Chapter Text
From the doorway of their bathroom—their very own bathroom, their very own apartment—Beatrice says,
'It's not a good idea,'
because she's very practical and sensible and allergic to any and all kinds of fun.
Ava groans. 'You say that about everything.'
'And when, exactly, have I been wrong?'
'Ooh - is that pride I hear, Sister Beatrice? Just a little?' Ava teases. She looks up from her phone in time to catch a very small eye-roll, courtesy of Beatrice, which only makes her want to tease some more. Perhaps a classic - careful, or your face will stay that way - but she doesn't. Something in the way that Beatrice is standing, something in her expression, makes Ava hesitate.
Jaw tense. Arms folded. Elbows tucked close to her body. If she pressed even the tiniest bit harder, Ava thinks Beatrice could squash herself 2D and disappear from this dimension.
Hm. Not as funny a joke when there actually are other dimensions. Noted.
But more importantly, Beatrice is worried. That's hardly uncommon these days but they're not mid-fight, they're not reading through the scads of awfulness that Camila downloads to them—riots and boils and two-headed snakes. It's just them, in their bathroom together, and Beatrice is worried.
The want to help tugs at Ava, hooks in her. Reels her in.
She abandons her phone and set-up on the countertop and closes the distance between them. It takes zero time, because their apartment is the size of a shoe-box; somehow, in that zero time, Beatrice has managed to close off even more, retreating onto her back foot when Ava approaches.
'Hey,' Ava says, reaching out for her. She's trying for gentle but fumbles with the taps in her brain that control that shit and, instead of twisting the knob (haha) for gentle, she smashes the spigot for adoration, breaking it entirely, flooding her system with it. She hopes it doesn't overflow, hopes it isn't as obvious to Beatrice as it is to herself. 'Hey, what's wrong?'
'Nothing. It's just...'
Beatrice won't meet her eyes when Ava sidles close (okay, closer). She tilts her chin up instead, turning her gaze to the age- and water-spotted ceiling.
It's fine. Feels a little like Beatrice has figured out a way to vanish while standing right in front of her, but it's fine.
Ava takes the opportunity to look at her, instead. It's pure scientific fact that Beatrice has a perfect neck, long and elegant and smooth. She also, Ava notes with delight, has a cluster of freckles under her jaw on the left side. She kind of wants to touch. Do freckles feel like anything? JC had had moles; they were like little bumps under her fingertips. Did freckles feel like that?
She watches in fascination—purely scientific—as Beatrice swallows, muscles moving under her skin.
'It's not a good idea.'
What wasn't?
...
Oh fuck. Right. The haircut.
'You said that already. But I don't get what's so bad about it?' Ava rocks up onto her toes, pushes into Beatrice's eyeline. It's either turn away or give in to her persistence at this point; Beatrice gives in, with a tiny shake of her head. Ava beams at her. 'Isn't the whole point of being here—' She waves her hand around them to their apartment and, beyond the walls, to the town where they are hidden away, '—to hide? It's better if I don't look like I did. Right? Like a disguise.'
'Yes, that's true.'
Ava fights a laugh. Beatrice gives up a yes like she'd give up a tooth under torture.
'But you ought to do it properly,' she continues. 'Go to a salon. I'm sure there's one somewhere in town.'
'There are three, in fact.'
Beatrice lifts a brow, tilts her head as if to say, There you go, then.
'But I don't want to go to a salon.'
'Ava.'
'Bea,' she counters masterfully Stepping even closer, Ava puts her hands on Beatrice's shoulder, one over the other. Dropping her chin on top, she makes her eyes big and helpless and—with zero guilt at utilising her one-hit KO super weapon against Beatrice—she pouts. 'Please?'
Beatrice's eyes widen a fraction. She swallows.
Got her.
'You could make a day of it. Go shopping for another outfit. Get lunch at a café, perhaps. And get your hair cut by a professional.'
Ugh. Don't got her.
'Sounds like fun,' Ava admits, because it does. Sort of. Except... 'But I don't think I'm ready for that.'
Beatrice looks at her then.
Mean. Mean and fucked up of the universe that honesty—and not a small amount of vulnerability (fear?) that Ava didn't realise she's been harbouring—is what makes Beatrice actually look at her. Not encroaching on her space. Not her super weapon pout. Honesty.
It's almost not fucking worth it.
Beatrice looks at Ava like she's something to protect, which is, yeah, totally awesome and Beatrice is totally awesome—that glint in her eyes, assessing, knife-sharp—but Ava wants more.
Guilt pools cold in her belly at the thought but it's massively defeated by the way that everything else burns hotter. Want, desire, hope, hunger—for life, for everything. Yeah, okay so she wants more, always. So what? She doesn't have to feel guilty about that! Therapize her, but it probably has something to do with a lifetime of having nothing.
Seconds at breakfast? Yes please. Shopping? Sounds fun. Tour of the town? Of course! Enough days to try everything on the menu, enough nights to try every drink? She's never wanted anything more. Beatrice to unwind and have fun and do those things with her? Yeah. She wants that. And she wants to be looked at because she's funny, or nailed her outfit, or because looking at her brings Beatrice some measure of peace, reassurance, happiness. The way Ava feels looking at Beatrice.
And while she's lost thinking about want and Beatrice's eyes on her, Beatrice is looking at her.
Watching her.
Whatever she sees—God, what does she see?—it makes Beatrice relent.
Her eyes lose the pinch of an encroaching headache—stress or Ava-induced, fifty-fifty chance for either. Her shoulders drop as she relaxes out of what is lowkey her ready position. When she unfolds her arms from around her waist, her knuckles skim Ava's belly—an accident, Ava knows by the way Beatrice's brows twitch in a quick, apologetic frown—and then that hand settles on Ava, just above her elbow. She doesn't move to dislodge Ava, allowing her to lean on her still. As she has since the moment they met.
She turns her head.
Ava holds her breath. Their faces are. Really close.
'What do you mean?'
'Huh?' Ava says, because she's very smart.
'You said you're not ready. Why not?'
Ah.
Now it's Ava's turn to be unable to meet Beatrice's eyes—eyes that are now so soft and concerned and searching that Ava wants to close up like a little clam.
It's stupid but she doesn't want Beatrice to see what's bubbling up inside her. Not the care, that's freely given. But the hurt, the fear, the upset... She doesn't want Beatrice to know about it. It's fucked up but...all of that, it's hers, absolutely. Not a hand-out, not a hand-me-down from a previous Warrior Nun, not something she stole from a random guy in a ferry terminal. This hurt belongs to her, it's hers. And if she opens up to Beatrice, she risks Beatrice taking some of it away. Risks losing a piece of it. And if she does... What will that make her?
Ava pulls back and Beatrice lets her go. She mirrors her position when Ava leans back against the other side of the door jamb.
'Ava?'
'It's nothing, really.'
Beatrice waits. Patient, unrelentingly knowing. The same expression she gets when they fight, like she knows what Ava will do before she does it.
Ava's stomach does a sick backflip at the idea.
How many times has she had that daydream? That one day she would have someone who got her—got her jokes, even delivered deadpan. Who listened to her when she spoke, to what she said and how she said it. Who knew when to push, when to pry, when to leave her be.
She hadn't known it would be aggravating, being utterly known by someone else.
Ava's stomach flips again.
Being known by Beatrice, though. That's not so bad. Beatrice, with her careful hands, careful eyes, careful care. Like she doesn't trust herself with any of it. Silly. She should. Ava trusts her.
Oh. She trusts her.
Cool.
Ava scowls playfully. 'You know, you could try to look like you believe me.'
'You could try to lie better,' Beatrice returns, with a hint of a smile.
Ava snorts. She fidgets a moment, picking at the skin around her nails. When she peeks up through strands of her long hair, Beatrice is still looking at her; she has her hands folded behind her back now, pinned between spine and the wooden jamb of the door, but she stretches one foot forward—still wearing her sensible (ugly) old lady sneakers—and taps Ava's—barefoot, the very second they got home.
'It's stupid.'
'I highly doubt that. You are many things, Ava, but you are not stupid.'
Ava hums. 'Well, anyway. Fact is, stupid or not, I can't shake this feeling. It's—' She chews on her lip for a second. The Halo sizzles under her skin, healing the skin she worries away with her teeth. 'Don't laugh at me, okay?'
Beatrice tilts her head at Ava's sudden insistence. Then very softly, in a tone Ava associates with Beatrice praying, she says, 'I won't.'
'Cool. Cool, cool, okay.'
Ava breathes out. Knocks her foot back against Beatrice's. She can admit this. People confess things to nuns all the time, right? Or was it just to priests? Whatever—rip it off like a bandaid. Show Beatrice her fucking damage. Put it in her careful hands.
'Okay. So basically...' Ava sucks in a deep breath and lets it all out in one stampeding speech. 'I don't want anyone coming near my neck for the next billion years, ideally, but in reality at least until I get better at using—and not using—the Halo because it freaks me out just thinking about it and I'd rather not get people killed or, worse, end up with only half my hair cut, all because I lost control and summoned a bunch of metal demons when some nice hairdresser touches my goddamn neck!'
Ava's back thuds against the doorframe when she slumps back, empty.
A second later, she forces a laugh. Shakes away the tension that has crept up on her like a dog shaking off water.
Beatrice has a weird look on her face. Understanding and concerned, like before. But now, also deeply angry.
'Ah.' Her voice is even. Tightly controlled. The way it only gets when she's impossibly pissed off but can't admit it, thanks to her nunhood.
Or was it just...habit? Ava thinks to herself, and smiles.
'Is that where... Did he touch you there? On your neck?'
'No. Not Ad- Not him.' Ava considers that, then, 'Aw shit. Do you think I'm going to be weird about that too?' Reaching over her shoulder, Ava touches her fingers to the raised skin, the bumps and whorls of the device beneath her skin; it hums, glows under her attention, and she feels some of the residual aches and pains of training and tension disappear as its warmth diffuses through her. 'I think it'll be fine. It's not like I get heaps of people coming up to me and touching my back. Or reaching into my back to rip out the only thing that's keeping me alive, which is what he actually did.'
Beatrice goes a little green.
'Sorry. Sorry, I know, it's gross. Um. What were we talking about?'
'Your neck and why you don't want anyone to touch it.'
'Right. Still on that topic. Good.' Ava slides her hand up to her own neck. 'I think it's probably because of Frances, if I had to pick, like, one thing. It could be because it's the only part of me that wasn't paralysed but yeah, it's probably because of her. My, uh, caretaker,' Ava explains when Beatrice frowns, curious. 'At the orphanage.'
'Ah. Your less than ideal experience, I gather?'
Ava shoots a finger gun at Beatrice, clicks her tongue. 'Yep. She jabbed me, the night I went back.'
Miming sticking a needle into the side of her neck, Ava laughs. It sounds brittle, even to her own ears.
She looks away. Out at their apartment. The neatly made bed. The stack of books on her bedside - science and romance, textbooks and novels and plays, all in one pile. No bible. No candle. The clothes that she chose hanging in their wardrobe. No hospital gowns. The lip in the floor between bedroom and kitchen that she stumbles over in the mornings, legs sleepy but no longer dead.
It's not like it was, Ava reminds herself.
'But we don't have to get into all that,' Ava says, effusively cheerful. 'It's not a big deal, I just - don't want anyone that close to me yet, that's all.'
'Except me,' Beatrice says. She's frowning hard, like Ava has presented her with a riddle.
'Well, yeah. You're my...'
Christ. She feels like she's standing at the edge of a cliff. She'd called JC and his lot her friends and they had been...not that. What if she's wrong again? God, that'd suck. She might be wrong. Beatrice is an OCS nun first and foremost, after all; she's been assigned to look after Ava only a week ago—six days—and sure, they're friendly and Beatrice promised to always be at her side and pulled her out from the tomb and picked her up when she exhausted the Halo, dragged her out of the Vatican but even with all of that, it doesn't mean that Beatrice is actually her—
'Friend?'
If she is at a cliff and gets kicked off, again, well. She'll pick herself up.
Beatrice blinks.
Ava smiles. Hopes it is as winning and charming as she thinks it is. 'Right?'
Please be right.
'Yes, of course.'
'Thank fuck.'
Ignoring Beatrice's reflexive scolding, Ava lets her breath out in a great big gust. Nearly folds over double. The doorway isn't wide enough for that so she angles for Beatrice's shoulder instead, dropping her head onto it and letting her body go limp with relief.
After some long seconds, Beatrice brings her arms up. Places her hands carefully on Ava's back. Avoiding the Halo, Ava realises. Beatrice pats her twice, awkwardly, then says,
'I don't know what I'd be doing. I've never cut anyone's hair before. I suppose you've already found some tutorials on the matter?'
Ava wrenches back. Unwilling to stop touching Beatrice entirely, she moves her hands to Beatrice's shoulders, gives her a pleased squeeze. 'Yes! Heaps! So... You'll do it? You'll cut my hair?'
Beatrice firms her resolve. Sets her posture like she's going into a fight. 'I will.' She holds up a hand when Ava squeals. 'But I need to watch the videos first.'
'Yes! Yes, oh my God, whatever you need!'
'How does tomorrow work for you?'
'Perfect, yes, tomorrow is perfect!'
Ava jumps at Beatrice, using her shoulders to jump even higher, and then jump forward. Wraps her arms around Beatrice's neck, pulling her into a hug. Beatrice doesn't freeze, exactly; it's more like holding a statue in her arms. As Ava holds her, swaying, she un-petrifies bit by bit until she finally returns the hug properly. Ava almost wishes she hadn't. It's unfair how good Beatrice is at hugging, for someone who obviously hates doing it.
'Thank you, thank you, thank you,' Ava whispers into the side of her neck. Pulling back, she smiles up into Beatrice's face. 'This is going to be so much fun!'
'Yes,' Beatrice mutters. 'Such fun.'