Archive of Our Own

He doesn’t see it coming.

Everything is going so well; he’s leading 6-4, 4-1 with just two easy sets to go before he seals the deal and takes the trophy home, and he’s hardly broken a sweat. His feet are light on the hard court beneath him as he sprints across it to hit a clean down-the-line shot that he’s sure will win him the point, drawing his arm back to slam his racket into the ball. He swings it forward to make contact, feeling the ball collide with the strings—and that’s when he feels his shoulder tear.

The sickening crack echoes around the court a second later, shattering the silence like a stone thrown into a frozen lake, sending ripples out like shockwaves as the ice fissures. He hears himself cry out as though from a great distance, and then his knees hit the court underneath him hard enough to bruise.

Somewhere beyond the haze of pain in his brain, he hears Tashi scream his name. A second later she’s there, her face swimming into view above him, taking his face in her hands as his physiotherapist Carl’s hands take hold of his shoulders, feeling around for the damage.

“Hold still, Art,” his voice says, and a second later another dull wave of pain radiates outward from his shoulder. He groans, eyes squeezed shut against the glare of the sun directly overhead. The crowd is gasping and yelling, a cacophony in his ears that sounds like the drone of a thousand wasps buzzing in his skull. He can hear the umpire calling out, telling them to quiet down, to give them space.

“It’s going to be okay,” Tashi whispers, her voice rising above the chaos, shaking fingers stroking over his face, wiping away the tears he hadn’t even realized had fallen. “You’ll be okay, baby, just breathe.”

“Can you stand?” Carl asks, and Art manages a nod, reaching out. Tashi is already taking hold of his arms, hauling him to his feet before he can even ask. Her deceptive strength is evident in the ease with which she pulls him up, an arm coming around his waist to steady him. He lets her take his weight, holding his arm as still as he can.

“So close,” he mumbles, and she turns to look at him, concern creasing her brows. “What?”

“I was so close to…” His head swims. “To winning the match. I’m sorry, Tash.”

“Shut up,” she says, and her voice is hard, the words fierce, though there’s no real bite behind them. “I don’t fucking care about the match, Art.” She turns towards Carl. “How long till the ambulance gets here?”

“Not long.”

“Let’s get him off the court,” Tashi says. “Can you walk, Art?”

“Yeah,” he manages. “Yeah, I can.”

“All right. Lean on me,” she says, fingers grasping his. He does without hesitation, eyes falling shut halfway as they slowly move towards the changing room, his shoulder screaming agony. It feels like someone’s stabbing a knife into the muscle there, over and over and over again with each step he takes.

“Rotator cuff,” he mutters, and he feels more than sees Tashi nod. “Yeah. You should be able to get a standard surgery for that, then take a few weeks of rest before you can start playing again. Take it slow, start with basic drills before you can start putting pressure on the muscle again.”

“Unless it’s a—”

“No.” Her voice is firm, cold, brittle. He can hear the cracks in it. “No. You will play again, Art.”

“Okay,” he says softly, and they don’t exchange another word between them until the ambulance arrives.

They lay him down on the stretcher-like bed in the back of the ambulance as carefully as they can, but it still feels like his tendons are ripping with every move he makes. Everything goes muted and distant as they hold him down, like he’s just dunked his head underwater, and though he can see Tashi’s lips moving he can’t quite make out the words. He just stares at her, wondering vaguely if the echoing, excruciated groans he can hear are coming from his own mouth.

He barely registers the ride to the hospital, feeling each and every bump on the road no matter how miniscule shoot like darts of fire through his arm. Tashi’s hand is crushed in his, her fingers gripping back so tightly he’s sure they’ll leave marks. He doesn’t let go, though, knowing that if he does the pain will go from agonizing to unbearable.

He swims in and out of consciousness as they wheel him in, Tashi’s hand still grasping his as she strides beside him, shouting something at the doctors pushing the bed. They get him into a dark room and hoist him onto another bed, and he’s only half-aware of it when Tashi’s hand is torn free from his and he’s engulfed in blue-clad doctors and surgeons, even though he can hear her screaming.

He wonders idly if this is it, if his career is over, as they poke and prod at his arm, taking X-rays and shining lights into his eyes and murmuring to each other. He thinks about that day so many years ago in Stanford, hearing Tashi scream and seeing her fall, knowing with a horrible sort of finality that she would never get back up again. Maybe now it’s his turn.

“Art? Mr. Donaldson?” a voice calls, growing steadily louder, and Art opens his eyes, registering slowly that his head is pounding and his mouth is bone-dry, that he’s still lying on the hospital bed with his shoulder aching. He has no idea how long it’s been since he’d gotten here, but the room is empty, the lights dim—it must have been at least a few hours. “How are you feeling?”

He opens his mouth, and a hoarse, unintelligible noise comes out. He clears his throat and tries again; it feels like there’s sandpaper lining the inside of his throat. “Okay,” he croaks out.

“Great. I’ve got good news; you’re going to be okay. You’ve got what looks like a pretty standard if not slightly severe rotator cuff tear. You’ll be able to play again, but you’ll need surgery.”

Art manages a nod and the doctor offers him a smile before turning and leaving, the door swinging closed behind him. It’s barely fallen shut all the way before it’s thrown open again and Tashi is striding into the room, hair disheveled and eyes red, eyeliner smudged like she’s been crying. She heads straight for the bed, kneeling beside him and cupping his face.

“Hey,” she whispers.

He turns his head, pressing a kiss to her palm. “Hi.”

“You need anything? Want something to drink?”

“Water,” he says, and she withdraws long enough to grab a glass and step into the adjoining bathroom to fill it, kneeling beside him a second later and holding the rim up to his lips. She tips it forward slow and careful, not stopping until he’s finished all of it.

“You’re going to be okay,” she says softly, smiling, once she sets the glass aside. It looks strained though, pulled tight, like elastic drawn back until just before it snaps and breaks. She reaches up, thumb gently wiping away a stray droplet on his chin. “Your surgery is tomorrow, first thing in the morning.”

“Okay.” He nuzzles into her hand, exhaling. “Will you stay until then?”

“Of course, baby. Of course I’ll stay.” She leans in, kisses his forehead, and maybe it’s the shock, maybe it’s the pain, maybe it’s the strain from the last few hours or the last few decades or maybe it’s something else entirely, but he feels his eyes well up suddenly and alarmingly with tears, a burning pressure behind them that he can’t control. He shuts his eyes, leans into Tashi, lets them fall. Lets her hold him, her arms around him and her lips against his ear, whispering his name as he shakes apart.

“You’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, everything’s going to be okay,” she’s saying, over and over, and he knows the words are for herself as much as they are for him. He just nods, hands clutching her back, allowing himself to breathe.

“Guess this means I’m out of the tournament,” he says, and his voice is muffled and rough.

“Shut the fuck up about the tournament, Art,” Tashi says, pulling back to look at him, eyes blazing. “It doesn’t matter. You’ll play again soon. There’s plenty more tournaments to win after that.”

He sighs. “Yeah.”

“You’ll recover,” she says, and the words catch in the middle. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good.” She sits back, wiping at her eyes, though he can’t see any tears there. “Get some rest. You’ll need it for the surgery tomorrow. I’ll be right here.”

“Where’s Lily and your mom?” he asks, realizing belatedly that he hasn’t seen them since the match. “And Carl, and—”

“They’re waiting outside,” she says, brushing his hair out of his eyes. “They’ll come in and see you after the surgery. It’s late, and they’re not really allowing visitors right now.”

“But you’re here.”

“Yeah, because I told them I’d fucking kill them if they didn’t let me in.” She smiles, wan and tight but genuine, and something knotted tight in his chest loosens a little. “I’ll be here until tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” he murmurs, and she just nods, a hand coming to rest on his cheek. Then she turns suddenly, sharply, towards the door, a frown tugging at her mouth. Art is about to ask her what’s wrong when he hears it himself; there’s noise coming from outside, yelling voices and running footsteps getting closer and closer. For half a wild second Art thinks he recognizes one of the voices raised in a shout, the monitor beside him jumping to life, beeping incessantly as his heart starts to pound in his chest—and then the door swings open.

A figure stands framed against the harsh white light from outside, dripping rainwater onto the pristine tiles, head crowned with wet, wayward curls and so instantly, horribly recognizable that he feels his mouth go dry.

“Art,” the figure says. Wretched, hoarse, familiar. He steps forward, and the monitor beeps so quickly and loudly that Art thinks he might pass out again.

“Patrick?”

He skids to his knees beside Tashi and Art is staring at him, half-convinced he’s not real and this is all in his head, that he’s dreaming. Patrick is talking, rapid and breathless and stretched thin, and Art barely registers the words. “I was watching the match—I saw you fall, I had to—I had to come, I thought you were—”

“What the fuck are you doing here, Patrick?” he asks, and Tashi holds a hand out, her palm coming to rest gently on his chest to ease him back down. He hadn’t even realized he’d started to get up, a dull ache spreading from his shoulder as he settles back into the sheets, wincing.

“Don’t,” she says. “Don’t freak out. Start breathing normal, or the nurses are going to come in and throw us both out.”

“What the fuck are you—”

“I called him,” she says, interrupting him mid-sentence, her voice smooth and firm. “Okay? I called him. That’s why he’s here.”

“You called—?”

“Yes.”

Art stares at her, then at Patrick, a part of him still convinced he’s dreaming. Patrick looks different—older, his cheeks hollower, his hair thinner, the circles under his eyes darker. Rainwater sloughs off him in cascading droplets, clinging to his lashes, spangling the curls of hair plastered to his forehead in dark ringlets before they roll down his cheeks like tears. He’s staring back at Art, lips slightly parted, eyes wide, concern and something almost like fear scored into every line of his face.

“What the fuck,” Art says again.

The beer is bitter in Patrick’s mouth, sharp and acidic, and it goes down like a line of fire in his throat. It settles unpleasantly in his stomach, empty apart from the three pints he’s already downed, and he’s beginning to feel the effects in the smudged haziness at the edge of his vision, the buzzing in his head he’s come to associate with watching one of Art’s matches.

He only ever drinks while he’s watching one; he can’t really afford it otherwise. He usually sits in his car, drinking his way through a six-pack of Corona as he stares at the tiny figures on his phone, mumbling the occasional expletive or making an appreciative noise at one of his better shots, eyes never leaving the two tiny figures on screen, one on the court and the other sitting just off of it in the first row. The night more or less ends the same way every time—with six empty beer bottles strewn around him and one hand down the front of his shorts, Art and Tashi’s tinny voices coming from his phone speaker as they give their post-match interviews.

Tonight, he had decided on a sports bar. “Sports bar” might be a bit of an overstatement though, for whatever it is he’s sitting in; it’s more like a dingy shack with a single cracked TV mounted on the wall, playing the men’s singles final for this year’s US Open. Art glistens on screen, both with sweat and in the pristine white Nike outfit he’s wearing, playing so effortlessly it’s almost laughable. He’s fucking incredible, and Patrick is here in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere Ohio watching him, the taste of beer bitter in his mouth and defeat even bitterer.

“Look at him go,” the bartender says admiringly, polishing a glass with the what might be the dirtiest rag Patrick has ever seen as he looks up at the TV. He glances up as Art hits a clean drop shot that would have made their old coach Mark cry, crouching to flick the ball with just enough force. It bounces neatly into his opponent’s court, just shy of the net. Impossible to hit back. Flawless delivery. The crowd erupts, the commentators going wild as Art walks off, barely having broken a sweat.

“Incredible,” the bartender says. “That trophy’s all his this year.”

“Yeah, let’s all just suck his dick right now, why don’t we?” Patrick mumbles into his glass.

“What was that?”

“Nothing. I’ll have another.” Patrick sighs, drumming his fingers on the bar as he glances up at the screen, where Art’s opponent is smashing his racket onto the court in frustration. He looks on, amused.

The bartender slides another pint across the bar as the next rally starts, both of them trading cross-court shots. Patrick takes a long drink, watching over the rim of his glass as Art draws his arm back to hit the next shot. He sets it down suddenly, feeling his brows draw together.

The first thing he notices is the way Art angles his elbow just so right before he hits the ball. Anyone else would think he’s going to return the ball the same way he has been for the last few shots, diagonally across the court—but Patrick knows him, his tells and his tics, and he knows before his racket even makes contact that he’s going for a straight down-the-line shot.

The second thing he notices is that something has just gone very, very wrong.

Art’s shoulder stiffens up as the ball thwacks into the center of his racket, going straight down the line just as Patrick had expected, but he isn’t looking at the ball anymore. He knows what’s about to happen a second before it does; he’s standing before he even fully registers it, his body reacting before his mind can catch up, shoving his chair backward so forcefully it topples to the ground with a crash. He ignores it, pushing his way towards the TV just as the horrible crack of his shoulder popping resounds around the court, even louder than the ball had been. A second later, Art falls.

Chaos erupts on the screen, the commentators yelling and the crowd gasping, Tashi screaming Art’s name and running onto the court with a familiar-looking man, probably Art’s physiotherapist. Art is crying out, clutching his shoulder, his back hitting the hard court beneath him. His face is twisted up with pain, his eyes squeezed shut.

“Art,” he breathes out, a hand pressed to the TV screen like he can reach through and do something, anything but fucking stand here hundreds of miles away and just watch as Tashi and his physiotherapist pull him to his feet, helping him off the court. Nausea roils his stomach; is this what it was like to watch Tashi fall all those years ago, hearing her scream in pain and knowing he can do nothing?

He turns blindly, digging in his pockets and tossing a couple bills onto the bar before leaving the bar as quickly as he can, breaking into a sprint the moment he’s out the door. He makes it to his car, throwing the door open and jamming the key into the ignition, pulling out of the parking lot and onto the main road. He takes the first exit onto the highway, fumbling his phone out of his pocket and pulling up the GPS. It’s a nine hour drive to New York, and he’s positive he won’t be welcome if he goes.

Fuck it. He’s going anyway. And he’ll make it there in six.

An hour into the drive the inevitable call comes, his phone vibrating incessantly where he’s placed it on his dashboard. He picks it up with a hand, glancing down at the name displayed on the caller ID only perfunctorily; he knows who it is already. He swipes a thumb over the screen, putting it on speaker and tossing it back onto the dashboard.

“Tashi?”

“Please,” he hears her say, the word half a sob, and it nearly makes him let go of the wheel in shock because Tashi never says please, and she never cries, and she never calls him like this—or at all. “Please, Patrick, I don’t know what to fucking do, I don’t know what’s going to happen—”

“Tashi,” he calls out. “Tash, breathe. Breathe, baby, I’m on my way. I’m coming.”

“He fell,” she says, gasping between each word. “He fell and his arm, it—it—”

“It’s just a rotator cuff tear,” he says, and he’s nearly shouting, foot pressed to the gas, eyes glued to the road in front of him but not really seeing it at all, seeing Art instead, falling onto the court as he cries out in pain. “I saw it, I saw the whole thing. He’ll be okay, he’ll be fine—”

“What if he’s not?” He hears another sob, hears her suck in a breath like she can barely get enough air. “What if he’s not, and he can’t come back from this, and it’s over? What then, Patrick?”

“It’s not over. It’s not fucking over, Tashi. Don’t even fucking think that.” He wipes away the sweat running down the side of his face, swerving in front of the car beside him and putting on a burst of speed. “He’s going to be fine. Are you with him?”

“He—they took him into some fucking room, I don’t know. They’re not letting me in, they’re not letting me see him and I’m so fucking scared, Patrick. I don’t know what’s going on in there, what if they know something and they’re not telling me?”

“Tash,” he says, “calm down. Just breathe. He’s going to be okay, you’re going to be okay. I’m coming.”

“You—where are you?”

“I was in some shit fucking town in Ohio, Bruce or Brice or something—but I’m on my way. I’m almost there, baby, just a few hours and I’ll be there. Where is he?”

“I’ll send you the address and the room he’s in,” she says, and a moment later there’s a soft ping from his phone as the message comes through. “When will you get here?”

He glances at his watch. “Four hours, tops.”

“Okay.” Her voice is small, tremulous, and she sounds so unlike herself that Patrick feels the beginnings of alarm seep cold and unforgiving into his chest, because if Tashi Fucking Duncan of all people is this worried then maybe it really is over and there’s no hope—but he clamps down on those thoughts, risking accelerating to 120 as he careens down the highway.

“Patrick,” he hears her say.

“Yeah?”

“You were already an hour away from Ohio when I called.”

“Yeah,” he says. “So?”

“So you’d already started. You were already coming.”

He swallows thickly. “Yeah. I was, uh. Watching the match. I saw him fall.”

“And?”

“And I couldn’t not fucking come, Tash. I couldn’t not be there again.”

“So what is this? Guilt? Some misplaced sense of—I don’t know, fucking decency, eight years too late?”

“I…” He shakes his head, even though she can’t see him. “How does it matter?”

“It matters, Patrick.” She sounds a little more like her old self again, assertive and sure of herself and fucking irritating as shit. “Why were you coming?”

“Because I can’t just sit by and watch,” he spits out. “I can’t—I couldn’t. I still care, okay? I watch all your fucking matches and all your stupid interviews, and I watch every goddamn ad you do on TV and read every cover story either of you give to those dumb fucking sports magazines because I still give a shit about you two even though you don’t give a shit about me.”

“Okay.” She sounds unfazed. “Why?”

“What the fuck do you mean, why?”

“I mean why, Patrick,” she says. “Why do you still care?”

“I’m not fucking doing this.” He reaches over to pick up the phone, half-intent on ending the call, but Tashi calls out, “Wait, Patrick.”

“If you’re so bent on humiliating me—”

“For once in my life, I’m not.” He hears her sigh. “Maybe I should set you up with a therapist while you’re here.”

“Fuck off.”

“You fuck off.”

“Not five fucking minutes ago you were sobbing and begging for me to come, and now that I am you’re being a raging bitch again.” He shakes his head. “You’re insane, Tashi.”

“I know.” He can hear the smile in her voice. “Okay. Get here as fast as you can. And don’t think you can run away from all this bullshit while you’re here. We’re going to talk about it.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I’ll be there late tonight,” he says, and then the line goes dead.

“Stupid,” he mutters to himself, but he’s already smiling.

“And up again, and down again, and inhale.” Carl’s hand is a weighted pressure on his shoulder, gently holding him around the mess of bandages wrapped there. He tries as hard as he can to lift his arm, slow jerking movements that feel awkward and ungainly, like his limbs don’t belong to him. It makes him want to scream with frustration, but he just shuts his eyes and takes in a deep breath.

“Great. There’s a good amount of resistance, but it’s only been a day. You’ll be fully healed in a few months.”

A few months. Art sighs, his head falling back against the pillows. “Thanks, Carl.”

“Anytime, Art. Tomorrow, same time?”

“Yeah.”

He doesn’t watch him go, turning away onto his good shoulder instead as he stares listlessly at the baby blue wallpaper on the hospital room wall. The table by his bedside is laden with flowers, its surface hardly visible beneath the riot of fresh blooms that cover it, peonies and lilies of the valley and hydrangeas whose open throats shimmer with golden pollen. Their scent colors the air, sickly sweet.

He feels like shit. It’s barely been a day since the surgery, but he feels even more like shit than he should. His head is pounding, his throat aching, chills wracking his body even though it’s 80 degrees outside. His body aches, and the frowns Tashi and Patrick exchange whenever he turns away in disgust from the food they bring him don’t help either. They’ve been exchanging a lot of those kinds of looks lately.

They’re both here every available moment they have, which is surprisingly often. Tashi goes out more frequently, getting everything in order and going to all the meetings they were supposed to go to together, giving the press release for his injury and working with Carl to figure out his recovery schedule. But she’s still here whenever she can be, monitoring every infinitesimal aspect of his progress like it’s her own shoulder that had torn—and it is, in its own way.

Patrick is less busy, and so he’s in Art’s recovery room pretty much all the time, sprawled out on the couch by the window either sleeping or talking Art’s ear off. He’d gotten used to it alarmingly fast, and now the room feels empty when he’s not there.

“I couldn’t not come,” is all he had said when Art had asked him what the fuck he was doing here that first night, still not entirely sure he wasn’t dreaming. “I saw you fall and I couldn’t just do nothing.”

He had looked at Tashi, and she’d merely shrugged. “He’s here now,” she’d said. “You want him to go, I’ll make him go.”

He’d shaken his head, and that was that. Patrick stayed.

“Hey.” He hears the door open and Patrick slips inside, and a moment later he’s stepping into Art’s field of vision, kneeling by his bed. “How’re you doing?”

Art grunts, rolling over onto his back again. “All right.”

“You look like shit.”

“What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be practicing or something?”

“I’m here to monitor your progress as you make the slow but sure journey to your full recovery.” Patrick grins. “By the way.”

“Yeah, sure.” He yawns, making to lift his arms over his head when his shoulder catches. He winces, starting to lower them again, and goes still when Patrick’s hands come to rest gently on his forearms, fingers loosely encircling his wrists as he helps ease his arms back down again. Art turns to look at him and Patrick is looking back, a crease appearing between his brows.

“You’re hot,” he says.

“Thanks.”

“No, idiot, not like that—I mean, you are, but this short hair does nothing for you—but you’re fucking hot. You’re burning up, man.” He puts a hand at Art’s forehead, frowning. “What the fuck. You’re boiling.”

“Get off.” Art swats his hand away. “I’m fine.”

“No the fuck you’re not.” Art makes a swipe for him, but Patrick is already standing. “I’m getting a doctor. Stay right here.”

“Yeah, like I’m going anywhere,” Art says, but Patrick is already gone.

“You seem to have caught a pretty bad case of postoperative fever,” the doctor says a few minutes later as Patrick gnaws on his thumb behind him, peering at him over the frames of his glasses. “It’s a common thing, since the immune system tends to weaken after surgery. Sometimes patients react badly to the anesthetic, and yours seems to have been triggered by stress. It’s nothing that a few weeks of rest and some paracetamol won’t solve.”

“Postoperative fever,” Art mutters once he leaves, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Just what I need after tearing my shoulder and getting a surgery.”

“Think of it this way; now you get to just sleep and get taken care of for a week.” Patrick plunks himself down on the couch, kicking his feet up. “Remember that time you got the flu in ninth grade?”

“Yeah,” Art says. He does remember it; remembers feeling fucking awful for a week and a half, remembers Patrick buying him Tylenol and force-feeding him hot soup he’d brought in a plastic container, making sure he took his antibiotics according to the prescription timings. He’d taken that whole week off just to look after him, and he hadn’t complained once. Art had only realized how grateful he was for that until he’d gotten sick on tour a few years ago, before he started dating Tashi. He’d been alone in an unfamiliar hotel room, had to take care of himself as best as he could. He’d missed Patrick so much that week he’d almost been able to feel it, like a hollowness in his chest. But then he’d always missed Patrick that way.

“Take a nap,” Patrick advises him now, folding his arms behind his head. “See how you feel once you wake up.”

It turns out when he wakes up, he feels even worse.

His whole body aches like he’s been put through a meat grinder, and the shivering has gotten so bad his teeth have started chattering. His head feels like it’s stuffed full of cotton balls, and every cough hurts more than the last. Tashi has come back from one of their meetings by then and she counts out his pills for him, bringing him soup in one of the hospital’s ceramic mugs.

“Up,” she says, holding the mug in one hand and the pills in the other. He hauls himself up with some difficulty, managing to settle against the headboard behind him. She sits beside him, holding the mug out. “Can you lift it?”

“Yeah.” He reaches for the cup and she holds it away, a glint appearing in her eye. “Do you want to lift it?”

He swallows hard, his hands falling back into his lap. He shakes his head.

Her pink lips curl upward into a smile. “Good. Open.”

The soup is salty and rich, pepper and ginger and spice. It burns going down, and even the tiniest sip makes his stomach churn. Tashi doesn’t wait, tipping the rim of the mug towards him again. It slots between his lips and she tilts it forward, allowing him to take another sip. This time, once he swallows it, she cards her fingers through his hair.

He drains the whole mug like that, eyes closed and suspended as though caught in the sticky sweet honey of time turning to liquid sugar around them. Tashi’s attention does that sometimes, renders him pliant and bendable beneath her, ready to dissolve like a soft cube of sugar into warm tea.

“Okay,” she says, setting the empty mug aside. Her thumb runs across his cracked lower lip, and when he opens his eyes she’s looking at him, something hiding in her hooded gaze. He knows not to chase it, knowing it’ll flee out of his reach if he goes looking. Instead he lets it watch him, assessing, appraising, anticipating.

“Your pills,” she says finally. “Take two.”

He opens his mouth ready and willing and she places them onto his tongue, standing and handing him a glass of water. He swallows just enough to help the pills slide down his throat, dry already despite the soup he’d just drank. He can feel the cold of the water as it rushes downward, making him shiver.

“Rest now,” Tashi says, starting to gather her things. “I’ll be back soon. I have to get Lily to bed and make sure everything’s okay at home. You have to take two more pills at around three in the morning. Patrick will give them to you, but I should be back by then.”

“Okay.” He lies back down, letting out a breath. “Say hi to Lily for me.”

“I will.” She turns to leave, and he calls out, “Tashi.”

She glances back at him, a brow raised. “Yeah?”

“I love you.”

She smiles at that. “Yeah, I know,” she says. Then she’s gone, the door swinging softly shut behind her.

“Goddamn, Donaldson,” Patrick says from the couch, where he had evidently not been asleep like Art had thought he was. “You’re her little bitch, huh?”

Art smiles even though Patrick can’t see it, yanking the covers up to his chin. “Yeah,” is all he says.

The days and night seem to meld together after that, melting into one interminably long stretch of murky twilight that he drifts in, the curtains always drawn and the lights always dimmed. One or both of them is always there, dozing in the chair by his bed or moving around cleaning up and arranging the room into some semblance of order, and he grows used to it, to opening his eyes after a restless sleep and seeing them there with him.

He catches snatches of conversation sometimes, murmured words between them that he can barely hold on to. They drip like water through his fingers, only some of them registering in his mind, injury and fight and Art and college. He can never knit them together before an uneasy sleep drags him back into the unwelcome dark behind his eyes, and his fevered dreams stick to his skin like sweat.

Lily and Tashi’s mom come in to see him sometimes, a few times a day. Lily reads to him from her picture books while Tashi’s mom frets, bringing in new flowers every day and leaving behind food in Tupperware containers that he promises her he’ll eat. She never mentions Patrick, but he sees her eyes keep flitting to where he sits on the couch on the other end of the room every few seconds. He wonders what Tashi has told her about him being here, if she remembers he was her daughter’s boyfriend for a while in college.

He and Patrick talk every day for hours, Patrick sitting cross-legged on the floor beside him with his hands braced behind him. They talk about everything and nothing at all, about their matches and memories from the academy and the suffocating loneliness of being on tour alone. Patrick tells him about the night he’d seen him fall, how he’d probably broken about fifty traffic rules getting to New York as fast as he could.

“You’re still my best friend,” he hears him say, his voice echoing as though he were at the bottom of a deep well. “I still care about what happens to you. I never stopped caring.”

“Me neither,” he says, face turned upward as he stares at the ceiling, unsure if he can look at Patrick, not wanting him to see what his weakness makes it so hard to hide. “I watched all your matches on YouTube.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You’re still as good as you were. Better than you were, actually.”

“So are you.”

“You still do that fucked up serve.”

Patrick laughs, and a second later he feels the mattress dip as he sits down beside him. “Yeah, I do. Never bothered changing it. I think it suits me.”

“It does.” He closes his eyes. “And you still hit the best backhand I’ve ever seen. And I’ve played against every top-ranked tennis player in the world.”

“Shut up,” Patrick says, unbearably fond. “You’re delirious.”

“Maybe. But I’m serious. If Tashi coached you—if she coached both of us, together—we could make it. Like we talked about when we were kids.”

“Fire and Ice, world number 1 and 2 with both of us trading every few years?” Patrick laughs again. “Yeah, sure.”

“Really. When Tashi coaches you it’s like she’s looking right through you, like she knows everything about you just from taking one look at you. You could do it if she helped you. We both could.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He puts a hand at Art’s throat, beginning to get up. “You’re still burning up. I’ll go get a doctor.”

“No, wait.” Blind panic grips him in its claws and he reaches out faster than he would have thought is possible, his hand catching Patrick’s wrist. “Don’t.”

Patrick turns to look at him. He’s haloed in the light spilling from the dim lamp on his bedside, wreathing his curls in gold and gilding his profile, turning him into a Klimt frieze of an angel rendered in foil and chalk. He’s so beautiful it makes something in Art’s chest twist helplessly, wretched and painful.

“Don’t go,” he says. “Stay.”

Patrick only nods, stepping back towards the bed. Instead of perching on the edge like Tashi always does he slips under the covers beside him, not a word exchanged between them as his cooler body presses up against Art’s burning one, Art’s fingers still loosely holding his wrist. Something in his mind clicks, calms, whispers safe. Knowing he’s more familiar with feeling Patrick against him than anything else in the world, that having him close means everything’s going to be okay again.

“I’m here,” he hears Patrick say. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I miss you, Art wants to say, but the words stick in his throat. Instead he closes his eyes and turns his face into Patrick’s shoulder, breathing him in deep. He smells like laundry and antiseptic and the lingering trace of the flowers that Tashi had taken away yesterday morning, and that one cologne he hadn’t stopped using since he was fifteen. He falls asleep like that, surrounded by the familiarity of it all, between one heartbeat and the next.

When he wakes again, Patrick is gone. Tashi is there instead, sitting with one long leg crossed over the other in the chair by his bed as she reads. She glances up as though she can feel his gaze on her, setting the book aside and standing to make her way to him.

“Hey,” she murmurs, placing a hand on his cheek. “How do you feel?”

“A little better,” he says.

She smiles. “I heard Patrick is taking good care of you while I’m gone.”

“Did he say that?”

“Mmhmm.” She presses the back of her fingers to his forehead. “You’re still warm, baby.”

He sighs. “I know.”

“Let me check your temperature.” She withdraws, and a second later she’s pressing a thumb to his lower lip till he opens for her, placing the metal tip of a thermometer under his tongue. She watches him instead of the number on the digital scale as it ticks upward slowly, something quietly powerful simmering in the heat of her gaze.

A few seconds later the thermometer beeps and Tashi draws it out of his mouth, glancing down at it. “Your fever’s not as high as it was. It should break in the next few days.”

She kneels, folding her arms and resting her chin on the back of her hands. She blinks out at him, eyes wide and dark, the shadows clinging readily to her face like a lover’s adoring hands. She looks beautiful and untouchable, a goddess draped in silk and pearl.

“You’re so pretty like this, you know,” she says, reaching out. She brushes a feather-light hand down his cheek, tilting his face down. “All beaten down and weak. So willing and open. It’s like the way you are when you’re fucked out, lying there like you can’t even remember your own name.”

“Tashi,” he murmurs.

“Maybe we should keep you like this,” she whispers. “Maybe we’ll stop giving you your pills and let this go on as long as it can. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’d like for us to keep taking care of you, to make the most of how weak you are.”

He drags in an uneven breath. The monitor beside his bead jerks, the slow rhythmic beeping beginning to speed up. Tashi smiles, slow and easy and consuming, and he can see the desire writhing and heaving behind her eyes like a serpent waiting to strike, open its mouth impossibly wide and swallow him whole. He would let it, if it got close enough.

“Is that what you want?” she asks softly. “For us to have you like this? To take whatever we want because you can’t and won’t say no? To hold you down while you can’t fight back, because you don’t want to fight back?”

He swallows hard. A solitary shiver scampers down his spine, scurrying away into the dark. A lone, forgotten animal in the back of his mind opens its eyes, rouses from its slumber, sitting up on its hind legs and begging.

“Tashi,” he says, again. His voice is low, gravelly, hardly a whisper.

Her smile widens. “Maybe after we make you better we can make you worse again, just to have you like this. You’d be so good, so easy, the fever making you all hot and tight. You’d be fucking delicious.”

“You keep saying ‘we’.” His lips part in anticipation as she leans in, her breath ghosting over his mouth as she says, “Should I not?”

It’s a challenge and an olive branch in equal measure, a chance for him to say either yes or no. In Tashi’s perfect, twisted way, it’s a way of asking him for his permission, and he loves her for it.

“No,” he breathes. “You should.”

“Good.” She draws away, a thumb running over the arch of his cheek. “I thought so.”

“And you’re… okay with that?”

“I’ve been okay with it since that first night in the hotel.” She looks down at him, contemplative. “I knew I could never have one of you without having the other, too. Being with one of you is the same as being with both of you.”

“I know about Atlanta,” he says, and she smiles again. “Yeah, I figured. What did it make you feel?”

“I was angry, and then I wasn’t.” He sighs. “If it was anyone else but Patrick, I would have asked for a divorce.”

At that, she laughs. “No, you wouldn’t.”

He wouldn’t. He just smiles, lifting his one good shoulder halfheartedly. “Without you, I’m nothing.”

“Without us,” she corrects him. She presses one last kiss to his forehead, then stands. “Get some rest. We’ll be here when you wake up.”

His eyes are already closing when the words slip out. “I know.”

The next morning, his fever breaks along with the dawn. He feels it, feels the sweat that beads up on his forehead and his upper lip, the heat drawing itself out of his body like poison from a wound. It presses against his skin underneath the sheets, oppressive and stifling, and he throws the blanket off with a grunt as it envelops him in an uncomfortable embrace. The air is cool on his overheated skin and he sucks it in, his eyes closing.

“Back from the dead?” Tashi’s voice asks, and he manages a laugh, throwing an arm over his eyes. “I still have one foot in the grave,” he says.

“Well, it’s better than both.” He opens his eyes, lowering his arm as she sits beside him, brushing his hair out of his eyes. “You look better. Have something to eat, Mom made sandwiches.”

“Yeah?” He sits up, wincing as his shoulder smarts. “Where is she? And Lily?”

“She’s talking to the doctor. And Lily is with Patrick.”

She smiles at his raised brows, shrugging. “She likes hitting tennis balls at him. He’s a good sport; he lets her.”

“Wow.” His head swims. “Okay.”

“Yeah, it was a surprise for me too.” She hands him one of her mom’s Tupperware boxes. “It’s still warm.”

He’s halfway through the sandwich when she says, “You’ll make a full recovery. The doctors are happy with your progress, say you responded well to the surgery. You’ll play again soon.”

“We’ll play again soon.”

She gives him a long, searching look. “Yeah. We will. Looks like all of us will, actually.”

When he lowers the sandwich, frowning, she says, “Patrick has asked me to be his coach. He also said you’re the one who told him to.”

He swallows. “Uh. Yeah, I did. Is that—is it not okay? Should I not have?”

She sighs. “It’s… not something I hadn’t thought about.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I said we’d see.” She folds her arms. “We need to talk, Art. All of us.”

He looks away. “Yeah.”

They’ve been sitting in silence awhile when the door swings open, admitting a grinning Patrick holding a giggling Lily’s hand, his big hand engulfing her tiny one. She exclaims when she sees him sitting up and he sees Patrick let go of her hand, and then she’s launching herself at him and Tashi.

“Daddy, you’re awake!” she says. “I came in yesterday and you were asleep, and the day before that you were asleep too, and—”

“Go easy on Daddy, baby,” Tashi says, running a hand through her tangled hair. “He’s still getting better. That means no playing airplane for a while, okay?”

Lily pouts. “Okay.”

“Just a few weeks,” Art says. Tashi shoots him a pointed look, which he ignores. “What have you been getting up to all day, huh?”

“I’ve been playing tennis with Patrick.” She beams. “He gave me his racket!”

“Oh yeah?” He glances over her head at Patrick, who’s edging towards the open door. He offers Art a guilty smile and a shrug. “She’s a natural just like her mom and dad, what can I say? Can’t deny a budding prodigy like that a racket.”

“Honey, why don’t you go tell Grandma Daddy’s awake, hm?” Tashi presses a kiss to her hair. “Tell her she can come in and see him in a minute.”

“Okay.” Lily slides off the bed and scampers off, the door closing behind her with a click. Patrick sighs, reaching out to lock it and turning back towards them. He stands there a moment, looking suddenly, uncharacteristically awkward, hands twisted up behind his back and his lower lip caught between his teeth.

“Get over here,” Tashi says impatiently, her tone brooking no room for argument. “We need to talk.”

He slouches over, looking sullen. “Can’t we talk about this later?”

“No.” Tashi crosses her arms. “We have to do this right now.”

“Fine.” He plunks himself down on Art’s other side with a sigh. “Who’s going first?”

“I’ll be coaching both you and Patrick from here on out,” Tashi says, turning to Art and ignoring Patrick. “Together and separately. I’ll be focusing more on Patrick until you heal, but I’ll still be there for all the sessions with Carl.”

He looks between them. “Okay,” he says slowly. “Are you sure?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean is it a good idea?” He raises an eyebrow. “Won’t things get… messy?”

“That’s the other thing we have to talk about,” she says. “The mess.”

“It’s not that much of a mess,” Patrick interjects. “I mean, it’s a little bit of a mess, but we’ve managed until now.”

“Barely,” Art mutters.

“It’s a fucking mess,” Tashi says. “All of this is a fucking mess. So we can either figure it out, or we can just go back to the way things were before.”

Silence stretches beyond the words, soaking up the air between them.

“Fine,” Patrick says finally. “We can’t just pretend like… nothing’s going on and nothing’s wrong. But I’m not going to just be some guy you two fuck whenever you want to.”

“No,” Art agrees, and Tashi gives a tight nod. “Right. But we can’t be… open with it, either. Art and I are the most high-profile tennis couple in the world. We have a daughter. If we get caught, it’s over. We’ll never be able to get rid of whatever they say about us, and I don’t think the sports community is particularly nice to openly bisexual tennis players.”

“Wait,” Art says, looking between them again, and he feels disoriented suddenly, like he’s still locked in one of his fever dreams. “So we’re all okay with… whatever this is? The three of us?”

Tashi looks at them, a brow raised. “Are we?”

Patrick shrugs. “It’s not like it’s not what I jerked off to every day of my life since the night we met Tashi or anything. Yeah, I’m fucking okay with it.”

“Art?” Tashi says. “You okay with it?”

“I—yeah.” He blinks. “Very much, yeah.”

“Good.” She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “Since I’ll be coaching Patrick, we’ll have a lot more time and lot more cover. It’s not unusual for two players to have the same coach, so we should be okay. As for Lily and my mom… maybe that comes a little later. We won’t tell them for a while.”

“So you do plan on telling them,” Art says. “At some point.”

“Not telling them just means they catch us one day and we’re done for.” Tashi shakes her head. “Better to put all our cards on the table before we’re forced to fold. But that’s later. Much later. For now, we figure out the little stuff.”

“The little stuff,” Art echoes.

“Yeah,” she says. “Like where we’re going right after this. I’m assuming you don’t have a house.” She turns to Patrick, who just shrugs. “Nope.”

“So you’ll have to move in with us,” she says. “We can set you up in the guest house for appearances. We also have to figure out”—she gestures between him and Art—“whatever this is.”

“Whatever what is?” Art says, indignant, and she raises a cool eyebrow. “Both of you. There’s—what, eight years of unresolved tension between you two? Nine?”

“Something like that,” Patrick mutters. “But it’s not a problem, we can just—”

“For fuck’s sake,” Tashi snaps, then takes a fistful of both their hair without warning, pushing their faces together the way he’s seen Lily do with her Barbies. He hears himself make a startled noise that Patrick echoes, and then a second later they’re kissing.

Patrick shimmies closer, a hand coming to rest on Art’s good shoulder for balance as he tips forward. His mouth is soft and warm, careful against Art’s as he tilts his head to slot their lips together more firmly. Art’s own hands reach upward to cup the back of his neck, his eyes drifting shut. He can still feel Tashi’s hand in his hair, less of a tight pressure now and more of a caress, her fingers carding through the strands at the back of his head in an almost approving gesture.

They draw back at the same time, their mouths barely a millimeter apart. Patrick’s eyes flick rapidly between his, almost as though he were searching for something there. His lips are parted and reddening, color flooding into his face as Art’s eyes drop to linger on them, hunger rearing up inside him like something untamable, unquenchable.

“Fuck,” Patrick whispers, and then he’s surging forward to seal their mouths together again, hands taking hold of his face to crush him closer. Art groans, grabbing at every part of him he can reach as tightly as he can, licking into Patrick’s open mouth and gathering up the taste of sweet heat and sweat. Patrick moans into his mouth, fingers raking down his chest underneath his shirt. He’s sure he can feel his heart pounding beneath his hands, uncaring of the fact, unable to think about anything else but the taste of Patrick in his mouth and the feeling of his hands on him, of Tashi’s fingers in his hair. There’s nothing else, he thinks as he lets it consume him, lets it drag him under and drown in it. Nothing else in all the world but the three of them and the bright points of light where their bodies meet.

They finally break apart after what could be an age or a minute, a slender thread of saliva connecting their mouths. Patrick swipes his thumb over Art’s bottom lip to break it, eyes half-lidded and hazed through with lazy, contented desire.

“Well, now we’ve gotten that out of the way,” he says, the corner of his lips flicking upward into a smirk.

Tashi’s fingers rake through his hair, her eyes glinting appreciatively. “It’s a start,” she says. “There’s definitely room for improvement.”

“It’ll be fun,” Patrick says, his arms coming around both of them to tug them closer and link them all together. “Fucking around, playing tennis. Having the occasional threesome.”

“Occasional?” Tashi’s fingers tighten teasingly in his hair, and judging by Patrick’s yelp, she’s done the same to him. “I’m expecting you two to put out every night.”

“Jesus.” Patrick grins at him, cheeks pink and eyes bright, and he’s grinning back before he even realizes it, the smile coming easier than he ever remembers it being. “We’re going to be worked to the bone on and off court.”

“Yeah,” Art laughs, leaning his forehead against both of theirs. His shoulder twinges, but he pays it no mind, breathing the entwined scent of them deep. It’ll heal, in its own time. “We’ll have a good time.”

It’s warm and easy between the two of them, their laughter sweet in his ear. He supposes it’s something he can get used to.