HOLD ON TILL MAY.

connor stood in your hallway like a stray dog, staring at you awkwardly as you came back downstairs. 

‘you can take your shoes off.’ you instruct, tying your robe around your waist tighter. 

‘okay.’ comes his monotone reply, kicking his shoes off but still not moving. 

‘come here!’ you laugh to ease the tension and connor shuffles towards you. 

he allows you to cup his face with your hands, pressing your lips together to fight your smile. 

after your anniversary dinner, you’d invited him back to your house knowing your parents were out of town. normally, the two of you hung out anywhere but home, mostly the park or in your most desperate times, the school bathrooms. although it was his first visit, you hadn’t expected connor to be so on edge about it . 

‘it’s okay.’ you murmur gently.

with your lips brushing against his, you feel him relax in your hold and kiss you back with grateful hunger. when you break apart, saliva still connecting your lips, connor’s finally smiling. 

you grin back in delight, ‘so… where first? third floor, second floor…’ you wink but he’s unaware so you continue, ‘or first floor?’ 

connor shrugs, ‘wherever, as long as i’m with you.’ he offered sweetly, spindly arm snaking around your waist to pull you into his side

normally you’d be flattered by his poetic words, but you were horny, and growing increasingly desperate. with a silent sigh, you lead him into the living room. 

‘the couch looks really comfy, right?’ your tone is dripping with implication but connor’s oblivious. 

you slide onto the couch sensually, eyeing him up dangerously. 

‘why don’t you come join me?’ you purr, legs falling apart teasingly and hand sliding between them. 

connor turns bright red and coughs, turning to look anywhere but you. 

‘con?’ you prompt, eyebrows knitting together.

‘i’m um… thirsty.’ he lies stiffly, still avoiding you. 

‘i’ll come with you.’ you say perkily, standing to follow and attempting to cover yourself up, suddenly embarrassed. 

connor’s hurrying into the kitchen, only to freeze when he’s in there. taking pity on him, and feeling slightly guilty, you grab a glass from the cabinet. the only sound in the room is the water from the tap filling the cup and when you hand it to him, he just nods gratefully. 

‘are you sure you’re okay?’ you query with concern. 

‘i mean… this is your parent’s house.’ he replies, like that’s a sufficient answer. 

‘it’s mine too.’ you retort, harsher than intended, ‘and they’re not home, i told you.’ 

connor shrinks slightly, ‘i feel weird about it, okay? i can’t hook up with you on the couch your parents watch tv on or sit you on the counter and fuck you where they wash up plates.’ his confession is painfully honest yet sorrowful. 

you soften, stepping towards him. ‘there’s no need, i told you it’s just us.’ comes your repeated soothing.

he takes your hand, pressing a gentle kiss to your palm. ‘it’s not that i don’t want to… just not here, on this floor at least.’ 

that reignites your spark a little, ideas brewing. ‘so… where would you feel most comfortable?’ you purr and connor swallows, hard. 

‘i’d like to see your…’ he clears his throat, still struggling to look at you properly. ‘your bedroom.’ 

you smirk, ‘that can be arranged.’ you whisper in his ear, biting at the lobe and he squeaks. 

kissing along his jawline till you reach his wet lips, the glass of water is quickly abandoned. mollified, connor’s desire is back and he grasps at your face like he’s trying to merge your bodies into one. when your lips part to welcome his tongue, you’re stumbling backwards up the stairs, not once daring to break the moment. 

even as the door to your bedroom opens, you’ve barely stopped to breathe, hands roaming all over each other until you’re lying on the bed. connor pulled apart first, breathless. you lick your lips in what you hope is a salacious manner and spread yourself out across the sheets so this time he can’t look away. 

✦ READER / THE BLACK SWAN  rising ballet star. intense eyes. croons more than speaks. swift vengeance. unpredictable. sensual, seductive. hates to death. the white swan’s living weapon. older. thick, smudged eyeliner. lies, lies, lies. self-destruction. quietly lurking behind. brutal executioner. thunderstorms. scorpio placement energy. internally rotten, morally pure. white medical gauze. asks questions while already knowing the answers. subtly as soft as a swan’s down.

✦ TASHI DUNCAN / THE WHITE SWAN  rising ballet star. leisurely. teasing, curious. overly-ambitious. the black swan’s heavy heart. phone calls from mom. neat, short nails. crocodile tears. younger. morally rotten, internally pure. brains of the operation. rebirth. bright and blushing. graceful, bordering angelic. smart-mouthed. loves to death. youthful assertion. biased judge. summer rain. virgo placement energy. skin-colored band-aides. subtly as sharp as a pointed beak.

✦ PATRICK ZWEIG / THE SWAN HUNTER  fascinated by the mystery and desperate to figure out motives. half of a contract detectives duo hired by a mourning family. cigarette smoke. sporadic working hours. paid company. hardened by life. coffee stains on important documents. unorthodox methods with undeniable results. sleazy jokes. unlawful contacts. born into wealth and kicked out of it. heavy colognes. handles all altercations.

✦ ART DONALDSON / THE HUNTING DOG  born into wealth and chooses to work anyways. bark and bite. smiles that light up rooms. half of a contract detectives duo hired by a mourning family. reading as a religion. coffee with extra sugar. ballet enthusiast. light, citrusy colognes. handles all the target tracking. soft eyes, big heart. bulletin boards, pins, and red string. nail biter, hair puller. believes in justice. zweig’s personal driver. books all their rentals.

✦ THE SETTING   the big apple itself. hustle and bustle. dirty, dingy alleyways that lead to unsavory dead-ends. neighbors that call from above. subway trains that’re almost always packed. everyone’s in a hurry. ballet studios and opera houses. late 90s - early 2000s. mafia members lying low. stars on billboards rather than in the sky. the arts are dying elsewhere, but they’re alive and well here.

✦ THE PLOT   contract detective team art donaldson and patrick zweig find themselves sinking deeper and deeper into a very peculiar string of murders throughout new york city. black and white feathers are the only identifiers left at the crime scenes, earning the killer the media moniker the “savage speckled swan”. meanwhile, the nyc ballet company prepares for their rendition of swan lake.

✦ SELECT SCENES   art and patrick first reviewing the case and connecting it to several similar ones. tashi first reading about the “savage speckled swan” over breakfast (a lightly toasted bagel and some coffee). patrick stumbling into reader and tashi, who live in the same hall as art and patrick’s temporarily rented apartment. art passing by an opera house and seeing tashi and reader’s faces on posters. reader and tashi standing over a dead body in the midst of darkness; art and patrick standing over that same body the next day, as a parallel. art taking tashi and reader out to brunch, fascinated by the ballet stars. reader staring intensely at tashi from across the practice room. patrick using his shadier contacts to get information. art realizing there’s two swans, not just one speckled one: a black swan and a white swan.

✦ THE SOUNDTRACK   i want things to be beautiful by devi mccallion. coming undone by korn. falling from grace by the gentlewaves. mother mother by tracy bonham. human behavior by bjork. wicked game by chris isaak. angel by massive attack. that white cat by mitski. shadowboxer by fiona apple. that was my veil by john parish and pj harvey. carrion by fiona apple. in my room by julia wolf.

to the general audience: long time no challengers, huh? happy challengersversary! i'm not entirely sure if i want to take this piece/au any further, i do have some half-baked ideas but i mostly came here for the vibes. nothing more interesting to me than some hidden identity/double life shit + horror. i'm also obsessed with josh in the mastermind paired with mike from his pinball movie as two men in their late twenties to mid thirties on the case. i left ages vague but i'd want them to be at least 30 lwk. hotter that way to me... anyways, tashi deciding who to kill and reader carrying out her bidding paralleling pat deciding who to target/what to investigate and art doing the tracking/deepsearching. just food for thought. to charlie nozhdyved: HIII IM SO SORRY THIS WASN'T DONE ON UR ACTUAL FR BDAY but i sincerely hope you like it! i tried to capture horror cinema vibes with some more aesthetics sprinkled in, really playing up the movie angle in this hcs/moodboard piece. idk, i just wanted it to be special for you. i was going to do ghostface but i felt it was overdone lwk so i switched gears and cranked all this out instead. anyways, i love you so much, woof woof, hope you enjoy! also on my tomodachi island we call each other charlie-woof and amelia-woof and i think it's supes cute. AND FINALLY. this piece was partially inspired by this image that i thought was sick asf:

“Who am I? Jesus?”

It’s the way she laughs when she says it, like it’s impossible for Art to worship her so. Like she doesn’t see how he’d be poised to kill himself if she wanted him to. It’s humorous to her, how Art craves her validation like the sun on his skin, he needs her more than the air he breathes. But to Art, it’s not a joke. This is just his life.

“Yeah.”

He answers truthfully, looking her dead in the eyes. He’s serious, too. To him, Tashi is everything, and he’s paying her back- he’s becoming everything she never got the chance to be. That’s love, right?

“You know you can beat him.”

She says it in that assured manner, as if she’s looked into a crystal ball and seen his future, maybe even manipulated the fabric of the universe to throw the game his way. It’s ridiculous to him, how she already expects these things from him, knowing damn well he’s never beaten Patrick fucking Zweig before. Not before, and definitely not now.

“What if I don’t? How are you gonna look at me if I still can’t beat Patrick Zweig?”

“Just like this.”

Tashi’s gaze is cold and calculating. It always is, but Art can read her well enough to sense the undertones, to see when she’s proud and when she’s upset. But right now, this whole poker-face act is working too well. It’s like staring into the eyes of a statue of Christ. Unnerving, all knowing.

Art’s only been to church once in his life. His nana had asked him along one Sunday morning when his parents were away on a business trip, and gladly, he said yes. But the whole experience felt.. suffocating for him. Like he was being forced into a too-tight, too-itchy sweater that just barely fit him. But the second they had left the church, Art had visibly relaxed, even as Nana asked him how he liked it.

“It.. It was good. Was fine,” he shrugged it off, before changing the subject and pivoting to the latest gossip in Nana’s book club. But deep down, he knew he couldn’t ever step foot in a church again, to feel so restricted under the watchful eye of Him.

It was sort of like that now, except Jesus was a She, and she was looking right through Art, wrapping him tight and warm in the itchy sweater. The love of his life, the woman he married, was snuffing him out like an unwanted flame. And what scares Art the most, is that the thought relieves him.

Art heard when she left. He heard the quiet pings on her phone and the rustling of a jacket. The sounds of the hotel door closing and her steps echoing down the hallway keep repeating in Art’s head as he feigns sleep, his chest rising and falling with each breath he takes. 

The bed is cold beside him, chilly where he needed Tashi’s lap to be, to keep him warm and keep him alive. He’s not stupid, he knows she’s off to see Patrick. Hell, he’s considered going off and meeting up with the bastard, just to have a chat, but Art has a feeling Tashi wants more than just a chat.

He curls up in the bed, not wanting to get up. Like if he kept his eyes closed, Tashi would come back, run her hands through his hair, feeling the smooth metal of the wedding band on his skin as she whispered quiet assurances, promises of love and devotion that the game didn’t matter.

Art opens his eyes.

The room is dark and empty, the sheets beside him rumpled. Tashi’s shoes are gone from where they were by Art’s slippers. There used to be a time when Tashi would make fun of Art for wearing slippers, but now she seemed to have accepted the fact that she settled for a man who wore slippers. He gets out of bed, sighing to himself in the quiet of the night. 

The stillness feels good, like cool air on sweat-soaked skin. It’s easier for him to think to himself, to really hear himself. Of course, none of the thoughts are great. He leaves the master bedroom, following Tashi’s steps. He could see the pauses that she made in his head, a hesitant step after a floorboard creaks and a pause to get her jacket. He can envision her sending a text to Patrick, leaving the hotel room without a second thought. Or maybe he was overthinking. Maybe he was doing the stupid jealous husband thing, not even realizing. Maybe it was just insecurity, and a quick talk could fix it. But he knew that wasn’t the truth.

He heads past the kitchen and living room to Lily’s bedroom, opening the door quietly and peeking in. His daughter is asleep, curled up under the covers while a quiet lullaby plays on the portable radio that Tashi brought along. The second Art takes the slightest step inside, Lily stirs, looking up to meet her father’s eyes.

“Sorry, Lilypad…do you have any space for me?”

There’s a pause before she nods, shifting over in the bed to let Art settle in with a groan, laying atop the covers as he wraps an arm around her, kissing her forehead and murmuring a quiet “Thanks, honey,” as he settles in for the night.

His eyes flutter, and he catches a glimpse of the framed photo on her nightstand, one that she liked to carry everywhere. It was a picture of her and Tashi, taken at her fourth birthday party. Lily was wearing a cowboy hat, and next to her, Tashi wore a bejeweled princess crown, smiling widely at the camera. 

Art reaches across to the nightstand, gently placing the photo face down, before settling into bed, snuggling into Lily.

He hopes Tashi will see it. And he hopes that whatever she does that night, she feels guilty.