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Ava dies. Again. She falls thirteen fucking stories when the glorified piece of scrap metal wedged between her shoulder blades just...powers down without any warning. Not that warning really would have done her any good. Did she mention she was thirteen fucking stories in the air?
She knows the impact is coming but, thank fuck for smalls mercies, she doesn’t feel it for more than a half second, the worst part the anticipation and the horrifying beginnings of the squelch and crack of what she figures must have been her whole body saying oh, absolutely not and folding, shattering, compressing on impact with the concrete.
When she wakes it’s to Bea’s voice, thank fuck for big mercies, as well, and she’s weeping, clutching Ava so tightly that she’s afraid she might shatter again, but my god, and she knows this is seriously pathetic, but she would welcome it if it meant being this close to Beatrice for longer. The list of ways she’d shatter herself for Beatrice, just fully fucking demean herself, is infinite, really. (And yes she’s certainly aware of the many ways she’d beg for Beatrice to demean her, is having more and more trouble every day not acting on those impulses, certainly isn’t being led from temptation by the feel of those arms, my god.)
She speaks into Bea’s ear, watches as Bea begins to process and pulls her close again, burying her face in Ava’s neck. She does say something then, “Easy, easy,” because while she’d shatter for Beatrice, she knows Beatrice would pack herself away even further at the mere hint that she’d made Ava even slightly uncomfortable, and Ava won’t be having that.
Ava can’t help the smile that breaks out on her face because she has, at some point over the last few months, become truly and completely disgusting for this girl (and she revels in it, because how could she not revel in being able to love someone like Bea so deeply). It’s not the first time she’s felt it, not even the thousandth time she’s felt it, but it’s the first time the impulse to kiss Bea is so strong that she doubts her ability to control it. She is in that moment thankful that her body is still knitting itself back together because it’s the thought of Beatrice reacting and accidentally hurting her, and the resulting shame spiral that would possibly break Bea and definitely set them back god knows how long in the slow, steady dance toward something more, that ultimately stops her. She’d break herself for a lot less than a kiss from Bea (see above), but her very serious, very fussy nun would be wildly unimpressed with this fact, much less with its manifestation. (She can hear Bea now, cheeks blushing and still droll: “Impressive vocabulary, Ava, but that’s a bit much.”)
Also, they’re in front of Superion and Yasmine and while she suspects she has more than a little bit of an exhibitionist streak in her (let’s be honest, she lost her virginity at risk of discovery by some poor, unsuspecting boat worker; she would gladly let Bea fully fucking wreck her in front of literally anyone and probably come all the harder for it), and she's looking forward to exploring that more, the first time she kisses Bea she wants it to be just the two of them. She wants to gather every touch and taste and sound that comes with that moment and guard it ferociously forever, for her and Bea alone.
So she lets herself smile dopily and say, “They can’t beat us, Bea. Not together,” when what she really means is I love you more than I ever even thought it was possible to love someone. But she thinks Bea knows at least most of what she means, anyway. She presses her nose into Bea’s neck, breathes in Bea’s smell and lets her body rest for a moment.
Later, in the van, curled as tightly against Beatrice as Ava’s body and the seat will allow, she thinks harder about how she is going to kiss Beatrice. And like, yes, there are other things to worry about, like the bargain-bin boy band member trying to take over the world, but also she’s twenty and newly alive (again). She’s agreed to fight with nuns in this war she didn’t ask for in exchange for more time in this body she never thought she’d have but that doesn’t mean she's suddenly a nun. Ava wants, has always wanted, and now that her body can act on those wants? She won't waste her chances, and she definitely won't fucking apologize.
And the thing is, Ava keeps fucking dying and she’s not stupid enough to think her luck isn’t running out. Warrior nuns don’t last. She imagines, briefly, numbers in the center of her perfectly round scar tissue, a skull emoji etched in the background, the world’s bleakest adaptation of a countdown app. She imagines, then, the look on Bea’s face as the number grew smaller and smaller. She’d seen something like it an hour ago, after resurrection number two, and she hopes never to see it again.
At that thought, she gives up any pretense and moves her legs, slowly and gently, to rest across Bea’s thighs. At the movement Bea hums slightly and adjusts the arm around Ava’s shoulders, places her other arm over Ava’s shins and tucks her hand underneath her knees to secure her. It is perfect. Bea is perfect.
Which brings her back to the point. She has been living on borrowed time since someone violated her body in god’s name (yikes with these people, really pushing the boundaries with new and exciting ways to deny women bodily autonomy) and she’s going to make the most of what she has. She’ll be damned (possibly literally? Because her life is fucking wild these days) if she dies before she gets to tell Bea exactly how she loves her, with words and kisses and touches, if Bea is down. And she’s pretty sure Bea will be down.
And that thought, as always, pulls Ava into very pleasant and totally inappropriate daydreams about Beatrice, whose body is warm against her and whose thumb absently, and distractingly, strokes her shoulder every minute or so. Once, in Switzerland, Bea had burned her thumb on a too-hot kettle and Ava had reflexively fussed, pulling it to her mouth and blowing, before kissing it gently. Bea’s eyes had gotten so wide and her body so still that Ava had legitimately worried that she had broken her. Ava had filed that reaction away in a thick and aspirational mental folder dedicated to the things that make Bea blush. It would be so easy to take her hand now, press Bea's thumb against her lips, watch Bea's eyes grow dark.
Her stomach clenches as she loses herself for a moment, but the tightening of her muscles, the heat pooling, make her aware that everything still isn’t quite right after that fucking knock-off Tower of Terror ride. Her body, in the literal process of resurrection, actually cannot handle what a full bisexual disaster she becomes for Beatrice. She stifles a whimper, quite effectively if she says so herself, and shuts the daydreams down, as best she can. But she’s now trying to stop herself from squirming because she’s weak and affected already and who can blame her because Bea’s hot okay, and that does things to her, even if her internal organs are still not quite where they should be and they’re in the middle of some weird, secret holy war.
The thumb in question strokes her shoulder again, right on schedule, and my god she is fucked, because thinking about one of Bea’s fingers has nearly melted her brain. Ava’s mind traitorously knocks with the reminder that Bea in fact has nine more, but Ava slams the door on that thought before it can even get a toe in the door. Bottom line, she will tell Beatrice that she loves her and she will show Beatrice that she loves her and she will do this before she dies, again. She just has to figure out how.
A bump in the road jostles the van in a big way and she hisses as every part of her aches at the sudden movement and bounce, but before the painful exhale is even finished, she feels Bea’s left hand pull her protectively closer and her right hand come up to cup Ava’s jaw, tilting her gently and evaluating her with worried eyes.
Ava covers the hand on her jaw and traces her fingers over Bea’s knuckles, overcome as she always is when she touches Bea, which means that the tiny filter between thought and mouth that her brain bothers with normally is absolutely out of commission.
“I’m okay, gorgeous.”
And she has nobody but herself to blame for that little slip-up but also, it’s just true, and Bea clearly hasn’t heard it enough, and she won’t take it back. As more evidence for Ava’s position, Bea’s cheeks tinge pink in this way that makes Ava want to repeat herself, call Bea every loving name she’s ever chosen to bite back.
Ava expects the same Bea she always gets when her mouth runs away from her, gently pleased if not also embarrassed (possibly ashamed, though Ava hoped she was loving that habit (heh) right out of her). Instead, she gets a glimpse of that and then something else flashes in Bea’s eyes and she holds Ava’s face steady in the palm of her hand, and runs her thumb gently over Ava’s bottom lip before pressing down just slightly. And what the fuck, Beatrice. Was her thumb thirst (wow, Ava, wow) that loud?
Ava’s body roars to life yet again and she hopes that the whimper that escapes her as she purses her lips against Bea’s skin can be mistaken for pain. It can’t. She knows it can’t. That noise was thirst, like 40-days-of-temptation-in-the-desert level thirst. She gets to watch Bea's eyes darken, which, wow, yes, more of that, before Bea shakes her head lightly and presses her lips gently to Ava’s forehead. She breaks away with a whispered, “You scared me, Ava.” When she meets Bea’s eyes again, they’re so gentle it is almost painful, and her bar for pain is pretty fucking high right now.
A throat clears, because, right, this is a van of literal nuns and she just made a sound that’s as far away from fucking chastity as possible. Yasmine whispers, loudly, to Superion, “How long have they been together?” Superion sighs a long-suffering sigh in response and Ava can practically hear her eyes roll, which is bitchy but, she admits, fair.
This being far from the first time someone has assumed they are together, Ava is prepared for Bea to pull back, even if only slightly, in concession to the fact that they are not, in fact, together and that Bea is, in fact, together with fucking Jesus, in a very long-term and serious way. Beatrice doesn’t bother with her usual dance of embarrassment, though, doesn’t do anything but, holy shit, gently tuck some of Ava’s hair back and then bring her lips to Ava’s forehead again before leaning back into her own seat, arms and hands back to cradling Ava, close and safe. Ava smiles her idiot smile again, feels her cheeks ache with it, and settles unapologetically into Bea.
She'll tell her. She'll show her. They both deserve it.