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Beatrice’s head hits the floor before Ava can breathe. It could be the sound of her skull impacting on the concrete, or the way a guttural yell rips out of Matteo, that uproots Ava’s feet, but if she’s honest with herself-- and she does try so hard to be honest with herself, here on this second lifetime with the order at her back and Beatrice at her side-- it’s the way the wraith appears out of Matteo, reaching for Beatrice. For Beatrice.
The tackle is inelegant at best, closer to sloppy, something Beatrice would tsk at in that quiet British way she has when Ava tries to get cute and creative during training and inevitably fails because, well, she’s always fighting Beatrice during training and Beatrice breathes pugilistic efficiency and elegance. Beatrice has been working so hard to teach Ava to fight well, to protect herself and conserve her energy, but she’s also taught Ava that the first rule in any fight-- before elegance, before efficiency, before grace-- is survive.
(“Your first priority in any altercation is to be able to walk away from it,” Beatrice says firmly, standing with her hands planted on her hips while Ava stares up at the way the sunlight frames her shoulders. “You shouldn’t ever be in a fight for the sake of fighting, but for survival first and victory second.”
“You got it, sensei,” Ava says cheekily as she lets Beatrice pull her up to her feet, as if she hadn’t been dumped ass-first to the ground ten times already this morning because Beatrice had been trying the subtle approach of teaching Ava to assess combat situations before entering them and had only gone with saying it directly when she’d easily pinned Ava for the tenth time. “First rule of fight club: don’t die.”
“Ava.” Beatrice rolls her eyes, but fondly. They’ve been out here for over an hour, and there’s a fine sheen of sweat on her shoulders, bare as they are outside of a nun’s habit and under the summer sun. Ava, on the other hand, is so sweaty she’s pretty sure she smells like a high school locker room and her shirt is sticking to her uncomfortably. “This is serious.”
“I’m serious.” Ava bounces on the balls of her feet, fists up, throwing lazy jabs at Beatrice with a bright grin behind them because they’ve been on the run for a week, now, and Ava’s learned plenty of things-- how to generate power for a hit from her hips, how to dodge a punch and how to throw one, the best posture for running that maximizes her body’s ability to breathe and that she’d only needed Beatrice to demonstrate three times because the hands on her shoulders and back and abdomen adjusting her had been so distracting-- but most important of them is how to make Beatrice smile. “Bring it on, Sister.”)
The fact that Ava had internalized the first rule of a fight is that you have to survive as the first rule of a fight is we have to survive is something she's tucked away as far from Beatrice as possible, lest she do something terrible like realize that Ava has fallen ass over elbow in love with her.
The concrete is hard and unyielding under her, rough against her shoulders even through her shirt as she rolls out of the tackle. Hard enough that Beatrice is unconscious-- fuck-- and Ava can’t help but stare back at her, frozen halfway to standing because Beatrice is unnervingly still, head lolling to one side and body without an ounce of the tension that Ava’s learned to read like the ceiling of her room at the orphanage.
The distraction costs her when Matteo’s fist nearly crashes into her face. His eyes are black and blank, an inhuman sneer twisting at his mouth as Ava barely manages to dodge the next hit, and the next, and the next. Miguel appears, running for them before Ava can yell for him to stop, but the wraith is uninterested in him and sends him flying with one hit. The others are nowhere to be seen and Miguel is half-unconscious in a broken crate and Beatrice is still out on the floor, and Ava needs to stop this, needs to stop the wraith, needs to get Beatrice out of here.
The halo burns between her shoulder blades, building off of the anger and fear buzzing in her bones, because Beatrice is just starting to stir and surely has a concussion and Ava needs to end this, needs to stop this, but she still has so much to learn and the only foolproof tool she has in her arsenal is the one she’s not supposed to use. She considers, just for a second, letting the halo burn and beam and power her through this, but there’s a soft noise from the other side of the room where Beatrice is just starting to sit up and Ava can do so many things now but she can’t disappoint Beatrice.
She pulls the light of the halo back into herself, launches herself forward towards Matteo in a rugby tackle that makes her earlier attempt look downright graceful. A boot finds its way to her ribs and shoves hard, superhuman strength behind it, and Ava goes flying. She crashes into Miguel as he’s just starting to find his way back up to standing, the two of them falling in a tangle of limbs, and Ava nearly punches him as she scrambles to pull free because Matteo is suddenly limp on his knees on the floor, brown eyes bloodshot and scared, and--
Beatrice is standing stiffly across the room. She rolls her shoulders, rolls her head on her neck, stares down at her hands. An unfamiliar smile slides across her face-- and Ava knows all of Beatrice’s smiles now, knows the polite nun smile and the customer service smile from the bar and the friendly smile for Hans and the small genuine one for Camila and the careful genuine one for when Ava makes her laugh and the less careful open one when Ava surprises her with coffee on the rare days she wakes up first-- and Ava’s stomach twists.
“Beatrice,” she says helplessly, jerking free from where Miguel is trying to help her up, scrambling to her feet and slamming to a halt halfway across the room. Beatrice inspects her hands and cracks her knuckles, rolls her shoulders again, grins wide and toothy, and Ava’s throat closes around itself. “No--”
“You know what he wants,” Beatrice-- the wraith-- says, cool and clipped, nothing like Beatrice and her soft rolling accent. “Return it to him and all will be forgiven.”
“Fuck,” Ava gasps out, hands shaking at her side because she only knows one way to stop a possession and she can’t. Even if she had the capability to take Beatrice in a fight, she couldn’t ever, she knows she couldn’t. She can’t beat Beatrice’s body until the wraith flees it. She can’t hit Beatrice, can’t hurt Beatrice, can’t hurt someone who’s been hurt so much already.
Ava hasn't prayed since she was seven years old, hasn't believed in anything since she realized all she had left was a ceiling to stare at and a life left in the hands of nuns who hated her, but she'll take her own vows of poverty and chastity and what the fuck ever else is asked of her if it means getting Beatrice out of this unscathed
Beatrice’s slow progression forward stutters, jaw clenching tight and a low moan escaping between her teeth, hands uncurling shakily from fists at her sides. “Ava?”
It’s Beatrice, her Beatrice, a voice and a tone she knows even in this echoing empty warehouse surrounded by strangers, and Ava launches herself forward. The wraith is nowhere to be seen but maybe Beatrice killed it somehow, maybe Beatrice is just too nunlike for a demon to stay, maybe it doesn’t matter because Beatrice is back and--
Beatrice jerks in her hold when Ava crashes into her, but then arms curl around her, hands settling low at Ava’s hips, and Ava’s pulse stumbles because it feels wrong, Beatrice’s hands confidently sliding from her hips to her lower back, up under her shirt, but Ava’s body is reacting without her permission because she wants this, has wanted this so long it feels like she was born wanting Beatrice’s hand on her skin. Fingers slide up her back and she realizes her mistake almost too late to jerk back and out of Beatrice’s hold before her hands reach the halo. The unfamiliar slanting smile is back, Beatrice’s dark eyes a pit of black, and Ava trips over her own feet when she stumbles back.
“Stop it,” Ava says helplessly, the words cracking in her throat, because Beatrice is possessed and Ava doesn’t know how to save her without hurting her. “Come on, Bea, I know you can hear me.”
A graceful arcing kick launches towards her, and Ava rolls out of the way jerkily. Beatrice’s shoe cracks onto the floor where Ava had been. Ava’s chest aches with the way she wants to panic, wants to cry, wants someone to save her because she wants to be in the fight but not when the fight is Beatrice.
There’s no saving her this time, though, because Beatrice is possessed and stalking towards her with a sneer. It looks wrong on her face, on features that are so often soft and open for Ava now that they’ve been sharing this hidden life together for months, sharing meals and beds and grocery shopping. Beatrice with her hard-won smiles and sad eyes is now trapped behind the smirking sneering cruelty of a wraith demon, throwing graceful toying strikes Ava’s way that she can barely dodge.
Beatrice stumbles, and Ava finally makes it back to her feet, panting. Beatrice’s eyes flicker back to brown, her face pulling painfully, and she drops abruptly to one knee with a great gasping breath.
“Ava,” she says, strained and aching. “You have to--”
“I can’t.” It’s half a sob, Ava’s hands already reaching for Beatrice because she can’t help but reach for Beatrice, even when she’s in distress, especially when she’s in distress. Beatrice doesn’t do distress, is the one who’s always saving Ava from her own distress, stoic even when she wakes up from her own nightmares in their too-small shared bed in their too-small shared apartment and allows Ava to curl around her and press her forehead between her shoulderblades and breathe with her until she can sleep again. Beatrice doesn’t do distress, but Beatrice is possessed now and Ava is helpless.
“You have to,” Beatrice grinds out. “I trust you, you can--” Her shoulders spasm and she collapses further forward, hands crashing into the concrete as she gasps for breath. "Please."
Beatrice straightens up sharply, eyes flashing back to black again, and one hand shoots out to grab Ava by the throat. Ava gargles uselessly, fingernails digging into Beatrice’s shirt over the unyielding strength of a forearm Ava has spent too many hours daydreaming about. Her vision starts to blur around the edges, the world darkening and fading away except for the clear lines of Beatrice’s face, unmoving and unworried as Ava struggles.
I trust you.
Beatrice-- real Beatrice, her Beatrice, the one who talked her through twenty feet of concrete and into Adriel’s tomb, who bundled Ava away for safekeeping and has tirelessly trained her into something approximating a proper warrior nun each day while indulgently watching terrible movies with her every night-- trusts that she can do this. Beatrice who has never asked more of her than she can give trusts Ava to stop this, to save her.
Ava closes her eyes, lets the visage of a possessed Beatrice disappear, and lets her hands fall. Distantly she can hear Miguel and the other Samaritans yelling, but she pushes the sound away and reaches for the halo’s power. She gets the telltale burn over her spine first, and then a moment of itching, and then suddenly a flare of heat and light bursts out of her and she crashes to the ground when Beatrice-- the wraith; it’s not Beatrice, not her Beatrice, just someone hijacking her body-- drops her and stumbles back.
Ava lets the power gather at her back, crouching and gasping for breath as Beatrice finds her feet elegantly, and then shoves herself forward with the explosive power of Adriel’s halo. It sends her rocketing towards Beatrice, shoulder slamming into her ribcage and sending the both of them crashing to the ground. Ava lands on top of her and any other day, any other time, she would be crowing with delight at pinning Beatrice.
It’s not any other day, though, and Beatrice’s blacked eyes glare up at her, a guttural sound ripping out of her. Ava shoves at her shoulders, scrambles forward until she can pin her knees down over Beatrice’s biceps.
“I’m sorry,” she says, choked and aching, and slams her fist into Beatrice’s face.
She’s landed hits on Beatrice before. She’d be a poor student if she hadn’t at least a few times in the last two months of nonstop training, and she’s been getting better every day. She’s landed jabs to Beatrice’s jaw, elbows to her ribs, once a flying kick to her shoulder that was so spectacular that even Beatrice had complimented her on it. Ava’s hit Beatrice before because she’s a warrior nun and Beatrice is the sister warrior tasked with training her, and she’s complimented Ava for it every single time.
There’s no conciliatory congratulations from Beatrice this time. No well done or a hand clapping on her shoulder, no quiet laugh when Ava celebrates by yelling loud enough to scare the birds in the forest around them, no easy hum when Ava plops down at her side and tilts her head onto her shoulder. Nothing but furious black eyes and a foreign snarl curling her lips.
The second hit is harder, both for Ava and in how it lands on Beatrice’s cheek. Her head whips to the side with the impact and then snaps right back to center with a growl that sounds from deep in Beatrice’s chest, ugly and wrong. A choked noise squeezes out of Ava’s throat and she lands another punch, and another. A contusion blooms on Beatrice’s cheek. Ava’s knuckles skid on the next hit, slick with blood.
“Fuck,” Ava grinds out, eyes burning as she lands another hit. Beatrice’s cheek is bleeding freely now, her eye already swelling up. The wraith in Beatrice growls at her again, and Ava reels back for another punch and freezes in place when Beatrice goes limp under her.
There’s no sign of the demon, but Ava stops anyways because maybe-- maybe--
“Bea?” She barely recognizes her own voice, small and shaking; she wishes she couldn’t recognize Beatrice under her, bleeding and bruised from Ava’s own fists.
The wraith growls and then Beatrice’s hips jerk and Ava is sent tumbling to one side. Beatrice catches the wild punch Ava throws in one hand and slams her wrist into the ground, catches the loose flail of her other arm and does the same. It’s Ava pinned down now, concrete rough against the bloody skin of her knuckles and Beatrice looming cruelly above her. Beatrice who’s pinned Ava in training hundreds of times, thousands of times, but never looked down at Ava like this, dark and furious. Beatrice who Ava’s wanted to be held down by outside of sparring, outside of training, on their ratty couch or in their too-small bed, in any way that would make Beatrice realize that Ava wants everything with her.
Beatrice who has a demon inside her that wants to rip the halo out of Ava’s back. There’s blood splattered down her neck, on the white of her shirt. She sneers down at Ava just before letting go of one of her wrists long enough to land a heavy punch to Ava’s jaw.
“Return it to him,” she snarls, hands closing around Ava’s throat. Ava lets out a pathetic noise, fingers digging at Beatrice’s wrists, realizing with sinking clarity that she’s going to die, again, for good, right here.
(“This is serious, Ava.”
“I’m so serious.” Ava bounces on her toes, dances around Beatrice as she stands firmly in the center of the clearing that had become their dedicated spot for Ava to get her ass beat daily.
“You need to know this.” Beatrice doesn’t turn when Ava skips behind her, only deigning to tilt her head slightly at Ava’s energy. “Pay attention. Strangulation is a real danger, especially from a larger opponent.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” Ava chirps out, spinning back out in front of Beatrice again with a grin. “C’mon, Bea, just because I’m listening doesn’t mean I can’t have fun.”
She throws a lazy right towards Beatrice, one that even Ava could’ve blocked on day one of training, slow and weak and entirely for show because at the very least her form is perfect. Beatrice’s mouth thins into a straight line and she twists around it easily, hooks an ankle behind Ava’s, and suddenly Ava goes from dancing around Beatrice to her back slamming into the ground and Beatrice sitting on her stomach with her hands loose around Ava’s throat.
“Ow,” Ava groans out. “Really?”
“You’re not taking this seriously,” Beatrice says. Her thumbs rest gently over the hollow of Ava’s throat, and Ava realizes abruptly that Beatrice is sitting on her, warm and solid and staring down at her with dark serious eyes.
“I-- am,” Ava croaks out. “Totally serious, boss.”
“Ava,” Beatrice says with a sigh.
“So serious,” Ava says. “This is my serious face.”
“Technically, you look like you’re about to have a stroke.” Beatrice’s mouth turns downwards. “We should do this tomorrow.”
“No!” Ava’s hands land on Beatrice’s arms without her permission, stopping her from moving, which is absurd because Beatrice is straddling her and also has her hands on Ava’s throat and yet Ava is here holding her in place like an absolute lunatic. “You’re right, I should learn.”
The fact that she’s wholly unprepared for Beatrice to move off of her is something she’s fully squared away with; the fact that she’s okay with Beatrice’s hands around her throat, on the other hand, is something she is not going to be unpacking anytime soon.
“Are you sure?” Beatrice’s eyebrows furrow momentarily.
“Completely,” Ava says hoarsely. “What do I do from here?”
Beatrice stares down at her for a too-long moment, from her own hands on Ava’s throat to Ava’s on her wrists, long enough that Ava’s mind starts offering her too many inappropriate thoughts and her fingers tighten around Beatrice’s wrists.
“Not the wrists,” Beatrice says suddenly, nearly shaking her head. “Elbows. You want to disrupt their balance by stopping them from locking their elbows.”
There’s a rasp to her voice, gravely and uncharacteristic, and Ava feels it like a burning touch on her skin.)
Beatrice has always been strong, deceptively so, packing more power per square inch of muscle into what is, in the grand scheme of things, a relatively small frame than seems possible. It’s something Ava’s always loved about her, the way that Beatrice is power hidden behind grace, and it’s something that is going to kill her now because in all of their training on escaping chokeholds Beatrice apparently had been tempering her strength severely.
Ava’s vision starts to blur, Beatrice’s familiar features softening as her eyes lose focus and black creeps in from the edges. It’s a wraith, she knows it’s a wraith, that Beatrice would never hurt her, but there’s still something oddly comforting about the fact that it’s Beatrice’s face she’s fading away to. If she’s going to die, there are worse views to have than her best friend.
Elbows, Ava. Beatrice’s voice hums quietly in her head. Use my higher center of gravity against me.
(“Come on,” Beatrice says, hands on her hips as she stands over Ava, who’s sprawled uselessly on the ground. “You’re not giving up, are you?”
“Well, I wouldn’t,” Ava says around the way she’s gasping for breath on the dirt like a displaced salmon. “But my boss told me I shouldn’t get into fights I can’t win--”
She cuts off into a yelp when Beatrice suddenly grabs her hands and hauls her up to standing.
“Jeez, Bea, warn a girl, will you?”
Beatrice’s ears flush gently as she drops Ava’s hands. Or maybe it’s the summer sun beating down on them, the same sun that’s dusted freckles onto Beatrice’s shoulders the more time they’ve spent training in recent weeks.
“Ready to try again?” Beatrice snaps back to being brisk, a teacher in her element, and she circles Ava like a predator.
“Sure, why not,” Ava says with a groan. “Nothing left but my dignity to break.”
“Ambitious of you to assume you still have any of that left at this point,” Beatrice murmurs from behind her, and Ava’s indignant squawk is cut off when she has to lunge to the side to avoid getting tackled to the ground. She tries her luck with a counter, but she’s tired and Beatrice is tireless, and she’s sent flying into the dirt anyways and once again finds herself with Beatrice’s hands around her throat. “Now what?”
Fuck me, that’s what, Ava thinks before she can stop herself, and a whimper escapes her throat.
Beatrice pulls back immediately, eyes wide as she moves away to crouch at Ava’s side, hands hovering over her body. “Did I hurt you?”
“No,” Ava hurries out, pushing up onto her elbows. It pushes her collarbone into Beatrice’s hand, and Beatrice jerks back sharply. “Sorry, just-- landed weird, I think.”
“We can be done for today,” Beatrice says softly. “I’m sorry, I--”
“No!” It comes out loud enough that Beatrice’s mouth snaps shut abruptly, and Ava’s follows suit because that wasn’t thirsty at all. “I mean-- you’re right, I need to get this right.”
“Are you sure?” There’s naked concern on Beatrice’s face, her mouth pressed into a thin line the way it had been the whole time they’d been fleeing the Vatican and disappearing to Switzerland, the first few weeks in the tiny apartment when she’d so clearly not been sleeping properly because she was keeping guard late into the night.
“I’m good, Bea,” Ava says, because she is, because she needs to be, because she needs to learn and she needs to protect herself so Beatrice doesn’t have to. Not at all because Beatrice’s weight on top of her is doing things to her that Ava is going to have to deal with immediately once she makes it home to shower. Not at all. “Let me try again?”
Beatrice stares at her for long seconds, long enough that Ava’s sure that she’s going to say no, but she breaks finally, nods once, twice, sighs. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Ava says brightly. She drops back down off her elbows inelegantly. A choke me daddy joke begs to be let out, but Ava holds it back like a champion as she waits for Beatrice to take her position again. That she nearly stops breathing when Beatrice’s hand braces gently against her stomach as she swings a leg back over Ava’s hips is as unimportant as the fact that it doesn’t matter how light Beatrice’s grip is when she puts her hands back on Ava’s throat because Ava’s lungs have stopped working entirely.
“What’s first?” Beatrice says, gentle like she is when it’s late and she’s pulled Ava away from one of her nightmares. The sunlight frames the width of her shoulders, glints off her hair, a halo of light that looks every bit as divine as the one that bursts out of Ava’s back.
“Elbows,” Ava says after a too-long hesitation. “Higher center of gravity.”
Beatrice smiles, and Ava remembers how to breathe.)
Ava blinks against her fading vision. A gasping aching noise escapes her and muscle memory and Beatrice’s voice in her head-- elbows, Ava-- has her dragging one arm free until she can slam the flat of her elbow into the crease of Beatrice’s. It’s not perfect, sloppy and too weak, but it’s enough that Beatrice’s grip wavers as her arm folds under the hit momentarily.
Use your opponent’s size against them, Beatrice murmurs in her ear, and Ava yanks her other arm free, crashes her elbow into Beatrice’s again and her other first into Beatrice’s opposite cheek. The combination sends her sprawling to the side, and Ava inhales raggedly as she can finally breathe again. She flings herself to the side, landing on top of Beatrice inelegantly and slamming her elbow into Beatrice’s bleeding cheekbone.
“I’m sorry,” she says with a sob, hitting her again, and again. Beatrice’s lip splits under the next hit, a pained sound that Ava’s never heard from Beatrice escaping on the impact, and it lands right between Ava’s ribs. “I’m sorry--”
The wraith appears, pouring grotesquely out of Beatrice’s head. Somewhere in the background, a dazed Miguel is staring at Ava beating the shit out of Beatrice, and the wraith starts towards him.
“No you don’t,” Ava snarls out. It takes a half second for her to call the halo’s power when all she wants to do is check on Beatrice, but it works, a burst of light exploding through the room and demolishing the wraith before it makes it halfway across the room. Her body fights to go limp for a moment, the halo’s power redirecting away from keeping her breathing and upright, and she nearly collapses onto Beatrice’s bleeding form.
“What the hell,” Miguel says breathlessly, but Beatrice lets out a soft groan and Ava’s attention redirects immediately.
“Bea?” It rips out of her throat, sandpaper and grit, and she scrambles off from where she’d been pinning her down. “Bea, I’m so sorry, oh my God.”
Her hands hang in the air over Beatrice. Blood glistens on her knuckles and nausea rises in Ava’s stomach because it’s Beatrice’s blood on her hands, Beatrice’s blood splattered on the concrete, Beatrice bleeding out of a split in her lip and a gash on her cheekbone.
“I’m so sorry,” Ava gasps, yanking her hands back. “Are you-- fuck, Bea.”
Beatrice blinks slowly, wincing when it pulls at the swelling over her eye, the violent split over her cheek. She stares dazedly up at the ceiling, reaches up to dab gentle fingertips to her own injuries, flinches at the touch.
Ava stares at her, body sagging as much from the fight and the halo as from the fact that it was Beatrice. She sways on her knees, staring horrified at the picture of her own violence, Beatrice bleeding and Beatrice in pain and Beatrice with a haunted horrified look that Ava’s never seen on her before.
“I’m so sorry,” she says again, hiccuping and aching, useless.
Beatrice’s head rolls to the side until she can look at Ava, the rest of her body-- chest heaving from the unsteady breaths, hands shaking as she reaches for Ava and then seems to think better of it, of reaching for someone who just let her get possessed-- tense and unmoving. There’s blood in her teeth, and Ava nearly throws up.
“Are you okay?” Beatrice says quietly. She winces as she speaks, dabs at her split lip, winces again.
“Am I-- fuck.” Ava moves to swipe at her running nose, barely stops herself when she sees her bloody hands.
“We should go.” Beatrice pushes up onto her elbows and a pained groan escapes her, a hand going to her ribs and fuck that’s Ava’s fault, too, the way Beatrice’s ribs are almost surely cracked.
Ava sways again on her knees, hands limp at her side, as she watches Beatrice push up to her feet with slow broken movements. Time blurs, not unlike the world had when Beatrice-- the wraith-- had been choking her to death, and Ava barely remembers finding her own feet, muttering something about possession to Miguel, following Beatrice’s tender steps out of the warehouse and all the way home. Her throat hurts from where she’d been choked, her knuckles split and possibly fractured under Beatrice’s blood.
She doesn’t remember getting home, following Beatrice’s steps blindly as they move from shadow to shadow, making their way upstairs, but suddenly they’re in the apartment and the door locks and Ava collapses back against it with an aching bursting sob. Her legs give out, her spine grinding painfully against the door on the slow collapse downward, and she buries her face into her knees and lets out a crackling yell now that she can because she just beat the person she loves best to a pulp.
A hesitant touch lands atop her head, fingers sliding through her hair and along her scalp, and Ava wants to scream again because she let Beatrice get possessed, because she broke Beatrice’s ribs and hit her until her face is a mask of blood and bruises, and somehow Beatrice is here touching her like she’s worth being gentle with. Another hand finds her bloody bruised knuckles and curls around them softly, and Ava nearly does scream, the sound dying choked and exhausted in her chest.
“I’m sorry,” she gasps out into her knees, over and over again because she can’t find anything else to say. It’s not enough, will never be enough, but it’s all she has.
“Ava.” There’s a hoarse edge to Beatrice’s voice, uncharacteristic and painful, and a fresh stab of guilt lances through Ava’s ribcage. “Can you look at me, please?”
It’s playing dirty, Beatrice saying please, because whether she knows it or not Beatrice holds all of Ava's willpower in her hand with the word and Ava is physically incapable of not doing whatever Beatrice asks when she says please. It’s playing dirty and Ava wants to protest that it’s unfair even as she drags her head up to find Beatrice sitting on her heels in front of her, but she doesn’t exactly have a leg to stand on with after being the reason for the bruises and dried blood on Beatrice’s face.
Beatrice makes a soft noise when Ava looks up and then drops her head back against the door, her body too tired after the fight and the halo and beating her best friend to hold herself steady. It hurts to swallow, hurts to breathe, hurts to look at Beatrice but she can’t not look at Beatrice and all the damage Ava left on her. The gash on her cheek has stopped bleeding, the blood congealing sticky and sickly under the weak light of their apartment.
Beatrice reaches out towards Ava only to freeze abruptly when her eyes drop to Ava's throat, fingers curling back in on themselves, a stricken look crossing her face.
“I’m so sorry,” Beatrice says, shaking and unsteady. “Ava, I’m so sorry.”
Ava stares at her incredulously. Of all the things she expected, an apology wasn’t even up for consideration, because Beatrice is going to carry the bruises Ava gave her for days, maybe weeks, all because Ava couldn’t work fast enough to stop her from being taken over by a wraith demon, because Ava’s a failure of a friend and a failure of a warrior nun.
“What are you--”
“I hurt you.” There’s a weight of disgust in her voice that Ava hasn’t heard in a long time, that she’d only barely caught the edges of back before-- before Adriel, before the Vatican, before when Ava was still learning to use the halo and Beatrice was helping her with earpieces and tablets and Sister Melanie’s lost history-- and it drags Ava out of her panic because Beatrice and her abused battered face looks guilty. “I couldn’t stop it, no matter how hard I tried, and I hurt you.”
Beatrice folds her hands into her lap, familiar except for the way there’s a barely-visible tremble to her fingers as she winds them around each other, and she stares down at them and offers another apology, creaking and heavy.
“Beatrice.” Ava leans forward, scrambling and impulsive, reaching for Beatrice because she’s always reaching for Beatrice. Beatrice doesn’t flinch back when Ava reaches for her, somehow, despite Ava having beaten her face in, and Ava’s horrible bloodied hands curl along Beatrice’s shoulders. “You didn’t-- this is my fault, I should have stopped it before it went for you.”
“I tried to kill you.” Beatrice’s eyes are glassy, crowned by dark bruising that Ava left there; her breathing is ragged and unsteady around ribs that Ava cracked tackling her to the floor. Her shoulders are slumped under Ava’s hands and Ava wants to touch, to press her hand to Beatrice’s cheek like Beatrice has done to her so many times when she’s reeling and unsteady and panicking, but she can’t because Beatrice’s cheek is a mess of bruising and blood. “I couldn’t stop it, I couldn’t stop me.”
“Bea,” Ava says, a cracking edge of uncertainty. “It wasn’t you. It wasn’t you. I always knew it wasn’t you.”
“It was me,” Beatrice says, shaking her head and wincing when the movement sets her cheek to bleeding again. “It was me trying to kill you. I should have been able to-- I tried--”
Ava stares at her, her own lungs working overtime to match pace with the unfamiliar panicked pattern of Beatrice’s breathing. It hadn’t occurred to her that Beatrice being possessed meant Beatrice had been possessed, a passenger in her own body, forced to watch as her hands abdicated every responsibility she’d held onto so hard for months and tried to kill the person she had a duty to protect.
“Hey,” Ava says carefully. “Hey, Beatrice, listen to me, okay?”
All she gets is Beatrice shaking her head, twisting her hands tighter around themselves until her knuckles go white and bloodless. Ava reaches, a reckless choice but a cautious attempt, slow and careful, to press a hand against the less-bruised side of Beatrice’s face, curling along her jaw until she can tilt Beatrice’s chin up.
Ava’s seen Beatrice cry before. They’re in hiding from the maybe-devil they set out on the world, alone and separated from the family Beatrice had built for herself with the order, still reeling with the uncertainty of what happened to Mary, Vincent’s betrayal, the Adriel of it all; there are nightmares and triggers that plague the both of them, leaving them to take turns comforting one another, curled around each other in a too-small bed in this too-small apartment. Beatrice cries like she does everything else: quiet, restrained, disciplined, a silent welling of her eyes and a tightness to her voice as she clamps down on it and holds it in as best she can.
Ava’s seen Beatrice cry before, but never like this: rushed gasping breaths, half-choking and half-sobbing even as she tries to hold it in, chest heaving unsteadily. She’s never seen Beatrice, solid as a mountain, unsteady.
She skims a thumb along Beatrice’s cheekbone, the less-bruised one, careful to try not to hurt her anymore than she already has as she wipes at a tear that’s run out over a bruise.
“It wasn’t you,” Ava says, firm as she can, solid as she can, because Beatrice looks ready to shatter and she’s held Ava’s cracking breaking pieces together for so long and Ava refuses to let her down now that it’s her turn. “It was never you. I knew that the whole time, I promise you. It wasn’t you and it wasn’t your fault and you have nothing to apologize for.”
“I tried to kill you.” Beatrice’s voice is hoarse, unfamiliar, incorrect in every way because Beatrice has always been unwavering in the face of everything but now she’s a house of cards on an unsteady table, one heavy exhale away from collapsing.
“A wraith tried to kill me,” Ava corrects. Her other hand moves, falters, redirects from the brutalized side of Beatrice’s face and settles against the back of her neck anyways. She scoots forward, legs splaying out to either side because if Beatrice moves Ava’s pretty sure she’ll shatter but if Ava doesn’t get closer then she’s pretty sure she’ll shatter. Her back aches with the angle but not as much as the way that Beatrice looks like she’s a star about to collapse in on itself, and Ava shifts closer until Beatrice takes up the entirety of her vision. “It wasn’t you, Beatrice. You would never. I know you would never hurt me.”
That she hurt Beatrice, unpossessed and helpless to stop Beatrice from being possessed in the first place, sits sour and furious in her chest.
“I trust you,” Ava says, hand on Beatrice’s chin firming when she tries to look away. “That hasn’t changed. That won’t change. I trust you because it’s you and some bitchass wraith demon that you almost beat on your own isn’t going to change that, okay?”
She expects an Ava and a shake of her head, a that’s not how this works, an I should have done better because Beatrice’s faith in herself is a black hole peeling away every layer of strength and confidence she’s cobbled together. She expects Beatrice to argue, to explain why it’s impossible for a possessed person to kill the wraith demon inside them, to scold her for following Miguel’s haphazard plans so recklessly and putting them into this position at all.
Instead, Beatrice breathes in, aching and shuddering, and then out, hiccuping and shaking, and tilts forward until her forehead presses against Ava’s. Ava’s eyes slide shut without meaning to because she spends countless time out of every day in Beatrice’s immediate proximity but is only ever close like this when Beatrice is asleep and unguarded and can’t flush and look away from the way Ava wants her as much as she’s ever wanted anything in her life, wants her as much as she's ever wanted a life at all. She doesn’t realize she’s stopped breathing until one of Beatrice’s hands lifts, fingertips brushing over her cheek, down past her jaw, the side of her neck, to the tender skin of her throat where the wraith had tried to choke the life out of her.
“I’m sorry,” Ava says softly, unwilling to open her eyes because if she does the quiet around them, Beatrice tilted close enough that Ava can smell her breath and the tinge of copper to it from the blood that had been in her teeth, Beatrice’s hand gentle over the bruises on Ava’s throat, will shatter. “I should’ve-- before it got to you. I wasn’t fast enough.”
Beatrice’s thumb brushes over the fingermarks blooming darker on Ava’s throat and a shudder rips through Ava, inopportune and unappreciated but not unexpected because Beatrice this close is something that has never failed to send Ava into a tailspin that even her guilt and panic can’t rip her out of. She swallows it down as best she can, focuses on the scraping raw pain in her throat, the way her knuckles ache.
“We should get you cleaned up,” she manages to say. She opens her eyes and it’s a mistake because Beatrice’s bruises are right there, dark against her skin, an inescapable testimony to Ava’s violence. It’s easier than she expects to pull away, to remove herself from the closeness she’s been aching for with Beatrice for so long, because she failed in every possible way tonight and Beatrice is going to carry the bruises from it for days.
Beatrice’s hand doesn’t move, fingertips featherlight still at Ava’s throat, her neck, the bruises ringing around it that fit perfectly to her hand.
“I’m going to call Mother Superion,” Beatrice says abruptly. It’s too loud for where they’re crowded together in the dark by their front door, Ava’s hand at her cheek, Beatrice’s at her throat. Ava blinks at the shift, at the way Beatrice’s hand pulls back from where her thumb had been ghosting over the hollow of Ava’s throat, the bruises edging their way towards her collarbones. “Camila can be here by tomorrow afternoon.”
Ava’s hand tightens inadvertently at the back of Beatrice’s neck, spine sharpening. “Camila?”
“She should take my place,” Beatrice says, brisk, formal. “I-- she can train you as well as I can, and you deserve a member of the order who hasn’t--”
“Beatrice,” Ava says over her, hand clapping over her mouth. It’s too abrupt, too hard, the split in Beatrice’s rough under her hand, but Ava barrels past the way she immediately wants to apologize after hurting Beatrice yet again because there are more pressing matters at hand. Beatrice’s eyes go wide, her breathing shifting suddenly to come from her chest instead of her stomach, quick and shallow.
“Bea,” Ava murmurs. “Hey, it’s okay, Bea, alright? You have to breathe.”
There’s nothing for it, Beatrice’s breaths coming faster, her eyes widening in what Ava would almost call panic if it were anyone but Beatrice; her hand yanks back from it had been tracing over Ava’s bruised throat so fast it almost hurts.
“Hey,” Ava says, concern creasing her voice at Beatrice’s shallow rushed breathing. “Beatrice, you have to breathe. Diaphragmatic breathing, remember?”
(“How,” Ava gasps out, hands on her knees. “Are you just fine?” She gestures vaguely towards Beatrice, who has a slight sheen of sweat at her forehead but otherwise looks entirely unruffled after the three miles they just ran. Ava can’t even appreciate the fact that they’re not longer running, or the fact that Beatrice’s running tights give her a view that presumably no one has seen since Beatrice took her vows, a view that she wants very much to appreciate, because she’s sure her lungs are collapsing after the run.
“Stand up straight,” Beatrice says, hands propped on her hips, eyebrows lifted.
“Who cares about my posture,” Ava says with a groan.
“It’ll help you breathe.” Beatrice rolls her eyes and suddenly her hand is on Ava’s lower back, careful over her spine, as if she might break it again if she touches too heavily. It works, Ava suddenly straightening up, because she’s used to Beatrice touching her, adjusting her form as she learns new strike patterns, correcting her posture when she’s stretching, but Beatrice’s hand has never lingered like it does now. There’s a crease in her forehead, the one she gets when she’s puzzling through how to cook-- one of the few things she’s yet to master, to her obvious irritation-- or balancing the bar’s books after they’ve spent so long being a mess.
“Straighten your spine and square your shoulders,” Beatrice says quietly. Her other hand presses on Ava’s shoulder gently, manipulating her until her spine is a long line from hip to head. “Breathe in through your nose slowly, and out through your mouth.”
Ava closes her eyes, because Beatrice is close and Beatrice is distracting and even without the run she’d still be struggling to breathe properly because she could tilt herself just a few inches and find the familiar line of Beatrice’s mouth, could kiss her so easily. She tries to focus on Beatrice’s voice, but that almost makes it worse because Beatrice’s voice is soft and low, the familiar rhythm of her accent warming against Ava’s already-overheated skin.
She breathes in per instruction, measuring her inhale to Beatrice’s counting, and her lungs ache with the effort. Beatrice makes a noise at her side, the noise she makes when she’s thinking, and Ava opens one eye to find Beatrice staring at her intently.
It’s terrifying, being caught in Beatrice’s focus. Ava should be used to it by now, should have adjusted to the weight of Beatrice’s attention, but it knocks the breath Ava had so carefully inhaled right out of her lungs.
“Into your diaphragm,” Beatrice says helpfully, like Ava has any idea what that means. The hand on her shoulder suddenly presses against her abdomen, just below her ribs. “Try to breathe into my hand, okay?”
“Into your hand,” Ava echoes, the waver so obvious that they both have to look away and pretend they didn’t hear it.
“Diaphragmatic breathing allows you to open your lungs more efficiently,” Beatrice says. There’s an uncharacteristic scrape to her soft voice. Her other hand is still on Ava’s lower back, fingertips pressing gently through her shirt onto one of the faded lines of scar tissue to the right of her spine that Ava hadn’t even known were there until the halo brought her back. “Which allows you to breathe with less effort overall.”
“Can’t believe I don’t even know how to breathe right,” Ava mutters. It’s easier to focus on that than Beatrice’s hand on her abdomen, the way Beatrice is watching her so intently.
The hand on her back disappears, and Ava’s eyes fly open, her lower back suddenly cold without Beatrice’s hand there; the hand on her stomach follows suit and Ava fights the urge to shrink in on herself. Suddenly Beatrice is square in front of her, arms folded over her chest and jaw clenched tight.
“Sorry?” Ava ventures, rocking back on her heels.
“You were paralyzed, Ava,” Beatrice says softly. The tension in her jaw leaks away, softening her entire face, and it nearly sends Ava sprawling on the ground. “If you couldn’t feel or control your body below your chest for twelve years, why would you have learned how to breathe into your diaphragm?”
Ava’s arms drop limply to her sides. She stares at Beatrice, who’s staring right back with all of her usual intensity, the staggering weight of her attention heavy on Ava’s shoulders.
“Oh,” Ava says stupidly. “I-- didn’t think of it like that.”
Beatrice sighs, her shoulders relaxing, one hand pinching at the bridge of her nose as she breathes in deep. Ava can’t help the way her eyes skid downwards, past the strong line of Beatrice’s throat and her chest to where her ribcage and abdomen expand, minute but visible, with the inhale. She stares with wonder at the way Beatrice breathes, measured and incredible like everything she does.
“You’re too hard on yourself, you know,” Beatrice says, jerking Ava’s attention back upwards. There’s a sorrowful glint to her eyes, different from the usual sad weight that always shadows Beatrice’s steps, her mouth softening from the tension she carries so often. “I assume I haven’t been helping, with how hard I’ve been pushing you. But you’ve made extraordinary progress, Ava. No one else I’ve trained has ever progressed this quickly. I should tell you that more often.”
Heat smears across Ava’s cheeks, wholly separate from the way she’d nearly combusted towards the end of the run in the summer heat, spreading down her neck and chest, and she has to look away, has to let out a pfft that sounds forced even to her as she kicks a heel against the dirt.
“Good teacher, that’s all,” Ava says, as lightly as she can. “Also, halo superpowers, right?”
“No.” Beatrice shakes her head, fixes a firm stare on Ava. “The halo can’t give you kinetic awareness or an ability to learn. That’s entirely you.”
“Maybe so.” Ava’s reeling under the weight of Beatrice’s focus, squirming, faltering in every way. “Still don’t know how to breathe right, though, apparently.”
Beatrice smiles, a little wry, a little lopsided, and even the way Ava knows how to breathe fails her at the sigh of it. “It’s easier than you think, I promise.” She steps forward, hands out carefully. “May I?”
Beatrice asks, because Beatrice always asks before she adjusts Ava’s body, hands waiting politely until Ava nods. She doesn’t flinch when Ava touches her so easily as often as she can, lets Ava’s hands wait at her waist or her shoulder, arm slung around her neck, lets her press up against Beatrice’s back when she’s had a nightmare she doesn’t want to talk about, but when they’re here, training, distant from the world, she always waits.
Ava bites down on the inside of her lip to stop the way you can touch me always is rattling it’s way up her throat and ricocheting against her teeth. She wants Beatrice’s hand on her always, in any way, pinning her easily during sparring practice or correcting her footwork or squeezing her arm at the bar after some rando hits on her badly, in their bed at home when Ava wakes from her own nightmares and Beatrice doesn’t have to ask anymore what she needs and instead lets Ava sprawl half on top of her until she can burrow her head into the side of Beatrice’s neck and hold tight to her shirt and feel the quiet thunder of her heartbeat. She wants Beatrice’s hands on her, but she’s not prepared for the way her right hand settles warm over her diaphragm again and her left presses gently over her sternum.
Beatrice is touching her chest. No big deal. No way she can feel the way Ava’s pulse likely just doubled at the touch. It's fine.
“Breathe in through your nose,” Beatrice says quietly. “Imagine trying to pull the air all the way down into your ribcage, all the way to your stomach. Your chest shouldn’t move at all, but your abdomen should push out against my hand.”
“Right,” Ava squeaks out. There’s no way Beatrice can’t feel the galloping pace of her pulse, doesn’t know where the flush spreading across Ava’s chest under her hand is coming from. “So easy.”
“Close your eyes?” Beatrice says. “It may help you concentrate.”
It unequivocally does not help Ava concentrate, because now with her eyes shut and Beatrice’s hand on her she can’t help her imagination from sprinting away with her and pretending they’re not in this clearing in the woods where they train; instead they’re in their apartment, dim lights and the bed right there and Ava’s legs bumping into it because Beatrice’s hands on her are deliberate and not there for training purposes in the slightest.
“Ava?”
Her eyes open and she’s back in the clearing, bright sunlight and Beatrice’s concerned eyes dead ahead, Beatrice’s thumb moving absently over her sternum.
“Sorry,” Ava says. “Okay.” She closes her eyes again, focuses on the heat of the sunlight and the fading ache in her muscles from the run, tethering herself to here and now as best she can, and breathes in. She falters halfway into the inhale, her body forgetting how to regulate oxygen for a split second as she focuses too hard, but Beatrice murmurs something calming and inaudible and Ava realigns, nose wrinkling in concentration as she breathes down into her abdomen until it pushes out against Beatrice’s hand.
“Just like that,” Beatrice says warmly. “And out through your mouth, slowly. From the diaphragm, like you're actively pushing it out starting from your stomach and moving upwards."
Beatrice is a good teacher, has always been a good teacher, pushing Ava when she can take it and waiting when she can't, learning how to explain things in a way that Ava can best internalize, and this is no different. Ava breathes out, let's the air push up through her lungs and out until her abdomen deflates under Beatrice's hand.
"See?" Beatrice hasn't moved, her hands still on Ava, thumb still moving absently over her sternum. Ava stares at her, forgetting immediately everything she just learned and sucking air into her chest like a vacuum cleaner and then immediately letting out an annoyed ah shit. "It takes some practice, but once you get used to it it'll be second nature."
“If you say so,” Ava croaks out. She tries another breath, pulling air in and down until she can feel her abdomen pressing into Beatrice’s hand, and earns herself an encouraging hum from Beatrice. The exhale that follows is more rushed-- because learning is a process, she tells herself, and not at all because she’s continuously overwhelmed by Beatrice-- and she sighs, wrinkles her nose, flashes what she hopes is a charming smile at Beatrice. “Maybe we should try a few more times.”
Beatrice doesn't arch an eyebrow or make a dry teasing comment like she might normally, no you just don't want to stretch yet, right falling easy and familiar from her lips. Instead, she just smiles, small but genuine, and resets her shoulders, flexes her hands against Ava's body, nods.
"A few more times.")
Beatrice’s eyes are wide and uncertain, haloed in bruising that she doesn’t seem to care about in the face of the marks on Ava’s throat, and Ava throws subtlety aside and clambers up to her feet, drags Beatrice with her aggressively. Beatrice is barely upright before Ava pivots and pushes her into the door, one hand on her sternum and one over her abdomen.
“Breathe with me, okay?” She pushes her hand harder over Beatrice’s sternum. “In through your nose, all the way down to your stomach, remember? Until it pushes out against my hand, okay?”
There’s a painful expansive moment where Ava is sure that this was the wrong approach, that she’s made everything worse, that Beatrice is going to pass out and then Ava will have an unconscious brutalized nun on her hands and no clue what to do next, but then Beatrice pulls in a ragged breath until her abdomen pushes back against Ava’s hand.
“There,” Ava says. She smiles and hope it doesn't look manic, that it doesn't betray how much the idea of Beatrice panicking is affecting her. “See? You know how to do this. You taught me how to do this, remember?”
Another breath passes, the exhale ruffling the ends of Ava’s hair warmly; another, and Beatrice’s hand hovers near Ava’s and then presses against it, as if she needs to feel her own diaphragm expanding, as if she needs to feel confirmation that she’s breathing properly. Another, and Ava’s spike of worry has faded enough for her to sink back into her own guilt.
“Thank you,” Beatrice says softly after a long moment. It disrupts the way Ava is starting to spin in her own guilt, just for a moment, and Ava smiles weakly. Beatrice’s gaze lands on Ava’s throat again, her hand tightening over Ava’s, and horribly, absurdly, despite the fact that Beatrice just had a panic attack because she was possessed by a wraith that tried to kill Ava and Ava beat the absolute shit out of her, Ava wants to kiss her because she’s only ever had so much restraint when it comes to Beatrice and every whit of it has evaporated over the course of the last hour. “I’m sorry.”
“Beatrice,” Ava says. She’s so tired. She wants to fall into bed and stop pretending she doesn’t want to fall asleep wrapped around Beatrice, to sleep until they can both wake up without bruises or guilt and pretend this never happened. “You don’t have anything to apologize for, okay? It wasn’t you. It was never you. I trust you, I’ve always trusted you, and I don’t want anyone else here with me but you.”
Her voice creaks, aching and slipping. She’s so tired, of waiting for the world to come calling, of the weight of expectation that will more than likely end in her dying, of pretending she doesn’t love this bubble of a life they’ve built together and that she doesn’t love Beatrice and the way she alphabetized their meager spice rack and expansive collection of takeout menus and the fact that she refolds the socks when it’s Ava’s turn to do laundry because they’re never quite as precise as they should be and that she always drinks the tea Ava brews for her even when Ava knows she brews it incorrectly. She’s tired of pretending she didn’t fall for Beatrice somewhere in the midst of this hidden secret life they’re living and that she doesn’t want to announce it to every person who walks into the bar every day.
“Ava,” Beatrice says, soft in that sad way that she’s always had, and it splinters the air around them because Beatrice has been hurt by too many people in her life and Ava had always been so determined to not be one of them and yet here they are with Beatrice having to talk around the bruises swelling on her face that Ava gave her.
“You can’t go.” It slips out without Ava’s permission, cracking as it fills the space between them, and Ava gives up. Her hand leaves its post on Beatrice’s sternum and follows the curve of her neck instead, fingers winding up in to the hair at the base of her skull, loosened and untidy after the night they’ve had. “Please don’t leave me here, Bea.”
“Someone else should--” Beatrice cuts herself off, her voice shaking, and Ava holds tighter to the back of her neck, shakes her head hard enough that it makes her own bruises ache.
“It has to be you,” Ava blurts out. “It always has to be you.”
Beatrice stares at her, breaths pushing heavy against their linked hands over her abdomen. Ava swallows her own breaths and the way they want to riot in her chest, drags her thumb against the hinge of Beatrice’s jaw, one of the only unbruised parts of her face, and she tilts closer until she can feel Beatrice’s exhale against her lips as much as the hand on her diaphragm and wonders if the order will try to take the halo back from her if she asks so much of their best and brightest.
“Bea,” she says before she can stop herself. Her voice is uncertain even to her own ears. “Tell me to stop.”
Beatrice’s eyes widen, mouth opening and then closing. Ava can feel the shift of her jaw and slides her thumb along it again, losing her own focus when Beatrice tilts into her touch, eyes half-shut. It’s not an invitation-- there will never be an invitation; Beatrice is a nun, sworn and vowed, and beyond that so buried in her own self-loathing that she’d never ask for anything for herself, will never give herself the space to openly want anything-- but she’s not stopping Ava, either, which is practically an invitation in itself because Beatrice has always managed to contain the worst of Ava’s impulses easily.
Ava takes the opening for what it could be and steps forward. Their hands are pinned between them, Beatrice’s uncertain breaths pushing out against Ava’s anxious ones, and Ava’s fingers flex against the back of Beatrice’s head until she can lean up and kiss her.
Beatrice tastes coppery like the blood that had been in her teeth, the blood that’s still dried on her split lip, but she doesn’t pull away, doesn’t stiffen, doesn’t do anything but let out the softest of noises and slant her mouth against Ava’s like she’s been waiting on this for just as long as Ava has. It’s careful, hesitant, gentle like Beatrice always is when Ava is at her most delicate, gentle because Ava’s throat is raw and Beatrice’s face is a mass of bruising, gentle because Ava is convinced that if she pushes any harder Beatrice will come to her senses and run.
Fingertips skim along her cheek, her jaw, and Ava arches forward without meaning to. It presses their hands between them even harder, and when Beatrice lets out a shuddering breath and leans her forehead against Ava’s, Ava feels it in her hand first. She pushes forward, greedy, impatient, and kisses Beatrice again, heavier without risking hurting her, intentional without expectation because there’s no telling if this is a step forward or a grenade launched into their careful balance and she’s not willing to let the moment slip by yet; she drags her hand from Beatrice’s abdomen to her ribcage, to her back, fingers finding the strong line of her spine through her shirt and digging in hard.
It drags a stuttering breath out of Beatrice, one that Ava would feel like heat licking down her spinal column even if she wasn’t pressed up against Beatrice so tightly. Ava drags her fingertips along Beatrice’s scalp, lets herself pull back enough to see the way it makes Beatrice’s eyes flutter shut and her teeth dig into her lower lip.
“Beatrice,” she says carefully, fingers still fitted between the notches in her spine, working gently along her scalp. “Tell me to stop. Tell me to stop and I will.”
She will if she has to. She’ll tie herself in knots to help Beatrice write this off if that’s what she needs, if this was a mistake Beatrice needs to walk back; it’ll hurt worse than every time she’d had to slam her fist into Beatrice until the wraith demon was gone, but she’ll do it if it means Beatrice will stay.
“I can’t,” Beatrice says, eyes dark and glassy. Her hand is still on Ava’s cheek, pressing more firmly; the other joins and Ava’s knees nearly give out at being framed, safe and warm, in Beatrice’s hold. “I won’t.”
“Are you sure?” She has to know, has to be sure, has to hold herself back before they do something Beatrice will regret. She has to know, and holds herself back as best she can when all she wants is to kiss Beatrice again and again and again until her breath, diaphragmatic or otherwise, is disrupted and she’s clinging to Ava as hard as Ava is clinging to her.
Beatrice’s hand strokes gentle along Ava’s cheek, down to her neck, ghosting over the bruises at her throat and back up. Ava has to fight to keep her eyes open, to keep the noise that her body wants to make locked securely in her chest; she bites down inelegantly on her lip to stay quiet and still under Beatrice’s touch, as if her entire body isn’t programmed to respond to it by now.
“I’m sure,” Beatrice says softly. She pulls Ava forward, careful, gentle, and Ava follows like she always does, lets herself follow until Beatrice can kiss her again, and again, and again.
Ava’s nearly falling over by the time they come up for air properly; Beatrice is slumped into the door, her head tilting down onto Ava’s shoulder as her entire body sags with the unsteady breaths bursting out of her. Her hands have found their way to Ava’s waist, to her back, and it warms up Ava’s spine so aggressively that she’s sure the only reason the halo isn’t burning bright is because it’s so depleted.
“Come on,” she says softly into her hair, reverent, careful. “We need to get you cleaned up.”
“I know.” Beatrice’s hands smooth along her back, her voice a soft vibration Ava feels through her chest. “You, too.”
“I’m good,” Ava says. “Express halo healing, remember?” She drags a hand along Beatrice’s ribcage, up her side, routing around the strong line of her shoulderblade through her shirt.
Beatrice straightens up, all business as she inspects Ava’s neck, as if she isn’t slumped against their front door with Ava pressed up against her, as if they didn’t just irrevocably change the course of the earth under their feet. Her fingertips are almost businesslike as they trace over the bruises that Ava can tell have already started to fade.
“Come on,” she says, curling a hand around Beatrice’s wrist. Her own knuckles are still bloody, but she ignores the mess in favor of pressing her lips against the backs of Beatrice’s fingers. It earns her a soft noise, something uncertain and breathy from somewhere in Beatrice’s throat, and Ava smiles against her hand. “Bathroom, let’s go.”
Beatrice lets Ava lead her through the apartment, hands still linked; her thumb brushes over Ava’s bloody knuckles and nausea swoops momentarily in Ava’s stomach. She ignores it as jovially as possible as she points with a grin at the closed toilet, waiting for Beatrice to sit while she retrieves the first aid kid.
The bathroom is quiet, the only sound the slosh of disinfectant and the rip of gauze packets. Beatrice, stoic as ever, doesn’t even flinch when Ava dabs gently at the split on her cheekbone, her busted lip; Ava murmurs an apology each time anyways. Beatrice’s hand finds the loose edge of Ava’s jacket at some point, twisting loosely into it; she watches Ava’s movements with sharp eyes as Ava disinfects the damage on her face and applies butterfly bandages over her cheekbone.
“I don’t think you need stitches,” Ava says quietly. Her thumb traces the air over the bandaged wound. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Beatrice catches her hand after she sets the rest of the bandages aside, fingers curling around her palm and thumb swiping over the pulse in her wrist. “You did exactly what you should have. I’m proud of you.”
“I beat the shit out of you,” Ava says, frowning against the way her body wants to relax under Beatrice’s touch, under Beatrice’s forgiveness. “I’m pretty sure I broke your ribs.”
“I think they’re cracked, actually,” Beatrice says with something that sounds like humor in her voice, somehow. It doesn’t help. “Ava, you took out a wraith demon on your own, without any divinium, after two months of training. That’s something to be proud of, even without the--circumstances.”
“Circumstances,” Ava says, scoffing, but there’s no heat behind it, no weight to it. She’s tired, and she wants to curl up in bed with Beatrice and sleep for a week without expectation or responsibility hanging over their heads.
“I’m proud of you,” Beatrice says again. “What you-- it’s not easy.” Her head tilts, half a smile tugging at her lips. She only winces for a split second when it pulls at the damage slicing through her top lip, and Ava, self-loathing and exhaustion overpowered by the need to touch, brushes the thumb of her free hand over Beatrice’s mouth before she can stop herself.
She almost freezes, almost yanks her hand back, sure that it’s too much, too soon, too forward, but Beatrice’s eyes slide shut under her touch and she doesn’t move, lets Ava follow the line of her bottom lip gently.
“I had a good teacher,” Ava says eventually.
“Clearly,” Beatrice says, opening her eyes just in time to smile in that rare cocky way she’s always reserved for sparring sessions and the way she was the one pinning Ava to the ground nine bouts out of ten. It warms in Ava’s chest, loosens the knotted mass of guilt that sits heavy in her stomach.
“Yeah, yeah, okay.” She pulls her hand back reluctantly from Beatrice’s mouth, leans across the tiny bathroom until she can twist the knobs on the shower faucet. “Take a shower, charmer. I want to sleep.”
She pulls Beatrice up to her feet, fingers finding the buttons on Beatrice’s shirt without thinking. She’s halfway through unbuttoning it when she realizes what she’s doing and heat flares across her cheeks.
“Shit, sorry,” she splutters out. “I mean-- too much, obviously too much, I’m sorry--”
She cuts off when she realizes Beatrice looks halfway between laughing and bolting, mouth twitching into a smile even as she clutches at her shirt and pulls it back closed over the skin of her sternum that Ava had exposed. It’s nothing Ava hasn’t seen before-- it’s summer, and their apartment doesn’t have air conditioning, and even Beatrice hadn’t been able to avoid giving in to sleeping in sleeveless shirts with loose collars on hotter nights-- but there’s something heated and new to the slice of skin visible through her unbuttoned shirt.
“Sorry,” Ava blurts again. “I’ll just-- be going now. Outside. So you can shower. Yep. Okay!”
She sidles around Beatrice as best she can, but the bathroom is miniscule and Beatrice isn’t moving and there’s nothing she can do about the way it drags her entire body against Beatrice’s arm. Another mumbled apology spills out of her, and she’s halfway out the door when Beatrice’s hand curls around her wrist, stopping her abruptly.
Beatrice hasn’t turned, only barely turning her head until Ava can see her profile, a map Ava could draw blindfolded, even with the bruises shadowing it.
“Thank you,” Beatrice says, carefully. “I’m not-- I don’t know what I’m ready for, yet. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want this with you.”
It’s not an invitation to stay and ravish her in the shower, Ava knows. It’s not an invitation at all, because Beatrice is a nun and their world is complicated and there are boundaries, lines they can’t cross now-- maybe ever-- that Ava needs to find and mind. It’s not an invitation, but it’s a promise, and Ava turns into Beatrice’s hold, presses her lips gently to the back of Beatrice’s shoulder.
“I’ll get you some clean clothes,” she says into Beatrice’s shoulder. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Beatrice breathes out, her entire torso moving with her shaking exhale. “Okay.”
Later, after Ava’s deposited clean clothes in a neat pile on the corner of the sink for Beatrice, after Beatrice has come out of the bathroom in pajamas combing her fingers through her wet hair and Ava’s heart has somersaulted in her chest at the sight of her, after Ava’s taken her own shower and inspected her own mostly-faded bruises in the mirror, Ava sits on her side of the bed uncertainly. Beatrice has a book open in her lap but is staring aimlessly into the middle distance, hair a damp braid over one shoulder like it is every night.
Beatrice blinks out of her stare when the mattress dips under Ava’s weight, half a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth even before she turns, and it draws an easy smile out of Ava as well. They’re different, but they aren’t off, even after the night they’ve had and the way everything has changed. Beatrice sets her book aside and clicks off the light, and Ava stretches out with a sigh, wiggling her toes like she always does when she gets ready to sleep, just to remind herself that she can.
A moment of uncertainty spreads across the dark apartment, across the six inches and countless miles of space between them. Ava fidgets with the hem of her t-shirt, stares unabashedly at Beatrice’s profile, and wonders if it’s too forward to slide across the bed and curl into Beatrice’s side like she only allows herself to do when Beatrice is dead asleep.
Beatrice spares her the decision: her hand crawls across the bed until it finds Ava’s, fingers sliding along Ava’s bruised and cleaned knuckles until Ava turns her hand over, winds their fingers together. A soft noise sounds from Beatrice’s side of the bed, somewhere between wonder and a hum. A slice of light from the streetlamps outside paints an angular stripe across Beatrice, from her shoulder to her hip.
Ava tugs at Beatrice’s hand gently, and then more insistently when Beatrice doesn’t move, tacking on a dramatic whine when Beatrice doesn’t cotton on fast enough.
“Alright, alright,” Beatrice says, half a whisper and half a breathless laugh in the dark, and lets Ava pull on her hand until she curls closer to Ava’s side.
Tomorrow, they’ll see the message on Beatrice’s necklace, the call signaling them home. Tomorrow, they’ll learn they’ve lost Mary for good. Tomorrow, the world and the war they’re embroiled in will march onwards and they’ll move forward as best they can. But for now, for tonight, when Ava has bruises on her throat that the halo is already working to remove and Beatrice has bruises on her face that the halo can’t do anything about, Ava ignores the world and the war and the responsibility weighing heavy on them, because she has Beatrice’s head resting on her chest and a leg hooked over hers, hand dragging absently up and down Ava’s bare arm. For now, in spite of it all, she has Beatrice, and the rest of the world can wait.