s lived here all along. “You’re slipping,” he says without looking up.

“I’m not.” You try to convince yourself – him, it’s all the same. Your heart is in your throat with the fear you feel. He’s not real, he’s not here; but he still has that hold onto you that you can’t escape. “You’re unraveling,” he continues. “It’s okay. You weren’t meant to live through it. That’s why it hurts so much.”

You try to scream, but your voice is gone. Patrick finally looks at you, and he’s wearing the mask. The scream is his now. Quiet and observing.

You try to leave town after a few days. Throw clothes into a bag. Book a motel two states away. You don’t leave a note. You don’t tell your therapist. You just go.

Halfway down the highway, your car dies like it was meant to be. Completely.

You sit on the shoulder, shivering, dialing roadside assistance. Then you check the trunk. Inside—under your spare tire—is a Ghostface mask. And a photo of you sleeping in the Vermont apartment.

You stop fighting it after that. You stop trying to convince anyone. No one believes the girl who lived. No one believes the crazy girl.

And they’ve made sure of that. They’re not just stalking you anymore. They’re gaslighting you from the inside. Everything around feels like a joke they created; a world just for you to suffer the lies and manipulation.

The final straw is the rabbit. You find it on your porch one morning. Tiny. White. Gutted. Its throat slit clean, like a signature – like something to remember them by. Pinned to its side is a note written in perfect, feminine script; the handwriting of Tashi that you can visualize back on the Stanford books.

“You should’ve died when we gave you the chance.”

You move the next day. You don’t care where. Anywhere but here.

The new place is better. Brighter. Busier.

There are windows that face the street, and you can see people. Real people. Families. Kids on bikes. Joggers with golden retrievers. It helps. For a while. You let yourself laugh again. Smile at strangers. Go out with friends you made in the tiny city.

You even start writing about what happened. Not for anyone else. Just for you. Just to get it out of your body before it rots you from the inside. Your therapist says it’s good progress. That you’re reclaiming your narrative.

That you’re healing. That you can be better.

And then, on a rainy Tuesday morning, you get a package. No return address. Inside: a VHS tape and a matchbook from Stanford’s campus bookstore. You don’t own a VHS player, but your neighbor does.

You tell her it’s for a film class and you watch it alone. It’s footages of you, in your old dorm. Sleeping. Showering. Crying into your pillow after the attack. You see Tashi in the corner of one frame. Art in another. Patrick whispering into the camera, smiling.

“We missed you.”

The walls start closing in again. You don’t sleep. You don’t eat. You let yourself go.

You start hearing tennis balls thudding in the hall at night. You find your own handwriting scribbled across mirrors. You find locks broken that were never touched.

Sometimes you think about just walking into the woods, into the dark, into paranoia. But that’s what they want. They want you gone; but why?

So you start preparing. Not to run. To fight. To take back what’s yours. You buy cameras, wire your windows, train yourself to wake at every sound. You read books on serial killers, on survival, on how to set traps.

You wait. Because they’re coming. They always do. And this time, you’re not going to let them write the ending. But deep down; you know what you really fear.

Not that they’ll kill you, but that they’ll love you while they do it.

And that part of you… will love them back.

Need mike to do one of those whats in my bag videos

😭😭 literally. get him on vogue’s in the bag NOW

makka pakka akka wakka mikka makka moo or something

I envy that igglepiggle, man. I want a Tiny Boat to be rocked to sleep on under the stars with the sounds of the gentle lapping waves to lull me to sleep. Instead all I've got is Rock Hard Pillow and Bad Mattress and three different people in the same room snoring.

Inside of ATP’s Tennis bags

Special mention to my girl who gave me the idea @bl4ncanievess 🫀

PUT ME IN COACH

GIMME

im gonna hold my knees and cry

PLUG!PATRICK x INNOCENT!FEM!READER HEADCANONS

pairing: plug!patrick x innocent!fem!reader

warnings: sexual content (fem receiving oral, rough sex, possessiveness, choking, overstimulation, marking, soft degradation, dom/sub dynamics), drug use (lsd, molly, xanax, weed, ketamine, coke), trauma, overdose/death mentions, addiction, rehab/prison references, emotional repression, co-dependency, jealousy, obsessive behavior, comfort after panic attacks/bad trips, soft!patrick only for reader, rough sex but gentle love

tags: @destinedtobegigi, @pittsick, @bambiangels, @idyllicdaydreams, @angeldoll1e, @itachisank, @tennisprincess, @lexiiscorect, @esotericgirlwannabe, @lovefaist

⟡ patrick has a dealer’s body language down to a science—leaned back in the seat, chin lifted, voice all slow and syrupy like he’s got nowhere to be but you should hurry the fuck up. but when you’re in his car? his posture changes. he turns the air down so you don’t get cold. throws your bag in the backseat without saying anything, just so it won’t get stepped on. slides his hoodie over your knees like it’s nothing. it’s not nothing. not for him.

⟡ sex with him is heat and hush. no loud theatrics. no fake moans. just raw breathing and bruised hips and the sound of your head hitting the headboard. he doesn’t talk much during, but when he does? it’s filthy. unfiltered. murmured into your skin like a secret: you like this, baby? you like being mine? i can feel you clenching—fuck, you’re so fucking wet for me.

⟡ he eats you out with terrifying focus. no teasing, no bullshit, just spreads your thighs and gets to work like he’s starving. one arm locked around your waist, holding you still. the other sliding up your chest, fingertips ghosting over your throat, thumb brushing your lower lip like he’s thinking about shoving it in. when you come, he doesn’t stop. not even a little. he keeps licking until you’re crying into the sheets, hands in his hair, legs shaking around his head. he groans when you squirt. doesn’t even stop to acknowledge it. just keeps going. he’s sick like that.

⟡ he swears he doesn’t have a favorite food, but he always finishes an entire bowl of spicy instant ramen like it’s the only thing keeping him alive. extra chili oil. two soft-boiled eggs. cold sprite after. he gets weirdly quiet when he eats it, like it reminds him of something. maybe rehab meals. maybe nights he crashed at someone’s place with nothing in the fridge. you start buying the kind he likes. he notices.

⟡ he knows the chemistry of every high like a second language. he can talk you down from a bad trip with nothing but a cold rag and a soft voice. strokes your hair while you cry. walks you in circles around his living room while you’re coming down. gives you electrolyte powder and magnesium. pulls you into his lap when your teeth start chattering. tells you it’s okay. tells you he’s got you. doesn’t flinch when you throw up on his floor. wipes your mouth clean like he’s done it a hundred times. (he has.)

⟡ patrick lost his dad to fentanyl when he was sixteen. found him in the garage, cold and bloated. didn’t cry. couldn’t. he just stood there staring at the way the man’s hand still gripped the belt around his arm. his first overdose wasn’t even a cry for help—it was an accident. he didn’t know how much to take. he was just trying to be numb like everyone else. rehab gave him scars. prison gave him paranoia. nothing gave him peace. except you.

⟡ he gets off on your sweetness. genuinely. like it’s a kink. the way you say thank you when he gives you a new edible. the way you laugh, light and stupid, when you’re tipsy. the way you get overwhelmed after you come too hard and start to cry, shaking your head like it’s too much—and he kisses your throat and calls you good girl until you come again anyway. he doesn’t want to dirty you. but he needs to. and that tension breaks him open.

⟡ he didn’t expect to fuck you. let alone fall for you. he thought you were some clueless rich girl—wide-eyed, giggly, asking if molly came in pink. and you were, in a way. but you asked the right questions. made him laugh when he hadn’t laughed in weeks. cried in his bed after your first trip and told him about your dad’s anger and your mom’s silence and how you just wanted to feel good for once. and he sat there, staring at the ceiling, not saying shit. but the next day, he gave you a weighted blanket and a playlist and said, “for next time.” there was no next time. not without him.

⟡ patrick eats like he’s never been fed properly. quick, brutal, hands curled around the edge of his plate. he only slows down when you feed him—literally, like you’re offering scraps to a half-wild dog. you hand him a spoonful of soup and he lets you do it. bites whatever’s in your hand without comment. not because he’s lazy. because it makes his chest go soft in this weird, aching way.

⟡ you got too close to his world once. walked into a pickup by accident—just wanted to bring him his charger. some street kid started mouthing off at you, called you patrick’s “little bitch,” tried to snatch your phone. patrick lost it. shoved the guy into the wall, knee to the chest, knuckles split on contact. dragged you back to the car with shaking hands and adrenaline-flooded pupils. didn’t speak for ten minutes. just stared out the window, one hand gripping your thigh like a leash. later, he fucked you on the hood of his car. slow. possessive. like a warning. like a promise.

⟡ his apartment is a mix of sterile and chaos. bathroom always clean. floors swept. but the coffee table is covered in lighters, baggies, test kits, books, post-it notes with scrawled dosages. half a physics textbook he never returned. torn lyric sheets. a cracked spoon with ash on it that he hasn’t thrown out because it belonged to someone he lost. he never talks about that. you never ask. you just set a glass of water on the edge of the mess like you belong there. and maybe you do.

⟡ you make him feel. and that’s terrifying. you call him out on his shit without being cruel. you tell him you care, and you mean it. you bring him stupid little snacks and giggle when he pretends not to care. he never says thank you. just eats half and puts the other half in the glove box for later. you get him, in that soft, dumb way that feels like sunlight through a hangover.

⟡ he jerks off to the thought of you wearing his chain. sitting on his lap, panties pulled to the side, full of him and smiling like you know exactly how good you look. he watches you sleep like a weirdo. pokes your thigh under the blanket until you sigh in your sleep and roll toward him. he thinks about saying he loves you. a lot. but he doesn’t. instead, he kisses your ankle. instead, he calls you good girl when you ask if two tabs is too much. (it is.)

⟡ he’s got boundaries for you. hard ones. no uppers unless he’s there. no mixing downers with alcohol. no pickups. no deliveries. he keeps a stash locked in the apartment only for you—cleanest tabs, softest come-ups. refuses to sell you anything benzo-based unless you’ve had a panic attack. he knows the slope. he’s seen it. he’s buried people on it. you don’t get to fall. not on his watch.

⟡ patrick’s favorite position is you on your stomach, legs spread, face in the sheets, and him behind you—deep, slow, unrelenting. it’s not just about dominance (though it is that). it’s the control. the view. the way he can press one hand flat between your shoulder blades, the other gripping your hip, watching your back arch with every thrust. he loves hearing you whimper into the pillow, all muffled and needy and wrecked for him.

⟡ he’s cold with everyone else. brisk. unreadable. “plug” more than “patrick.” he talks in coded slang and drops people without warning. but with you? he talks about books. about shit he remembers from high school. about the rehab group leader who gave him The Bell Jar and said “you might get it.” and he did. he never told anyone else that. not even his sponsor.

⟡ when you cry, he doesn’t know what to do. he just holds you. presses your face into his neck and rubs your back in messy, aimless circles. he’s not good with words, but he’s there. which is more than anyone’s ever been for him. when he cries—because it does happen—it’s silent. violent. chest-heaving, face-covered, biting his wrist so you don’t hear it. but you do. and you never say anything. just hold his hand. and he lets you.

⟡ he marks you up with bruises, but not because he wants to show you off. because he wants you to remember. wants you to look in the mirror and think: i’m his. wants you to touch the sore spot on your hip and feel heat rush between your legs. wants you to know what he can do to you. what you let him do.

⟡ he doesn’t think he deserves you. not really. not with his past, his track record, the way he still wakes up in cold sweats dreaming about white powder and blue lips. but he’ll be damned if anyone else touches you. not a fucking chance. not in this life. not while he’s breathing.

⟡ he has two different drawers in his nightstand: one full of drugs, one full of things for you. the first is a mess—scales, wraps, rolled bills, old tabs, roaches. the second is ordered. your favorite gum. a heating pad. your favorite mascara he bought by matching it to a photo on your instagram story. a pack of backup socks, because you always forget them. he never mentions it. never brags. but the drawer’s always full. always waiting.

⟡ patrick likes watching you put on lip balm. not in a creepy way. but in that silent, trance-like way where his jaw tics and his fingers flex and his eyes darken just a little. especially when you do it slowly, lazily, while sitting on his lap in his apartment. he’ll tilt your chin and swipe his thumb over your mouth afterward like he’s testing it. sometimes he’ll say pretty. sometimes he’ll fuck you after. sometimes he won’t do a damn thing—just sit there, visibly restraining himself.

⟡ he keeps a mental catalog of how you react to different highs. he knows your laugh on molly vs your laugh on weed vs your lsd laugh (which always starts quiet and then rolls into your chest like a wave). he knows what snacks to keep around. he knows your body gets cold exactly 31 minutes after peaking. he lays out blankets before it hits. tells you he’s just “getting cozy.” but it’s never random. he’s watching. always.

⟡ he’s your first real heartbreak waiting to happen. and you know it. but you love him anyway. and somehow, impossibly, he starts to believe maybe—just maybe—you’re the first thing that won’t break him.

we finally got full josh espresso cover happy mothers day ig