Chapter Text
There’s a pounding in Shauna’s head that sounds like a drum. It’s ceaseless and merciless, it keeps her nerves in check during games, and it floods her senses now, an electricity that crackles through the swing of her arms and the dull thud of her cleats against muddy grass. She can feel blood pooling in her lungs, tasting exquisitely of flesh and metal, and pins and needles buzzing beneath her eyelids: anticipation.
Rain patters against her skin, the pungent smell of dew mixing with the sweat from her pinnie. When the ball flies past her on the other side of the field, Shauna thinks of Jackie’s voice.
These things are so fucking disgusting. I don’t think they’ve ever been washed. And I look terrible in them. Shauna, do you think I look —
She grits her teeth and comes up at the half-way point of the field. Her head is pounding again, pounding and pounding and pounding. Van has just intercepted a goal. She throws the ball to Laura Lee, who passes it up to Shauna. Fuck, Shauna has the ball. A few meters away, Taissa looks at Shauna with the hunger of a rabid wolf. Sometimes, there’s a flash in the girls’ eyes that only Shauna notices, like they’d eat her alive for a chance to get the winning shot.
Fuck, Shauna has the ball.
She dribbles up the field and spots Natalie to her right. She’s farther away than Shauna would like, but she waves her hand in the air and Shauna shortens her stride to take her chance —
— until Mari comes barrelling in front of Natalie and intercepts the pass. Mari, who is on the same team as Natalie and Shauna for this scrimmage. Mari, who has no discernible reason to do that other than being so self-absorbed that two seconds away from the ball seem to have the same effect as cruel and unusual punishment.
Mari, who gets the ball taken by Taissa in what Shauna would call one of the worst fumbles in soccer history: Taissa passes to Lottie, who passes to Jackie, who makes a perfect goal at the edge of the net, because of course she does.
Coach Scott’s whistle screeches through the air, and the pounding in Shauna’s head comes to a resounding halt, quickly replaced by a fury that burns painfully in her chest. She stomps towards Mari, who brushes her off with a look of indifference. Shauna’s rage swells.
Maybe, just maybe, if she rips Mari's throat apart with her teeth, the terrible feeling she gets at the prospect of failure will finally go away. Maybe.
“What the fuck was that?” she demands, inches away from Mari’s face.
Mari lets out a bubbling laugh, and Shauna is reminded of her desire to rip out her throat. “Whoa, Shipman. The hell is your problem?”
Shauna stares at her. “Um, I’m sorry, are you insane as well as dumb as rocks? You completely threw our fucking win.”
Mari scoffs. “Jesus, it’s just a scrimmage. Ease the hell up.” She starts to walk away and Shauna grabs her by the pinnie, pulling her towards her just to shove her to the ground. Mari stares up, indignant, and Shauna smirks. “Um, hello?” Mari looks around at the group of teammates gathered around them. “Is anyone going to stop her?”
From behind them, Jackie sighs. “Come on, Shauna, leave her alone. It’s not that big of a deal.”
Shauna scowls, but she’s backing away until Mari says, “Yeah, Shauna, run back to your owner. You wouldn’t want Jackie to send you to the pound.”
Shauna stiffens. “Mari, quit it,” Jackie starts, but Shauna talks over her.
“No, I want her to say it again.”
Mari stares back dumbly. “What?”
“You heard me. Say it again, Ibarra.”
“Um… no?” Mari glances at Jackie nervously, but it’s pointless: Jackie is focused on Shauna.
“Say it,” Shauna snarls. “Tell me what you just said.”
“Shauna, stop it,” Jackie says, and Shauna barely hears her.
“Say it, Mari, I want to hear you say it,” Shauna says, and before Mari can open her mouth again, Shauna’s pouncing, pinning Mari down with her body weight.
Mari shrieks — “What the actual fuck?” — and Shauna sticks three of her fingers into her mouth.
“Shauna!” Jackie shouts, but Shauna is focused on the goal.
Mari lets out another muffled shriek and Shauna shoves her fingers deeper into her throat. Mari gags and then she bites her, forcing Shauna to recoil momentarily — but Shauna recovers fast, scrambling back and slapping Mari across the face.
“YOU BITCH!” she screams. “YOU STUPID FUCKING BITCH!”
“GET THE HELL OFF ME!” Mari screeches, waving her hands in a manner that looks less like fighting back and more like she’s trying to doggy-paddle. “SOMEONE GET HER OFF OF ME!”
“Shauna!” Hands grip under Shauna’s armpits and finally, she doesn’t resist, frowning miserably as Jackie drags her off of Mari, who is, for the record, still doggy-paddling like her life depends on it. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Shauna doesn’t answer, electing instead to glare at Mari out of the corner of her eye.
Jackie sighs, blowing a freshly loosened strand of hair out of her face, and goes over to check on Mari. Shauna tunes out Jackie’s doting “Are you okay?” and Mari’s simpering “My throat really hurts,” shoving herself up off the ground and stalking toward the locker room.
“Wait, Shauna!”
Shauna stops, turning around slowly, scowl still present on her face. “What?”
Mari has the audacity to grin. “Are you coming to my party tonight?”
Shauna resists the urge to spit at her. “Fuck off,” she says instead. She grabs her water bottle from the stands and leaves Jackie and the rest of her teammates to deal with Mari.
She is not, under any circumstances, going to that fucking party.
“We’re going to the party,” Jackie says, rummaging through Shauna’s vanity drawer for makeup she left over.
Shauna stares at her, mouth agape. “Why the fuck would I do that?”
“Are you kidding? You totally need to put on a good face after whatever the fuck happened at practice. Oh, there it is.” She grips a tube of lipstick like a prize, uncapping it while she turns her attention onto Shauna. “That was so completely unlike you. What’s going on?”
Shauna rolls her eyes, shifting so she can’t see Jackie’s stupid bug eyes boring into her. What happened at practice was entirely like her. It was just outside of Jackie’s control. “Nothing’s going on, Jackie. I just had a shitty day.”
Jackie’s silent, which means she’s trying her best to read Shauna’s mind. Shauna sighs, counting to ten and turning back around to face her.
“Fine,” she says. “I’ll go to the party, okay?” Jackie brightens, opening her mouth, and Shauna quickly adds, “But I get to choose what I wear. Deal?”
Jackie pouts for a second, but nods enthusiastically, a big happy Jackie smile breaking out across her face. “Deal. Just don’t choose something terribly offensive to my sense of taste.”
Shauna resists another eyeroll. “Okay, Jackie. I’ll try my best.”
Shauna turns to rummage through her closet, and Jackie’s silent again for a moment. Then she says, “Oh, and Shauna?”
Shauna sighs, bracing herself. “Yeah?”
“Try not to let Mari get under your skin, okay?” she says, big eyes soft and earnest. Then, she snickers. “Everyone knows she’s just trying to make everyone else feel as shitty as she did when Danny Mears dumped her for his own cousin.”
A genuine laugh makes its way out of Shauna. “Duly noted.” Then, softer, “Thanks, Jax.”
Jackie smiles. “Anytime, Shipman.” She clears her throat, returning her focus to the mirror and continuing the application of her lipstick. “Now, get ready! We’re going to be late.”
“I thought I told you to wear something nice,” Jackie grumbles as they walk to Jeff’s car. He parked all the way down the street, for some godforsaken reason, and the five minutes it’ll take to reach him is feeling more like ages.
Shauna huffs. “Well, the agreement was I’d come if I got to choose what to wear. I said I’d try to pick something you’d like.”
“And did you?” Jackie asks accusingly.
“Yeah, I did, actually.” This isn’t true, and Shauna knows Jackie will see through it, but she doubles down anyway. “It’s just that you’re only ever happy with the red dress, and I didn’t want to wear it tonight.”
“That’s not true,” Jackie says, even though it is. She pauses for a moment. “But, like, why wouldn’t you want to wear the red dress? It makes your boobs look great.”
Shauna is about to tell her not everyone dresses for the purpose of making boys come on themselves when they finally reach Jeff’s car.
Jackie doesn’t waste time with pleasantries after opening the door. “Jeff, don’t you think Shauna looks good in the red dress I bought her?”
Jeff blinks, glancing at Shauna for only a second, like if he looks too long Jackie will be able to read his mind and find out they’ve been fucking. Shauna’s satisfied with her spite for only a moment before it curdles, turning into the shame she’s much more familiar with. She yanks the backseat open and flops behind Jackie’s seat in the front.
“I think she looks… fine in it,” Jeff says, apparently deciding that’s the safest answer he could give her.
Jackie huffs sulkily, crossing her arms and looking straight out the windshield. “Whatever. Turn right on Madison, it’s faster.”
Shauna sighs, shifting so she can stare out the window. She really needs some fucking Malibu.
Jackie has barely said a word to Shauna all night. She’s spent all her time rubbing up on Jeff like it’s a full time job, saying stuff like, “You’re so sexy when you smoke” and “I love the way you did your hair tonight,” both of which are total bullshit, because Jackie has told Shauna multiple times that she thinks Jeff looks fucking stupid when he smokes, and she doesn’t even have to tell Shauna that Jeff’s hair looks dumb as hell tonight.
Shauna needs another drink. She’s already had six — wait, no, fuck, seven — but she needs another, because if she doesn’t get drunker, she’s going to walk over there and strangle the fuck out of her best friend, and that won’t end well for anyone. Especially for herself, she thinks spitefully, because that’s how things always turn out when Jackie’s feelings get hurt: Jackie crying pretty, sympathetic tears, Shauna red faced and scolded. She sighs harshly, irritatedly, crushing her solo cup beneath her foot and stalking away from the scene. She only has to be here a couple more hours.
She pushes through the crowd of sweaty teenagers congregated in Mari’s kitchen and makes herself another Malibu and milk — one that, admittedly, contains significantly more Malibu than it does milk. She shoves through Mari’s house, pointedly ignoring several half-dressed couples sucking each other’s faces in assorted corners, till she finally finds a secluded hallway where she can drown herself in self-pity in peace.
God, Shauna fucking hates herself. She hates herself for sticking her fingers down Mari’s stupid fucking whiny throat, she hates herself for letting Jackie talk her into going to this stupid fucking party, she hates herself for not being able to stop having shitty stupid fucking sex with Jeff stupid fucking Sadecki. She hates herself for, despite all her literary expertise, not being able to think of a better adjective than “stupid fucking” for any of these regrets. She tilts her head back and downs the rest of her Malibu and milk, and she hates herself even more as she does it. She even hates herself for hating herself so much, and then she hates herself for the counterproductivity of that. She wishes she could just be dead or something.
Her half-assed suicidal ideation is made worse by the sound of heavy, stumbling footsteps, unmistakably headed her way. Fuck. Shauna can’t even be allowed to hate herself without someone coming in to make her life worse. She just hopes it’s not Jackie.
A giggle as the footsteps halt, then, “Oh, hey, Shipman!”
Fucking hell. Of course God would answer Shauna’s prayer in the least convenient way possible.
Mari might be drunker than Shauna is, and that’s saying a lot, considering Shauna just downed her eighth Malibu and milk of the night. “You enjoying my party? Didn’t think you’d have the guts to show up.”
Don’t take the bait, don’t take the bait, don’t take the bait, don’t take the bait. Shauna looks past Mari’s face so she’s not tempted to put her hands somewhere they don’t belong. “Fuck off, Mari.”
Mari, of course, doesn’t fuck off. “What,” she slurs, “worried Jackie’s gonna drag you out by the collar again? I didn’t know a person could be so whippe — ”
Her remark is cut off by a loud screech as Shauna grabs her by the shoulders and pins her to the wall, forearm pressed tightly against her throat. “Keep Jackie’s name out of your whiny fucking mouth, Ibarra,” Shauna seethes, not seeing Mari so much as a ball of fire, a Mari-shaped glowing orb labeled “OPPONENT.” She digs her arm in deeper, going in for the kill. “You’re going to stop fucking pushing me, Mari, or you’re gonna find out what can happen when I’m pushed.”
Mari wheezes, eyes bulging, too-short nails clawing pathetically at Shauna’s skin. Shauna loosens her hold and Mari takes a gasping breath, looking at Shauna with something that… doesn’t quite seem like fear.
Shauna frowns, slight confusion disorienting her for a moment before she regains control. “Do you understand?” she asks.
Mari doesn’t respond, breathing heavily, eyes darting rapidly between different areas of Shauna’s face.
“Hello? Mari?” Shauna waves her hand in front of Mari’s nose. Mari barely blinks. “Okay, genuinely, what the actual — ”
Shauna’s expletive is cut short by Mari’s mouth crashing right into hers.
Oh. Okay.
Shauna, stunned momentarily out of her thoughts, kisses her back for just a second. Then, she yanks herself back, panting, staring dumbfounded at Mari Ibarra’s flushed, desperate, pretty little face. Okay, genuinely, what the actual fuck?
Mari stares back, eyes wide, throat bobbing. “Sorry,” she says, wheezing slightly. “I, um…” She gives Shauna an ill-positioned, awkward once-over. “I really like your dress.”
Shauna feels her cunt throb, and God, does she hate herself. “Shut the fuck up,” she snarls, and shoves her mouth back against Mari’s.
Shauna’s forearm is still pressed against Mari’s throat. She’s only vaguely aware of this, and Mari doesn’t seem to mind it at all, pressing herself into Shauna with a desperate greed that, embarrassingly, is making Shauna wetter than she thinks she might have ever been. Shauna quickly takes control, keeping her forearm in place and shifting her position so she can lift her knee to press between Mari’s legs. Mari gasps into her mouth, taking only a second before grinding herself down onto Shauna’s thigh.
“God, you’re such a little slut,” Shauna murmurs, pressing her arm into Mari’s throat a little more. “Do you get this wet for all the guys you say you fuck? Or is it just me? I bet you’re a little dyke, aren’t you, getting this goddamn wet for my leg. You’re fucking pathetic.”
Mari moans, which comes out more like a squeak against the pressure of Shauna’s forearm. Shauna lifts her leg, pressing further against Mari’s cunt as she grinds harder.
“This is getting you off, isn’t it?” she taunts, moving her leg to help Mari out. “It gets you off when I tell you how pathetic you are. Such a needy slut. Why don’t you say it yourself, Mari? Tell me what you are.” She loosens her forearm enough for Mari to speak.
“I’m — I’m pathetic,” she says, her eagerness making Shauna hot and pulsating. “I’m a pathetic, needy slut.”
“Good girl,” Shauna purrs. “Now tell me whose pathetic, needy slut you are.”
“Yours,” Mari gasps. “I’m your pathetic, needy — oh, God, Shauna, I’m gonna — ”
“Not until you finish your sentence,” Shauna cuts her off, moving her knee out from between Mari’s legs. Mari whines, trying to press herself back against her, and Shauna presses her forearm more tightly. “You don’t get to come if you’re not gonna be good. Tell me what you are, Mari.”
“I’m a slut,” Mari wheezes. “I’m a pathetic, needy slut, Shauna. I’m — I’m your slut, Shauna, please let me come.”
“Say it again,” Shauna commands, easing her grip.
“I’m a slut,” Mari repeats.
“Again.”
“I’m a slut, Shauna. I’m a slut, I’m a slut, I’m a — ” She cuts herself off with a gasp as Shauna drops to the floor, spreading open Mari’s legs and yanking her panties — small, black, lacy — down roughly.
“Look what you wore for me,” she says with a scoff. “You knew you were gonna get fucked tonight, didn’t you? Wrapping yourself up like a slutty little present. You wore these just for me, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Mari gasps. “Yes, Shauna, I — ” She’s cut off again by a loud moan as Shauna sticks two fingers inside her, stretching her out before adding a third. “Oh, fuck,” Mari says, high-pitched and breathy.
“You’ve wanted my fingers inside you since I had them down your throat earlier, haven’t you?” Shauna says, slowly curling her fingers inside Mari’s cunt. “You want to be fucking full of me, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Mari gasps again. “Yes, Shauna, yes. Oh my God, please don’t stop.”
“You fucking slut,” Shauna murmurs, using the pad of her thumb to press against Mari’s clit as she curves her fingers inside her. “You’re so fucking close, aren’t you? Just from my fucking knee. Easy, pathetic slut.”
“I’m so close, Shauna,” Mari says, whimpering.
“Tell me what you are before you come,” Shauna demands.
“I’m a slut,” Mari says. “I’m an easy, pathetic, needy little slut, Shauna. Oh — ” She spills over with a shaking cry, legs clenching against Shauna’s arm as she tries to keep her balance using the wall. Shauna pulls her fingers out and Mari slides down, panting.
Shauna comes back into herself as they separate, shame setting in as the exhilaration fades. Mari looks like a mess, makeup smeared, hair mussed, panties still wadded around her ankles. She stares up at Shauna with heavy-lidded eyes, unable or unwilling to speak.
Shauna swallows, wiping her hand off on her skirt. “Okay. Um… I’m gonna go.”
Mari nods quickly, dazed.
“Okay,” Shauna repeats to herself, thoughts racing. “Okay.” She practically sprints through the hall, breathing heavily as she barrels through the front door, and — slamming right into Jackie, who grips her by the shoulders to hold her steady.
“Jesus, Shipman,” Jackie says, worry creasing the space between her eyebrows. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Oh my God,” Shauna mumbles, head spinning. She definitely smells like Mari’s perfume. She shoves herself out of Jackie’s arms and falls immediately, vomiting as soon as her knees make contact with the concrete.
“Holy shit, Shauna.” Jackie kneels down beside her, holding back her hair as she retches. “How much did you drink?”
Shauna whimpers pathetically, slumping against Jackie’s side.
“You know what, forget that, I don’t care. We just need to get you home.” Jackie hoists Shauna up onto her shoulder and shouts through the crowd till she finds Jeff. Shauna feels herself nodding off, hearing only bits and pieces of what Jackie says — “… wasted, we have to get her…” — and barely feeling it as she’s hoisted into the backseat of Jeff’s car.
As the world goes black, she sees Jackie’s honey-blonde head bobbing over her and tastes Mari’s spit bubbling up in her mouth.