1 - 20 of 21 Works by delafield
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Summary
It’s the sheer goddamn emotional and logistical inconvenience of it all that makes Karolina so sure that this isn’t a crush, or a fling, or a bit of harmless fun.
If she didn’t care, she wouldn’t bother.
Series
- Part 8 of the fine line
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Summary
It’s on the tip of her tongue to ask what this is, and she doesn’t know if she wants to hear the answer. She doesn’t absolutely know what answer she would give if it was the other way around. But it feels strange to even think about describing it, defining it, holding it up to the light for analysis, because all Iga can think about right now is how it makes her feel, how much she likes it.
How shy she feels about even the thought of Karolina taking last night lightly, when it meant so much to her.
Series
- Part 7 of the fine line
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Summary
‘Why did you say you wanted me to win?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’
‘If it was obvious I wouldn’t need to ask.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. You might just have wanted to hear me say it.’
‘Say it,’ Iga says matter-of-factly, ‘and I’ll tell you if I like it.’
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my only hope (is to let life stretch out before me) by delacourt (delafield)
Fandoms: Tennis RPF
11 Oct 2025
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Summary
It’s weird how it kind of creeps up on you, the realisation that she’s not just really talented, she’s also really pretty. But you’re used to wishing you had her height, her movement, her spin, so it feels natural to think wistfully about her eyes and her hands as well.
(It takes you longer - a lot longer - to realise that maybe you don’t want to be her at all.)
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It’s the kind of thought she usually shies away from these days, it feels like pressing on a bruise to look back on it, but she makes herself remember how grateful she is to be here, how close she was to losing it all forever. She thinks about how happy she was in Australia when she expected people to turn their backs and instead they were so kind to her. She reminds herself that this is a job, she doesn’t have to love it all the time.
She’s lucky. She’s so, so lucky.
However it feels right now.
Series
- Part 6 of the fine line
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They’re professionals. They’re not at a sleepover.
Although that comparison is slightly ironic, because they’ve wasted years playing tennis instead of doing whatever normal teenagers do with each other, and they’re too busy now to meet anyone normal anyway, and they see each other half-naked on a regular basis, and to be honest there’s so much waiting around that they’re often quite bored.
So sometimes they do also make out.
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‘You’re just beating yourself up now. Stop it.’
Iga seems almost startled. Her eyes look wide and blank like they’re about to fill with tears again, and for a second Karolina wants to kick herself because that was not the aim at all.
But then Iga slams into her, mouth hot and pleading.
Series
- Part 5 of the fine line
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Summary
When she’s playing well, it feels like nothing else. There’s something so absolutely perfect about striking the ball cleanly and seeing it bounce exactly where she wants it to.
When she’s not playing well, some days that’s all it is, but if she’s in a bad headspace it feels like she doesn’t quite recognise herself any more.
When she can’t play at all, it feels like her skin is missing.
Series
- Part 4 of the fine line
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Summary
She hadn’t slept after her first Roland Garros. She’d just lain there, turning it all over in her mind, starry with wonder, feeling like she could rule the world.
It was only four years ago, but she feels like a different person.
(five times Iga can't sleep, and one time she can)
Series
- Part 3 of the fine line
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‘I really wanted to win,’ she manages.
Iga nods seriously. ‘I really wanted you to win.’
And then they’re kissing.
Series
- Part 2 of the fine line
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Sometimes Iga still can’t quite believe how fast it all was. How much has happened. How she sometimes feels so old.
That’s the weirdest thing, actually - feeling old - because there are other times when she realises how young she is.
Series
- Part 1 of the fine line
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Summary
If there was one person Christen did not want to find her in this predicament, it would be Tobin Heath: summa cum laude from Harvard Law, clerked in the Second Circuit, national debate champion, conspicuously fucking brilliant, and most irritating of all, the Assistant District Attorney who happens to be prosecuting Christen’s first solo court appearance.
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It’s Christmas Eve and Christen Press is lying in a snowdrift.
(six months ago, there was a girl crying on Christen’s train. Christen ignored her.)
Series
- Part 2 of through the sliding doors
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catch me if you can by delafield
Fandoms: Women's Association Football | Women's Soccer RPF
21 Nov 2021
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Summary
The thing is, Christen knows that she won’t remember any of these people's names in thirty minutes - hell, in ten - because she’s too busy thinking about the faint electric shock whenever Tobin touches the small of her back.
(five times they kiss, and one time they don't)
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‘I just broke up with my girlfriend because I think we’re sexually incompatible and now I don’t know whether that was a really, really dumb move.’
Okay. Christen was not expecting that.
(Being the only other person in a train car at 11.30 pm with someone undergoing an existential crisis is not Christen's idea of fun.)
Series
- Part 1 of through the sliding doors
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Summary
This is what she dreamed of when she was nine and being shuffled from one foster placement to another, when she was fifteen and couldn’t find a reason to care about being sent fifty miles away to juvie, when she was twenty-one and spending Thanksgiving in the dorms.
Bluntly, this is something she thought she’d be dead long before she got the chance to build.
(tobin, adjusting.)
Series
- Part 2 of ticket to anywhere
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Summary
On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
(Christen’s having a tough time. Tobin’s determined to make it a Christmas she'll never forget.)
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Tobin still wishes with all her heart that they could have been together in Portland. But her heart, itself, isn’t in Portland.
Her heart is here.
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They meet, inevitably, because they’re too good not to.
(Tobin is a contract killer. Christen is her handler. What could possibly go wrong.)
Series
- Part 1 of ticket to anywhere
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Summary
‘This isn’t jetlag.’
‘What else would you call a disturbed sleep pattern after moving eight timezones across the world?’
‘Excitement,’ says Tobin simply. ‘This is how it feels to look forward to something.’
(where better to celebrate the end of quarantine than a soccer field at midnight?)
Series
- Part 2 of the home i give to you