Work Text:
Beatrice grew up with knife in hand. Tightly held, knuckles whitening. There's your anger. Release it. Release it.
It was moulded against the shape of her palm. Her mother would adjust her posture by a single tap against a surface. Practised in. All a part of the act. Her father would make her lift her head higher and she would hide her hands behind her back where the resentment lay and then pretend the gesture didn't make the blood drip down her fingers.
It made her ache. For the acknowledgement of her father and the acceptance of her mother.
She never got it.
The good thing about it, because she needed to believe she got something good out of it – was that she grew skilled at using it to her advantage.
It kept people at a distance. Knives glint, so do her eyes. In warning, in desperation. Don't come closer. (Please do.)
She carried it through her time in boarding school, quiet and on guard. She learned in time that there was more than one use for it. Authority liked someone who they could control. Who could take every order with a small nod of their head and rise of their shoulders. She learned that it kept others away. Good.
If she could not be wanted, she would be needed.
The OCS needed her to fight. Finally she could fight. She could lay her knife before God and pray for forgiveness. He would make her pick it up again. Rise. With bruised knees and scarred knuckles. Be useful.
Her bones ached with every hit. Doesn't matter. Hold on. Her hands shook from the hours upon hours of practice, repetition of the clash. Repeat it. The knife gives you purpose. The knife makes you useful. Be useful.
You need to hold on.
Hold on.
Don't ever let go.
She had no doubt of the latter until a woman who beamed, breathtaking, like the sun, (could she be the sun?) Nudged her hand open, finger by finger and made the knife fall.
It clattered, rattling through her lungs – and to the floor.
Beatrice despised her for it. No. No. But God did it scare her.
“You can relax, Bea. We choose this location for a reason, right? There's no danger here.”
You're wrong. She wanted to say, bite. You're the danger. Everything unravels when you are around and I am not strong enough to handle it.
The church in Switzerland was fifteen minutes away by foot. Beatrice slid out of bed, stiff to the bone from having Ava's body against her – warm, so, so, warm. Burning. Perhaps it was the halo. She had to look into the possibilities of that.
Ava didn't notice her leave, or at least she didn't acknowledge it the many times it happened.
Beatrice came before God empty handed. What else did she have if not the knife? What else was she if she couldn't grip it?
She quickly realised Ava reached for everything. In the need for touch. In the need to feel. She took her hand one day and squeezed.
Beatrice squeezed back, lungs rattling in replay.
Oh, this will be her downfall.
But she would hold on. She would hold on.
Let her burn. Let this be her destruction. For it, at least, would always be warmer than the blade.