Chapter Text
“i was never one for sunrises,
until i saw you,
half covered in the dawn,
half covering me.”
- Jessica Katoff
Ava has always lived her life in the comfort of dusk.
When the shadows stretch long against the sidewalk, red streaking across the sky, her dulled senses come to life. Her eyes focus, her shoulders drop. The pinched furrow between her brows smooths out, and she walks easier, glides more confidently, her body easing into the protective shade of the shadows.
The cool breeze of dusk gives her strength. She finds solace and comfort in the safety of faded blue twilight, chasing after the red sunset.
Iris steps into her life like the afternoon sun, blazing and glaring and intrusive. Her brightness is stubborn and unyielding in her refusal to back down from Ava’s presence, in her fight for justice, her ever-frustrating pursuit of truth. Ava doesn’t understand why the others circle around her, bathing in her light, when they used to have no trouble keeping to themselves. She seemingly has nothing in common with them, and yet, she draws them in.
Somehow, Ava can’t stop herself from stealing furtive glances. She’s merely curious, she reminds herself, just curious about the cases Iris handles, the routine she keeps, the strange, foolish ways she willingly puts herself in danger despite how timid she usually is, the way her features soften and glow in the sunlight —
Yeah, just curious.
She knows she has to look away before she hurts herself, but she can’t bring herself to do it. No matter where Iris is in the room, or what she’s doing, her gaze always falls back to her, like a compass needle to the south.
By the time Ava realises she’s drawn to her light, it’s far too late.
She’s cradling Iris’s head in her hands, rainwater plastering Ava’s dark blonde hair to her face. It washes away the blood from Iris’s body, but she looks paler, more lifeless without it.
It seizes her with a fear she’s not familiar with.
“Wake up,” she commands, but she can feel the heat behind her words dimming. It sounds more like a plea. “Stay awake.”
There’s a familiar, annoyed gleam reflected in Iris’s eyes as they struggle open.
“Still trying to order me around?” she croaks, a wry smile crooking her lips, the scraped off remnants of her red lipstick looking stark and violent against her colourless lips. Ava’s fingers twitch against her cold skin, her shoulders sagging in relief though her face scrunches up, brows furrowed tight.
“It’s an order you have to obey,” she demands, even though her panicked look betrays her even tone. “Detective - ”
When Iris makes a pained wince, the light in her eyes fading against her will, Ava is crushed by a feeling she can’t place. The shadows of the warehouse only highlight how pale and drawn her face is, the dark circles under her eyes, the ashen grey of her cheeks. It’s like the night itself crawled into her body, making its home where the sun used to be.
Ava’s never been afraid of the night before.
The two month break gives Ava time to think and sort herself out. The first month is probably the worst; the empty space Iris has left behind leaves a bigger gap than she thought. Even the team feels restless when they should have gone back to normal. They’re having a break of sorts; just paperwork and patrolling and spare time spent together in a nice, almost-home.
It feels like they’re all waiting for someone else to come back home.
The sun blazes across the ground when Iris arrives; Ava stands near the window despite the sunlight, absolutely not waiting for a silver hatchback to come rolling down the road. She bristles much too hard at Farah’s teasing, her golden eyes shining at Ava’s obvious tell. She almost blanches at the way her thoughts drift back to her so insistently, if not for the rest of the team bustling around the sitting area, just as anxious to see the detective again.
It’s normal. Iris is a part of the team now. It’s completely normal to think of her.
When she steps through the door, a tentative smile on her face, soft black curls bouncing on her shoulders, the noon sun warming Ava’s skin is nothing compared to her presence. All of her senses, every single cell and nerve ending frizzles, calls out to her, and Ava’s hungry gaze takes and takes and takes.
When Iris’s eyes meet hers, bright and bold and glittering like nothing ever happened, Ava feels like she’s directly hit by the blazing sun; heat searing through her senses and making her feel a little weak and breathless.
She presses her fingers hard into her palm, thankful for centuries of practice that allows her to have a passing poker face. She straightens, body easing into a firm stance, hands clasped behind her back, shoulders stiff.
“Welcome back,” she says, satisfied that her voice doesn’t falter, even if it does sound softer than usual.
Her amused chuckle rings like a bell. “It’s nice to know you’ve missed me so much.” The gentle teasing makes Ava forget her defenses for a minute, and a soft sigh escapes her as she basks happily in Iris’s smile, in the way she’s drifting closer to her as she speaks.
“Who says I haven’t?”
She feels the words escape her before she can take them back. Iris’s brows shoot up, pink lips parting in surprise, and Ava turns to the window so quickly she almost gives herself whiplash.
The meeting starts; mercifully, no one notices her slip up and Iris doesn’t bring it up. Ava’s senses still linger attentively on her, subconsciously. The moment Murphy is brought up, she can hear Iris’s breath stutter, her fingers discreetly digging crescent-shaped indents into her thighs. The warm light in her dark eyes has dimmed, fading. Her shoulders are up around her ears, and Ava’s not sure if she’s trying to protect or hide the fading scar on her neck.
She’s by her side instantly, arms folded to hide her twitching fingers, wondering if she should reach out. It doesn’t matter; when Iris glances up at her, her rabbiting heart rate slows, her shoulders untense, and the instinctive way she leans towards Ava makes her feel something she didn’t think she would.
She frowns, but Iris looks much better, the colour returning to her cheeks. Ava shrugs the feeling off, crossing and uncrossing her arms firmly, trying to return her attention to Rebecca.
Out of the corner of her eye, Ava can see a head of curls bouncing as Iris scoots closer to her. She doesn’t move from that position for the rest of the meeting, and the fact that Iris takes comfort from her presence makes pride bloom, like a fierce, fiery flower, inside her chest.
The day Ava finally dares to hold Iris, hands trembling, eyes wondering, Iris falls into her arms like she’s always belonged there.
Ava is by her side whenever she’s in danger, her sword and shield, even though she knows the detective is more than capable of finding a way out herself. She can’t help but linger close, hovering and protective, making sure no one else has a chance to dim her light when her back is turned.
Ava still has the habit of stealing glances when she can, even though Iris is hers and her heart belongs to no one else. She watches her out of the corner of her eye guiltily, shifting away when Iris turns to look in her direction.
Iris isn’t a detective for nothing; she always feels the burn of yearning green eyes grazing over her form, but she lets Ava observe in her own quiet way, unwilling to scare her away by pointing it out. So Ava watches.
She notices the way Iris shuffles the reports on her desk, fingers deftly whipping through stark white pages, always stacking her ring binders in this order: red, black, red. She sees the way Iris chatters good-naturedly to the baker, her beverage order embedded in Ava’s head, clearer than her own name. Hey Hayley, how’s it going? Vanilla latte with soy milk, please.
She sees Iris pause to eye the little apple pies in the display case longingly, though she never buys one. (Ava always shuffles up afterwards to buy them for her, flushing at the knowing glint in Hayley’s eye when she hands them over, already packed into a little takeaway box. Iris’s delighted gasp and kiss afterwards is worth it, even though she chastises Ava lightly for buying them all the time.)
She sees Iris weave her way into the team, almost seamlessly. Iris nervously avoids Morgan’s sneer and smoky glares, but immediately builds a dark, quiet fort in her office when Morgan is suffering from sensory-overload migraines. She teases Nat about crashing her laptop with viruses, then shares her precious apple pie with her when she slumps into her chair, defeated by technology yet again. She sees Iris pranking Farah, hinting about a unicorn in the woods when it was really just a mossy, horse-shaped rock with a sharp edge, then guiltily watching several episodes of My Little Pony with her when she cries with disappointment.
Ava watches, and watches, and watches, and this hollow ache in her chest is unfamiliar. Iris is so incredibly mortal, her life so fleeting in comparison to Ava’s. Ava feels like if she blinks, she’ll miss a whole part of her life.
So when Iris throws her head back in laughter, when she nudges Ava with a teasing smile, when she slides her hands into Ava’s and brings them to her lips, Ava looks at her like she’s the only thing in the room worthy of her attention, greedy eyes taking in any and every detail of her. She knows when this moment passes, they will never be here again. A hundred years later, this moment would only be alive in her mind’s eye, a five second snapshot of Iris’s presence, a memory of how sunlight felt on her skin.
She knows, and she accepts it.
But deep in the night, she slides into a bed she has no use for so she can hold Iris against her while she rests, their legs entangled together in the sheets. She buries her nose into the back of Iris’s neck and soaks in her scent, listens to her heartbeat slow, her quiet snoring rumbling. When Ava falls asleep with Iris, her buried emotions burst to the surface, like a buoy she’s been holding underwater for too long. She clutches Iris’s limp body to hers like a frightened child, her fears and guilt staining her dreams, leaking out of her in pained growls and hitched, wet gasps.
Yet somehow, even in deep sleep, Iris manages to sense her distress. She flips over to pull Ava’s head to her chest, fingers threading through nightmare-tangled curls, mumbling nonsensical comforting words.
“Don’t be sad, I’ll go with you. I’ll go to Target with you.”
“Shh, shh, the giraffes will come back, Ava. I know they will.”
“I’m here, love.” This one has Ava stilling in surprise. It actually sounds genuine. “I’m here, and ready to party.” And there it is. “Where are the spices?”
The most recent one takes the cake.
“Don’t worry, ma’am. We’ll catch the man who stole your heart,” she says somewhat coherently, in such a solemn, professional tone that Ava actually snorts out loud, her nightmare forgotten, and it startles Iris awake.
It takes Ava a moment to smother her laughter, gently coaxing a grumpy Iris back to sleep with several forehead kisses.
She nuzzles her way into Ava’s strong neck, small hands fisting into Ava’s tank top to pull her closer. She would’ve never been able to move Ava, much less when she’s half-asleep, so Ava shifts willingly, pulled into Iris’s orbit until she can safely encase her detective in her arms. Their hair spreads out and tangles together in the pillows, Ava’s dark gold waves weaving into the heavy black curls. Her hand slips under Iris’s checkered pyjama top, palm resting against her back, warm and heavy. She lays there, calmed by the rise and fall of Iris’s breathing, smiling at the sleepy, snuffly noises she makes as she wriggles closer into Ava’s warmth.
The morning sun slips in through the curtains, a rectangular pink and golden beam of light dancing on Iris’s cheek. Ava lifts her hand, fingers gently brushing across it, dipping into the light.
Iris makes a soft grumble, eyelids fluttering open.
Ava freezes, fingers ready to retreat, but when their eyes meet, the dopey, sleepy grin that Iris gives makes her stare, breathless. Her lips instinctively lift into a little smile, green eyes soft and misty. She forgets what she was so afraid of.
It feels like dawn breaking over her skin, warm and soft, brand new.