Work Text:
Art has witnessed tennis injuries first hand, knows how devastating lethal they can be. He’s read about them obsessively on nights he can’t sleep, internalizing as much research as he can about how to avoid them. He knows to stay focused, to pay attention to his aches and pains, to not write off anything that feels wrong within his body. Art refuses to let his career be flushed down the toilet because of a stupid mistake. So, of course it isn’t a stupid mistake or a momentary lapse in judgment that does it for Art — it’s a drunk driver, of all things.
Art has always been the more reckless driver out of him and Patrick. Ever since he got his license it’s been a test of how fast he can go, how high he can play the music without damaging his ears — windows down, foot on the accelerator, singing at the top of his lungs with his eyes closed. Patrick used to joke that was how Art was going to go, singing some outdated rock song with his head hanging out the car window like a puppy. And maybe it had been a little self destructive on his part, wanting to see how much he could get away with without dying, feeling the adrenaline coursing through his veins at the thought of how close he could’ve been to becoming roadkill.
But he stopped doing that once he got into Stanford. He has a tennis career to worry about, and Art has so many other self destructive tendencies that get him through the days. There’s no need to risk it like that anymore, not when he’s so close to achieving everything he’s ever wanted. So, he’s not being reckless. In fact, he’s sitting at a red light, tapping the steering wheel impatiently as he hums along to the radio, wondering where the fuck all the good music went. It’s dark and the intersection is completely empty, so Art doesn’t feel worried as he focuses his attention on trying to find a decent station. He doesn’t even know how it happens, just that one minute the road is completely empty, and the next a pair of headlights is coming straight for him. Art doesn’t have time to do anything except brace himself.
He doesn’t remember anything beyond that. The doctors and nurses say that’s completely normal for somebody who suffered a TBI, and a penetrating one at that. If Art’s being completely honest, he doesn’t understand half of what they say to him, and he feels like he’s on Grey’s Anatomy as they talk to him about the potential long-term effects of a penetrating TBI. He lets the words like migraines, epilepsy, and sleep disorders wash over him — they don’t mean a thing. Nothing about his head is important, because if it had just been a head injury, Art would’ve been able to continue playing tennis. Migraines, despite being unpredictable and painful, can be managed with medication, and Art knows a guy at Stanford who has epilepsy and still plays tennis. These things have work arounds, procedures in place to make sure a person is safe while still being able to do what they love.
Symptoms and conditions such as those are manageable, so they don’t bother him. No, what bothers Art is the cast around his leg that stretches up to his knee. What bothers Art is the screws and rod that the doctor says had to be put into his leg. What bothers him the most, is that when he asks the doctor if she thinks he’ll be able to play again, she says, we’ll have to see.
It doesn’t matter in the end, really. Art is at Stanford on a scholarship — a tennis scholarship — and he can’t afford to take at least eight weeks off to heal. If he was a normal college student, eight weeks would’ve been enough, but nothing about Art is normal. He’s an athlete, through and through, and without tennis his spot at Stanford is hanging by a thread. Even if he used the culmination of all the birthday money he’s saved up from his grandma, it wouldn’t be enough to get him through the necessary physical therapy he’d need to keep his tennis career going. But those are problems for Future Art to worry about — right now, Art’s main obstacle is leaving the hospital.
He’s been there for a week, and he still doesn’t know how he’s getting home. He could just lie, say somebody is picking him up and then call a taxi, but Art is pretty sure his doctor would see right through that. He doesn’t have anybody down as his emergency contact, and when a nurse had asked if there was anybody he could call for Art, he’d just shaken his head. That was at the beginning of the week, when he hadn’t been allowed to use his phone — which had miraculously survived the crash. Now that Art has his phone back, he’s stalling on who to call. His grandma is out, he’s not risking her health anymore than necessary — he hasn’t even told her that he’s hurt. He could just call his coach, it’s the obvious answer, but Art keeps getting stuck on two contacts. Two contacts he’s sure won’t even pick up.
Tashi’s pissed at him after their conversation in the cafeteria, which is fair, but it sucks. He’d tried to talk to her after her match, but she’d just ignored him. Probably still pissed about whatever fight she’d had with Patrick on top of their recent conversation. Speaking of Patrick — well, Art doesn’t really know what’s going on with him. Their contact has been limited lately — ever since his breakup with Tashi — making Art feel like some lovesick girlfriend who’s waiting for her long distance boyfriend to call her back. It makes him feel stupid, so Art avoids thinking about Patrick when he can. Besides, even if he did answer, there’s no guarantee he’s anywhere near the hospital Art is staying in.
He doesn’t call anyone — doesn’t think he could stand to sit there and listen to the dial tone ring out before it fades into voicemail. Instead, he texts Tashi the hospital he’s staying at, and hopes that even if she doesn’t show up, she at least sends someone. He must doze off — a recurring theme as of late — because when he opens his eyes Tashi is sitting beside his bed as she impatiently taps on her phone, looking like she wants to be anywhere else.
“Hey,” Art manages to croak out as he tries to sit up straighter. “You came.”
The look Tashi gives him is so unimpressed that he almost wants to melt into the sheets and disappear. “You sent me the location of a hospital. What the fuck else was I supposed to do?”
Art doesn’t really have anything to say to that. It’s true, he supposes. If someone he knew sent him their location and it was a hospital, he’d feel an obligation to show up, if only so he didn’t look like a piece of shit. Instead of trying to scramble for an answer, he just stays silent, fiddling with the controls of the hospital bed to try and get comfortable. When he finally looks back at Tashi, he finds her already watching him, though this time the look on her face is unreadable. It’s always been this way with Tashi — he never knows what she’s thinking unless she wants him to. A part of Art wonders if she’d been the same way with Patrick, or if he’d gotten to see a completely different side of her. He banishes the thought as soon as it surfaces. He doesn’t want to think about them.
“You look like shit.”
Art is very aware of this fact. Somehow, despite sleeping more often than not, he’s the most tired he’s ever been. The light in his room is dimmed because his head hurts too much if he’s exposed to bright lights, though at the moment Art is glad for that little detail. They’d had to shave some of his hair off during surgery, to get to the glass and pieces of metal that had pierced his skull and entered his brain, and he’s still upset over that fact. It feels like a stupid thing to feel sad over, especially considering his leg is fucked and he’ll never play tennis in a professional sense again, but here he is. Self conscious over his hair as Tashi Duncan eyes him from head to toe in a way that makes him squirm.
Tashi leans forward then, resting her chin in her hands as she gives his leg a pointed look. “What’s the damage then? Your asshole of a doctor wouldn’t tell me anything.”
Art avoids looking at his leg when he can. All bundled up in a cast, dull pains radiating up and throughout his body every now and then. It’s a physical reminder of all he’s lost, and he won’t even be able to escape it once the cast is off. Chronic pain is a guaranteed thing, his doctor had told him, and there’ll be a scar from the surgery. That on top of the migraines and the seizures makes Art wish that he had died on impact, if only so he could escape the living hell that is his life now.
“Crush injury,” he manages to choke out. “Rod and screws. It’ll probably take about eight weeks to heal, and that’s not even touching on the traumatic brain injury.”
His words are delivered with a sarcastic smile, and when he finally finds it in himself to look up at Tashi, he can finally read something other than disdain on her face. Something almost like fear is reflected in her eyes as she stares at him, and Art almost wants her to go back to annoyed indifference, because Tashi being scared isn’t something he ever wants to see in his life again.
“How did this even happen?”
“Drunk driver hit me head on,” Art says, laughing bitterly. “They died on impact. Unfortunately, I didn’t.”
Tashi’s wide eyed fear immediately snaps back into anger at this. “Don’t even fucking joke about that, Art.”
“Why not? I’m never gonna play tennis again, at least not professionally,” he snaps, feeling all the anger and resentment at his situation finally boiling over. “And even if I do get to that point eventually, my scholarship is out the fucking window. You think I can afford Stanford? Without tennis, I’m fucked. I had my whole life ahead of me and now it’s gone, because one fucking asshole decided not to get a taxi.”
The room descends into a tense silence at that, but Art can’t find it in himself to feel bad. He’s been dealt a shit hand and he has every right to be upset about it. He may not love tennis as much as as Tashi does, but it’s a close fucking call, and now that love has been completely shattered. He can scramble to pick up the pieces and glue them back together, but it’ll never be the same again and the cracks will always show.
Tashi sighs and Art sees her get up out of the corner of his eye. He’s half expecting her to leave, so he’s a little surprised when she moves to sit on the edge of his bed instead. She’s careful not to jostle his leg, but Art doesn’t think it would matter if she did because when she takes his hand in hers everything else fades into the background. “There’s no guarantee they’ll take away your scholarship, not yet at least,” she says, and Art wants to protest but her thumb is stroking across his knuckles and it traps any and all words that want to escape. “I’m pretty sure they’re legally obligated to wait out your recovery, so you’ve still got time. We’ll figure something out.”
She says we like she plans to stick around throughout his recovery, and it makes everything inside Art melt. Tashi isn’t an optimist, she’s clinical and precise, but she knows what she’s talking about. She doesn’t tell him his life isn’t over because he can’t play tennis anymore because they both know she’d be lying, but she also doesn’t tell him that she’s going to leave. Art doesn’t know what she would get out of sticking around, other than a reminder of how easily she could lose it all, but he won’t push her away. And isn’t this what he’s wanted all along — Tashi by his side?
“You won’t leave?”
He sounds pathetic saying it, but maybe that’s on purpose. Maybe if garnering Tashi’s pity and sympathy is the only way for her to stick around, Art won’t mind it all too much. If being sad and pathetic is what gets her to stay, Art can put on a fucking show. In the end the only things really keeping them tied together are Patrick and tennis, and with one of those gone and Patrick in the fucking wind, Art will cling to anything that will keep her nearby.
“No promises,” Tashi says in response, though they both know that coming from her, it’s a promise in and of itself.
He’ll take it. He’ll take anything she offers him, and maybe she knows that as well, but Art doesn’t care. Let her dangle a fucking string in front of him and pull it away at the last moment when he tries to reach for it. No matter how many times she does it, Art will continue to reach for it — for her. And he won’t stop unless she commands it of him. It’s always been the same way with Patrick as well, despite their more recent distance. Art’s never been good at walking away, and he doesn’t think he wants to be. He’s still undecided on whether or not that’s a good thing.
Even if Art could drive on his own, his car is fucking totalled, so Tashi picks him up from the hospital the next day. She listens intently to what the doctors say to look out for when it comes to his leg, and to call an ambulance if he has a seizure that lasts five minutes or longer. Art stares off into space listlessly, letting the words wash over him — he’s not worried about the seizures, he’s only had two since he’s been admitted and none of them have lasted more than a minute — and wonders what the fuck he’s supposed to do now. They send him away with a bag of his bloody clothes and what feels like a million different prescriptions, and Tashi buckles him into the back of her car like he’s a child.
The drive to Stanford is quiet, and Art feels on edge the entire time. He half expects a car to crash into them out of nowhere at every stop light, and he hates himself for it. Tashi helps him out of the car silently, her hands there on offer as he tries to get his balance, but not touching, and Art is so fucking glad he texted her. She continues to be a quiet helping hand as they make their way to the dorms and he can’t help but lean against her with a tired sigh as they stand in the elevator.
Art spots Patrick first, from the end of the hallway. Tashi is busy trying to help him keep his balance as they exit the elevator, so Art gets to watch silently as Patrick pushes himself off of Art’s dorm door with wide eyes as he spots the pair. He’s already halfway down the corridor by the time Tashi finally looks up.
“Art, holy shit, what happened?”
Art doesn’t know what to think at the moment. He hasn’t seen Patrick since he and Tashi broke up, and yet Art hasn’t stopped thinking about him the whole time. Despite popular belief, Art doesn’t really have any friends at Stanford. Sure, he has fans and people know who he is, but he’s not close with anyone. Most of the other guys involved in tennis have grouped off, more often than not leaving Art by himself, mourning the loss of a doubles partner that actually made him excited to play everyday. They tend to enjoy heckling him as well, like they’re all still in high school, and even though a majority of the time it’s just jokes, Art knows there are a few guys that genuinely don’t seem to like him. He still hasn’t figured out why, but it makes group practices a lot more annoying to get through these days — though, he supposes he won’t have to worry about any of that anymore.
The truth of the matter is, Art really fucking misses Patrick, and not just as a partner in tennis. He misses always knowing that his best friend is right there, no matter what, and maybe it’s childish of him but Art doesn’t care. He’s never been good at keeping friends — he’s too needy and affectionate and it tends to scare people off. Before Patrick, Art really only had his grandma, which was fucking sad but Patrick never made him feel bad about it. Now he’s far away from the both of them, constantly feeling like he’s fading into the background of his own life, and Art just misses the way things used to be.
Maybe it’s the pain medication they’ve got him on, or just the stress of everything finally catching up to him, but seeing Patrick make his way down the hall — all wide eyed concern, focused entirely on Art — is enough to have Art tearing up for the first time since the accident. Tashi clocks it immediately, her hand gripping his shoulder tightly as she leans into him, her gaze bouncing back and forth between the two.
“I can make him leave if you want.”
But Art just shakes his head, stumbling forward slightly on his crutches as he practically falls into Patrick’s arms as soon as his friend reaches him. Art doesn’t let himself think about the possibility of other people seeing them, his crutches clattering to the ground as he winds his arms around Patrick’s waist and buries his face in Patrick’s shoulder. The familiar feeling of Patrick’s body enclosing around him is enough to have Art muffling a sob into his friend’s shoulder, and he pretends that it’s the medication they’ve got him on and not the all encompassing relief of finally having Patrick with him again.
Art isn’t sure how long he stands there in the hallway, crying into Patrick’s shoulder as his friend mutters soft platitudes under his breath, his hand combing through Art’s hair soothingly, but a small part of him never wants to leave. The choice is taken away from him, in the end, because his leg starts cramping from being in an awkward position for too long, and Art reluctantly needs to lean back. Patrick doesn’t let him go too far, though, keeping his hands on Art’s arms and holding him steady, his eyes never once straying away from Art’s body.
Tashi’s there very suddenly, Art’s crutches in her hands and her eyebrows high on her forehead as she watches the pair of them. “We should probably get you sitting down.”
The transition to Art’s room is silent, with Tashi marching on ahead and Patrick keeping a hand on his back to guide him, but Art doesn’t say anything to discourage either of them. He gets situated on his bed rather quickly, Tashi making sure his leg is elevated while Patrick simply curls up on the bed next to him. The quiet was nice at first, simply allowing Art to bask in the company of his two favourite people, but as soon as Tashi stops fussing and just stands there staring at them, it slowly fades into awkwardness.
“What are you doing here?”
Tashi’s words are directed at Patrick, but the disdain dripping from them still makes Art wince. Patrick doesn’t seem to really care, just shuffling closer and leaning his head on Art’s shoulder, almost like he’s making a point. “Visiting Art. You know, he was my best friend first.”
The words are childish, but they make Art feel warm. Logically, he knows Patrick is his best friend, and he knows he’s Patrick’s best friend, but hearing it out loud never hurts. Besides, lately Art’s been feeling like somewhat of an afterthought whenever Patrick drops by Stanford to visit Tashi first and foremost, so it’s nice to be Patrick’s priority again. Maybe that makes Art a shitty person, but he doesn’t care.
“You sound like a fucking preschooler,” Tashi says, her hands on her hips as she stares at Patrick with the most unimpressed look on her face. Art’s just glad it isn’t directed at him anymore. “You know what, fine. I’ve got a meeting with my coach anyway,” she turns around and grabs some of the papers Art’s doctor had sent him back with, flinging them at Patrick. “Here are the instructions from his doctor — don’t kill him, okay?”
Art almost wants to tell her that they can both stay — that he wants the both of them to stay — but the words die in his throat when Tashi leans over Patrick on the bed to plant a gentle kiss on top of Art’s head. “Don’t be an idiot. I’ll be back later.”
All Art can do is nod dumbly and watch as Tashi leaves. Nothing happens for a few moments, so Art is content to sit there and replay the feeling of Tashi’s lips pressing against his curls. He’s pretty sure that simple act is what’s going to get him through the rest of the week.
“Not even broken up for a month and you’re already making moves,” Patrick’s voice pulls Art from his reverie, and he turns to find the man looking at him with an almost feral grin.
For some reason, despite how transparent he’s been about his interest in Tashi all throughout her relationship with Patrick, Art feels the need to assure his friend that nothing has happened. “We’re not — she was just. She picked me up from the hospital, that’s it, I swear.”
Patrick’s grin softens and he grips Art’s head in his hands gently, placing his own kiss on top of the exact same place Tashi’s lips were. It makes Art’s ears burn red. “Relax, man. I can tell by the lovesick puppy look on your face that this is the first time it’s happened.”
The mood in the room stays light for a moment, Art still reveling in all these soft touches after being separated from both Tashi and Patrick for weeks, but it immediately shifts when Patrick flops his head down onto Art’s lap and rests his hand on the cast. The elephant in the room. Art doesn’t want to address it, wants to ignore it for the rest of time and just enjoy Patrick’s company while it lasts, but no matter how much he wishes it away he knows it won’t happen. This is Art’s life now, and there’s nothing he can do except deal with it and try to move forward.
“What happened?”
Patrick’s voice is soft and gentle, his tone reminding Art of their whispered late night conversations while at boarding school, trying to make sure their floors prefect didn’t overhear and report them to the headmaster — again. Art wishes that’s where they were right now, teenagers still sheltered from most of the world around them, playing tennis professionally still a far off dream — something that was still reachable.
”Drunk driver decided to play go carts with my jeep,” Art says with a shrug, going for lighthearted. It’s clear he misses the mark because the look on Patrick’s face is absolutely devastated and reminds him of how Patrick looked when he found Art sobbing in their dorm room after his grandma had fallen and broken her hip. And like Tashi’s wide-eyed fear when she’d heard the extent of his injury, Art wants the look to immediately disappear.
“Will you play again?”
The dreaded question. The one Art knows he’s going to have to answer a lot over the next few days, despite how much he doesn’t want to think about it. All he can do is shake his head as he presses his lips together, trying to quell the burning heat behind his eyes — he didn’t cry when the doctor told him his chances were slim, and he didn’t cry when he told Tashi, so Art refuses to cry now.
“Probably not,” he manages, his voice quiet and shaky. “Not professionally anyway.”
Patrick curses softly under his breath before he sits up and wraps his arm around Art’s shoulders, pulling him in and letting him hide his face in Patrick’s neck once again. Patrick, like Tashi, doesn’t say it’ll be okay, and Art’s glad to get the comfort without empty platitudes. Tennis has been one of the only constants in Art’s life since he was five years old and his grandma found an old racket in her shed, and now it’s been ripped away from him within seconds. Art thinks if somebody tried to tell him it would be okay, he would actually lose it. Nothing about the situation is okay, everything about it is fucked up and unfair, and Art will forever be broken for it.
Maybe that’s why he allows himself to crack a little further in Patrick’s arms. They’ve never been scared of being vulnerable with each other, but they’ve also never experienced something this raw before. So Art takes that hurt that’s balled up in his chest and lets it release in his best friend’s arms, knowing that Patrick will hold onto him as long as he needs to. Art can only find it in himself to be a little bit grateful that despite losing tennis, he hasn’t managed to lose Patrick. He just hopes to god it’ll stay that way.