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Training is kicking Ava’s fucking ass.
Every part of her aches. The fact that she has a literal halo jammed somewhere deep between her shoulder blades (the details of which escape her, whatever) is no match for Beatrice and her meticulously-crafted training regime, which has Ava up each morning at the ass crack of dawn to Lara Croft the shit out of every tree and boulder that happen to be in her way. All in the name of defeating a half-demon, half megalo-fucking-maniac, obviously.
Ava lowers herself into the bathtub, tentative. The water is warm, and given that this is her first proper bath in maybe eight years, it’s pleasantly familiar. She leans back, and the bubbles tickle at her temples and her forehead and the tops of her thighs, and when she submerges herself further the world goes quiet.
Well. Almost quiet, but not quite, because beyond the bathroom door she can just about make out the sound of Beatrice milling around the apartment, their apartment – probably rearranging their spice rack again – and the hiss and clatter of the kettle as it begins to boil.
Ava shifts, sighing at the gentle brush of the water as it laps at her chin, the heat persistent and soothing, and then watches, a little absently, as wisps of steam rise upwards, higher, higher, until they find the peeling paint of the ceiling. Her hands, absent too, skim over her ribcage, her stomach, her wrists.
Her own touch feels different under the surface – distant, not quite her own, but not unwelcome either. This time, more deliberate, she brushes the tips of her fingers across the inside of her thighs. Because, yeah, now that she has feeling below her neck again, she can do things like: stroll through the farmer’s market on Sunday afternoons (cool), go thrift shopping (so cool, what the fuck) and touch Beatrice (this one is her favourite). But she can also touch herself, and now she is hot and aching for a different reason entirely.
(And, okay, maybe these days Ava is turned on, like, ninety-nine percent of the time. Sue her! It’s not as if she didn’t spend the best part of her adolescence learning languages on old Foreign Service Institute tapes instead of getting laid and smoking weed or whatever.)
And of course, obviously, why the hell not, Beatrice chooses the exact moment Ava’s fingers dip between her thighs to call out, “Dinner’s ready”.
Ava’s hand darts up to grip the rim of the bathtub, and, “I – uh – what?” she manages to splutter.
A pause. Some footsteps. Cool , she thinks to herself — or maybe she’s saying it out loud? Cool, cool, cool.
“Dinner’s ready,” Beatrice repeats, closer but quieter now, and Ava allows herself one moment, one breath, to shut her eyes to the sound of her voice.
Dinner’s ready is a statement both of them have been using pretty loosely lately.
When Beatrice cooks, dinner is more often than not a well-intentioned-but-meagrely-seasoned stew from a battered recipe book they’d picked up at the market ( Your Guide to Swiss Cooking: Discover Many Delicious and Mouth-Watering Recipes from Switzerland! it was called, and Ava had refused to let them walk away without it).
When Ava cooks, dinner is one of three versions of a grilled cheese (all of which burnt to varying degrees, sure, but only one of which was actually bad enough to give them both a stomach ache) and a glass of orange juice to sweeten the deal.
(“Sweeten the deal,” she had said, two evenings ago. “Get it?” And Beatrice had just waved her away, head dipped, a small smile tugging at her lips as she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.)
“Ava,” Beatrice says. Oh. Right. Dinner. “Is everything okay in there?”
“Yeah, no, everything’s good. Everything is, um, totally awesome. Coming!” she shouts, and then before she’s really had time to think it through she’s dragging herself out of the bath, limbs heavy and spent, throwing her towel around her.
*
Ava finds Beatrice at the stove, her face lit up prettily by the soft glow of the lamp.
There’s a tea towel slung over her shoulder – cute – and little wisps of hair stick to the nape of her neck – also cute – and by the time Ava is stood beside her, peering over her shoulder at the bubbling pot of… something, she sees that Beatrice has an honest to god pencil balanced behind her right ear.
Beside her, on the countertop, sits the recipe book, pages yellowed and curling, and Ava spots Beatrice’s familiar scrawl in the margins, amending the instructions at regular intervals. Things like: now is the perfect opportunity to dice the tomatoes and the onions take 6 minutes to soften, not 4. A fond smile pulls at the corners of her mouth.
For a moment Ava just looks. These days she’s finding it increasingly difficult not to look – at the flex of Beatrice's forearms when she rolls up her sleeves at the bar, at the hazel glint of her warm brown eyes in the sun as she heaves in a deep, steadying breath during combat sessions. But maybe, more than anything, at the way Beatrice looks right back.
“Damn, Bea,” Ava murmurs. “This smells good. Like, really good.”
Beatrice actually jumps, spinning around to face Ava at an alarming speed, her arms shooting out to grab Ava's wrists. And maybe it’s because they are closer than Beatrice was expecting, or maybe it’s the fact that Ava is still in her towel, but Beatrice’s eyes immediately dart towards the ceiling. Ava watches with delight as a faint blush creeps up her neck.
"Woah there, Sister," Ava manages, aiming for light and breezy but landing on something decidedly lower. "If only you were this easy to startle during combat training, I might actually stand a chance."
Beatrice clears her throat, her eyes finally settling on her. Her voice is funny when she says, “You didn’t. Startle me, that is."
"Oh?" Ava grins, eyes sparkling, because Bea is a liar and she loves it. "Could have fooled me.”
Fuck , there’s that feeling again. That tender, affectionate ache in the pit of her stomach. Listen: Ava’s not stupid, okay? She knows – she knows – that these days her feelings for her best friend are erring less on the side of friendly and more on the side of a ridiculous, inconvenient crush. But also: come on, dude. Beatrice is a catch . It’s not like Ava hasn’t seen the looks she gets at the bar, oblivious as Beatrice may be.
Beatrice is still holding her wrists, firm but gentle, and Ava wants to touch her, so she does: she manoeuvres her own wrist a little – it's not hard – so she can brush her thumb against the inside of Beatrice's forearm, and she breathes in a calming inhale at the same time Beatrice expels a quiet, delicate exhale.
“Ava –” Beatrice says, very, very quietly. Her eyes are fixed on the place where Ava’s fingers brush across her skin, which is good because Ava is about to do something stupid, like kiss her.
Still, “Yeah?” she manages.
Beatrice looks up at her then, and Ava is burning. A second passes, maybe two, and Beatrice finally releases her wrists. She says nothing, instead clearing her throat, before she turns and busies herself at the stove.
Ava clears her throat, too, just for something to do. “Right. Cool. Well, I’m just gonna –” She gestures vaguely to her towel, which only makes Beatrice’s blush deepen, and then shuffles off to their bedroom to get changed, hot all over.
*
Beatrice is waiting patiently on the sofa when Ava returns, legs curled beneath her, thumbing through an old German copy of The Metamorphosis that Hans had leant her.
“Did you miss me?” Ava asks as she plops down on the sofa by her side.
Beatrice looks up from her book and blinks. “You left?”
Ava narrows her eyes. “Oh, ha ha, very funny.”
Beatrice shrugs. “Yes, I thought so,” she says, but her lips are pressed together in an attempt to conceal a small smile, and Ava is so full of fondness that she can’t help but grin as she settles, cross-legged, beside her.
“Tough crowd tonight,” Ava says, and Beatrice rolls her eyes good-naturedly. She gestures to the bowls on the table. “So,” she says, “What’s on the menu tonight, chef?”
“It’s soup,” Beatrice says.
“Damn right it is!” Ava replies, nudging Beatrice’s shoulder playfully, and even Beatrice doesn’t manage not to laugh.
(“Though our not having a non-stick pan seriously impeded my ability to caramelise the onions,” Beatrice adds later.)
*
The radio plays faintly in the background, some Euro-pop-meets-sad-Indie-hit that Ava absolutely eats up; she bops her head along happily as she washes up, drumming her hands against the countertop. She manages not to smash any of the bowls this time – it’s harder than it looks, okay? – while Beatrice patters around the apartment, restless, waiting on news from Mother Superion.
Ava is restless too – it’s been weeks since the shit-show at the Vatican, and there’s still no news of Mary – but she knows better than to get in Beatrice’s way when she’s pacing. Beatrice pacing is never a good sign.
“Any luck?” Ava asks, placing the final glass on the dishrack.
Beatrice shakes her head. “Not tonight, no.”
“Well –” Ava wipes her hands on a tea towel and makes her way over to Beatrice’s side. “No news is good news, right?”
It’s weak, Ava knows it, but Beatrice still tries a smile: a quick, tight quirk of her lips before she’s letting out a shaky breath and blinking back tears. It makes Ava pause; it’s the kind of vulnerability she is only used to seeing – hearing, feeling – at the dead of night, when one of them has just woken up shaking from another shitty nightmare. But now, like this? Ava wishes – not for the first time – that she didn’t feel so useless , because Beatrice is patient and kind and good , and Ava is so overcome with the need to protect her that it feels like a physical ache.
“Hey. Hey, it’s okay,” Ava says. She reaches out and pulls Beatrice close: wraps her arms around her shoulders and then smoothes her hands over the back of her hair, holding her to her chest like a prayer. “We’re doing everything we can, Bea,” she says, muffled into her hair, as firm and sure as she can manage. “ Everything we can. That’s what you told me, remember? Training, following orders, laying low.”
“I know,” Beatrice whispers, quiet and defeated, “I know.” She sighs, stuttering and deep, into the warmth of Ava’s neck, and Ava holds her tighter. “Still, it would help to hear something. Anything.”
“Yeah, I know.” Ava pulls back, angling herself so she can look at Beatrice properly. “I know. But there’s nothing more we can do, not yet. We just have to wait. We’ve got this, Bea. We’ve got this. And hey, you are doing such a good job at looking after me. I can run a 5k without throwing up and I’m pretty sure I have an actual six-pack, so. I’m totally gonna kick some demon ass. I think even Mother Superion would be proud.”
Beatrice’s expression softens. “Really?”
“Yes, really.” Ava laughs. “I, uh, don’t think I tell you enough. How much it means to me. How much you mean to me.”
Bea smiles a beautiful, watery smile. Her hands, usually so still, so careful, lift from the small of Ava’s back, higher, higher, until she’s opening her palm flat and pressing it against the Halo.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Beatrice says. “I think you have your ways.”
(And Ava has to physically wrench herself away from Beatrice’s touch before she does something ridiculous.)
“Bea?” Ava breathes out softly.
“Yes, Ava?”
Ava shifts her weight a little. “Watch a movie with me?”
Beatrice, ever-cautious, is not so easily swayed. “We have to be up early tomorrow morning.”
“We have to be up early every morning,” Ava counters easily, and her voice drops to a whisper when she says, “Watch a movie with me anyway?”
There is a moment – a small one, but a moment nonetheless – where it looks like Beatrice might turn her down. But then there it is: a tiny, half-quirk of her lips; an almost-smile that makes Ava feel a little dizzy, and –
“Fine,” Bea huffs. It takes Ava prodding her index finger into the warmth of her stomach to get her to actually smile. “ Fine,” she says, softer this time.
*
Hans’ old laptop takes 30 minutes to power up on a good day (“Many viruses, proceed with caution,” he’d told them). Today is… not a good day. Still, “Not a problem!” Ava says – yells – because there is no way she’s wasting an opportunity to watch a movie with Beatrice.
In the end, she manages to set up the old VHS player – one of the many (mostly broken) items that came with their apartment when they moved in last month – and shouts with victory when she finds a worn copy of The Breakfast Club in one of the kitchen cabinets, of all places.
She settles on the sofa next to Beatrice, calm and content and exhausted, and Beatrice doesn’t fuss when Ava shuffles closer, curling into her side: instead, her hands – hesitant only for a moment – come to stroke Ava's hair. (“That’s nice,” Ava says, and Beatrice swallows.)
The movie begins, and the VHS skips and stutters almost as much as Hans’ Netflix account buffers, but, “It’s all part of it, Bea,” Ava reassures her enthusiastically.
“Of course,” Beatrice says back, placating.
Ava is a talker at the best of times, this much she knows. Beatrice doesn’t seem to mind, though, humming lightly in response to each one of Ava’s comments. (When Ava reaches out for one of Beatrice’s hands and holds it close to her chest, Beatrice doesn’t seem to mind either.)
“You’re my best friend, you know that, right?” Ava whispers. “The best thing that ever happened to me.”
And if Beatrice is already asleep when she says it? Well, there’s always tomorrow.