Chapter Text
Moscow, 2006.
Someone is banging on her door. Sue Bird is cozy in bed, snuggled under the million blankets needed to keep out the Moscow cold, and someone is banging on her door?? Cursing, she rolls over to check her phone. 12:30 AM.
“Sueeeeeeeee! Come hang out!!!”
Women’s Basketball Club Spartak is under strict instructions to rest for the next two days with their first game of the season coming up.
She can clearly hear that one of her teammates is not resting.
“Sueeeee!!! Come hang outttttt!”
She rolls over. Dee will tire herself out eventually and end up back at her own apartment, one floor down.
“Tweet tweet Birdie! Wake up and hang outtttttttt”
She growls and stuffs a pillow over her head. Dee knows she hates being called Birdie.
The knocking is getting louder.
“SUZANNE”
At this, she flings off her pillows and gets out of bed. No one calls her Suzanne except her mother. Sue stalks down the carpeted hallway towards the door, wearing only boxers and an old UCONN T shirt she stole from Dee when they roomed together during the Olympics.
She flings open the door and Diana Taurasi stumbles, mid knock.
“BIRD!! I’m comin in.”
She pushes past, holding a bottle of shitty Russian red wine by the neck, and flops onto the couch.
Sue buries her head in her hands before closing the door behind (god help her) her best friend.
“Dee…what are you doing?”
Diana has opened the bottle (a twist off, as is most wine under 500 rubles), and is taking a swig.
“‘M here to hang out! What are you doing?”
“Dee, it’s 1 o’clock in the morning.”
“Okay? I was bored!”
Sue sighs.
“Dee-“
Her bright, if slightly glassy, eyes focus on Sue, taking in her choice of pajamas. “Wait-is that my shirt?”
“THAT’S NOT THE POINT! Dee, you can’t come up here yelling my name and banging on my door! This is why people think we’re fucking!”
Diana goes quiet and then bursts into laughter.
“People think we’re…nah. No WAY they think that. Are you kidding? I am SO not your type.”
Sue flops onto the couch next to her best friend and snags the bottle of wine. She’s given up on sleeping anyway.
“Okay, listen to the evidence.”
Dee sits up like she’s in a postgame watching film, making an overly serious face.
“One, we hang out all the time” Sue sips the wine.
“Yeah, you’re my best friend.”
“Shh-no talking until I’m done. Two, we’re both gay.” Another sip.
“Sue, it’s women’s basketball! We’re all gay!”
“Three, I’m your point guard, and everyone knows that’s basketball marriage.” A sizable swig of wine. She might as well try to meet Diana on her level.
“You’re my point guard In Russia! And in college! That’s not exactly big time, sweetheart.”
“Everyone knows we asked our agent to get us both to Spartak so we could play together. Four, we have the same agent.” She’s probably a glass deep now.
“So this is the convincing evidence everyone has that we’re snuggled up every night? If that’s true, MJ and Dennis Rodman were getting NASTY in that Bulls locker room. Me personally, I think Rodman bottoms.”
Sue is well practiced at ignoring her friend's drunken asides.
“That, and you just banged on my door in the middle of the night, drunk, shouting my name.” A little flushed from wine, she leans against the couch, presentation concluded.
“Cmon, that’s just…fuck, man, I can’t get lonely and wanna hang out?” Dee whines, outreasoned.
Sue laughs. “I know that. You know that. But don’t you think that might make people suspicious? I don’t need everyone in Moscow thinking they know about my sex life.”
A slow smirk spreads across her friend’s face. It’s the face she’d get before challenging Svetlana Abrosimova to arm wrestle during team dinners, or before mouthing off to Coach. The “this is going to be funny, I don’t care if it’s a bad idea” face.
“No-Dee-do NOT.”
It’s too late.
Diana starts rocking back and forth a bit, enough that the heavy couch that came with the apartment starts knocking into the wall. Rythmically. Then she starts moaning, a breathy, high pitched, shocking feminine moan.
“Ohhhh fuck…just like that…fuck…you’re so good… oh my god….fuck me Daddy!”
Sue is across the couch faster than she moves on the court, pinning Dee beneath her with one hand and slapping the other hard over her mouth.
They’re pressed against each other, like a good defender playing man-to-man, hip glued to hip, body heat melting together as they both breathe slowly.
And then, because her best friend is a giant teenager, Diana licks her hand until she removes it, snagging the wine and fleeing to the other side of the couch.
“Ew! God, Dee, are you twelve?”
Diana has cracked herself up, and is bent over slapping her own knee. Someone loudly raps on the wall of the next apartment and yells something in Russian-probably “shut the fuck up!”, and she laughs even harder, wiping tears from her eyes until she throws herself backwards and snatches back the bottle.
“Hey, you’re way ahead. Gimme that back.”
“Take it from me, then.”
“Tell me about your date tonight.” The non sequiter disarms Diana, and Sue watches her eyes shutter slightly, her hand going slack around the bottle.
Sue plucks it neatly away, and Diana doesn’t even flinch to stop her, instead sliding down to the floor, resting her back against the couch.
“Well, I’m fully clothed and drinking with you, so what do you think?”
The uncharacteristic lack of bravado is something even Sue rarely witnesses, and her heart aches for her friend.
“She’s married, Dee. You can’t keep sabotaging yourself by going on dates with mean Russian models just because you’re pining for her.”
The number one draft pick, rookie of the year, Olympic gold medalist, hunches down over herself and covers her face in her hands. For all her six feet of lanky, wirey muscle, from where Sue is sitting, Diana looks tiny.
“I’m not pining! I just thought…I thought I’d have more time. The draft, our season, the Olympics, and then she’s married? What the fuck is THAT?”
There’s nothing Sue can do besides put a heavy hand on her friend’s shoulder in silent solidarity. They sit there for a moment, the weight lessened by the company. Diana crosses her left hand across her chest, holding Sue’s. Eyes huge and earnest, she looks up.
“Sue Bird. My best friend, my point guard. If I’m not this woman’s wife in twenty years, will you marry me?”
In a move straight out of the Geno Auriemma How To Coach Diana Taurasi Playbook, Sue dispenses a smack to the back of the head that Coach would be proud of, then heads towards the kitchen to grab a bottle of vodka from the freezer. She pours two shot glasses and sets them on the coffee table.
“Diana Taurasi. My best friend, my shooting hand. If you’re not pregnant with her baby in ten years, I’ll buy you a dress and drive us to Massachusetts myself.”
They hold eye contact, the promise lingering in the air between them. With the telepathic ease of longtime teammates, they slam their shots at the same time and clasp hands as a chaser, sealing the deal.
———-
An hour or so, and a few more shots, have passed.
They’ve emptied the ice cream from the freezer as well as the vodka, and are sitting on the floor passing their pints back and forth.
“Just saying, if people think we’re dating, they totally think I’m the top.” Diana mumbles around a mouthful of strawberry ice cream.
Sue snorts into her mint chocolate chip.
“Yeah, right. For starters, I’m older-“
“I’m taller!”
“We KNOW you like an older woman”
“Not fair! I also like blondes, and I wouldn’t let you top even if Lauren Jackson dyed your hair to match hers. ”
“You like maturity, maybe because you don’t have any.” Diana’s mouth drops open in mock shock, exposing chunks of half eaten ice cream.
“Ew, close your mouth! Proving my point. Plus I’m faster AND stronger.”
“Hey! You are NOT stronger.”
“Mmm, didn’t I do more pushups than you at training camp last summer?” She’s leveling her accusation at spoon point when Dee lunges, knocking both their ice creams aside to pin Sue to the floor with both hands, straddling her legs.
“I don’t think you’re stronger.”
She’s got that infuriatingly cocky look on her face, the one that steamrolls defenders and earns her nicknames and accolades. It’s a look Sue has come to rely on, even to instigate when she needs it, but she does not appreciate it being turned on her. Especially not after a few shots.
She braces from her core, hands curling into fists. Flexing her biceps and shoulders, tensing like she’s pushing away an off-ball defender, she rolls. They tussle like they did during scrimmages when Coach wasn’t looking, all flailing limbs and hard shoves and fast breathing and flushed skin. But, probably given Dee had a head start on the drinking, Sue wins. Once she’s on top, she gets to gloat.
“You don’t think I’m stronger? You don’t think I’m stronger? I guard girls taller than you every day. I DID do more pushups than you at training camp. And I don’t fall in love with straight girls.”
The fight drains out of Diana Taurasi. Sue remembers the last time she saw that defeated, powerless look. Then, the backdrop had been the cheering Notre Dame team, dashing together to jump up and down. This time, it’s just Sue’s apartment rug.
“Fuck, Sue, leave it alone, okay?” The tears that shimmer across her eyes take her right back to junior year. Saddled with responsibility for the tall, mouthy freshman who could run through a wall but couldn’t ask for help.
“No, I can’t leave it alone! I’m not watching you break your own heart anymore, I refuse to fucking do that. You need to get this out of your system and MOVE. ON!”
They’re both out of breath. A single tear is tracking down Diana’s face towards her ear, and a strand of hair has come loose from her signature bun. Sue knows her own hair is wild and frizzy, and her cheeks are pink. The silence feels like a squat rack, loaded and too heavy to lift.
Then Dee surges, pressing up into Sue’s grip to close the distance between their faces and suddenly her best friend is kissing her. Sweet like strawberries, stinging like vodka, hard and fast and desperate like a buzzer beater. She relaxes her grip, leaning closer, tucking away that strand of hair and losing her senses. She’s kissing the person who understands her the most in the world, who she understands better than basketball, better than breathing. Dee’s hands are in her hair, and nothing has ever made less sense. Dee is biting her lip and lapping at the blood and nothing has ever made more sense.
As suddenly as it started, it stops. Sue can’t tell who broke first, but they scramble apart. The silence is back, heavier than before. She scrapes her hair out of her face and rises, slowly. Diana gathers her jacket, neither quite looking at the other. She can tell that something has changed because her friend makes sure to pick up the empty ice cream pints and throw them away before walking to the door. Shoulders swallowing her head, without looking back, the question appears in the air.
“You won’t-“
The answer comes from her, she knows it does, but it feels like something they both say. That damned mutual understanding.
“Of course not.”
Diana Taurasi quietly closes the door as she leaves, and in the empty living room Sue Bird starts doing pushups.