Chapter Text
It was nice to be back at the Vegas house after so many long days on the road. The tour schedule had been grueling, and now that Weed was gone and Marcus was back in charge the first item on the agenda had been to get them all back to Vegas for a little staycation. Two weeks at the affectionately dubbed “Cheesecake Factory”. Deborah was equal parts grateful and terrified. Without the distraction of work and with no other people present in the house her feelings for the younger writer were all she could think about and it had been less than a week.
Deborah had taken to sitting out by the pool in the sun “reading”, in other words she spent all day reading articles about late in life lesbians, compulsory heterosexuality, even some sapphic fiction. Now that she had actually sat down and thought about it there had been many women in the past that she had had crushes on. At the time she just thought of it as admiration, but after Ava had revealed that even she sometimes conflated those two feelings she found herself thinking maybe she had done the same.
“Hey D, I ordered takeout from that chinese food place with the crab rolls I like, I got your usual if you’re hungry” Deborah looked towards Ava, who was leaning against the door frame looking at her like she had no clue Deborah's sense of self was falling down around her this week. Had been ever since the cruise.
“Ok, thanks hun. Be in in a minute” That was one thing that had developed this week, terms of endearment. After what she had dubbed The Marty Incident in her head, she had started touching Ava. Innocently of course. A hand on her lower back as they moved through a crowd or passed each other in the bus. Picking a piece of lint off a sleeve then smoothing it down. Falling against the others shoulder in laughter when the punchline hit just right in their late night writing sessions. Ending those writing sessions with an SVU marathon, laying next to each other in Deborah's bed until they both inevitably fell asleep. The first night Ava had fallen asleep first, and Deborah had reached out to gently shake Avas shoulder “Ava, hun, you need to wake up” she had said softly. Ava had stretched before getting up, her arms reaching for the headboard, her shirt riding up and back arching ever so slightly and Deborah had sworn never to wake her again. There was no way she’d be able to experience that more than once and keep her resolve to not just reach out and touch that small sliver of skin between Avas tshirt and her pajama bottoms. Hun, however, had stayed.
She wasn’t blind. She was almost certain that Ava would be receptive to any advance from Deborah, but she hadn’t been ready yet. She wasn’t even sure if she was ready now, but if there was any time to act it was as soon as possible. They still had over a whole week of seclusion at the house before Marcus and Joesephina came back. DJ had decided to travel with Aidan to some MMA thing out of state. Maybe she would hate it. Maybe Ava would hate it. Then they could laugh and try and find some way to work this into the new show and Deborah could finally move on.
Taking a deep breath she rose from her lounge chair and made her way to the kitchen, where Ava was posted up at the island eating. “I put your stuff in the microwave for whenever you are ready to eat, '' the young writer said, not even looking up from scrolling on her phone. “Ava, we need to talk” Deborah tried to sound confident, to will all traces of nerves from her voice. “D, are you ok?” Ava sounded worried, Deborah ignored it. “Remember on the cruise when you said that you didn’t think that sexuality was a choice but whether or not you examine it is?” She finally made eye contact with Ava, who nodded. Of course the one time she wanted to hear the endless babble of everything that went on in Avas mind she was silent. “I’ve decided that I want to do that.” There. She had said it.
“That’s great! There's this awesome app that I can totally help you set..” Ava started her rambling but Deborah cut her off “No. Absolutely not. What would I say, Hi I’m Deborah, I’m 70 years old and just realized I might be a lesbian?” she scoffed and looked away. She didn’t want to meet other women, she wanted Ava. But Ava hadn’t responded the way she had planned for her too. She had expected to say that she wanted to explore her sexuality and then Ava would be her usual impulsive self and take over.
“I can coach you, if you’re worried about it” Ava said softly “Maybe we can use some of it as a bit” Deborah met her gaze and arched her brow. “Come on D, you trust me yeah? It's just like stand up, sometimes you need a run though. Someone to bounce thoughts off of.” Maybe this was better. This way she could find out if she hated it without putting her heart on the line. And if she didn’t hate it? Well she’d cross that bridge when she got there.
“Alright Coach,” she said with a roll of her eyes, leaning with one hip pressed against the island “Whats lesson one?” Ava stood and closed the distance between them and Deborah had to remind herself to breathe. She watched as Ava reached out and caressed her jaw, her eyes scanning Deborahs for what Deborah had no idea. Was she really going to go through with this? When fingertips reached her lips she kissed the tips of them gently. Holy shit they were actually doing this. Well, Deborah wasn’t one to let a good opportunity pass her by. She followed Avas lead, reaching out for Avas chin with her thumb and sliding it slowly towards her ear, eyes locked on her lips. She watched the younger woman's tongue come out to wet her lips and Deborah couldn’t hold back anymore. She closed the short distance between them and brought their lips together.