𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐄𝐓 ☆ BUECKERS⁵ (ev's 6k celly!)
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CELLY MASTERLIST
ᝰ 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 | 4.6k
ᝰ 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 | dating paige means learning to share her — with fans, cameras, the league. you’re used to being in the background: her pregame text, her airport pickup, the face she looks for in the crowd. but when she finally has a bad game — one that leaves her jaw tight and chest guarded, you’re the one she lets fall apart.
ᝰ 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 | angst!! hurt to comfort, paige being a little mean, kinda stay at home vibe for reader but not really?? HAPPY ENDING!!
ᝰ 𝒆𝒗'𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒔 | yaya!! day 3 of celly, i hope yall are enjoying so far. here's the angsty, hurt to comfort paige fic yall were promised. also i feel like i needed to add that im not trying to hate on the wings at all, this fic is more about the emotional side of things than any real commentary on the team.
also obviously i have no idea what paige is actually feeling or going through (obviously LOL), this is all just fictional and for fun. just wanted to explore a softer, more personal side of what that transition might feel like for someone carrying that much pressure. no harm intended, just feelings & vibes & sapphic yearning <3
You meet her in a grocery store just off of campus, which feels fake even as it’s happening.
She’s in a hoodie too big for her, hood up, cart half-full of protein bars and Smartwater, reading the back of a box like it's a scouting report. You’re standing in front of the oat milk. That’s it. That’s the origin story.
She asks if the oat milk is good. You say it depends on what she’s doing with it. She raises an eyebrow and says, drinking it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world . You tell her it’s fine but the vanilla one is better. And when she reaches for it, your fingers graze. You don’t look away first.
It starts there — two people in the milk aisle, pretending they don’t know who the other is or maybe pretending it doesn’t matter.
It matters.
Now it’s almost two years later. You know which pair of socks she has to wear on game days, how she retapes her fingers during halftime even if the wrap is fine, the way she likes her smoothies: blended twice, don’t ask why and that when she’s tired she gets clingy but insists she’s not.
You also know how to stay out of the frame.
You're the person who picks up her dry cleaning, triple checks her call sheet, drives her to the airport at 5AM with a thermos of coffee you’ll never get thanked for. Not because she’s ungrateful, but because she doesn’t realize she needs to. She’s Paige Bueckers. She gives pieces of herself away all day — photos, autographs, interviews, sideline hugs for kids she’s never met and by the time she gets to you, there’s not always much left.
But she always finds your hand. That counts for something.
You get used to watching her light up arenas from the shadows. You like it, actually. The background is quiet. Safe. You can watch her without worrying about being watched back.
You know she’s yours even if everyone else thinks she belongs to the world. And lately, the world’s been getting greedy.
The apartment still smells like new paint.
Not strong, not offensive, just that faint, chalky scent that clings to the corners of the rooms, reminding you that the place isn’t quite lived-in yet. Boxes line the hallway in uneven stacks, some open, some sealed, all of them with your handwriting scrawled across the sides. Kitchen stuff. Shoes, maybe?? PAIGE DON’T TOUCH.
She did, obviously.
You find the proof in the form of an empty protein bar wrapper tucked into the top of a box marked winter clothes and you roll your eyes as you toss it in the trash.
It’s quiet in the apartment, which is rare lately. For the past few months, everything’s been loud. Not just the literal noise, although there’s been plenty of that: roaring student sections, confetti cannons, draft night applause that rang in your chest like a second heartbeat but the kind of loud that lives under your skin. Constant motion. Constant attention. Eyes on her, hands on her, reporters leaning too close with too many questions, and her answering all of it with that same polished smile that means I’m good, I’m fine, keep moving.
You know what it costs.
Winning the natty should’ve felt like a finish line but it only cracked open another beginning. Draft week came less than a week later. There was barely time to breathe, let alone plan a move to a new city, a new team, a new life. You booked the flights. You signed the lease. You made sure the sheets were washed before she got here.
You haven’t unpacked fully. Neither of you has had time.
Right now, she’s at shootaround — early preseason workouts, a light day, though deemed light by Paige Bueckers standards still means running through plays like it’s the Final Four. You’re not there. She asked if you wanted to come and you said no. She didn’t push. She never does.
You like seeing her on the court but today you needed the silence. Needed to breathe in a room that didn’t buzz with her future. Needed to sit in the kitchen she hasn’t cooked in yet and just be.
You wash two mugs, even though you only used one. You start putting away silverware and get distracted organizing the drawer — forks facing one way, spoons the other, knives stacked like soldiers. You don’t know how long you’re standing there when you hear the door unlock.
“Babe?”
Her voice is hoarse. You glance up, startled by the way your heart still flinches at the sound.
“In the kitchen,” you call back.
She appears a second later, already halfway out of her sneakers, gym bag sliding off her shoulder. Her hair’s tied up in a bun, messy, a few strands stuck to her forehead. She looks tired, which means she probably went too hard, again.
She smiles when she sees you. It’s not a big smile, barely there, really but it’s the one she only gives you. The one that softens all the edges.
“Hey,” she says.
You lift an eyebrow. “Don’t ‘hey’ me. You went for an hour and a half.”
“Sixty-five minutes,” she corrects, coming over to press a kiss to your cheek. Her hand finds your waist without thinking. “I’m being good.”
“You’re being reckless.”
“I’m being prepared.” She grins like she knows you’re already over it and you are. Mostly.
You turn into her, letting her rest her forehead against yours. Her skin is damp. You don’t mind. For a second, neither of you says anything.
“I missed you,” she murmurs.
You hum. “You saw me this morning.”
“Still.”
This is how it’s always been. Paige flies too close to the sun, and you make sure there’s a place for her to land. You’ve never tried to stop her. You just make sure the lights are on when she comes home.
She pulls away slowly, eyes scanning your face like she’s trying to memorize it, even though she’s already got it memorized a hundred times over.
“I know I haven’t been around much lately,” she says, quieter.
You could say I know, or It’s okay, or You don’t have to explain.
But you don’t.
Instead, you say, “Sit down. I’ll make you something.”
She blinks, then smiles again — wider this time. “You love bossing me around.”
You shrug, moving toward the fridge. “Someone’s gotta keep you alive.”
She sits. Watches you. You can feel her eyes on your back while you crack eggs into a pan and mumble about how she better not leave her sweaty socks on the kitchen chair again. She laughs.
For a second, the rest of it fades. The expectations, the cameras, the pressure. The whole world outside this apartment.
She’s here. And she’s yours.
The season starts badly.
Not technically — their opener is a loss, narrow but clean. The kind of win that looks okay in a box score even if you know, just by watching, that something’s off. Like the rhythm is a beat behind. Like Paige’s shot is just a little too flat. Like the whole team is waiting for someone else to wake them up.
After that, it’s four straight losses. One at home, three on the road. All of them ugly.
The headlines stay polite at first. Young team still finding chemistry. Bueckers adjusting to WNBA pace. But the subtext is everywhere. In the photos they run — Paige midair, Paige scowling, Paige with her hands on her knees. In the clips they replay: missed threes, turnovers, turnovers, turnovers. Even in the way the commentators say her name, like it used to mean something magical and now they’re not sure what it means anymore.
You try not to read the comments. You still do.
At home, she says she’s fine.
Fine when she’s up at 1:30 in the morning watching film with the volume so low you can barely hear it. Fine when she forgets to eat until noon. Fine when she gets back from practice with red-rimmed eyes and blames it on the wind even though it hasn’t been breezy in days.
You don’t press. Not directly.
You just hover. The way you always do. Fold her laundry. Wrap her knee even when she says it doesn’t hurt. Order in from her favorite Thai place and pretend you were craving it too. Make sure the lamp by her side of the bed is always turned on when she walks in.
You wait for her to let you in.
She doesn’t.
The apartment feels different now.
You don’t realize it until you’re halfway through cleaning out the fridge one day and it hits you: this is what distance feels like. Not loud. Not obvious. Just space. Gaps where the closeness used to live. Little things.
She doesn’t hum when she showers anymore. She texts you from the gym less. She doesn’t ask you to braid her hair before games. She doesn’t lose her phone and call out for you in a half-panic only to find it under a throw pillow. She just… moves quieter.
Sometimes she looks at you like she wants to say something. Like it’s sitting on her tongue, one syllable away from shattering the whole dam. But then she blinks and it’s gone, and she says something like “Did we run out of toothpaste?”
And you nod, and say “Yeah, I’ll grab some tomorrow” and pretend you weren’t holding your breath.
They lose again. Badly.
You watch from the tunnel, same place you always stand. You’ve watched her from this spot more times than you can count but this feels different. Wrong.
The buzzer sounds. 78–61. Another loss. Fifth in a row. You stand in the tunnel like always, heart clenched in that familiar way that used to mean nerves but now mostly means dread.
You watch her shake hands, high-five a couple fans who lean over the railing. The towel around her neck looks like a surrender flag. Her face is set, eyes sharp and far away. You recognize that look - it’s the one she wears when she’s trying not to feel anything. When the disappointment is too deep and too sharp to acknowledge in public.
She doesn’t look up at you.
Doesn’t wave. Doesn’t nod. Doesn’t say your name like she usually does, even in passing maybe half a smile, quick reach for your hand if you’re close enough.
She walks straight past.
You wait for her anyway. You text her: I’m in the tunnel, I’ll be at the car.
No response.
She gets home almost an hour later. Drops her bag by the door and kicks her shoes off with more force than necessary. You’re curled up on the couch, pretending to watch a rerun of something, volume too low to actually follow.
You glance over. “Hey.”
“Hey,” she says, tossing her keys onto the kitchen counter like she’s trying to miss on purpose. “God, what a night. I mean at least I only turned it over, what, six times? That’s practically an improvement.”
You pause. “Seven.”
“Oof.” She winces, exaggerated. “Even better.”
You don’t laugh.
She notices. She walks into the kitchen, opens the fridge, stands there like it's a portal to another dimension.
“You hungry?” she asks. “I could burn some toast or reheat something and pretend I made it from scratch.”
“Paige.”
She doesn’t look over. “Or we could do popcorn and call it dinner. Real athlete shit.”
“Paige.”
That lands. She shuts the fridge, too loud and finally turns to face you.
“What?” she says. Light, teasing. Like she already knows what you’re about to say and wants to joke her way out of it. “Don’t tell me you’re mad at me for that disaster.”
You sit up. “I’m not mad at you for losing. I’m upset that you won’t talk to me.”
She blinks. “I am talking to you.”
“No, you’re deflecting. You’ve been doing it for days. You came home last night and made a joke about retiring to become a barista.”
“Hey, that’s a solid fallback plan.”
“Paige.”
She lifts her hands. “Okay. What do you want me to say? That I suck right now? That I’m letting everybody down? That I feel like I made a huge mistake coming here? Would that make you feel better?”
The words cut sharper than they should. Not because she means to hurt you -- Paige never means to hurt you but because you recognize the panic underneath them. The way her voice spikes, too high, too fast. The way she’s trying to outrun the truth before it catches up.
You step into the kitchen, across from her now. Arms folded. Quiet.
“I want you to be honest with me,” you say, low and even. “Not perfect. Not funny. Not brave. Just… honest.”
She leans back against the counter like it might hold her up better than you can. Her arms cross over her chest.
“I can’t do that right now,” she says.
You nod but it’s not agreement. More like acknowledgment.
“Okay.” You back away slowly. “Then I’m gonna go for a drive.”
She frowns. “What? Why?”
“Because if I stay, I’m going to say something I can’t take back.”
She doesn’t try to stop you. That hurts more than it should.
The silence stretches.
A day passes. Then another. The fight doesn’t explode: it simmers. You still talk, technically. You ask if she wants anything when you go to the store. She tells you she refilled your prescription when she picked up her own. You switch the laundry she started. She rewinds the show you missed.
But you don’t touch. You don’t look too long. And she doesn’t say your name like it’s a question anymore.
It feels like standing on a frozen lake, the ice too thin and the water too black and freezing underneath. And you're the only one hearing the cracks.
You find yourself spiraling in stupid ways.
You start overthinking texts that don’t need to be overthought. You stare at her Instagram comments longer than you should. You don’t mean to but you do. All the hearts, all the compliments, all the people who don’t know her but think they do. Who think they love her.
And maybe they do, in that empty, worshipful, social-media way.
But they don’t fold her socks. They don’t know how her voice sounds when she’s half-asleep. They don’t press a cold washcloth to her forehead when she’s sick. They don’t know she triple-knots her laces and tucks the ends in because she’s paranoid about tripping. They don’t know she cries at commercials but hides it by blaming dust.
You do.
And it’s not jealousy, not really. It’s more like… fear. Like maybe all this silence is the beginning of her forgetting that she needs you.
And the worst part? You get it.
You know what she’s feeling even if she won’t say it. You know she’s disappointed, overwhelmed. You know she thinks showing you that will make her seem weak. You know it’s not about you.
But it still feels like it is.
You lie awake beside her that night, staring at the ceiling. You can hear her breathing, slow and even. Either asleep or pretending to be. You don't reach for her. Not this time.
And she doesn't reach for you.
The arena feels different tonight. Not louder. Not quieter. Just heavier. Like even the air is bracing for something it can’t name.
You’re in the tunnel again, where you always are. That same spot, hands tucked into your jacket sleeves, the lanyard around your neck sticking to your skin with the sweat you won’t admit to. You watch the players file in, coaches in tow, heads bowed slightly in that ritual of unspoken hope.
Paige doesn’t look at you when she runs out for warmups. Hasn’t, not since the fight.
Her face is unreadable under the lights, jaw set and mouth tight in that way that means she’s focused, or maybe pretending to be. You’ve seen that look a hundred times before. In college stadiums, back at UConn. But never like this. Never this brittle.
You watch her miss three shots in a row during shootaround. Not by much but by enough. No one else seems to notice or maybe they’ve gotten used to it. You haven’t.
When the game starts, you try to focus on it like you usually do. Not in a fan way but in a quiet way. You keep your eyes on her. Always on her. Not the scoreboard. Not the other players. Just Paige.
She’s off. Again. And this time it’s not the usual, not just missed shots or a slow start or teammates who don’t read her cuts. It’s everything. Her rhythm is gone. Her body’s tight. Her passes are rushed. Her confidence, usually such a steady undercurrent in the way she moves is nowhere to be found.
She fouls early. A dumb reach-in that she wouldn’t normally commit. Then another, chasing a fast break she had no hope of catching. By halftime, she’s on the bench, staring at the floor with a towel over her head and a stat line you know she won’t be able to look at later.
2 points. 1 assist. 4 turnovers.
The team is down by 15.
You don’t know what to do with your hands. You keep rubbing your thumb over your ring finger, a nervous habit you picked up somewhere along the way and never broke. You watch her jog into the tunnel at the half, shoulders tense, mouth pressed into a thin line.
She doesn’t look up.
The second half is worse.
The game slips away before the fourth quarter even starts. Paige goes scoreless the entire third then gets pulled halfway through the fourth when it becomes clear the coaches are calling it. She doesn’t argue. Doesn’t flinch. Just walks to the bench, plops down, elbows on her knees, eyes ahead like she’s watching something only she can see.
By the time the buzzer sounds, the final score doesn’t matter.
They lose by 22.
You wait for her in the same spot you always do. Tunnel. Left side. Just past the security guard who now knows your name.
The team walks by slowly. A few nods, a couple brief waves from familiar faces. But Paige isn’t with them.
She comes last.
No towel. No eye contact. Just her, walking like every step hurts.
She sees you — she has to, you’re right in her line of sight but she walks past without a word.
You follow.
The car ride is silent.
She doesn’t play music. Doesn’t reach for your hand at the red light like she usually does. Just keeps her eyes on the road, knuckles white around the steering wheel. She’s still in her jersey, sweats pulled over her shorts, hair damp from the shower and curled behind her ears.
You want to say something. Anything. But you’ve learned not to touch the wound while it’s still bleeding.
She unlocks the apartment, tosses her keys on the counter and moves straight to the kitchen. Opens the fridge. Closes it. Opens it again. Then just stands there with her hand on the handle, breathing like she’s trying to remember how.
You step inside, gently, quietly like someone trying not to startle a cornered animal.
“Paige,” you say.
She doesn’t move.
“Hey.” You reach out, touch her back lightly, right between the shoulder blades.
She flinches. Not from pain. From everything else.
“I can’t,” she whispers.
You don’t ask what she means.
Instead, you guide her hand off the fridge door and turn her to face you.
Her face crumples.
Not all at once. Not dramatically. Just… slowly. Like a wall finally giving way after weeks of rain. Her mouth twitches. Her eyes glass over. Her breath catches in her throat.
“I’m trying so hard,” she says, barely audible. “I’m doing everything I can and it’s still not enough.”
You move closer, carefully, and she doesn’t pull away this time.
“I know,” you whisper. “I know you are.”
She shakes her head, eyes rimmed red. “I’m not who they thought I’d be.”
You feel that like a knife. Because you know what she means. Not just the media. Not just the fans. She means everyone. The people who waited for her. The ones who wanted her to be a savior.
“They all thought I’d come in and just… fix it. Like I was some kind of answer.”
You reach up, thumb brushing under her eye. “You were never supposed to fix it all, P.”
She exhales and it sounds like a sob even though there are no tears yet.
“You don’t get it,” she says. “I used to love this. I used to be good at this. And now all I do is mess up and get benched and watch them lose and try not to cry in front of the cameras. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I don’t even feel like me anymore.”
That last part cracks something in you. Because that’s the thing, isn’t it? She’s not afraid of losing. She’s afraid of losing herself.
You don’t say anything right away. You just take her face in your hands and hold her like it’s the only thing keeping her tethered to the earth.
“I miss you,” you say.
She blinks. “I’m right here.”
“No, you’re not. You’ve been somewhere else for weeks and I didn’t know how to reach you.” Your voice shakes a little. “But I’m here. I’ve been here the whole time. You can fall apart with me. You have to fall apart with me. That’s the deal.”
And finally, finally, she breaks.
The tears come fast and silent, her body folding into yours like she’s collapsing under her own weight. You hold her through it, arms around her waist, her forehead pressed into your shoulder. You feel every tremble. Every shudder. Every breath she takes like she’s trying to relearn how.
“I don’t want to be strong right now,” she mumbles against your collarbone. “I’m so tired of being strong.”
“You don’t have to be,” you whisper. “Not with me.”
So she lets go. And for the first time in weeks, so do you.
Later, when the storm inside her has quieted, when her eyes are puffy and red and her breathing has slowed to something human again, you lead her to the couch like you’ve done a hundred times before. Like it’s ritual.
She lets you.
Still silent. Still raw. But softer now, like the sharp edges have dulled. Her hand lingers in yours longer than it has in weeks. She curls into you without asking, tucks her knees up under her and presses her cheek to your chest like she did during last year at UConn, after that Final Four game where she swore she’d never play that badly again.
You’d found her in her dorm that night, still in her travel sweats, hoodie pulled up like armor. She hadn’t said anything, just climbed into your lap, quiet and bruised and seventeen kinds of exhausted.
You held her then like you’re holding her now. Careful, steady, for as long as she needed.
You grab the fuzzy blanket from the arm of the couch, the one she pretends she hates because it’s “obnoxiously pink” but always ends up buried under after tough nights. You drape it over the two of you, then kiss her hair once, gently, where it parts at her crown.
“I’m so sorry,” she murmurs after a long stretch of silence.
You shake your head. “Don’t be.”
“I’ve been such a dick.”
You smile faintly into her hair. “Maybe. But you’re my dick.”
That gets the tiniest huff of a laugh out of her, muffled against your collarbone. It’s the first real sound of her in days.
You reach for the remote and scroll mindlessly until you land on the dumb baking show you always used to put on after her bad games. She pretends to hate it: “They’re just cakes, babe, why are they all crying?” but you know it makes her feel safe. Like the world is a little slower and a little sweeter.
You set the volume low, just enough to fill the room with chatter and clinking bowls and the gentle pressure of lives that have nothing to do with yours.
“I forgot how good this show is,” she mumbles after a few minutes.
You don’t answer. Just let your fingers drift through her hair, light and rhythmic. Her breathing evens out, one hand fisting lightly in your hoodie.
This is the version of her you’ve missed. Not perfect. Not polished. Just herself. Soft, sleepy, safe.
“You remember that night in Hartford,” you say eventually, voice quiet, “when you missed that game-winner and locked yourself in the locker room for an hour?”
She groans. “Don’t remind me.”
“You wouldn’t come out. I had to sneak in with that nasty gas station hot chocolate.”
She shifts a little, her smile pressing into your skin. “You bribed me.”
“Worked, didn’t it?”
She hums. “Barely. I only opened the door ‘cause I thought you were gonna start sobbing outside it.”
You feign offense. “I was being dramatic for effect.”
“Mm-hmm.”
You let the silence settle again. It’s warm this time. Companionable.
“I used to think you only loved me when I was winning,” she says quietly, like it’s something she’s only just realized she believed.
You tilt your head down. “Do you still think that?”
She shrugs against you. “I don’t know. I think I forgot how to be loved when I wasn’t.”
You exhale slowly and tip her chin up with two fingers, just enough to see her face. Her eyes are tired, but clear.
“Paige,” you say, soft but sure, “you are loved when you lose. When you miss. When you fall apart. When you’re stubborn and snappy and full of doubt. There is no version of you I wouldn’t love.”
Her throat works around the lump there, eyes glistening again, but the tears don’t fall this time. She just nods.
Then she pulls you in and kisses you.
Not desperate. Not needy. Just real. Quiet and slow and full of apology and promise.
When she pulls back, she leans her forehead to yours.
“Thank you,” she whispers. “For not walking away.”
You shake your head. “I’ll always be here. Even when you’re not ready. Even when you push. I’ll wait. That’s the job.”
She smiles again, and this time it reaches her eyes. It’s not big. Not flashy. But it’s real.
“You’re too good to me,” she says.
“Mm. Probably,” you tease, brushing your thumb across her cheek. “But I like the work.”
She laughs, and it bubbles out of her like it’s the first time she’s remembered how. The tension breaks. The ache loosens.
The couch holds you both.
Outside, Dallas hums on — noisier than it should be, traffic always loud and lights always spilling in through the windows. But the room you’re in is soft. Dim. Full of the kind of peace that only comes after a storm.
She nestles back into your chest, tugs the blanket up to her chin.
And you think; this is enough.
Not the win streak. Not the headlines. Not the perfect stat lines.
Just this.
Her body folded into yours. Her heart safe in your hands. Her breath warm on your neck. The worst of it behind you.
Finally, finally — home.
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