Chapter Text
It’s another normal morning at the bar.
Another perfectly normal morning at the bar, where everyone will be thoroughly charmed by Ava, and everyone will look at Beatrice with fond respect from afar, and then –
Huh.
Beatrice is too highly trained to not notice that everyone in the bar is looking at her. And not with the fond respect she has come to expect from her patrons but something else.
Something…negative.
In particular, there’s a group of young boys in their 20s who are still not-so-subtly looking at her after ceasing conversation when she walked in. Beatrice knows they think they’re being discreet. Or she assumes they are? What would be the reason they wouldn’t be?
Beatrice looks down to make sure there’s nothing weird on her shirt.
She makes direct eye contact with Evan, the ring leader with tousled dark blonde hair and she is rather shocked to find that he holds her gaze for longer than she expects.
Beatrice wins of course, but now she knows something is up.
A quick glance around the bar leads her to the group of older, muscular, construction worker types, with their one companion that seems out-of-sorts but somehow manages to fit in anyway, an old grandma named Betsy. Betsy is not hiding her ire either. The construction workers aren’t looking at her but they’re quiet.
Beatrice looks at the bar. Hans is watching her with an expression she can’t place, but one that certainly says ‘I know what’s going on and you’re not going to like it’ and she approaches then, with a determination that makes Hans take a flinching breath.
Then, Ava rounds the corner from behind the bar and everything freezes. As in, conversation dims considerably, and she can feel Evan, his group of harmless himbos, Betsy, and the construction workers, the women at a table in the back, the older man sitting at the bar – everyone’s – eyes on the back of her head. Beatrice does not like this. The anxiety of otherness settles in swiftness but Ava’s smile is, warm and without reproach, but undeniably with a hint of typical Ava-shenanigans-guilt.
“Can I talk to you upstairs, boss?”
Ava asks and then Beatrice hears the guilt. Her eyes narrow but of course, she agrees, she’s sappy like a maple tree underneath all of the tough exterior, and she’d follow Ava anywhere.
“Of course,” Beatrice replies and then something in the room loosens. The stares at the back of her head somehow soften and chatter resumes at a building but contagious pace.
Evan, she notices keenly, seems to be looking between them, especially at Ava with a sense of reassurance with somehow a double cheerleader-footballer combo. Curious.
Beatrice follows Ava up the rickety steps upstairs and waits for Ava to turn around. She does with a nervous little bounce.
“What’s going on, Ava?”
Ava doesn’t try to play dumb.
“Okay, so. I have, uh, some updates ,” Beatrice does not like the way Ava said updates , “About last night.”
“Will the updates explain why everyone in the bar is looking at me like I’ve forbidden alcohol?”
“Yes.” Ava. “Sorry.”
Beatrice especially doesn’t like that admission of liability.
“What happened last night?”
Beatrice was not at the bar last night. Last night was her designated solo evening for the week, where she catches up on training plans, reads through whatever research Camilla has sent her, has an extended chat with Mother Superior as needed, and especially importantly, visits local bookstores and libraries for recreational reading. Ava had come back fairly late but not so unusual that she’d made beyond the usual note about it. She’d seemed normal, the usual amount of post-social interaction high, smelling like excitement and liquor, and crawled into bed with the usual amount of tiredness and affectionate disregard for personal space.
“So, you know Evan, right?”
“Yes.”
“And you know, he’s been kind of … well, he’s been flirting with me – “
“I’m well aware,” Beatrice interjects, not that pleased with where this is going but still confused as to the relevance to her .
“Right,” Ava shifts from foot to foot, looking at her and then looking away, “He finally asked me out last night.”
That was an obvious conclusion to a wildly uninteresting and terrible demonstration of adolescent male courtship. Evan clearly had eyes for Ava, and he was friendly enough, nothing to make Beatrice particularly wary, he’d been encouraged by his band of bros boisterously.
“I said no, of course,” Ava says quickly and Bea can’t help her relief, “But he was so sweet about it and I know he’s been working up the courage for weeks with his friends and I just. Felt bad.”
“You don’t have to feel bad.”
“Right, but uh, anyway, I was trying to let him down easy, you know?”
“Okay…”
“So, I told him there was someone else.”
Beatrice has an inkling. She’s fighting the inkling but the inkling now has a sticky side of dread.
“I mentioned I was really into someone else,” Beatrice freezes and Ava barrels through, “I told him I had a big thing for you, which helped!” Ava said, trying to deflect because Beatrice’s widening eyes and stiffening posture were not a recipe for a good time, “I think it helped a lot and he was pretty understanding after that …”
Beatrice clocks the trailing timbre of Ava when she hasn’t finished getting to the thing that Beatrice should be exasperated by.
“Please get to the point.” Beatrice is ignoring Ava’s instinctive solution to the problem and much later she’ll realize that Ava, at no point, specified that she was lying.
“Well, so I figured you wouldn’t be cool with Evan thinking we were dating – “ the thought actually does not bother Beatrice that much, if only because it means no one else will be propositioning Ava “-because if Evan knows, Evan talks to Betsy who talks to everyone and Hans is also a gossip and so, I didn’t want to start this huge thing so –“
“Ava,” Beatrice says sternly, starting to lose her patience.
“So I told him that I knew for sure you didn’t like me back.”
Ava’s expression reads like she thought this was an ideal solution but the tightness behind her smile is belied by the major ‘oh shit’ look in her eyes.
It’s pin-drop silent. Beatrice can’t even think for the first five seconds.
Her brain sludges through and she takes a shaking, intense breath in, only making Ava more nervous.
“So problem solved! I thought.” Ava says slowly, anxiously breaking through the silent stare Beatrice is giving at her.
“I, uh forgot that Evan talks to Betsy and…” Ava trails off, not wanting to finish out loud.
“Betsy talks to everyone. And so now everyone hates me. Because everyone in the bar loves you. In this whole town.” Beatrice breaks her stupor to conclude.
Ava scratches the back of her head.
“Yeah, I’m super sorry, I had no idea, Evan got so defensive on my behalf and I don’t know, I didn’t think it would bother him that much but I guess he also likes me as a person, and he’s seen – well, nevermind, but.”
Ava is looking at her carefully.
“This is really not ideal,” Beatrice says slowly. “Everyone thinks I’m some kind of –“ Beatrice pauses, in search of a word.
“Jerk? Asshole?” Ava supplies unhelpfully and then cowers a bit at Beatrice’s perturbed stare.
“Right.”
They just stare at each other in silence.
Beatrice opens her mouth and then shuts it.
“It seems like…the only way to get everyone in this town to stop hating me…” Beatrice pauses to think, her tone turning analytic.
Ava raises an eyebrow, with no idea where Beatrice is going.
“And to also make sure you don’t keep getting asked out…” Evan is not the first and certainly not the last, and Ava has flirted and had fun but hardly shown any interest, and much, much later Beatrice will put this Ava’s instinctive solution to Evan together.
“Or like a jerk who lied to Evan, who this bar also loves,” Beatrice inhales and exhales, “The only way to do all that is to get everyone to think that I like you back too.”
Ava’s eyes open like she’s been given a free-for-all pass at a carnival. Slowly, a smile stretches across her face.
Beatrice gently takes Ava’s hand with her own and looks down at her feet.
In the silence, something gives. Ava reads the shyness for the subtle admission it is, the subtle give of ‘this shouldn’t be too hard at all’. She doesn’t comment or say anything, just takes a step into Beatrice’s space before tugging her by their entwined hands towards the stairs.
“Everyone seems pretty riled up about what a heartbreaker you are. You might have to do some big romantic gesture to make it more convincing.”
Beatrice sighs but her thumb rubs a circle over the back of Ava’s hand.
(Ava grins.)