Archive of Our Own ^beta

31. “You’re not as bad as people say.”

Christen mumbles against Tobin’s shoulder and hears a sleepy laugh from above.

“As you say. Chris, you’re the only one who talks shit about me.”

“Lies,” she scoffs and gets a lungful of laundry detergent and Tobin, “Cindy used to curse your existence all the time when you were learning to juggle and breaking everything in the house.”

“Stop believing all my mom’s stories,” Tobin pokes her cheek then traces a slow finger down her nose, “Gonna ruin my street cred.”

“What street cred?” Christen retorts. Her arms tighten around Tobin’s waist, and her nose burrows deeper into the soft fabric covering Tobin’s shoulder. “You ain’t got no street cred. Only thing you’re good for is cuddling.”

Normally, Christen would be too self-conscious to be this touchy. But she’s exhausted, and Tobin is warm and comfortable and clinging right back. She’s got her right arm holding Christen close, with her fingers tangled in the hem of her pullover. Her left hand rubs Christen’s arm or plays with her hair or touches her face gently. Every so often, her lips brush against Christen’s forehead, fleeting touches on the tail end of a quietly huffed laugh at whatever’s on the TV.

Christen could fall asleep like this.

She could fall in love like this.

32. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You think you can?” Christen challenges. “I squat more than you do.”

It’s an actual, physical instinct that Tobin has to fight. If she didn’t, she would have craned her neck to check out Christen’s muscular thighs and firm butt before mindlessly nodding along. Like of course Christen can out-squat her but staring at her ass right now would definitely end up with Tobin hurting.

“Oh my god, Tobs! It’s just a game of chicken. Just wrap your legs around Pressy’s shoulders like we all know you’ve both been fantasizing about,” Ashlyn calls out from the pool and sends a splash of water towards them for good measure.

Tobin’s eyes widen as she turns fire engine red. So does Christen. Then they both choke on air as the team howls with laughter.

Christen asks as they sit in the dark. They’re out on a field, butts on damp grass, having just watched the sunset paint the sky. “I thought you were joking that time, trying to cop a feel.” 

“No,” Tobin grumbles, and Christen just knows she’s pouting. “I’m not scared of the dark. I just don’t like sudden darkness. As long as I know it’s coming, I’m fine.”

“Ah,” Christen mutters as if in understanding, then, “Baby.”

“It’ll be awesome!” Tobin argues, all naive excitement.

“It’ll be really hard to explain to the ER doctors!” Christen mimics her enthusiasm with a healthier dose of reality. Except Tobin doesn’t take it that way. Of course not. Why would she suddenly see sense and realize that anything involving a skateboard, a ramp, and a car is not going to end well?

Tobin leans in and smirks. “You sound worried about me, CP. Is that it? Don’t want to play without your favorite middie?”

After a healthy eye roll, Christen drawls sarcastically, “Yeah, that‘s exactly it. Don’t know what I’d possibly do on a field without you. It’s not at all like Cheney has better distribution than you.”

Tobin’s response is a dramatic gasp before she mimes being stabbed and collapses in a heap on the floor.

Christen grins at Kelley and asks, “Did you get that on camera?”

35. “Was that supposed to impress me?”

“Because I can do it better,” Tobin taunts as Christen narrows her eyes and purses her lips.

It’s kind of a gamble, though, because if there’s one area (on the soccer field) where Christen obviously outshines her, it’s shot placement. But if she doesn’t dial up the competitiveness, then all Tobin will focus on is how damn good that shot was, and how good Christen looked pulling it off.

“Bet you can’t,” she mutters in challenge. The annoyance in her tone is practically tangible, and Tobin smiles to herself for getting under her skin so easily.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Tobin runs up to the nearest ball and dribbles it into place. “What’ll you give me if I can?”

This time, Christen scoffs out loud and crosses her arms over her chest. “I am not taking my clothes off for you.”

The adamant declaration almost makes Tobin trip over the damn ball. For a second, she doesn’t know why Christen’s made that leap until she remembers the very cruel trick Christen pulled weeks ago. Interrupting a perfectly good lunch to get Tobin’s hopes up by telling her about that “dream.”

“That’s only a thing in your dreams,” Tobin finally collects herself enough to retort with a complete lie.

By the way Christen blushes and hurries away without a comeback, Tobin thinks that somehow, by the slimmest possibility, maybe she wasn’t too far off.

36. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Christen turns back from the door and just stares at her expectantly. Tobin smirks a little, knowing she’s running on fumes after their string of away games and her rescheduled exams. It’s strange to see Christen any amount of disorganized, and maybe kind of endearing to know that she’s human, too.

“Uh,” Christen falters, a deep wrinkle between her eyebrows. She takes a couple steps back towards their table and considers the papers and note cards and highlighters still spread out on the surface. “No?”

“Yes,” Tobin insists, “It’s just not on the table.”

The hint isn’t the greatest, but Tobin isn’t expecting Christen to turn her full attention onto her. Her skin prickles the longer Christen stares at her. She’s about to offer another hint when Christen shuffles another step closer.

“Bye?” she asks more than says but then— 

Then Christen leans down and very gently kisses Tobin’s cheek. The weight of her backpack means she’s a little unsteady so even though her touch is so very careful, Christen wobbles a little, and her lips lands closer to the corner of Tobin’s mouth than her cheekbone. Tobin’s heart leaps at the touch, but to cover her rising blush, she pushes Christen away. 

“No! Go pay your bill. Who raised you?”

37. “I don’t want to be like the others.”

Christen is so confused. What others? There are no others. The only things she’s been able to think about for months are soccer, classes, and Tobin, and not really in that order. 

“What does that even mean?” she finally asks when Tobin doesn’t actually explain but just fiddles with her sleeves.

“If you wanted to hang out with other people, you can, you know?”

It doesn’t really answer her question or explain what Tobin was talking about. Or maybe it does. Somehow, Christen knows exactly how the thoughts are connected in Tobin’s mind. Tobin thinks she’s monopolizing her time or keeping her from other people like the groupies after their games. It couldn’t be further from the truth.

“So can you,” she points out. Neither of them move an inch. Finally, Christen shrugs and offers, “I’m where I want to be.”

Tobin’s shoulders slump in what Christen thinks is relief, and she smiles at the table as she says, “Me too.”

38. “I’m tired of running from my problems.”

Tobin’s face must be one big question mark because when has Christen ever run from her problems? She’s the most mature college student Tobin’s ever met. And, no, that’s not a low bar to clear just because she and Kelley are the least mature college students ever.

Christen doesn’t run from her problems. She formulates a strategy, color codes it in her planner, then executes the plan with ruthless efficiency and single-minded determination. She’s every parent’s and coach’s dream come true.

“What problems?” Tobin finally thinks to ask. It can’t be her family (pretty much perfect) or her grades (actually perfect) so it must be soccer-related? “Your headers?”

“No,” Christen sighs, heavy and frustrated. Her hands flail out before starting to gesture between them.

Tobin feels panic bloom in her chest. Christen can’t mean that they are the problem. She’s been so careful to keep things light and easy and normal ever since Christen admitted to being overwhelmed at times, and maybe she didn’t say that Tobin was part of the problem, but it was pretty easy to read from her actions. Sure, they still spend an unexplainable amount of time together, but she can back off more, she can stop being so touchy and flirty and annoying, she really can. Tobin can do anything as long as she doesn’t ruin their friendship by trying to hold onto Christen without ever dealing with what she really wants from her best friend.

”We have to—” Christen starts to say, but Tobin is already scrambling for her backpack. “Where are you going?”

“Away?” Tobin mumbles around the highlighter jammed in her mouth. With a grimace, she takes it out and continues, “There’s no problem here, Chris. I’ll just go, yeah?”

Out of nowhere, Christen’s hand fists in the collar of her t-shirt and yanks until they’re eye-to-eye. Instinctively, Tobin gulps nervously and tells herself not to look at Christen’s lips, which are right—oh, too late.

“I am not running from my problems, which means you are not going anywhere.”

Tobin can easily see Christen’s grim determination in the hard clench of her jaw and the firm set of her lips. Is it wrong that she finds this hot? Well, her best friend is having some sort of crisis that somehow involves her, and Tobin can only think about how this sudden aggressiveness is just like the start of several fantasies she’s had so, yeah, she should probably focus.

On one level, she’s gotten used to this frequent, heart-racing push-and-pull between them, but on every other level, she will never get used to how Christen makes her feel. With concerted effort, Tobin tries to calm her breathing and deliberately looks Christen right in the eye. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Christen nods decisively. 

Then she looks down, and Tobin wonders what she’s looking at for a second before it dawns on her. Christen’s staring at Tobin’s lips like just a minute ago Tobin was staring at Christen’s lips.

Just as soon as the thought finishes crossing her mind, her brain blanks out entirely. Because Christen is kissing her, and nothing else matters, and Tobin thinks she might float away, untether from the earth and reach the heavens because this has to be it. Then Christen nips her bottom lip, a little roughly, and Tobin makes this needy sound that she’d be embarrassed by except Christen takes that as a sign to drag her back onto the bed by the shirt collar she’s still gripping.

If only Tobin had an ounce of her typical grace, but Christen’s completely overwhelmed her, and Tobin can’t get her limbs to work right. Her usually faultless feet end up tripping over her abandoned backpack. In the almost worst case scenario, her lips pull away from Christen’s as she lands heavily, awkwardly on top of her. The only saving grace is that they didn’t bash their heads together.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Tobin scrambles to sit up, but Christen’s still got that hand holding her shirt, and Tobin, happily, doesn’t get far. There’s a silly smile on Christen’s face, one she’s trying to temper by biting down on her already swollen bottom lip, but all it’s doing is giving Tobin ideas. 

“You’re right. You do have a problem,” she says in an even lower rasp than usual because there’s no hiding the way Christen’s kiss stole her breath.

Tobin watches as the happy light flickers out of Christen’s eyes. Her face starts to twist into panic, and her hand falls limply from Tobin’s shirt. Frantically, Tobin rewinds in her brain and realizes she could not have phrased that worse.

“Wait, no, I didn’t mean it like—” Tobin exhales a sigh. It’s hard to try to be all cute and flirty now that Christen’s freaked out. “I was going to say, you need some practice kissing, but it’s a good thing I can help you out with that.”

Predictably, Christen shoves at her shoulder and gives her an eye roll and a (cute) pout. “You’re such a jerk.”

“Your jerk?” Tobin offers hopefully as she feels her own silly grin stretching across her face.

“Only because I feel bad for you,” Christen agrees, with a hard glare that disappears as quick as it came, “You know, because you need so much practice kissing. And if I don’t help you, who will?”

Tobin rolls her eyes but lets her get away with that one since they’ve got other “problems” to work on.

39. “You’re really bad at the whole flirting thing.”

Christen grumbles and pulls away for the sheer principle of the matter. She’s not going to let Tobin get away with a line as lame as that. She has standards.

“Then why are you here?” Tobin emphasizes her question with a not-so-subtle pat to Christen’s ass. Here being in Tobin’s bed, lying mostly on top of her, rounding second base and heading for third (she thinks, Christen’s never been a softball girl obviously), during a private practice session that earned them some weird looks from the team when they all but sprinted out of the locker room with the incredibly flimsy excuse.

Rolling her eyes, Christen sits up completely and leans against the wall, ignoring Tobin’s own grumbles now that her hand is no longer in Christen’s shorts. “Masochism?” she shrugs, “I should take that psychology class next semester to find out.”

Tobin flings her arms up over head. Her shirt rides up, too, and Christen immediately sneaks a glance at the lines of her abs. “You really want to talk about classes right now?”

“No,” Christen answers matter-of-fact. Her fingers follow her eyes, and before she knows it, her hand’s under Tobin’s shirt. “Still had to be said. Since we’re here for, like, practice and improvement.”

“I”—an annoyed crinkle disrupts Tobin’s forehead before she exhales shakily under Christen’s touch—“What were we talking about? Can’t we just go back to making out?”

After all this time looking, it’s some kind of gratifying that Christen can make Tobin lose her train of thought just by touching her stomach. So even though it goes entirely against why she stopped, Christen’s response is to lean down and kiss her again. 

Who needs principles?

40. “Tell your mom I said hi.”

“Why would I do that?” Christen mutters, glaring at her phone. 

Somehow, Tobin gets the feeling the phone is just a stand-in and hasn’t actually annoyed Christen. Carefully, she replies, “Because she likes me?”

Christen arches an eyebrow and sarcastically, and probably rhetorically, asks, “Does she?”

Oh boy. Tobin is not equipped to verbally spar with a visibly annoyed Christen. Maybe a couple weeks ago she would have leaped at the chance, but she feels like the longer this goes on, the softer she gets around Christen. It’s getting harder and harder to purposefully get on Christen’s nerves, especially now that there are so many more interesting things to do with their time together.

“Then again she likes all my friends.” There’s a sharp, bitter quality to Christen’s tone, and her last word about stops Tobin’s heart. “That’s what we are, right? Friends?”

“No,” Tobin automatically denies, but then her eyes widen, “Is that what you think we are?”

“No,” Christen deflates on a sigh. Her lips purse as she thinks, and Tobin fidgets uncomfortably, waiting for more of an explanation about how they ended up in this conversation. “After the game, you told that girl you were going out with your friends to celebrate. Then it was just us.”

Oh. She didn’t think Christen was close enough to overhear the excuse she gave to escape and she didn’t think— Well, she just didn’t think. And, honestly, she just doesn’t know what else they are. Tobin knows what she wants but, aside from soccer, she’s got a habit of letting things happen for her, instead of going after them herself. Normally, she’d be fine sticking to that, but this feels like a pivotal moment, and Christen is too important. She has to at least try putting herself out there.

“I like when it’s just us,” Tobin confesses quietly, getting a small smile in response. “And I’d like it if—”

“Will you be my girlfriend?”

Christen blurts out the question, and Tobin releases a deep sigh and rolls her eyes. “You can’t make all of the first moves, Christen! I wanted to ask!”

“Then ask already! You’re being so slow,” Christen rolls her eyes right back, “It’s one thing on the pitch. It’s another thing in bed. It’s a whole other—”

“I am not slow on the pitch!” Tobin retorts, “And you like when I’m—” Christen bites down on her lip but she can’t contain the giddy, triumphant laugh that slips out. Tobin clenches her jaw shut and gets a light kiss to her cheek in response, a silent apology that works too well. Despite the encouragement, she mumbles, “You’re the most annoying girlfriend ever.”

“I’m still not your girlfriend because you still haven’t asked,” Christen primly, and correctly, points out.

“Fine,” she bites out the word, but her smile tempers it, “Will you please... Tell your mom your girlfriend said hi?”

“Tobin!”

Okay, maybe that instinct to annoy her girlfriend isn’t completely dead.

41. “Can I go to sleep now?”

Christen turns her face into the pillow, trying to block out the light and the TV that Tobin’s refusing to shut off.

“Christen! You promised to finish the season.”

With a sigh, she flips onto her back and peeks an eye open. Still too bright. “Did I? Was I asleep?”

The mattress shifts, and she assumes Tobin’s moved to sit down but she’s not going to give in and check. Her best impression of someone asleep is ruined by Tobin poking at her cheek. “You never used to sleep this much,” she whines, as Christen springs into action and catches her hands before she resorts to trying to tickle her awake.

“I didn’t used to have this many demands on my energy.” Christen regrets the words the moment she says them. She doesn’t even need to wait for Tobin’s smug smirk to appear, but there it is like clockwork anyway.

“Aww, am I wearing you out? Are you telling me Christen Press, of all people, needs to work on her stamina?” Tobin waggles her eyebrows, and Christen tries so hard to ignore the challenge in her voice. It’s just going to lead to more teasing, which they’ve learned is basically foreplay to them, and she’ll never get to sleep.

Nope, she’s too competitive by half. The retort’s out of her mouth before she even finishes thinking of it. “More like it turns out you’re more annoying as my girlfriend than as my pain-in-the-ass best friend.”

Tobin’s jaw drops in some approximation of offense. “Who says I can’t be both?”

“Your complete inability to multitask?”

“Challenge accepted.”

Tobin smirks again, pushes her flat onto her back, then straddles Christen’s hips. It’s playing out exactly like she called it a minute ago, but Christen can’t bring herself to regret the lost sleep. Maybe in the morning when they’re sleepwalking through practice, but probably not even then.

42. “You’re fogging up my glasses.”

Tobin doesn’t know what it is about the angle or maybe the temperature in Christen’s room, but it’s suddenly a problem when it literally never has been before. She tries to free a hand to reach her glasses and can’t really get there. Christen being sprawled all over her and halfway asleep isn’t really helping the situation. 

“Baby,” Christen mumbles, sitting up and rubbing at her eyes tiredly.

“It’s a real problem, Chris!” she complains again. Maybe Christen can’t sympathize yet but she will soon according to the team’s optometrist.

Christen plucks the glasses off her face and reaches for the hem of her t-shirt. “What? No. I’m not insulting you. You didn’t let me finish. That was, like, a— It was— I was just, uh...” She pauses in the act of cleaning Tobin’s glasses for her, a simple gesture that somehow makes Tobin’s heart feel like bursting. 

If it weren’t ridiculously soon and because of the tiniest, practically insignificant thing, she might just tell Christen that she lov—

It dawns on her suddenly. The awkwardness, the pause, what Christen’s not actually saying. Tobin’s so used to all their teasing that she assumed, but, “Did I just ruin you calling me a pet name?”

Christen unfreezes. She leans forward to slip Tobin’s clean glasses back into place, letting her get the full effect of Christen’s content smile in perfect vision. “Baby, no, of course, you didn’t.”

“Nice save,” Tobin grins. Even knowing what Christen’s reaction is going to be, she can’t help herself. “Maybe you shoulda been a keeper.”

Christen flops onto her back with a groan. “Alright, now you’re ruining it.”

43. “How do you sleep at night?”

Christen is appalled, even if that’s mainly for show because she likes (a little too much) how Tobin looks in her tie-dyed pink shirt. She turned away from her locker for a half a second, and Tobin’s practically stolen the shirt off her back, or out of her gym bag. What kind of girlfriend engages in ritual-interrupting behavior like that?

“Resorting to petty theft, Heath?”

Tobin ignores the clearly rhetorical questions as she frees her ponytail from under the shirt collar. After a wink, she walks back to her own locker and returns, holding out a familiar orange shirt. “Got you something, Chris.”

Rolling her eyes, Christen takes the offering and slips it over her head. Then they just grin stupidly at each other until Pinoe interrupts with, “Sure, take your time longingly gazing into each other’s eyes. It’s not like we have a game to win or anything.”

44. “Here’s a fun idea: don’t get yourself killed.”

Christen offers a smile to dial down the stern warning. “Kinda fond of you, you know,” she adds on, squeezing Tobin’s wrist lightly, and her smile widens at the predictable shiver.

Tobin steps off her skateboard to brush a quick kiss across her lips. Her mouth heads for her ear next, retaliation for Christen’s obvious move. Even knowing it’s coming, Christen can’t help her shiver when Tobin whispers in her ear. And that’s before she hears Tobin say, “Love you, too, CP.”

She gasps, not dramatically or anything, but just quietly, in surprise. “I didn’t—” Christen starts to deny but isn’t sure she can do that with a straight face. “You don’t—”

It’s really too soon, right? Not like they haven’t known each other for years. Not like they haven’t taken forever to get here. Not like they haven’t been skirting around the words and pretending love doesn’t shine through in every look, touch, and action. Okay, maybe more like it’s really way too late to finally say the words out loud.

Tobin smiles with the brightness of a thousand suns in the face of her hesitation. “You meant it,” she answers confidently but somehow just short of the played-up cockiness Christen finds exasperating. “And so do I.”

The last part is said quietly with the ease and contentment Tobin only ever seems to experience on the pitch. It kind of makes Christen’s heart swell. They may have been stumbling around in the dark for years trying to find their way and they may have relied too heavily on their friendship to avoid confronting their feelings. But now that they have each other like they’ve always wanted, there’s nothing they’re more secure in and no one they’re more confident about. 

Christen narrows her eyes. Normally, she wouldn’t stand for anyone speaking for her, and Tobin knows that, but, “You’re lucky I actually like—love you.”

45. “You know where to find me.” 

Tobin calls out as a goodbye. She knocks twice on the frame of her locker then slowly starts to head out of the locker room, lingering by the entrance.

“Yeah, in Pressy’s bed!”

Tobin whirls around to level a glare at the room, but it’s too late. There’s a chorus of oohs, mixed with obvious laughter, and Tobin rolls her eyes and tries to come up with a quick retort to shut them up.

Too late again, Christen’s coming toward her, gym bag in hand, annoyed look on her face. This is exactly what they didn’t want to happen: to distract their easily distractible teammates and, most importantly, make their teasing even worse.

Tobin’s ready with an apology for leaving the door open for that one, but Christen calls over her shoulder, “Damn straight!”

Then, she grabs Tobin’s hand, pulls her close for a short but emphatic kiss, and pushes her into the hallway.

“See ya, losers!” Tobin adds with a smug grin, just slightly breathless from the kiss and trying to keep up with Christen’s pace.

A question of, “Why’d I think they’d be less annoying together?” trails them down the hall.