#how MUCH BEATRICE TOUCHES HER | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

georgiapeach30513 · 2 months

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With Your Touch, Part 2

Summary: Lloyd has some rules, and very little control.

Pairings: Lloyd Hansen X Au Pair!Reader

Rating: explicit

Warnings: explicit language, explicit sexual tension, video sex, a bit of voyeurism, implied male masturbation, teasing, daddy issues, 18+ ONLY

Word Count: 5.9K

Series Masterlist

*dividers created by @firefly-graphics

“Shh, sweetheart. We’ve got to tell your daddy you need a proper middle name. Unless you’re European. Can you tell me if you are?” Lyla giggles a bit, reaching a hand up to touch your face. “Oh, I knew it. You want one. So what do you think your dad will like an A name? A B name?” The baby squeals so loud you hear Lloyd’s loud banging stop. Pausing while he focuses on Lyla’s voice.

“Was that a good sound or bad? I haven’t learned her noises. Cries. Voice. I don’t know what the correct terminology would be, but I haven’t learned it.”

“It isn’t bad. She’s communicating with me.”

“What?” His voice is laced in so much confusion that you find it so endearing. He was obnoxious, but trying. His rules for you as the au pair were a bit too much, but the pay was ridiculously good. And Chase didn’t live too far. He could sneak in.

You walk into Lyla’s room, wanting to laugh as Lloyd curses at the crib he was trying to put together. Looking down at the sweet baby in your arms as her daddy throws something else, “He’s pitching a fit.”

“No the — no, I’m not. This stupid thing is impossible with these dumbass directions. And she can’t sleep in her bedroom. I don’t want her to sleep in the portable crib anymore. I want her to have a space of her own. I highly doubt her whore of a mother gave her that. And yes, she is. Any woman that drops off a baby with their father who knows fuck all about kids is a whore and shitty human being. And Lyla, I apologize. I’m working on not talking like an asshole around her.”

Working on it, and failing miserably, it is still cute he thinks he’s going to change that quickly. Even just acknowledging that type of language isn’t suitable for her is a start. “And here I am in over my head, putting together an overly pink bedroom for her because she didn’t ask to be born, and I am extra.”

“Yeah, designer baby clothes aren't what a lot of parents do.”

“How did your father dress you?”

Chuckling, you put Lyla in her carrier. You place her slightly behind, but still beside Lloyd, and plant yourself beside him, grabbing up the directions. “Roman didn’t dress me. My mother did. Roman might have paid for things, but my mom was the one that was there always. So you’re doing a lot better than him.”

“Is this a moment you tell me you have daddy issues?”

Snorting, you look up at him, shaking your head no, “This is me telling you my experience with my father. Having a dad in a girl’s life makes a difference. I call him Roman. What do you want Lyla to call you?”

“Dad.”

“You know you didn’t hesitate?” Taking a deep inhale, Lloyd grabs the directions from you, busying himself in reading them. You don’t think he actually is looking at them, he’s absorbing what you said, while also refusing to look at you and show you his vulnerability. “Speaking of which, why doesn’t she have a middle name?”

“Why does she need one?”

“What’s your middle name?” You counter quickly, and he leans back. His eyes gazing over your body. Wondering where the hell you came from because clearly you didn’t know who he was.

He narrows his eyes, looking at you and then his daughter. Lyla can’t help but to giggle at him. Tiny little thing. You wonder if she was malnourished or just a bit miniature anyways. “Bennett,” he waits to see if you react before continuing. “Why does she need one?”

“Beatrice,” he looks down at the baby who chuckles again. “She likes you, and she told me she wanted a name that started with B, and now I find out your name starts with a B. I think you and your daddy are a perfect pair, don’t you Miss Lyla Bee?” Despite whatever nonsense her mother had her living in, she's a happy baby. One that is very much aware of her daddy. Her bright green eyes focus on him when he looks at her.

“Lyla Bee. I like that. She’s like my little bumble bee. Should we get rid of all the pink and change it to bumble bees? Did I make a mistake with the pink? What if she doesn’t like pink?”

You shrug your shoulders. It really didn’t matter what she liked. She seemed to like her dad, and he adored her, and wanted to do right by her. “I think we should keep the pink. Here, you tend to the baby, and let me have a go at this crib. You’re messing everything up. And she really likes you.”

“But you’re the au pair?” He says, holding onto Lyla. He gives his finger to her, and her little baby fingers wrap around him tightly.

“And you’re mucking up this crib. Can I? I helped my mom with my little brother’s crib. It was a long time ago. But,” you go silent, grabbing the directions back from Lloyd. Using the same tactic he did earlier. Focus on this and ignore the questions, “No, Roman is not his father.”

“Didn’t ask,” he didn’t have to. Everyone else did. Your brother was an angel, and his father was…well, he was there. He made sure that Vincent was taken care of. Might not have offered you any attention, but you weren’t his responsibility.

“You thought it, so that was enough. I like the simple, but extravagant theme you went for in her bedroom though. Even if the Dior bunny is a bit much.”

“She likes it,” he chuckles, looking down at his daughter. “My partner told me buying things is my love language.”

“You must really love your daughter then,” he whispers out ‘yeah’, not realizing how much it hurts you that he loves someone he just met. And your father knew about you during the pregnancy. You didn’t have daddy issues. You had men issues. Men couldn’t be trusted. There were to be looked at, and put to good use.

You flop down on the seat next to Lloyd on the couch with a cup of microwave macaroni and cheese. You take a bite of the easy dinner, glancing at the television while Lloyd scowls. His eyes drift over your body, slightly confused. Watching as your jaw pulses with your chews.

“I feel you watching me,” he didn’t hide his facial expressions. You could read exactly what he was thinking by the quirks of his brows and mouth alone. Not that you had been paying attention to his mouth.

“What is that dreadful shit you’re eating?”

You turn your body towards him, and slowly take another bite. Noting how his eyes go to your mouth as he watches you chew in disgust. “It only took three and a half minutes to make.”

“It smells like it did. But what are you eating?” This man has been rich his entire life. Didn’t even know the joys of microwaveable food.

“It’s mac and cheese,” you giggle. Scooping out a bit, and you hold the spoon out for him. “Try it.”

“I’d rather not,” his face no longer disgusted, but more indifferent.

“Because you’re scared to eat after me?” He rolls his eyes as you take another bite of the sinfully delicious and preservative filled dinner. It probably had too much sodium in it, and the way you dressed it up surely didn’t help. But it was simple and comforting all the same. Lloyd could learn to loosen up a bit. Bring himself down to a ‘normal lifestyle’.

“While sharing a spoon with you does repulse me. The idea of eating something that came out of a microwave is just as disgusting. Did your father not feed you well?”

“Roman,” you emphasize his name. One day Lloyd would understand that Roman was nothing but a sperm donor and a bank. “He didn’t feed me. My mother did. And she wanted me to be normal.”

“Eating proper food is normal,” you liked him. Legitimately liked him. He also didn’t get offended when you popped back. He probably always had someone around him ready to take orders. That is until you.

“I mean have the American dream.”

“Yes, the American dream is definitely to eat food that is cheaper than toilet paper.”

Slowly blinking, you watch him watch you. Something that should be uncomfortable with the lack of a baby as a buffer wasn’t. You wanted to bring him back down to earth. He was a bit pompous and a lot of an asshole, and you still liked it. “I’m going to make you a cup.”

“Please don’t,” his voice is flat as he watches you jump up from the couch.

“And you’re going to at least try it.”

“I’d rather not,” he is too stiff and robotic with his movements. You want to reach over to his shoulders and make him slouch. Maybe if you made him laugh or shook him? Made him dance with you? You were going to make him break.

“And after you’ve tried it, if you still think the same we can drop it. But what I put into my body is my business. What you put into yours is your business. We won’t judge one another. You can oblige me by cooking me and Lyla Bee a delicious dinner one evening. I’ll humor you, and try your rich people food, mkay?”

This isn’t at all what Lloyd had bargained for. A girl who was given no boundaries. But you had helped him get Lyla’s bedroom in order. She was even sleeping soundly in her crib while a monitor sat on the coffee table. You hadn’t complained when he would start throwing things in a fit. And somehow managed to calm him down.

“Fine, but I don’t cook. I have a private chef,” he responds, following you into the kitchen. Eyeing you as you go into the pantry. “Where did this come from?”

Sighing, you open up the fridge producing a container of shredded cheese, and walk to the counter. “I had it delivered while you were taking a nap with Lyla. It’s really cute to see you sleeping with a baby on your chest. You know, I could watch her. Nap time leaves me nothing to do but use Roman’s card to have some food delivered here.”

“I read you should try to bond with your baby whenever you can. I missed time with her. Wait — you were watching me sleep?” It was quick, but you saw his smirk. Did he like you watching him sleep? That almost feels like an invasion of privacy. Or did he like that you looked at him? Called him cute? What was this?

“It got quiet in the apartment. So I went to find you,” and you might have wandered around the giant apartment as well. His bedroom was just the first place you looked. And you might have enjoyed what you saw, and you might have created a quick but stupid scenario of your husband doing that. Not Lloyd in particular, just a blank faced man who may or may not have had a mustache.

“You’re a snoop?”

“I’m curious by nature,” it wasn’t a lie. You weren’t looking for something to hurt or burn Lloyd with. Just wanted to give a gander through everything. “So what exactly are my hours? When you’re here do you want me to be here? Can I request time off? Have a social life? You won’t exactly let me have people here, and I do respect that. This is yours and Lyla’s space, and I know with your line of work discretion is advised. But I can’t have my only friends be you and a baby. I do have a boyfriend, and I fear I won’t if I don’t see him.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Lloyd smirks. That smile dies quickly as he watches you mix up the cheese concoction to the now completed noodles, and slide the disposable container to him. “You’re not going to put this in a real bowl?”

After washing your hands, you splash a bit of water on him. Giggling when his face turns into a snarl, “Loosen up. This is microwave food. And I need to see other people. Do you not like Chase?”

“His name is dumb,” rolling your eyes, you look away from him. Listening for any signs of movement on the monitor while Lloyd takes a tentative bite of the mac and cheese. Curling up his nose until the spoon touches his tongue, and you see his eyebrows go up. “But this isn’t that bad.”

“What’s wrong with his name?”

“Chase is a verb,” he answers matter of fact. He was going to be one of those. Complete alpha male, and you were bringing someone into his home that was hurting his ego. You weren’t even sure if Chase was the one, but he is definitely the one right now. You didn’t meet your forever person in college, and you’re not even sure you believe in that. You just find someone you tolerate and make sure the sex is good. Plus Chase was amazing to look at and a lot of fun.

“And I don’t want boys in and out of Lyla Bee’s life,” he liked the way the nickname you gave her sounded. It suited his sweet little bee. She had proven to be the sweetest and most cuddly baby he’d ever met. But he had only met one.

“I can respect that as long as you respect the fact that he is my boyfriend,” Lloyd didn’t really want to or have to for that matter. But you were new to this life and to him. You’d eventually see that Lloyd commanded all. Not that he would torture you like he did some. As long as you followed the rules.

“Fine.”

“Is it okay that I came out here tonight? Would you rather me stay holed up in my room? Alone?”

“No,” he answers, walking to the garbage can to dispose of the trash. He heads towards the sink, washing his spoon quickly before leaving you to go back into the living room. Leaving you with more questions than answers.

“No, as in it’s okay that I came out?”

“Were you supposed to stay in your bedroom and starve?” Well that was a simple question to answer. But it was your first night here, and you didn’t know what boundaries he had that you shouldn’t cross. “I don’t expect us to be best friends. But we live together. You’re the woman that takes care of my daughter, and I’m the man.”

Saying it in such simple terms made this arrangement sound strange. You didn’t want to be an au pair, and didn’t see yourself living with a man and his daughter. His baby daughter, who couldn’t even crawl. Currently you think about this weird living situation, and how lines could easily become blurred here.

“What are my duties?”

“You’ve already told me that you have daddy issues, and now you’re asking me what your duties are? Please. I’m going to bed. This line of question is — it’s not good for me. Goodnight, Dolly. Stay up as long as you like, but in the morning I’ll be gone. Tomorrow will be all your responsibility. I’ve added a monitor to your room. If it’s before five, I can tend to her.”

He walks off leaving you with even more questions. Why did he suddenly have that outburst? What had made him seem so sensitive? And you didn’t have daddy issues. You were just fine without your father. You didn’t seek the approval of a man, or needed one to keep you in line. Sure you might watch Lloyd with Lyla and wish that Roman had even an ounce of care that Lloyd had shown in the first few hours that you met him.

Lyla is lucky to have a man that stepped up to be her father. He didn’t have to. From what you understand he didn’t even know of her existence, but it didn’t matter. She was his priority.

Exhaling deeply, you turn off all the lights, and walk to your bedroom. You’d promised Chase you would call once you were settled in bed. You’d leave the awkward talk with Lloyd for tomorrow, or whenever he decided to show up. Giving a look towards his door instead of Lyla’s telling yourself you would crack him. It was one day, and things wouldn’t always be this awkward.

Sitting on your overly plush bed, you call up Chase, and he answers on the first ring, “FaceTime me. I want to see you.”

Flipping it over to a video call, you see his handsome face, and smile like a schoolgirl. “Nice room. Have you figured out how I’m going to be able to sneak in there?”

“Chase!”

“Oh, come on. It will be fun. I’ve never fucked an au pair before,” you roll your eyes. Letting the camera drift a bit before pulling apart your pajama top. Giving him a quick flash of your chest. “Oh, princess, I like that. Is that why you called me? We’ve never had phone sex before.”

”Being around a baby and a man child today made me miss you,” you give him a little pout. The performance that he loved so much, and you just enjoyed to see him get feral. “All I could think about was falling asleep because you wore me out.”

”I could fucking wear you out.”

“Oh, yeah? What would you do to me?”

“I know how you like an audience. Maybe not actually seeing you, but you love when people can hear you. You think daddy Lloyd would have a problem hearing you whisper my name?” Daddy Lloyd? Now why did that give you a bit of a pause. A rumble in your belly that you hadn’t expected. Ignoring a few of Chase’s words as your mind ponders, going in so many different directions of why those words strung together made you…feel.

“He’d hear you gasping for breath as I stab into that sweet little cunt. Or maybe he’d walk in to see you riding me. Why don’t you remind me how you ride me,” you hum at him, and he pans the camera down to his lap, and he’s gripping the base of his cock so tightly. Beads of precum gather at the tip. Normally he’d have his cock already covered in a condom. But seeing him in all his glory is doing something to you.

“Grab a pillow, and pretend it’s me. I’ll stroke my cock to whatever pace you set.”

—

Lloyd flops to the other side. Grabbing his pillow he covers his head thinking about anything besides what he is hearing. He shouldn’t have added the camera to your room. But to be fair the cameras were in every fucking room in the apartment. How was he going to protect you and his daughter if he didn’t know what was going on?

Maybe the ones in the bathroom were too much, but they weren’t pointing at the toilet. My god, he wanted to look. Wanted to turn the volume down. Wanted to get that stupid verb out of his mind. But the verb wouldn’t stop talking. It isn’t even fair that you are whispering. It is normal for people to masturbate. You’d just sound better without his pathetic attempts at phone sex.

“Ugh,” Lloyd growls. He could exit out of the app if he wanted to, but he didn’t. Is it because he didn’t want to? Is it because he liked the sound of your sweet noises? Or is it because it had been too long since he had felt something besides his hand? He isn’t sure. The only thing he was truly positive about was you were killing him.

All fucking day. Acting all innocent and oblivious. He’d been away from women for too long, and you were…you knew what you were doing. Your cute little domestic moments with his daughter. You made him army ration mac and cheese that were at least edible. You helped him. You didn’t even ask, you just sat down and helped him. And you were sweet with his baby.

His emotions are conflicting with his need to…

He had to stop this utter nonsense. He isn’t a rational man, but he did what he had to do with the cameras. And now it’s backfiring on him because you can’t fucking whisper a moan. Why did your heavy breathing sound so sexy?

Why did he want to look? Were you topless? One peek wouldn’t hurt. But it would be crossing a line. How would he feel if someone was doing this with his daughter? He wouldn’t like it. You were Roman’s daughter. Even though he didn’t tell him you had the prettiest…

Nope. He is spiraling down into a sinful rabbit hole. His cock is too hard and angry and it is killing him to not look. He even fears grabbing his phone to turn down the volume will make him want to watch you. See you do whatever the fuck you are doing. Judging by the sounds and whatever The Verb was saying, you are grinding on a fucking pillow.

One look won’t hurt.

Nope, he can’t do this. He throws the blanket off him. Sitting up in the bed, he rests his elbows on his knees. Head in his hands as he tries to make his cock calm down. He was lonely. But it feels even wrong to fuck his fist because your voice is what got him hard.

This arrangement was needed, but this is difficult. Feeling a bit impossibly hard right now. Everything was hard. Including his fucking cock. It was quaking with the need to be dealt with.

Shaking his head, he stands up. His cock pressing uncomfortably against his boxers. A walk through the apartment is much needed. Get away from the noise. Maybe eat another somewhat edible peasant mac and cheese.

This was a bad idea. He sees the soft glow underneath your bedroom door, and has a deep desire to sling it open and get on to you for being…

No. He can’t do that. You’re not ‘breaking’ any of his rules. You’re just mutually masturbating with your boyfriend, and you’re taking too long. Not that he would make sure to fuck you quickly. He just doesn’t want someone else taking their time with you.

What the fuck is he even talking about? He can’t fuck you. You were Lyla’s. He just paid you. He could pay you in other ways.

No!

You fucking asked him what your duties were. He’d love for your duties to be getting to your knees and letting him see how pretty your mouth looked with his cock in it. His tip nudging the back of your throat while tears fill your eyes, and your lungs cry for air.

What the actual fuck? Why was he like this? Why was this a struggle? And why is he going the opposite way of the kitchen? Landing directly in front of your door? Listening to your sounds live. Panting. Whimpering. Not saying The Verb’s name. He’d have you screaming his name. He would have you begging for him to let you come. Have you edged all day because you wanted to tease him with silly little questions about your duties.

He’d have tears falling down your cheeks as he smirks down at you. Letting you know what a pathetic and needy little slut you were. Fuck you so hard your eyes are rolling into the back of your head, and you’re completely dumb. So dumb that you’re just spouting out random words until he’s left his seed inside your belly.

Walking to your bathroom to get a washcloth to clean you up before leaving you blissed out. Making you so needy that you beg for his attention. Start being a good girl so you get more time with is cock in — inside of you. Ready to crawl on your knees after Lyla was put to sleep, and telling him you’re his little sex doll. And he would make so much use of your body and holes. Fucking you every night. Special time just for you. Just so he can feel your tight…tight…tight walls milk him dry.

”Lloyd?” Your voice pants on the other side of the room. “Lloyd is that you?” Getting closer to the door. He tucks his cock back in his boxers. Not even realizing he had been rubbing one out to your sounds. Wiping his hands on the silk of his underwear when you sling the door open.

How did you become prettier? A sheen of sweat around your hairline, and yep…you’d been grinding on a fucking pillow. Your bed is a crumbled up mess and a pillow is right in the middle of the bed. “Is everything okay? Sorry, I was…I was telling Chase goodnight.”

The Verb. You had shorts on earlier. Now it’s this t-shirt that was barely covering your legs. Were you naked? Did you show him your pussy? Your chest continues to heave, and he hates The Verb. He despises him. He’s got to go. You can’t spend time with Lyla and him if The Verb was in the picture. “Lloyd, are you okay?”

“I’m hungry.”

”I’m confused,” what was his reason for being at your door, telling you that he was hungry.

”I like ramen. The gross kind. The kind that…”

”Like top ramen?” You ask him confused. Mouth still slightly open as you try to catch your breath and his eyebrow quirks up. Did you know he was listening to you and stroking himself?

“Yes. You made me your cheap noodles, would you like me to make you some of my cheap noodles?”

“It’s after midnight.”

“Fine, I’ll eat the noodles by myself,” spinning on his heels, he walks away from you into the kitchen. It isn’t long until he hears the soft pads of your feet following him. “I told you it was okay.”

“You — did you…I was almost asleep.”

“Yes, yes. I understand. You were almost asleep as you were telling your…boyfriend goodnight. That’s exactly what almost asleep sounds like,” that list bit of his sentence sounds a bit implying. Did he know?

“Did you hear our conversation?” Was it even a conversation? He couldn’t remember. He just heard you telling him you were going to come. Not The Verb, but Lloyd. You are a tease. He didn’t mean to get off on your voice. “How long were you out here?”

“Grab me a pot?” Oh you were obedient, bending over to get a pot, and standing up quickly. Not quick enough. No panties. He pretends to see nothing. You can sleep with no panties. That’s a good habit to get into because he can just slide into your bed, and start fucking you. When you get there of course. Consent is key. And he feels like a bastard for what he did tonight. But that movement you just did was on your own.

“Sorry.”

“For what?” He asks with a devilish grin.

“Nothing,” it wasn’t just nothing. But he wasn’t going to make you feel guilty for the need to show him your cunt still glistening. He’d have your legs drenched. “Do you do anything special with your ramen? Or do you make it as is?”

“There’s some eggs and spring onions in the fridge. Does that answer your question?” He nods his head towards the fridge, trying to figure out what else he could make you do to get a little peek. He’d play oblivious. Let you decide what you are comfortable with. “Mind getting me some bowls from the top shelf?”

Standing on your tippy toes you dance around a moment. The bottom of your ass cheeks make a little appearance, and he steps behind you to reach the bowls himself. Taking too long to cage your body with your own. And when you gasp, pressing your ass into his crotch he bounces back immediately. Dropping the bowls into the floor and they shatter into thousands of pieces.

“Shit,” Lloyd whispers under his breath. And without asking, places his hands on your sides to lift you up onto the counter. “Stay there while I clean this up. I don’t need you stepping on glass.”

He doesn’t notice the odd glances that you give him as he picks up the larger pieces and starts sweeping up the rest. “My mom always uses wet a paper towel to get the tiny pieces up.”

“That’s smart,” he follows your instructions. And stands up straight. You have already gotten more comfortable, and your legs are not so tightly pressed together. He has to bite his tongue in order to not look. But as high up as that shirt is sitting on your thighs, he knows. And you are aware that he knows.

“Not that Lyla can even crawl right now, but the idea of there being these tiny pieces of glass for you to step on when holding her,” his words stop, and he stands in front of you. How did you not realize he was shirtless? Why is his chest so close to your face as he reaches above your head for more bowls? Why does he smell like a wet dream? Push the thoughts away.

“I don’t want you hurting yourself and dropping her in an accident.”

“I won’t drop her.”

“Knock on the cabinets immediately! That is bad luck,” you do as he says, not pegging him as a superstitious man at all. “I had some chance to think about it. I think on Sundays you should have the day off completely unless I’m out of town. Saturdays, is it fair to ask for you to work half a day? Just until around noon?”

“I think that’s fair.”

“And maybe we should not talk about The Verb?”

“The Verb?” What was he even talking about? You notice his eyes flick momentarily to your lap, and you realize how comfortable you had gotten on this counter. Your legs are too far apart. He had to have seen something. Was he disappointed? You didn’t want to disappoint him. You had just started to get to know him. You wanted to prove to him and yourself that you could care for a baby.

“That Chase boy.”

“My boyfriend?” You giggle. Why did he have such an issue with Chase?

“Why is he even your boyfriend?”

“He’s better than a dildo. I mean,” you feel your cheeks heat up with embarrassment, and have to look at the floor. Missing how big Lloyd’s smile spreads across his smug face. Or the way he is stalking towards you like he’s ready to pounce on his prey. “We’ve been together for awhile, but it’s not that serious.”

“Sweetheart, don’t settle for better than a dildo,” he stands right in front of you. Both hands on your knees as he goes to push your legs apart. Inserting himself in between your thighs. The weird feeling in your tummy returns, and you hate having no panties on as slick floods to your core. Throat dry as his finger touches your chin and lifts your face up to look at him. “And when I’m speaking to you, I expect you to look me in the eyes, do you understand?”

You nod your head slowly, but he clicks his tongue, “And I expect you to verbally answer in my home. Little head gestures are easily misinterpreted, okay?”

“Okay,” he raises an eyebrow, wanting you to finish your sentence, but words are impossible, and your brain is mush. Everything is delayed as you feel the heat between you and Lloyd, “I understand.”

“If you need something better than a dildo and more than The Verb just use your words,” what the fuck does that even mean? He steps away from you much quicker than he inserted himself. The air in the room is heavy and stifling, and you wonder if you even knew how to breathe without reminding yourself to inhale and exhale.

“Do you like creamy ramen or brothy?” This bastard is really changing the subject. You can’t even think with the two heartbeats you feel. One inside your chest, while the other is between your thighs and throbbing. Why is your heart beating so fast? Why is your body betraying you?

“I don’t think I’ve had creamy.”

“You want to get me the heavy whipping cream?” He gives you a cheeky smile when you jump off the counter and head towards the fridge.

“Why are you asking me to do all these things?”

“Because you listen so well,” you pause before reaching for the heavy whipping cream, and turn to look at him.

“What is this?” He’s playing a sick game. He had to be. He saw this ‘vulnerable little girl’ that he had to save. You didn’t need saving, you were fine all on your own.

“You’re very well behaved. Your mother did a good job. Until just now you didn’t even question it. Just did as I asked,” what is he getting at? He is talking in riddles, or backwards, or you are just reading too much into whatever this exchange is. Keeping your mouth closed for the rest of the evening.

Keeping your eyes off him as you squirm around uncomfortably in your seat. Is this uncomfortable because of him? Or are you weirded out because you are feeling things because of him. If you look up, you’d see him smiling as he watches the weird inner turmoil going on in your head.

Finishing before you, he stands up to put his bowl in the dishwasher. Walking past you towards his bedroom, he stops. “And Dolly?”

“Yes?” You ask, turning around in your chair.

“When you leave your room make sure you have on panties,” oh. My. God. He knew. He saw. He didn’t say anything until now. “Because next time I won’t force myself to stop my need to lean you over the counter and spank your ass.”

“Okay,” you didn’t know how to respond to that, and you couldn’t believe how your body was internalizing his words. Heat. Fire. Desire. Embarrassment. Lust. How you have immediate visions of Lloyd doing just that, and spreading your cheeks to see if he made you wet. He did. Uncomfortably so.

“Good girl, I’ll see you tomorrow evening,” he needs a cold shower. He needs away from you because his cock has been at full mast since you questioned why he was asking you to gather things for him. You could try to deny it, but he turned you on as much as you turned him on.

And yet here is your employer, and you are just the sweet au pair with daddy issues. No matter what you say. And he supposes he’s the sick bastard that didn’t mind teasing you. Giving you something to think about. Options? Something for the spank bank? He hopes you go to bed wet and frustrated. Wake up to needing to fuck your own fingers as you think about the close proximity he had to you.

He hopes that you are dripping with need for his cock, and his care and protection. And he hopes that a cold shower is enough to get visions of you yipping with every smack to your ass. That you would be the perfect and obedient girl for him. Woman. Girl sounded gross in this context. Thank you, Roman for making sure your daughter had daddy issues. But fuck him for not loving his daughter the way you deserved.

Masterlist

Taglist: @tis-thedamn-season @marveloustaylortot @pono-pura-vida @peaches1958 @seitmai @smile1318 @andydrysdalerogers @cjand10 @midnightramyeoncravings @kmc1989 @floral-recs @pandaxnienke @theinheriteddutchess @rainydayandmondays @buckybarnesisdaddy @patzammit @xoxo-ls @rebeccapineapple @slutforchrisjamalevans @marvel-wifey-86 @jesevans @ughdontbeboring @infantasywonderland @vampy-doll @i-like-to-read-13 @missacidburn928 @charmedasylum @honeyhoneylovelylove @superflannel @hisredheadedgoddess28 @ughdontbeboring @lostinspace33 @abbyyourlocalmilf @saranghaey

#with your touch #lloyd hansen #lloyd hansen x reader #lloyd hansen x fem!reader #lloyd hansen x female reader #lloyd hansen x you #lloyd hansen x y/n #lloyd hansen fic #lloyd hansen fics #lloyd hansen fanfiction #lloyd hansen fanfic #daddy issues #au pair au #lloyd hansen x au pair!reader

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sexybread-png · 1 year

Text

Isn't the contrast between Ava and Beatrice's touching so drastic? I find there's something quite poetic about it. Ava, who only recently got control back from her body. Ava, who hasn't felt touch below the neck for years after her accident. Ava, who's so touch-starved that it results in her touching everything. She touches her clothes and feels the cotton. She touches book spines and revels in its notches. She touches a brick wall and cringes at its dry, spongey texture. She touches grass and smiles when it tickles. She touches Beatrice's wrist and gasps as it burns her fingertips. And she wants always more. More of Beatrice, that is. Beatrice, who's been taught what she was was to be feared, was to be fought. Beatrice, who's been scared to touch lest it shows the world how monstrous she is. Beatrice, who thinks doing more than simply looking might be a sin. And so she's so cautious in her touches. She keeps her hands behind her back, holds herself back. She touches when she fights though it is not satisfactory. It's aggressive and brutal and fast. She surprises herself with just how much she yearns to touch Ava in any way but aggressive, brutal or fast. But she can't. She burns with guilt every time Ava does it. Maybe if she learns to touch her, learns that she isn't really the monster, she'll also learn that it's her salvation. Touching Ava.

"I don't know, it's just— I spent so much time not feeling anything that, now that I can feel things, I wanna feel everything," Ava confesses. "And I feel everything when I'm with you."

I could talk about other contrasts between them, but this one is just so tasteful.

#mickeys blabber #this is first and formost me hcing btw #warrior nun #warrior nun spoilers #avatrice #sister beatrice #ava silva #ficlet #hear me out #lol #queer #sapphic

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willowedhepatica · 5 months

Text

Here's my humble offer to @lovelooksgudonu for the comic she drew about dark!ava. Of course the credit goes to her (and simplykorra) for parts of the dialogue she wrote, (I wanted to stay true to the source material)

Her art is absolutely amazing, go check it out if you haven't! (I hope this is okay, I got inspired)

—

The first thing that hits her when she wakes up is the stinging smell of sulfur. The distant remains of the fight that carried through in ash and dust, leaving her dazed and bewildered.

Ava had struck her in the back.

She hadn't even hesitated.

A chuckle comes from somewhere behind her and Beatrice shifts, the movement sending a sharp pain through her wrist and left arm. The rope is tied harshly, digging into her skin and keeping her there.

"That hit really did a number on you, huh Bea?"

Ava walks in front of her, brown eyes piercing. There's an easy smile on her lips, almost teasing, as if she found this situation amusing.

Beatrice leans forward, her voice hoarse. "Ava-"

"No. Don't give me that look." She cuts off, a sudden shift by the downturn of her mouth. She walks closer, leaning down to look at her properly, tied to the chair and bruised. "I've been merciful towards you, after all. Haven't I?"

Her hand comes up and takes a hold of her jaw. "You should be grateful."

The touch turns on several signals in her body at once. She sucks in a breath, the alarm battling with the craving of wanting more.

She hadn't felt her touch in so long. God, she'd missed it. Yearned for it.

But this wasn't her. This wasn't Ava.

"Snap out of it."

Her hold shifts, forefinger etching into her skin. "What was that?"

Her hands shake. They curl into fists as she looks up at her, meeting her eyes. "Snap out of it!"

Ava hums and for the first time Beatrice finds that she can't read her expression. Can't find any trace of the woman who showed emotions like the glow of a sun, drawing everyone in by her mere presence. She only shifts her hand, cupping her cheek as her thumb goes over her lip.

Beatrice can't suppress the shiver.

"Would you betray them for me?" Ava mumbles, face so close, breath skimming over her cheek, nail digging down into the flesh of her lip. It splits open with a sting of pain that slowly makes the blood spill out and drip across her jaw.

"Ah." Her voice cuts out and Ava's smile grows.

She leans even closer, teasingly drawing her nails over the part where her throat meets her jaw. "Yes?" It's a whisper. It's a lure. Her lips tickle against her own and she forces her to meet her eyes as Ava sinks down fully in her lap, keeping her jaw in a tight grip.

"You never were very talkative." She mumbles, her other hand trailing down her collarbone, her chest.

Beatrice tries to prevent the swelling in her chest, the pleasant tingling in her body over finally being touched.

"Let me make it easier for you." Ava continues, "if you say yes, I'll reward you. Shit, I'll even give you a little treat. If you say no however..." Her hand stops at her shoulder, eyes distant. She looks up at her. "What will it be?"

Beatrice thinks back to Camila, who had stayed up several nights in order to figure out Ava's position. She thinks about how much she's grown, how much she's overcome, how much they've gone through together.

She thinks about Mary and how she would scowl at the situation, telling her to not even dare make that decision.

She thinks about the OCS, the order she practically grew up in. It shaped her to who she was today. It took her through some of the worst periods of her life.

There had been so many sisters before her that had laid their life for the cause. For them. For her. She can't toss all of that away.

"I can't..."

Ava's jaw tightened. "Right. How could the perfect sister Beatrice ever do such a thing?"

"That's not-"

"Quiet."

Beatrice shuts her mouth. It's automatic.

The sharpness in her tone keeps her on edge.

"Maybe you'll come to better thoughts if I alleviate your pain a little." Her eyes fall down to her wrists where Beatrice is tugging against the restraint. "You'll never get anywhere like that."

"I'm fine." Beatrice bites out.

Ava tsk. "You're being stubborn." She brings something out from her pocket and her weight shifts in her lap by the movement. "I know you hurt your wrist in our fight, this will help."

She brings the pill up for her to see.

"I won't..."

Before she can finish Ava presses her thumb against her lips. This time they part open by the force and she continues by dragging it against the ridge of her mouth, scraping across the clench of her teeth. "We may not be on the same side yet, Bea, but that doesn't mean I want to see you hurt, baby."

Beatrice doesn't answer. In a way, she can't. Ava is still keeping her in a vice grip, a glint in her eyes that tells her she's planning to do something Beatrice won't be able to stop.

At least that part was still familiar to her.

Ava plops the pill in her own mouth, voice husky as she slowly inches forward. "Don't worry, I think you'll enjoy this technique..."

Before she knows it Ava's lips press against her own, mouth hot and tongue nudging to get more access. Beatrice gives in with a slight whine, feeling the pill slip inside. She swallows it and everything else falls away as Ava answers by pushing forward, body rising and kiss deepening. It's electrifying in the worst possible way.

"Mmm, see, the way you respond tells me you're not as restrained as you pretend to be."

Beatrice whimpers.

She wants more. She needs more.

She can't.

Finally - far too soon - not soon enough, Ava pulls away, resting her forehead against her own. She exhales, open-mouthed and smiling and when she speaks she's grown considerably softer. "The medication won't kick in for a while, would you like me to distract you some more?"

“Ava… please…”

She traces a path down her cheek. “Look how red you are, don't tell me you don't like this?” Her fingers skim across her ear as she tucks away a strand of hair that had gone loose. “Don't tell me you haven't thought of this ever since our time in Switzerland.”

Beatrice looks away, teeth clenching.

“Hm? Not speaking?”

“That's okay, let me show you just what I've been thinking about during my time across the arc.” Her hand leave her cheek and nudges at the end of her shirt. “You remember that night when we got drunk at the bar?”

Beatrice watches as her hand slip under the fabric and graze across bare skin. Her stomach ripples by the touch.

One nail starts to press down ever so slightly.

“Bea, answer me.”

“Yes- yes I remember.”

She smiles, satisfied. “I remember it too. I've had a lot of time to replay that moment.” She leans closer, close enough that her lips skim over her ear. “A lot of time to let it derail too.”

Ava doesn't wait for her to answer before she continues, nails scraping lightly across her skin. Like a game. “I thought. What if Beatrice noticed me? What if she knew that when I looked at her all I wanted to do was to let her pin me against a wall and fuck me.” She glances down to their position. “Looks like things have taken a slight turn.”

“Ava.”

Ava tuts. "Not yet. It was my turn, remember?”

If Beatrice knows Camila correctly, she's searching for her. She will find her eventually. She just needed a little more time, a little more information…

She shifts. "What more?”

“Excuse me?”

“What more have you thought about doing?”

Her eyes glint with slight surprise and then approval. “I'm so glad you asked.”

#warrior nun #avatrice #dark!ava #im just so hooked on this scenario

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just-some-random-blogger · 6 months

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Hello, can I request a dream x reader where reader is his girlfriend and she gets pregnant and how they would both deal with that situation. Maybe a scene with there daughter years later

Aisle 43

Pettiness knows no bounds, especially when you're one of the Endless. This means that if a toddler is what's standing in Dream's way, then it's still very much fair game.

Dream of the Endless x Reader | 800+ | cw: fem!reader, pregnant!reader, vague themes of pregnancy/motherhood, jealousy, super-megapetty!Dream of the Endless, Matthew the 'I'm just happy to be here' Raven, fluff, typos, etc.

A/N: hi my love... i may have totally forgotten I had this in my drafts asfhasfha;sfhasfh sorreh. I JUST DID A DRABBLE BECAUSE MY BRAIN IS MELTING CURRENTLY. I HOPE YOU LIKE IT <3

Tagging: @pinksirensong @aralezinspace @sloanexx @deniixlovezelda @shadow-pancake9

I hum as I make my way out of the soup aisle. The little girl that's been following me around the supermarket tugs at my hand repeatedly. I look down at her and she immediately points, "cereal?"

I turn to the pink cereal box she wanted and flatten my lips into a smile, "sorry, kiddo, you're gonna have to-"

"Why are you with a child?"

Both said child and I look up and see a darkly dressed man in the middle of two shelves with brightly colored items. The girl that barely reached my hips looks up at the dark silhouette then grabs my hand. She mumbles, "nightmare."

Said nightmare raises a brow. It was almost as if a dark haze began to form around him. A raven swoops down and lands on his shoulder.

In stark juxtaposition, Matthew the raven chirpily greets me and adds, "mind getting me some cornflakes?"

I push my cart forward, drawing near both them, and the item. I grab the cornflakes and go to the side of the sullen looking being. I tilt my head, "Dream?"

Dream, who has not torn his gaze away from the child, finally spares me a glance. I free my hand of the cornflakes, dropping into my cart, and use it to cup his cheek. His expression softens.

My other hand, still being tugged by the baby girl, is now tucked behind me. She peeps cautiously from my shoulder.

"I'm going grocery shopping with my coworker."

"Your coworker is a child?" Dream says with a hurt expression.

I make a face but sigh. Suddenly, the dull pain on my back is blatant. I rub my round belly that was the cause of it, "yeah. Beatrice is a prodigy. She does our work better than anyone in the department."

Dream frowns and deflates even more.

I raise my brows.

Matthew croaks as he cocks his head. He whispers, "he's been upset that you haven't been sleeping properly."

"You've not been in my realm for ages," Dream knits his brows tightly, "yet here you are with a child that is not even your own."

When Dream comes close to touch me, Beatrice whimpers and pulls me back. She panics, "nightmare! Nightmare!"

The strength of the child is not enough to make me fall back, but it is enough to make me lose my balance. I feel myself slowly lose my footing. Dream grabs me before anything happens though.

The glare that he throws at Beatrice makes her instantly clamor.

If her wailing wasn't enough to make me panic, then it was when she ran away. I turn to run after her, but Dream grabs my arm before I can get anywhere.

"Let me go!" I snap.

"But-"

"I can't lose my coworkers kid!"

"Don't worry!" Matthew takes off, "I'll keep an eye on her."

I watch as Matthew soars above the aisles and then look back down to glare at Dream. I pull my arm out of his grip, "you terrified a four year old."

Dream glares back, "she was stealing you away."

I am flabbergasted. "You literally put a baby inside me!" I motion to my baby bump and give an exasperated look, "yet you're intimidated by a 40 pound little girl- who, by the way, barely even makes up a fraction of how old you are."

He does not argue with this. He has no argument with it. Instead, he mumbles, "you dreamed of her when you napped."

I roll my eyes, "and how many times have I dreamed of you, my lord?"

He turns away, eyes landing on my belly. He pouts and stares a moment before he rubs it, "I do not enjoy when I must share your dreams with others."

The idea is equal parts exhausting, irrational, and somehow darling.

"What if I dream about our baby?" I raise a brow.

He lifts his eyes. He looks like he actually was mentally debating in that split second it took for him to reply. Dream speaks, "I would be willing to share with the blood of my blood."

I scoff and roll my eyes yet again.

He kisses my temple. A part of my hard expression chips away. I offer him an exasperated look.

Dream makes a face, "was I too much?"

I nod.

"I've got good news and bad news," Matthew calls as he swoops down, "good news, Beatrice found her mom and stopped crying!"

I release a sigh of relief.

"Bad news, she may be traumatized for life, because when a man wearing a black trench coat passed by, she started breaking down all over again."

My relief evaporates and I shoot a hard glare at Dream before pushing him out of the way. I drag my cart along with me as I walk off to look for them.

Matthew perches on the edge of the cart, "oooh, mind if we get some sunflower seeds too?"

"Not at all, my love."

Dream grumbles upon hearing this and watches as we take a turn on the candy aisle.

#dream of the endless #the sandman #morpheus x reader #dream of the endless fanfic #morpheus x you #the sandman fanfic #dream x you #the sandman fluff #dream of the endless fluff #morpheus fluff #dream of the endless x reader #dream x reader #the sandman x reader #morpheus fanfic #dream of the endless x you

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piratekane · 1 year

Text

one month.

If Ava wanted to count the number of things she knows about Bea, she’d run out of fingers and toes in the time it takes her to blink. She’d need a piece of paper like the one Bea writes their grocery lists on, except… a hundred of them taped together until it goes from their front door, down the three flights of stairs, and out of the building to the sidewalk.

That’s how much she knows about Beatrice.

But she learns something new every day, adds another line to the list, and today’s thing is: Bea has the funniest sneeze.

Ava isn’t sure what she expected. People sneeze all the time. And some of them are loud - like Michael, in her lit seminar - or quiet or nasally. Some of them are dignified and some of them explode, legs and arms akimbo. She just learned that word. She likes the way it feels in her mouth.

Bea sneezes like clinking a spoon against fine china, dainty as a mouse and barely a squeak. The first time Ava hears it, two rooms and one door between them, she thinks there is a mouse in the apartment. And she thinks it’s her fault. She brought home a sandwich the night before and it occurred to her somewhere around two in the morning that she hadn’t put it back in the refrigerator before she went to bed.

She hadn’t actually gotten out of bed to check, but she felt bad about it when she woke up in the morning.

But she hears a slight squeak and thinks mouse and goes running out of her bedroom with the dustpan she took from the kitchen two nights ago high in her hand, ready to strike.

Bea looks up from where she’s pouring hot water into a mug and just as she’s about to ask something, she squeaks.

Ava frowns.

“I’m-” Bea turns away, sneezing three more times into her arm, her whole body spasming.

Ava jumps a little with each one, her arm slowly falling to her side as she realizes that there isn’t a mouse. It’s just Bea sneezing like a family of them have moved into the kitchen and declared themselves its rightful owners.

Bea straightens up, cheeks flushed. “I’m sorry,” she says, managing to get it out this time.

“You’re sick.”

“Merely a-” She squeaks, four this time. From the pocket of her sweater, the one Ava wants to borrow because she’s sure she could curl up in it and disappear for a few days, she pulls a tissue. She blots at her nose. “It’s just a few sneezes.”

Ava frowns. “Are you sure? Are you hot?” She doesn’t wait for an answer, striding forward and pressing the back of her hand to Bea’s forehead.

She can remember the way Sister Frances’ clammy hands felt against her hot forehead, and she tries to be gentler, keeping her touch light.

“No fever.”

The corner of Bea’s mouth crinkle and she reaches up, turns Ava’s hand over until the inside of her wrist is against Bea’s forehead. “This is how you check for a fever.”

Ava holds still, letting the thin skin of her wrist settle against Bea’s flushed skin. It’s hot, almost incendiary. She frowns.

“Okay, yes fever. Why’re you out of bed? How long have you had a fever? When were you going to tell me you were sick?” She asks her questions in rapid fire, both hands curled around Bea’s shoulders now, holding her at arm’s length.

“Ava,” Bea says kindly. Her hands, palms also hot, curl around Ava’s forearms. Ava realizes she’s practically shaking Bea. “I only came to get some tea.”

She squints, a frown on her face. “You weren’t even going to tell me you were sick?”

“Well, I didn’t think you’d-” Bea stops herself, but Ava knows the end of the sentence. She can feel it between them. Her frown deepens and a thin string around her heart tightens a little. Bea clears her throat. “I was just going to slip back into my room.”

“And not even tell me you were sick,” Ava confirms. She sighs, heavy and put upon. “You have to tell me these things, you know.”

“I do?” Bea asks. Ava thinks she hears a hint of amusement. “I didn’t realize.”

“Of course you do! We’re roommates. I take care of you, you take care of me.” She shuffles Bea over towards the refrigerator, away from the counter. She picks up where Bea left off, pouring water into the mug Bea pulled down, and gracelessly dunking a tea bag into it. “You like honey, right?”

Bea is quiet long enough that Ava turns, confused. Finally, she says, “I’m sorry.”

Confusion clears. Ava smiles. “I know we’re new at living together, but these are the things I need to know. Anything you told your last roommate, you can tell me.”

“I didn’t,” Bea says.

Ava dunks the tea bag again, watching the leaves change the color of the water. She stops when some hot water waves up over the lip of the mug. Without thinking, she uses the pad of her finger to wipe it up before it runs down the whole side of it. The mug is boiling. She hisses quietly, hoping Bea doesn’t hear it, and then grabs the honey.

“You don’t need to apologize again.” Ava mixes the honey into the tea, careful this time.

“I mean, I didn’t tell my roommate.” Bea shifts when Ava turns to look back at her. “We weren’t— Our relationship was not like that.”

Ava blows on Bea’s tea and watches the surface of it ripple. “So she didn’t make you tea.”

Bea’s face ripples on its own, amusement in her mouth. “I don’t know that she knew her way around a tea bag.”

“So you had to suffer on your own.” Ava sticks out her tongue. “Boo.”

She sobers slightly. She’s almost about to ask what Bea’s parents were like. Did they tuck her into bed? Did they make her tea with fancy leaves and organic honey collected by their on-property bee keepers? Did they stay home from work and lay in bed with her reading her stories until she fell asleep?

Did she get all the things Ava wished she could have?

And then she remembers: No. Bea didn’t have those things. She didn’t have warm hands tucking her into bed and smoothing hair back off her face while they checked for a fever. She didn’t have cups of steaming tea waiting for her on her bedside table. She didn’t have parents who climbed into bed with her to read her The Velveteen Rabbit or any of the other books Bea admitted she loved to read as a kid.

Her concern washes away in a fit of anger. If she ever meets Bea’s parents, she’ll give them a piece of her mind. She’ll tell them, look at who Bea has become! You had nothing to do with how great she is! She’d probably be escorted away by whatever private security they inevitably have - which Bea will neither confirm nor deny - but it’ll be worth it. It would be worth being carted off to the underbelly of some cavernous house and kept in a cellar with wine bottles, just to take one of Bea’s student-published works on postmodern theology and atheism and shove it in their faces.

It’ll do nothing to get the image of Bea, eyes glassy and whole body tucked into the corner of the couch as it unraveled with her story, out of her mind. She’ll think about it for a long time. How small Bea had been before she started talking about all the things she had done in their absence - the aikido tournaments she dominated, the scholarships she secured - before her eyes sharpened and her voice grew stronger. She did it without them.

Ava hasn’t known Bea as long as she wishes she did, but what she does know is that Beatrice is one of the strongest people she’s ever met. The fact that they even met is fate. Serendipity, she’s told Bea.

“Well,” she says, clearing the thoughts from her mind. “You’ve got me now. And I’ve read up on this, watched a lot of movies. I know exactly what to do.”

Bea looks a little wary.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Ava carefully walks around Bea, heading towards the couch. “Come on. I’ve got things to do.”

Bea sneezes again, three times in rapid succession. Ava smiles to herself. She’s sure if she asked, Bea would say she hates the way she sneezes. It breaks some of the strong and stern facade Bea puts on with people who aren’t her or Mary and Shannon or Lilith or Camila. It puts a crack in the armor.

And it’s adorable.

She sets down the mug and looks pointedly at the couch when Bea hovers behind her. When Bea doesn’t get the hint, Ava points at her, then down at the couch. There’s a moment where Bea looks like she might protest, but Ava lifts an eyebrow and she closes her mouth and sits down.

Ava grins. She grabs the blanket on the back of the couch. “Now, get ready. Because I’m known for my tucking-in skills.”

“You are?”

“Well, no,” she admits. “But consider this my audition to be.”

She doesn’t wait for Bea to do anything, just eases her back against the couch cushion and drapes the blanket over her. She uses quick and careful hands - she knows how Bea is about touching and she’s sure it’s even more important to her when she’s sick and her body isn’t cooperating. The blanket goes tightly around her legs and a little looser around her hips before they tighten at her shoulders again.

Ava steps back, admiring her handiwork with a smile.

Bea looks down, mouth disappearing under the blanket with it so close to her chin. “How do you expect me to move?” she asks slowly.

Ava frowns. She hadn’t considered that. “Uh.” She pulls her lips in and loosens the blanket around Bea’s shoulders. “How about this?”

Bea frees her arms and nods. “This is much better.” She must see the way Ava knows her face drops because she immediately reaches forward and grabs for Ava’s hand, squeezing it. “You did a very good job.”

She brightens at that. “You think so?”

“Very much so.” Bea leans forward a little and picks up her mug, having no such problem with the heat radiating off it. “If my last roommate had tucked me in, they wouldn’t hold a candle to you.”

A ripple of pride goes through her. She shimmies her shoulders a little with the news. But then she sets her sights on her next task. She thinks they have a can of soup here. But would Bea eat it? Or should she get something healthier than canned soup? She could try and make some…

She picks the television. First order of business is putting on something good to watch. She maneuvers the clicker with one hand, the other still in Bea’s, and flips through Bea’s Netflix account until she finds the documentary section. She picks one of the nature ones at random - there’s nothing quite like cuddly animals.

For a second, she panics. What if this is one of them that talks about the life cycle of animals and she has to watch a hyena eat a zebra? She hasn’t recovered from seeing a lion attack a baby rhino. And Bea wouldn’t like that. Not when she doesn’t feel well and she just wants something fun and-

A hand tightens around hers. Bea looks at the seat next to her and tips her head. “Do you want to sit with me?”

She didn’t know she was waiting for the question. She drops down onto the couch so hard that she bounces a little and Bea slides almost imperceptibly closer to her. For a second, she thinks Bea will bring her hand back into her own lap or tuck it under the blanket. But Bea’s hand just shifts, holding loosely onto hers. Ava wiggles down until her head can drop against Bea’s shoulder. She feels her breathe in deeply and lets her own breath mirror it.

She loves this. She loves Bea. She loves this whole thing they’re creating.

She loves waking up in the morning to the cereal box on the counter. She loves mid-afternoon study sessions stretched across their living room. She loves coming home after a long day of classes where her back is killing her and Bea is already waiting with a heat patch and a smile. She’s never had a best friend before, never had someone who seems to know her so well. She didn’t think it was possible; they’ve known each other for only a little while now, but she’s sure there isn’t a person in the world who knows as much about her as Bea does.

If she woke up tomorrow and it was all gone - her freedom, this apartment, her scholarship, the Chinese restaurant where they always throw in an extra crab rangoon - the only thing she’d crawl through hell and back for is Beatrice.

Bea is her best friend in the whole world, and Ava loves her.

An antelope crosses the screen, a lion stalking behind it. Ava groans, turning so that the point of Bea’s warm shoulder is pressed between her eyes. “Tell me if that antelope gets eaten, okay?”

She feels Bea laugh more than she hears it. “Okay, Ava.”

“Then I’ll make you soup,” she says into Bea’s soft cotton shirt. “Or get someone to deliver it.”

“We’re not paying the delivery fee,” Bea says quickly. She’s quiet for a second. “But soup sounds nice.”

Ava grins and squeezes Bea’s hand gently. “You’ll see. I’ll take really good care of you.”

She nearly misses the soft “thank you” but she holds onto it long after Bea has fallen asleep, head tipped back against the couch, skin clammy as she comes down from her fever. Bea never has to thank her for anything; Ava would do anything for her.

She’ll make Bea understand that eventually.

two months.

She’s never seen Bea like this. It’s like some kind of Tasmanian devil was let loose in their apartment - the one from the cartoon, which is the messier but less scary version. There’s paper everywhere, large stacks on the breakfast bar and some of them taped to the walls of the living room. The coffee table is buried under a mountain of books, some with titles in foreign languages. The couch has more books, all open and spread out with small markers on the pages.

Beatrice sits in the middle of it all, on the floor, her head in her hands.

Ava lets her backpack fall silently at her feet. She carefully tucks it against the wall near the shoe rack and toes off her shoes, putting them away without needing to be reminded of where or how. She doesn’t think Bea would appreciate it right now.

“Hey, Bea,” she says cautiously.

Bea’s head snaps up. Some of her hair has slipped free from her bun, hanging down and angling her face. Her eyes look a little wild, like she’s having trouble identifying the source of the sound. She finally blinks and they clear as she takes in Ava.

Ava puts on a smile. “Hey. I’m home.”

“You’re-” Bea looks at her watch - one of the ones with the numbers on it that Ava can’t read. She frowns, deep lines running across her forehead. “It’s already three.”

“Yeah. My bio lab ran a little late.” She grimaces. They’ve been testing water samples this week and Ava is struggling. She almost didn’t go to class this morning, but she can’t saddle JC with all their work. Even if she did keep them afloat during the cell respiration lab.

Things haven’t been weird since their disastrous attempt at a date a week ago. In fact, JC has been really cool. He understood they were going to do better off as friends. She hadn’t said anything, but she knew he could tell her heart wasn’t in it. If he knew why her heart wasn’t in it, maybe he'd feel differently. But probably not. JC is one of the nicest guys she’s ever met. And when she left, a coffee in hand, she hugged him gratefully, promised things wouldn’t be weird, and ran home to the person she actually wanted to be with.

If she lets herself think too hard about it, she’s almost sure JC does know. Maybe it’s because when she got to their next class and slid into the stool next to him, passing him a donut, he asked how Bea was doing. Maybe it’s because he clapped her on the shoulder at the end of class and told her to tell Bea he said hello.

She didn’t do that. But it was nice of him to say so.

“I didn’t realize the time…”

Ava looks around. Their apartment did not look like this when she left at eight for the start of her long day of classes. It was very much normal and not so much A Beautiful Mind a few hours ago. She takes a careful step forward, curling her hands around the back of the couch. She weighs her options.

“So, what’s up, Doc?” She smiles encouragingly when Bea blinks at her. “You’ve got… quite the setup going here.”

Bea looks around, cheeks staining as she takes in the room. She seems to be seeing the whole picture for the first time. “Oh.” She immediately grabs an open book, stuffing a handful of paper into it and snapping it close. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was-”

“No,” Ava says quickly. She rounds the couch, grabbing the book from Bea and opening it again. She carefully puts it back where it was, smoothing out the now-crinkled paper that was pressed between its pages. “You don’t have to do that. Don’t mess things up.”

“I have a system. I can easily return things to where they go.”

Ava doubts that, but she smiles. “Sure. I’m just saying, you don’t have to throw your things out of whack because I’m back. It’s… a lot to have to pick up.” She scans the page she’s holding in her hand. Notes on The Sacred and the Profane. She hands it to Bea. “Big test coming up?”

Bea takes it carefully, smoothing it out and placing back on what seems to be an endless pile of notes. “Paper. My first draft is due tomorrow by the start of my 8am. I thought I had enough sources, but I reread the original prompt and it’s asking for three more than I originally selected.” There’s a strain of mania in her voice. “I couldn’t decide on what text to use, and now I am much further behind than I wanted to be.”

Ava sinks down to her knees next to Bea. She hesitates for a second before she takes her hand and squeezes it tightly. Not because she doesn’t want to touch Bea, because she always wants to be touching Bea. But because Bea seems like a crystalline figure right now and Ava has always been clumsy.

“How long have you been doing this?”

“A few hours, I suppose.” Bea looks around. Her shoulders sag. “I pulled what I could from the library, but I did not have much time to gather all the things I needed.”

“This is not enough?” Ava whistles, low. “I’d hate to see what you think is.” She soothes the words with a thumb over the back of Bea’s hand. “Have you eaten yet today?”

Bea’s eyes linger on their hands long enough that Ava thinks about letting go. She doesn’t want to make Bea uncomfortable. Just as she thinks about pulling her hands back into her own lap, Bea nods. “I had breakfast.”

“Okay, let me be more specific. Have you eaten anything since 6:30 this morning?”

The blush on Bea’s cheeks deepen.

“I’m going to take that as a no.” Ava sits back on her heels and groans a little at the way her back muscles pull. Bea immediately opens her mouth, but Ava shakes her head. “I’m fine. I just need a second and then I’m going to make you something to eat.”

Bea’s concern fades to wariness. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Let me.” She says it much softer than she means to, but it does the trick. Bea nods and Ava grins. Taking a deep breath, she pushes up onto her feet and carefully walks around Bea’s notes and books. “So, how close are you to being done?”

She thinks she hears a groan. “I’ve selected one additional source, but…” She definitely hears a sigh. “I’m not convinced of the last two.”

Ava opens the refrigerator. Bea makes sure there’s always something in it, something they can throw together and make something out of. She spots the carrots and onion and broccoli. They have a chicken breast they were saving for dinner tonight - Ava was going to try her hand at chicken parmesan, under close supervision - but this seems like a pizza night, so she doesn’t mind using it now. Chicken stir-fry for late lunch it is.

“You can tell me about it?”

She pulls out a cutting board and a knife, washing her hands before she starts chopping up the onion. She follows the steps she remembers Bea teaching her: fingers in, even dicing. She only nicked herself the first time and the blood had been enough to get her to understand she needed to slow down with a knife in her hand.

“It’s okay. But thank you.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Ava watches Bea lift her arms above her head and stretch out. She nearly looks away as a sliver of skin escapes from under Bea’s shirt. But she lingers for a second and then the skin is gone, hidden under the hem of her shirt. Ava misses it already.

She blinks a few times. “If you want to later, you can,” she offers. She moves onto the carrots. Bea taught her the importance of mis en place and having everything ready to go. “I mean, it might not make any sense, but I like to hear you talk.” She grins at the flush on Bea’s face, visible even across the apartment.

She’s not lying. She could listen to Bea talk all day. There’s a soothing quality to her voice, a kind of warm ebbing effect it has over her. That, and she heard once that humans can listen to the sound of the people they love talk for hours.

She thinks that being in love with Beatrice means she could listen even longer.

Papers shuffle behind her as she cuts the broccoli. She glances back over her shoulder, knife hovering above the board.

Being in love with Beatrice happened slowly, like adding grains of rice to the rice cooker, one piece at a time until the whole thing was full. One day she was thinking, I love this. I love this life. I love Beatrice, and the next she was wondering what it might be like if she could climb into her bed and kiss her slowly.

It wasn’t just lust, either. She’d gone through that period with other people - fresh in the world, she’d been attracted to nearly everyone she saw. But it was never anything of substance. The appeal didn’t last past wondering what kind of kisser they were or what their hands might feel like against her hips.

With Beatrice, it’s deep. She wants to know what kind of kisser Bea is, what her hands might feel like if they pushed down purposefully against her hips. But she also wants to curl around Bea on the couch and listen to her talk about her day. She wants to go to brunch on the weekends and split a plate of french toast or maybe waffles or maybe both. She wants to know that in a crowded room of people, Bea is going home with her.

She likes the way Bea smiles sleepily over her first cup of tea, the way she brushes Ava’s hair off her face almost absentmindedly, the way she holds open every door, the way she lets Ava press a kiss to her forehead or a kiss to her cheek and doesn’t shy away from her.

Grains of rice, falling into a cup. Each one of them is one more thing to love.

She hears light footsteps behind her and she smiles, knife slicing through the florets.

“How were your classes?”

It would be easy to drop into her own day, to tell Bea about Carina and Professor MacKay, or how JC nearly dropped their sample and they had to start all over again, or how the librarian who usually doesn’t care about her iced coffee was out today and she had to chug the whole thing like a beer in the vestibule before the librarian who does care saw her, or how she nearly tripped over her shoelaces between the Quad and Venable but managed to stay upright and avoid falling on her face in front of a tour of fresh-faced hopeful freshmen-to-be. She could dive into that and make it about her, and it would be easy to shift focus.

Bea might appreciate the distraction, actually. But she knows if she starts now, Bea will be too nice to tell her to stop and she’ll be up until the sun rises trying to nail down the rest of this paper.

So she smiles instead and waves one knife-less hand at Bea. “Sit. Tell me about your paper.”

“Ava.”

Ava ignores her sigh, washing her hands again before she takes the chicken out of its package and pats it dry.

“I thought we were having that for dinner.” Bea sounds a little further away, like she’s taking some of Ava’s advice and sitting down. “I bought pasta.”

She cuts the chicken into thin strips, careful of slicing through her hand. It’s smooth, the benefit of Bea’s care and consideration for their kitchen utensils. She took the time to teach Ava, too. Her dream was to be able to juggle knives, but she figured knowing how to cut with them without cutting herself was the place to start.

And Bea wouldn’t teach her that anyway.

“The benefit of dry pasta is that it doesn’t actually expire.”

“It loses some of its quality,” Bea counters.

Ava grins. “Well, it won’t lose any of its quality in 24 hours. We can have it tomorrow.” She washes her hands again and grabs a pan, twisting it neatly in her hand before she sets it down on the stove top. “We’ll get pizza later.”

When she spares a glance back at Bea as she adds oil to the pan, Bea is shaking her head. “It’s already three in the afternoon. We won’t-”

“Benefit of living off a college campus: places deliver late.” She shakes her head playfully when Bea opens her mouth to argue. “Stop arguing with me. You’ll lose. And you need to save all your strength for arguing the hell out of your point in your paper.”

Bea looks amused. “It’s not an argumentative paper.”

“Everything is if you try hard enough.” She leans back against the counter away from the stove, arms crossed over her chest. “But why don’t you tell me about your paper?”

The mention of it has Bea dropping her head into her hands. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“The beginning, preferably. My understanding of theological knowledge is a little limited to nuns, bad.” She doesn’t get the smile she hoped for.

Bea looks up. “I don’t usually miss something like this.” She sounds miserable and Ava’s heart breaks a little. “I’m usually better at paying attention to the fine details.”

“Is this Vegara’s class?” She has Bea’s professors memorized, knows which ones are total dicks - her words - and which ones are excellent contributors to the degree program - Bea’s words. Vegara is, in one of Ava’s words, an asshole.

Bea nods and straightens up, taking another deep breath. “I don’t know how I missed this,” she repeats.

“You’re human. You’re going to mess up every so often.”

But she can tell it’s bothering Bea. So she searches the refrigerator again and pulls out one of the yuzu seltzer waters that Bea likes, the ones Ava can only find at the grocery store across town - a long, long bus ride. It’s worth it. She knows how much Bea enjoys them. She opens it and puts down in front of Bea with a wide smile.

“Thank you,” Bea says quietly.

She picks up her phone next, going to her Spotify app. She scrolls until she finds the playlist she titled Bea’s Bangers <3 and picks “Honey” by Robyn. She puts it on shuffle and then down in front of Bea in case she wants to execute one of her allotted three song passes.

Bea never uses them unless “Dancing Queen” comes on - a flaw Ava can be convinced to overcome for the right price. She just hasn’t figured out a way to tell Bea it’ll cost her a kiss, at least.

“It’s a shame Vegara is a massive bitch,” Ava continues. The oil starts to sizzle and she picks up the tongs (the ones with little cat paws instead of the usual metal heads that she bought precisely to annoy Lilith) to begin laying chicken slices in the pan. “She’s hot.”

Bea coughs delicately. “No, she isn’t.”

Ava snaps the tongs at Bea. “She is. But she’s also mean. And not, like, hot and mean. Just hot. And mean. Two full sentences.”

Bea blinks at her for a moment before a fond smile stretches across her mouth. She shakes her head gently and leans forward, resting her chin in her hand. Ava grins, satisfied with the way that Bea looks a little lighter, with the way she seems to unwind a little with a small laugh.

Ava drinks it in. Loose and unraveling, Beatrice is beautiful. Hair falling across her cheeks, the wild in her eyes steadying into something soft and present. Lips curled up in a smile. Ava falls a little more in love with each passing second.

“You’re ridiculous,” Bea mumbles.

“You love me.”

She tries to keep the hope out of her voice, tries to quell the question. She must, because Bea is still smiling, still gazing at her with that same look on her face Ava prays she gets to see every day for the rest of her life. Bea sips her seltzer water, and Ava pushes around chicken in a pan, and they stand with a breakfast bar between them and just this one secret that Ava can never tell.

“I find you to be an agreeable roommate,” Bea finally says, lips turned up around the truth.

Ava points the tongs at her, ignoring the droplet of oil that splashes on the floor. Bea doesn’t ignore it, eyes following it and flicking back up to Ava.

“I’m way better than an ‘agreeable roommate’,” she argues as she grabs a paper towel and cleans up the spot. “What’s her name was an ‘agreeable’ roommate. I’m God-tier.”

“Her name is Gina,” Bea says lightly.

“Gina bo beana,” Ava dismisses. “Would she make you chicken stir fry and tell you your professor sucks ass?”

Bea’s face softens. “No, she wouldn’t.” She smiles, a little lopsided. “But you knew that.”

“Of course I knew that.” Ava turns the chicken over, eyes darting to Bea between pieces. “But I like to hear you say it.”

She likes knowing she’s doing a better job taking care of Bea. She likes knowing that she’s the one who puts Bea first - something everyone in her life should have been doing since day one, Ava thinks. She likes knowing her love can make her into the kind of person who values someone else over her own self.

“How much longer do you think I’ll have to say it for?” Bea sounds curious, but entertained.

Ava shrugs. “What are you doing for the rest of your life?”

Bea stares at her for a second longer before she shrugs, so uncharacteristically of her. “I don’t believe I know the answer to that.”

Ava pulls her own seltzer water out of the refrigerator and cracks open the can, listening to the carbonation fizzle. “Well, I guess I’m stuck here until you figure it out.”

“I suppose I’ll have to live with that.” Bea finally looks away, eyes straying over Ava’s shoulder to the stove top. “I’m not sure you’d leave even if I begged you to.”

No, she almost exhales. I’m staying with you forever. Where you go, I go. That’s what she told Bea once, not so long ago. My people will be your people. I’ll die buried next to you.

It’s too dramatic to say out loud. Even worse because she’s never actually told Bea about these feelings. She’s too fast sometimes, moving too quickly. She doesn’t slow down when she needs to. But this is more than wishing she could speed up time to get a free coffee for her birthday. This is more than wanting an exam to be over.

She wants to slow down and fall in love with Bea unhurriedly. Lazily, even.

She blinks. “No, I don’t think I would. What did Mary call me? An ankle weight?” She grins. “It’s nicer than what Lilith calls me, at least.”

Bea meets her eyes again. “Lilith says it from a place of love.”

Ava adds the vegetables. “Oh, I know. Imagine what she would say if she hated me?” she asks gleefully. “Now, let me tell you about the time I saw Vegara eat it on the stairs near the science building. Did I tell you I think she’s hooking up with Professor Sakeen, from the business department?”

Bea laughs. “No, Ava. That’s not true.”

“But imagine what we could do if we made people think they were?” Ava laughs when Bea shakes her head and opens her mouth to argue.

Ava doesn’t hear a word she says, but she memorizes the way her eyes light up and the press of her lips when she scolds Ava and the sharp, precision-like movements of her hands as she illustrates a point. She thinks, I love you, I love you, I’m in love with you.

Grains of rice, in an endless cup.

three months.

She’s going to kill them.

“I’m going to kill them.”

Ava thinks for another second, but nothing is going to change her mind. She stomps her foot a little, barely a thud against the carpet, and she crosses her arms over her chest, eyes narrowed and teeth bared.

Bea sighs. “Ava.”

She’s sitting on the couch, stick-straight with her hands curled primly over her knees. To anyone else, she looks like Bea - just a little more upright, a little more held together.

But to Ava - who knows every micro-expression on her face, who has memorized the way her eyes cut to one side before she’s about to give up a half-truth, who has studied the curl of Bea’s hands around coffee mugs and television remotes and her own hand - she knows better. Because she can see how thin Bea’s lips are, how the skin around her knuckles is as white as the bed sheets Ava knows are under the thick navy blue comforter of Bea’s bed.

“No.” Ava starts pacing again, picking up where she left off a moment ago. She might just wear a hole in the carpet, her steps feel like fire. “Don’t Ava me right now.” She grinds her teeth together, flexes her fingers and closes them into fists, scowling at an invisible monster ahead of her.

“Who do they think they are?” she asks, the same question she’s asked five times in the last five minutes. “They call, what did you say? Once a calendar year? To ‘catch up’ and just-” She huffs and jabs a finger at no one. “First, I’m going to count up the number of times they said lifestyle choice and multiply that by the number of fingers I have.” She starts counting on those same fingers.

“After I do that, I’m going to add that to each time your mother sniffed like she was catching a cold from the mere thought of having to ask you if you’re seeing anyone.” She turns sharply on the carpet, socked foot sliding a little. “And once I come up with that number, I’m going to use it as a guide for the number of times I need to punch your father in his stupid mustache - he has one, right? - for even suggesting you’ve had enough time to ‘come to your senses’ about this.” Her voice goes high, vocal chords tightening. “This? This is your life! This is who you are!”

She growls in the hollow of her throat, feeling her face grow hot. “And I’d make it so they never called back. I’d curse them so their sleeves always got wet when they did the dishes. Or that they stubbed their toe every time they walked into a room. You’re their daughter. Not some inconvenient stranger they have to ‘make time’ for. Though,” she scoffs, “they’d probably be more considerate of some stranger who doesn’t know what they look like without their stupid, fake smiles on.”

The high likelihood that they would do that, value someone else over Bea and the sheer injustice of it all, boils her blood and makes her explode. “And another thing!” She rounds on Bea, mouth open in a snarl— then stops mid-rant when she finally sees her.

Bea looks… The line of her spine is threatening to buckle. Her wrists are starting to shake. Ava can see the slight wobble of her bottom lip and the way she’s holding back what Ava knows would be a tidal wave of tears.

Ava’s heart cleaves in her chest at the sight of Bea, two pieces rocketing down into her stomach.

She isn’t helping.

As furious as she is right now, it isn’t making things better for Bea; it might even be making it worse. Her anger doesn’t matter right now, not more than what Bea is feeling, and what Ava needs is to ease the sorrow rolling off Bea in waves.

So she swallows back her fury, quickly forming it into a knot, and crosses the room. Every muscle spasms as she sinks to her knees in front of Bea, wrapping light fingers around her wrists. She can feel her pulse, trembling wildly, under hot fingertips.

“Bea,” she says quietly.

Bea inhales, the sound shaky and loud between their bodies. “I’m fine.”

Ava strokes her thumb over the small bundle of nerves clustered at the base of Bea’s wrist. It echoes back at her. “You don’t have to be.”

“I am.” It’s steadier this time but Ava can still hear the way it trembles. “It doesn’t- It doesn’t ma-”

“It matters.” She knows she’s bordering on too firm, knows she’s being a little too strong. She tightens her grip on Bea’s wrist and holds it steady. “It matters so fucking much, Bea. And I- I’m going to kill them.”

Bea’s smile is watery. “You don’t need to say that.”

“Say it? I mean it.” Ava rocks back on her heels, her whole body tight and locked up. She’d stay cramped forever if it meant she didn’t have to let go of Bea right now. “I don’t think I’ve ever meant anything so much in my whole life.”

“You said that about the man who left the black beans out of your taco last week,” Bea reminds her gently, just a hint of a smile tugging at one corner of her mouth.

Ava pauses. “Well. Okay. Yes. I meant that when I said it. But that was before your shitty, scu-”

“Ava,” Bea says quietly.

She snaps her mouth shut for a moment before she opens it again. “This is more than black beans, Beatrice. This is you. And yeah, I’d kill your parents if you asked me to. No questions, no hesitation. I’d go full John-Wick-loses-his-dog on their asses. You know what? You don’t even have to ask me. I’d do it.”

I’d do anything for you.

Bea carefully turns her wrists until their palms are pressed lifeline to lifeline. Her voice is whisper-quiet when she breathes out, “You don’t mean that.”

Ava inhales sharply. It sounds like a firecracker and Bea flinches away from it. She tightens her grip on Bea’s hand, her hand aching from the pressure. She wants to reach inside Bea and pull out this voice in the back of her mind that’s whispering these things to her. She wants to choke it out right in front of Bea, show her that it has no business speaking, lying to her like that. She wants to twist it until it breaks in her hands, wants to hold up the broken parts and say, Look, Bea. This isn’t the only thing I’d break for you.

“I do mean it,” she says instead.

She needs Bea to understand. She does mean it. She would do it. She wouldn’t hesitate to cut a bitch, a phrase she learned from listening to Mary swindle money away from a guy at the bar who bet he could beat her in a game of pool. Bea’s parents aren’t drunk college boys with too much of their daddy’s money, but they carry the same sense of entitlement that she just knows drips off Bea’s parents.

She inhales, slower this time. “Listen.”

Bea looks up after a moment. Her eyes shimmer slightly. Anger swells in Ava’s stomach and nearly bowls her over. But she swallows past it.

“Do you remember what I said when I first met you?”

Bea’s mouth wrinkles in a frown. “What?”

“When I first met you. What did I say?” She nods encouragingly. Bea stares at her for a moment before she shakes her head. “Okay, you were supposed to say, You said, How’s your chemis-tea? Because, you remember, you were studying your chem notes and I spilled that cup of tea all over your notebook?”

Bea nods slowly.

“And then I would be like, ‘no, Bea, not that. What did I say next?’ And you wouldn’t remember what I did say and I could tell you, I said, You seem like someone I could spend some qualit-tea time with.”

“You didn’t say that,” Bea says slowly.

Ava sighs, exaggerating it. “No. But imagine if I had snuck in two puns for the price of one?”

Bea’s chest hitches, air caught in her throat.

Ava sobers slightly. “What I did tell you was that I knew you were important. I could tell by the way everyone around you seemed to be so interested in what you were doing.”

Bea frowns. “No one was watching me.”

“I was.”

Ava ducks her head to meet Bea’s eyes. “I’ve been watching you for months now, and I haven’t stopped wondering how you could be so…” She exhales slowly. “Amazing.”

If Bea’s eyes were shimmering before, they’re shining now. Tears threaten to spill over and Ava feels each one of them welling in her own chest. She grips Bea’s hands a little tighter, hoping she can absorb them before they fall.

“You’re amazing, Beatrice. And it has nothing to do with them. It’s in spite of them.” She waits until Bea meets her eyes. “You’re good. You’re smart, selfless. Kind. All the things they could never be. They’re shitty people with shitty opinions about who they think you’re supposed to be without knowing who you really are.” She runs a finger over the peaks and valleys of Bea’s knuckles. “And you shouldn’t give them this power. They don’t get to show up when they want to and leave you feeling like this.”

She watches the way Bea takes her words and twists them in mid-air, turning them back on themselves. She shakes her head quickly. “No, you’re not weak for thinking that.”

Bea blinks at her.

Ava smiles crookedly. “Don’t pretend like I don’t know what’s going on in there, Beatrice.” She lets go of one of Bea’s hands, tapping her temple gently. Bea sways under her touch. “I know exactly what you’re thinking. Like right now, you’re thinking, God, Ava, won’t you shut up?” She smiles a little, hoping Bea will too.

The problem is that she does know what’s going on in there. She knows the guilt and the shame and the way they swirl to make up the form of a woman Ava has never met, but would punch in the mouth if she ever got the chance. She sees Bea’s hesitation, knows that Bea wants to believe her. She does. But the number of years her parents have been talking circles around Bea is more than the number of months she’s known Ava. And it’s hard to compete with that.

But Ava does know Bea better.

That’s the thing about loving someone so completely. She knows Bea better than she knows herself. The dime store novels she greedily consumed under the covers at the orphanage and the rom-coms she watched on a small TV in the corner of her dorm room with Chanel - none of them ever talked about how deeply she would know someone else when she was in love with them.

She can tell by a look, by an exhale, by the slight upturn of Bea’s lip, what she’s thinking. Or what she’s feeling. Or what she’s wishing for.

And more than anything, Bea is wishing for someone to love her in spite of what her parents have told her she can never have.

It’s me, she wants to tell Bea. It’s me who loves you. It’s me who wants to make you as happy as you deserve to be. It’s me, it’s me, it’s me.

That’s the thing about loving someone so completely.

She knows Bea loves her back.

She knows that for all of the ways she can’t hide what she feels, Bea can’t either. She’s not reading into things, she’s not imagining them.

For every time Ava is thinking I could kiss her, she knows Bea is thinking I would let her.

Ava lies in bed most nights and wonders what it might be like if she gathered the courage to slip into Bea’s room and slide into her sheets just to hold her while she slept. She wonders what Bea would do. Send her away? Let her under that thick duvet Ava is sure is made up of a cloud? Be stuck somewhere between wanting her closer and pushing her back?

She wonders, but she won’t act on it. Because Bea isn’t ready. Bea is on the edge of something bigger than Ava and she’s not going to push. She’ll just be waiting at the bottom with a safety net for when Bea is ready to jump.

Her literary professor would call this tragic - two people destined to be together who will never be. But her literary professor doesn’t know her; he doesn’t know Beatrice.

He doesn’t know that they’re going to be together - just not right now.

Not now while Bea takes the time to allow herself to feel what she wants. Not now while Bea is trying to balance who she wants to be versus the person she’s been made to feel like she has to.

Ava knows about expectations. Even if the ones Sister Frances had were for her to fail so spectacularly God laughed at her, there are days when Ava feels like they’re a lifeline she can hold on to. She knows what it’s like to have poison in her ears, echoing in her mind like a snake hissing. When she’s thinking about her life, she’s always measuring it against what Sister Frances told her she would never be.

Bea’s parents had higher expectations, unreasonable aspirations for a girl that didn’t exist, but she can tell which nights Bea is beating herself up for not meeting them.

Ava is in love with Beatrice and she’s never been patient with anything, but she can be patient for this.

Because love is patient. And kind, it is not proud. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Beatrice is all of those, does all of those.

How can something like that be wrong?

Bea’s hand tenses in hers and Ava blinks.

“You’re my best friend,” Ava promises. “And I know you, so believe me when I say this. You matter. You deserve to be loved, unconditionally. You deserve to be treated like you’re the most important person in the world, because you are, to me. You’re always going to be the most important person in my life.”

Bea doesn’t meet her eyes. “You can’t say that.”

“Watch me.” She lifts her chin into the air, daring Bea to argue. She knows that she won’t. “I don’t care who you are or who you love. You could tell me you’re running away with that lady at the Registar’s office— who always seems to, honest to god, snarl at me when I ask how her day is going —and I’d throw you a party. If you told me you really did love her.”

She swears she sees a flicker of a smile on Bea’s face. It gives her courage.

“I’m proud of the person you are,” she says quietly. Bea looks down. “There isn’t anything you can do that’ll make me change my mind.”

I’m in love with you. There isn’t anything you can do that’ll change how I feel.

Bea swallows, her jaw clicking with the tension. She turns her hand over in Ava’s, blunt fingernails scratching against her palm. Ava holds her breath, feeling the pressure build in her chest. Just as her lungs start to burn, Bea clears her throat gently.

“That woman’s name is Marjorie.”

Ava lets her smile stretch slowly. “Marjorie, huh?”

Some of the tension breaks. Ava watches it wash over Bea as she takes her first deep breath in minutes. “She has a nameplate, right in front of her desk.”

“I don’t know.” Ava’s entire back has locked into one piece and she’s going to spend the rest of the night dismantling it, but it’s worth it to see the way the stress is leaking out of Bea, flowing off her in waves. “I think you’ve secretly made a plan to run away together.”

“Yes. I was planning on leaving this weekend, actually.”

She lets her fingers dust over Bea’s collarbone as she drops her hand back into Bea’s lap. “I fit in a carry-on suitcase.”

Bea rolls her eyes. “I remember.”

“You dared me that I couldn’t do it.”

“And you ached for days afterwards,” Bea reminds her.

Ava beams. “You were a very good nurse.”

Bea’s cheeks pinken slightly. “You were a terrible patient.”

Ava groans now, sliding back a little until she can use the edge of the couch to push up onto her feet. She inhales sharply. “I’m the best you’re gonna get.”

Bea’s hands go to her forearms, helping her stand upright. “Yes, I believe that’s true,” she murmurs.

Ava stretches her arms above her head, listens to a vertebrate pop a little. “I want sushi.”

“I thought you wanted Mexican?”

She shrugs. “Maybe we can get Mexican and sushi.” She watches the look of disgust wash over Bea’s face, but she still smiles. “You know what would be great, though? Like, really great?”

“Ice cream?”

Ava pauses. “Well, that, too. But no.” She slips her phone out of her pocket, opening up her messages and pulling up their group chat as she ignores the last message from Bea - Parents. “We have a movie night. Wouldn’t you love to bore all of us with the finer details of the historical aspects of Braveheart?”

Bea’s eyes flicker with fear. “I don’t want to-”

“No, no.” Ava quickly grabs onto Bea’s arm, squeezing gently. “They don’t need to know. Not if you don’t want them to. But wouldn’t it be funny to ask Lilith when she started taking makeup tips from Mel Gibson?” That gets a small smile. “Or we can watch the Twilight movies. Lilith went out with that guy who looked just like Jacob a few times last month. We can ask her when she knew she was into werewolves.”

Bea’s eyes lighten. “You just want to pester Lilith.”

“I’m a simple girl with simple needs.” She grins. “We can get stuff for ice cream and just… hang out. You deserve to be around people who love you.”

Bea covers Ava’s hand with her own. Ava can read the look in her eyes, the silent I am. Out loud, she smiles. “Thank you.”

Ava bows clumsily. “Anything for you, Your Highness.” She quickly thumbs out a message. “Now, if you don’t want to watch Twilight - which I’m super serious about, by the way - then you better pick something out before Camila gets here and tries to convince us to finally watch Disturbia.” She shudders. “No thank you. Though, that soundtrack is banging.”

Bea sighs, exasperated and adoring, and squeezes Ava’s hand one time before she drifts away. All the tension is gone - her spine as straight as ever, her eyes bright and sure, her hands steady. She’s back to being Bea. Ava gives herself a mental high-five and then focuses on dinner. Sushi does sound really good.

“Ava?”

“Hmm?” She looks up from her phone, scrolling the pretty pieces of fish.

Bea smiles shyly. “You’re my best friend too.”

I love you.

She smiles just as softly.

I know it.

Bea nods, just once, and goes back to tidying away her things, making space for all the food Ava is going to order, justifying it by saying the apartment is going to be packed. Ava smiles, feeling a soft part in her chest squeeze just once, just a small reminder that it’s there.

Love is patient and she can wait. For Bea.

(more forever roommates)

#forever roommates #warrior nun #avatrice #ava silva #sister beatrice #me: it'll be nice and short #also me: 🤡🤡🤡#everyone say thank you kay thank you kay #professional pusher and patron saint of typos #she is the real MVP here #i really tried to make this a normal length i promise y'all #i am posting this in the bathroom at a family event because i am avoiding a drunk uncle - we hate those - and honestly #this is more important than who has to clean up the kitchen #k byeee

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daisychainsandbowties · 9 months

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what is it about that season one shoulder pat you love so much??

i have a bit of a fascination with what i call character thesis moments. they’re… these sort of pivotal, revealing scenes or even just (as in this case) a gesture that makes me fall head-over-heels for a character. and also understand them.

with ava, it was the beach run scene. for lilith, the grey hoodie scene where she asks ava “can you forgive me?” for mary it was the first scene, cradling shannon’s head and shutting her eyes and the love in every inch of every gesture. (that’s the first sign i think that warrior nun is a story about love, and survival, and in not surviving but loving anyway).

now, i’ll admit that i adored beatrice from “i thought she’d be a handful” and “faith is my business” but frankly… neither of those scenes show us who she is. i think the closest we get to HER is at the bus stop, where you watch her choose her friends over her duty, choose love over sacrifice (for the first, but not the last time).

and then… god, that shoulder slap. i can’t explain how it made me feel.

up until that point, beatrice is such a whirlwind of a character. she’s lethal, she faces down a gun with frightening disregard for her own life. she drops a tear onto shannon’s cheek as she gasps out a very rehearsed goodbye. she catches ava when she slips out of that wall, she cries over an old journal and in all that time she’s fighting so hard to remain unseen.

and then, in one gesture, she reveals who she is. if you look closely, you see how fiercely beatrice fights to hold herself, but especially her hands, in check. they are either weapons or they’re things she lets out with the greatest care. they are caring but also tentative, like moths desperately trying not to touch the flame.

if you look carefully you also see that beatrice can’t help but touch ava. she tries and tries, but then they’re in the vatican and she’s suddenly this young, smiling creature trading puns, rushing through a cloud of dust to pry ava from the wreckage of her faith, from the arms of an angel. i just think, when i saw that shoulder slap i realised how much there was to beatrice.

she’s this… ball of contradictions. she’s a nun, she came up with Cruella de Jesus. she’s faithful, she’s queer, she’s resigned to the death of everyone she loves. she’s a weapon, and yet… you look at her doing that slightly goofy shoulder slap and it betrays a sense of ‘i want to touch you and i don’t know what to do about it.’ and in that you realise that she’s everything you thought and she’s also… mischievous? slightly boyish? a fool who is already more than half in love.

i remember feeling so fond of her, so suddenly, because out of the clear blue you realise that she’s drawn to this, to this girl who told her not to hate what she is, not to hate what she craves which is touch… a certain something she doesn’t dare to name, but still she reaches out and THAT is beatrice to me.

she’s a pair of empty hands, a bottle of lightning, and for all her confidence, for all that she is undeniably so cool and calm under pressure, so absolutely lethal; she’s also young, and she doesn’t know what to do about what she feels. it terrifies her, fascinates her, makes her hands move almost of their own accord.

there is ava, who is the point around which she is supposed to rally. halobearer, holy, doomed. that little pat in the shoulder… when i take it from ava’s perspective i’m in awe, because they don’t quite understand each other yet. it’s a candleflame to the incandescence of their kiss but it’s the first time bea reaches out not to catch her, or capture her, or carry her, but simply to touch.

it’s a very blunt and beautiful reassurance and that’s what they are to each other; they’re comfort, safety, acceptance. and that throwaway moment to me is the thesis of bea’s character arc. it’s the choosing to touch, to reach out, to hold onto what she loves.

and for ava it’s sacred too. how many times in her life do you imagine she’s been touched the way beatrice touches her? the way she balances ava’s jaw in her hands when she falls from the wall, smiling at her like she’s a miracle. beatrice who is the voice in the dark and the cold, who tears down a wall to reach her because she promised and she kept it. touch is everything to ava, and i think there’s just something so special about that moment; beatrice just saying, wordlessly, ‘you’re good, you’re here, i’ve got your back.’ it’s not condescending it’s a gesture that i think demonstrates to ava that she’s not alone anymore, and it kindles the hope that she never will be again.

#warrior nun #avatrice #sister beatrice #ava silva #it’s just! special and silly and important to me i’m sorry i know this is mostly incoherent #anon

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nohasslecastle · 1 year

Text

As much as I love spreading the "Sister Beatrice top agenda", I do not think Beatrice would behave anywhere near confident on her first time with Ava.

First of all, it's my headcanon that before Beatrice became a nun she didn't actually get to live or experience a lot, so everything she could have learned in her teenage years, she actually didn't, because her parents were too strict, and she was just too afraid to stand up against them.

Her parents sent her to that boarding school probably because at some point she admitted she had romantic feelings for one of her friends, but that was it, Beatrice is oblivious to love, and relationships, and, of course, to sex.

Add that to the fact that Beatrice is a perfectionist, with a great fear of failure, a control freak that gets overwhelmed when she feels she can't handle the results of any given situation she's involved with... Beatrice doesn't quite know how she should behave around Ava, and the not knowing... that terrifies her.

It's not that she's worried Ava would make fun of her, of course, she would never. But there's just something inherently annoying about not being able to BE good at something, specially when the only way to learn 'that something' is... actually doing it. But, will she be able to be good enough for her? Will she be able to be what she thinks Ava deserves?

When Ava comes back, Beatrice doesn't immediately kiss her, she doesn't jump into a relationship with Ava and certainly she doesn't jump straight to bed with her, simply because she has absolutely no idea how to do it without making it weird. So, of course, their comeback kiss is started by Ava, their "what are we?" conversation is started by Ava, and their first time... guess what? Also started by Ava.

I picture this: after the re-encounter they didn't have much time to talk about what had happened between them, they were once again in survival mode and it's only one day after a big fight that they finally and unintentionally find themselves alone. Everything that happened is weightening on Beatrice and she's pretty much gay panicking every time Ava gets too close to her.

It's not that she doesn't want her, on the contrary she wants her so much she's overwhelmed by a feeling she had never felt before, or at least, not in a very long time and certainly not with enough maturity to understand it. When they last kissed it was a life or death situation, now they are just staring into each other's eyes, something clearly in the air, but everytime she tries to say anything, something holds her back.

Ava tries to give her space. Ava is everything that Beatrice is not. She's reckless, and a risk taker, and if she fails so what? she tries again. However, Ava is aware she closed a line last time... not only on Beatrice's vows but on a restriction she had put on herself. Ava is trying to make things right and Beatrice knows it but at the same time she's begging, begging, Ava to push her, because that's how they work right?

At some point the silence becomes too unbearable and Beatrice is frustrated. She hates that she can't be as resolved as she is in most of her activities and Ava is... kind of having fun at it, looking at the perfect sister Beatrice losing her shit it's fun, it's so unlike her it's amusing.

Ava is laughing and that only makes Beatrice's frustration grow. At some point Beatrice apologizes to Ava "I'm sorry, I really don't know what I'm doing and I hate it" and that's Ava's cue to do what she always does... push her a bit, give her courage. Ava walks slowy towards her "I don't need you to be an expert at this, Bea" she takes Beatrice's hands into hers "remember what I told you before I left? You don't need to be so perfect all the time." She lifts her hand to Bea's cheek and Bea gulps. She watches Bea lean into her touch, close her eyes, she brings her other hand to her chest and she can feel how fast her heart is beating "I only need you to be yourself." She says. And Bea opens her eyes and looks at her.

Ava leans close to her, slowly, giving her time to adjust to the intrusion and when she's a breath from her lips she whispers "can I kiss you again?", looking at her eyes again waiting for an answer. Beatrice would simply nod because, let's be honest, that woman is incapable to form a simple thought when Ava is *that* close to her.

And when they kiss... it's shy, and it's tame, and honestly, Beatrice doesn't know what to do with her hands. Ava would guide them, maybe to her hips "you can touch me" she would state. Ava would open her mouth, begging for *more*, she would let Bea's hair down, touch her shoulders, then her chest, she would find that first button and unpop it. Bea would startle at that, only for a moment, only because she isn't used to it, but looking at Ava, with her lips swollen, panting, big eyes... she would push that thought aside. She would kiss her again and this time she would allow herself to touch Ava, gently, but more determined.

Ava would start walking backwards, as if saying "take me to bed" and Bea would walk slowly before her, with her eyes closed, trying to focus only on Ava's lips because maybe that way she would be able to shut up all the insecurities. They would stumble on their way to the bed and Bea would try to say "I'm sorry" while Ava would put a finger on her lips and just laugh, and say a terrible pun to her. Being there Bea would doubt until she doesn't anymore, until she stops thinking and Ava becomes the only thing she's worried at.

#beatrice's top energy will be released but we need to get to that first #working through all those years of repression is not easy #my take on avatrice first time #bea would be shy as fuck #ava would be her normal self #again something im between a mini fic a character analysis and me havin a breakdown #warrior nun #warrior nun analysis #sister beatrice #ava silva #avatrice #save warrior nun #ava and beatrice #ficlet

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simplykorra · 4 months

Text

As soon as she hears the water in the shower start, Beatrice pulls her bra off and tosses it in the bin for the house cleaners before putting her shirt on and leaving the room.

Her brain feels so muddled, it has felt that way all day. A vineyard tour with Crimson and Thomas Weatherford is a special kind of torment that she wouldn’t wish on her worst enemy. She felt worn down and exhausted, like looking into an alternate reality where she didn’t take her life in her own hands and instead submitted to what her parents wanted.

Crimson was dismissive and snarky - she talks down to everyone, Beatrice included and Thomas is the most indifferent human being she’s ever met. The world simply exists around him, catering to his needs and Beatrice was no different.

She couldn't count the number of times he touched her, as if it was his right, and how Beatrice had to strategically put Crimson between them at all times.

So when she came home and fell onto the bed, worn down and feeling miserable, Ava’s presence was just…magical. And she gave into it, if only a little, when Ava offered to massage her. Beatrice knew the pitfalls, but she also knew that Ava wouldn’t do anything without her consent and would never push her too far.

So she let her, because she wanted to be touched in a way that felt good, that felt wanted. She may have her line drawn in the sand of not sleeping with Ava but Beatrice has assumed for a while that Ava’s hands were magical.

The situation got away from her, however, and Ava’s pressure felt too good and her body reacted too much and when the phone rang it all came crashing down around her.

“Just doing my job, Bea.”

She said it, she meant it and she’s been saying it the whole time. These ways that Ava makes her feel good, every way, it’s her job and she’s very good at it.

Beatrice understands now how easy it could be to confuse Ava’s work with real feeling. Because Ava is so present all the time, so focused and fine tuned to her clients.

She’s incredibly good at what she does and Beatrice is trying to come to terms with it.

Because she has been thinking about Ava a lot, all day while she was with the Weatherford’s, her thoughts wandered to Ava and wondered what she might think of everything they were doing.

The jokes she could make, the way she’d have stepped between her and Thomas - how good she is at putting people in their place with a smile on her face.

Beatrice’s mind is messy, overcrowded with the memory of Ava’s hands on her. She feels the warmth of the oil on her skin and an itch between her legs. It’s intense and consuming…she needs air.

#avatrice #warrior nun #avatrice fanfiction #warrior nun fanfiction #<3 #thanks for all the love guys

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unicyclehippo · 1 year

Note

Hmmm...how about a one word prompt of...Skin?

for @possibilistfanfiction i hope it makes u laugh

two

every week, superion talks to beatrice late tuesday night. at the end of every call, she asks to speak to you and you let her.

are you struggling with anything? she’ll ask, or what has your week been like? or, how are you, ava? she doesn’t ask that one often because it makes you hang up on her fast. like. what the fuck are you supposed to do? she says your name nicely, makes it sound like she wants to know about you, not the halo, and yeah. it’s a bit much to deal with.

‘we went to the thrift shop,’ you tell her week two, ‘and spent half the money you sent us on clothes. beatrice got new pyjamas.’ from the kitchen, beatrice sends you a betrayed look. you wave at her. you’re not going to tell superion that you picked out boxers for her—black, comfortable—and that you think you’re going to have a heart attack every night because beatrice has surprisingly buff legs, toned, and the first time she came out of the bathroom in boxers you had to put your hands under your head, pin them down with your heavy fucking skull so you didn’t touch her legs, her knees. how knees could be sweet, you have no fucking clue, but beatrice’s knees are sweet, soft in repose and then sharp and strong when she moves and. yeah. anyway.

‘i’ve never bought clothes before,’ you tell superion, and beatrice looks startled and a little sad and you laugh because it’s funny, actually, not sad. ‘i stole the hottest dress from this rich lady’s house—um, borrowed, i mean. they don’t really have high fashion here but i picked up some cute stuff. right, bea?’ beatrice ducks her head. ‘she says yes and also wants to know if spending this money means i’m your sugar baby now. or the pope’s. ow! okay, she didn’t say that but she did throw a pen at me. i’m your halobearer, that’s so rude!’

‘phase through it next time,’ beatrice suggests, and almost smiles when you flip her off.

‘hello, ava. is there anything you wish to talk about tonight?’

you have been thinking of things to say all week that’ll make superion hang up on you and so, when you pluck the phone out of beatrice’s hand, you’re grinning. she picks up on your energy and excuses herself to the bathroom.

‘so much. where to start? bea has been kicking my ass in training. i think she’s enjoying it. is that allowed? i thought nuns were supposed to not enjoy things.’

‘i’m sure any and all enjoyment pertains to the pleasure all instructors feel when their student shows improvement.’

‘no,’ you muse. beatrice is for sure eavesdropping so you raise your voice a little and say, ‘i think she’s a sadist.’

the bathroom door slides open half an inch, just enough for beatrice to shoot a forbidding look out at you. it’s undermined by the way some of her hair hangs free of her bun and the toothpaste smeared at the corner of her mouth and she’s brushing neatly and you want so badly to squash up next to her and clean your teeth there with her, in your stupidly small bathroom, so you forget all your nun jokes you’ve prepared and say,

‘all good here, supes. catch you next week,’ and hang up on her.

beatrice is in boxers that show off her knees. her sleep shirt is tucked into the waistband of her boxers, which is so endearing you think you might explode. you press your fingers to her hip and nudge her away from the sink so you can get in there and wet your brush. you do the same thing every night. she ought to know by now. she does know by now. you think she wants you to touch her, to lay your hand gently on her hip and make her space into your space. the toothpaste is minty and froths up as you brush enthusiastically. beatrice swishes her mouthwash. puts her hand on your wrist. you obediently shuffle away from the sink so she can spit neatly into it.

‘short conversation with mother superion tonight.’

you shrug. ‘tired, i guess.’ it’s half true. you would have happily made a nuisance of yourself but tonight, you just want to brush your teeth next to beatrice and go to bed.

‘am i pushing you too hard?’

you consider the question. tuck your hair behind your ears so it doesn’t get in the way when you bend, spit into the sink too, like beatrice did. rinse. wash your brush, strick it into the polka dot toothbrush holder on the counter.

‘i want to learn. i’ll do whatever i have to do.’ beatrice eyes you like you’ve said something really interesting, which is worrisome because you don’t know what about that was interesting. ‘bedtime. wanna be little spoon tonight?’

beatrice goes pink at the offer and you can’t resist lifting a hand to her cheek, to touch it. she doesn’t pull away, but her eyes go wide.

‘sorry.’

‘no, sorry,’ you say almost immediately. ‘um. i’ll check the front door is locked.’ you run out of the bathroom, through to the kitchen and the front door. thunk your head hard against the wood and swear under your breath. blindly reach for the door handle. turn it gently. it hits the lock and you release it. you stand there for a few long minutes, hearing the sounds of the bedsheets and beatrice shuffling and the click of the lamp turning off and then the apartment is dark and still and there’s a longing right on the centre of your tongue, dry and empty like a wafer sucking the moisture from your mouth, and you want to pick up the phone and tell superion, i want to live. i don’t want beatrice to teach me how to fight, i don’t want you to know my name, i want this to be real. a home in the mountains and a girl who wants me to touch her.

beatrice pretends to be asleep when you finally join her, crawling into bed and pulling the sheets up to your shoulders. you’re always careful about touching her, when and where you do it, and tonight is no exception.

‘bea?’ you whisper.

‘yes, ava?’

‘can i –‘ you reach over. hover your hand over her forearm.

beatrice shuffles in the bed. the lamps in the street outside are dim and they have covers that keep the light shining down to the street instead of filling the sky. it’s not enough to see beatrice by. you light the halo—the tiniest bit—and her expression goes awed and nervous all at once.

‘you shouldn’t.’

touch her? use the halo?

‘i want to. feels good.’ beatrice breaths out. she won’t say it, and won’t ask you, but when you move your hand to hover over her wrist, sidle close enough to hold her, she doesn’t stop you. ‘g’dnight, bea.’

‘goodnight, ava. sleep well.’

‘good evening, ava. i trust you are well?’

‘we got jobs!’

‘beatrice informed me.’

‘of course she did,’ you roll your eyes. catch sight of the brim of the pink cowboy hat still squashed onto your head you had been given tonight as a prize, the only thing you had wanted. it's a little small, maybe made for a kid, but whatever. ‘did she tell you it’s at a bar? she doesn’t drink but she’s killing it at the books. i don’t have the same hang ups – hans is teaching me everything about being a great bartender and it involves a lot of alcohol. i can – he’s german and i drunk him under the table. i think the halo helped. do you – can the halo heal being drunk, do you think? did i cheat? maybe i should give him this hat back.’

‘i will ask you not to test the limits of the halo in this manner.’

‘i know, i know, control the halo, don’t draw attention, blah blah blah—bea already gave me the speech. i’m being safe. it was just some fun, mother,’ you tease, feeling loose and good and happy. ‘the hat suits me, though. it’s pink.’

superion’s smile bleeds into her voice. you grin, imagining it. a smile on that stern face. that’s the best, that’s one of the things you love the most, making people smile, making people laugh, especially when you have to find the right way to come at it. this feels almost too easy? you’re just…telling her about your day and your job and the hat you won but you know that she’s smiling and you’re a little drunk so you decide not to think about whether she likes you or is showing some softer side of herself for your benefit and just enjoy it.

‘you are entitled to some fun, ava.’

‘tell bea that. and her too. she can have fun too. she doesn’t have to drink, just relax a tiny bit. right?’

‘sister beatrice will attend her duty as she sees fit, you know that. and,’ she adds dryly, ‘i believe she is more likely to listen to you when it comes to relaxation.’

‘what you’re saying is i need to convince her. i need to tempt her.’

superion sighs. ‘drink some water, please, ava. look after yourself. and beatrice.’

‘yeah, always.’

there’s a girl who comes to your bar to flirt with you specifically. you know that because she told you, because she pressed her teeth to the pink of her lip and pressed against the hardwood bar, leaning over it to give you a good—really good—view of her chest and for a second you’d forgotten that there was anyone else in the bar when she looked at you so intently. and she told you.

‘you know i’ve been flirting with you, right?’

‘you? no way, this is a huge surprise,’ you’d teased, because she’s been super unsubtle.

the other night, she’d let the condensation from her beer bottle drip onto her chest and asked so sweetly for a napkin and laughed when you went tongue-tied and clumsy, dropping the cocktail shaker. which was fine because it was empty but it had clanged on the stone floor and hans had looked over with this stupidly knowing grin and only laughed when you flipped him off.

‘sometimes girls don’t know,’ she’d shrugged. ‘and i don’t like to waste my time. you like girls?’

you spin the beer bottle in your hand, because it’s a fun trick and because it makes girls look at your hands. dani is no exception. you haven’t said it out loud before but you want to. should you wait for a special moment? or does the moment become special when you say it?

‘girls are incredible,’ is what you end up saying. it’s not that you’re scared, it’s just that beatrice isn’t here and some part of you kind of expected to say it to her first, the way she’d shared that with you.

dani doesn’t take it as a cop out, thank god. she grins, big and bold, and tosses her hair back over her shoulder. ‘yeah. incredible. let me take you out, ava—dinner, dancing, drinks. what do you say?’

you should say no. for multiple reasons, but chief among them the fact that when dani used her water on her tits trick, you’d thought about beatrice and what her reaction would be if you tried it on her. probably, it’s a dick move to think about another girl when one is being so kind as to show you her tits. but. beatrice is a nun and dani is not. super not. she’s portuguese and taller than you—most people are, to be fair—and you like that the bar is lifted over where the customers sit so she has to look up at you, but you also like looking up at her and the way she crowds you a little, smirks down at you when you sit a little sluttily on the barstool next to her, hand on her knee. she wears, like, a dozen silver rings and her earrings dangle and glitter when she shakes her head, which she does when you make her laugh really hard, and when you think about kissing her it’s, yeah. good. it makes you a little tongue-tied and you stumble over your words and dani looks at you like she knows what you were thinking about which is. yeah. good.

you say yes.

'—compromising our mission here, compromising the halo, compromising herself—'

'whoa! where does the halo come into this? i'm not whipping my top off for her, it's a date.'

beatrice glares at you. she's standing tall and straight—well, rigid—and with the dark clouds gathering outside the window you're a little worried god will mistake her for a lightning rod, but mostly you're worried that you've actually hurt her by agreeing to go on this date. but then she goes and says,

'this is a stupid risk, you can't just - just--'

and you hate being called stupid so instead of trying to calm her down, you rise up to meet her. 'just what? say yes when a girl asks me out?'

'yes!'

'why not?' beatrice glares over your head, unable to meet your eyes. 'give me the phone.'

'what? no!'

'yes, give me the phone.'

'i'm still debriefing mother s—'

'give me the phone or i'll debrief on my date,' you tell her, and you can feel the anger and spite spitting on your tongue and sparking in your eyes. now she does meet your eyes; hers are black with fury, her jaw tense, and you're doubly pissed because you'd said yes to the date because dani is hot and has this quick flirty humour and because she looked at you like she could eat you up and it's a hell of a feeling to be on the receiving end of a look like that, but beatrice... beatrice is pissed and you're nearly positive it isn't because of the mission, and god, whatever your rules are about thinking nuns are hot, she looks hot with her jaw clenched and the muscles of her neck and shoulders tense like she's thinking about keeping you from the door by whatever means necessary. but she is a nun and you're not an asshole, or entirely selfish, so you said yes to dani because if you can't kiss the girl you like, you should be able to kiss a girl you like. right?

beatrice flicks a look over your outfit—high-waisted jeans, a shirt that shrunk in the one laundry load you did so now it shows off a decent strip of belly, and a blue sweater tied around your waist that you'd found over the back of the couch, in case it ends up raining—and she scowls.

'fine. fine.'

she grabs your wrist. your skin sears where she touches you—god, is this allowed? is this allowed? i'm gonna be thinking about this tonight in my alone time, is this allowed, dude?—and you open your hand, you'll take whatever she'll give you. you're so startled by her hand on you that you forget to be angry. if she weren't a nun, if she were a little more open, if she liked you the way you like her...

she drops the phone into your hand. it’s heavy and you nearly drop it, focused on—god forgive you, or better yet, mind your own fucking business dude—her. ask me out. ask me on a date. look at me like you want to push me against the brick wall outside where we work together and kiss me. she must see some of that in your eyes because she drags in a shaky breath and all the anger leaves her. she doesn’t move away. you look at her lips.

‘ava…’

your thumb flickers to mute the phone. ‘tell me not to go.’

beatrice huffs. ‘you want to.’

‘i’ll stay. i won’t go. if you ask.’

her hand goes to your hip. you want to know how much of her hand can fit there, on your skin where your top rides up. but she doesn’t touch you, even though you’re aching for it, even though she can see that you’re aching for it. it’s like there’s an invisible barrier that blocks her from moving those last few centimetres.

‘i’m taking a shift tonight,’ she says. ‘hans is sick.’

‘oh.’

‘i won’t be home. after. i’ll be back tomorrow,’ she says hurriedly, before your heart can totally break. ‘but not tonight.’

‘i’m not bringing her home. you know that, right?’

‘it would be fine if you did,’ beatrice lies, and pushes past you into the kitchen to collect her things.

you let her go. lift the phone to your ear.

‘hey. what’s the company policy on halobearers going out with girls? also, like, your personal policy. not that it fucking matters, i’m gonna do it anyway, but i suppose i’m curious. lesbians…thoughts?’

beatrice slams the front door behind her.

superion doesn't talk straight away—ha. you hear a chair dragging on stone and then a creak as she sits.

'well,' she says, and you forget about beatrice as much as you can because superion doesn't sound angry or disgusted. only considering. and this question isn’t totally about beatrice, it’s about you too, and you don’t care what superion thinks of you, you don’t. but. 'there is nothing written to specifically bar halobearers from dating girls.' nuns, on the other hand, she doesn't say but you hear it loud and clear. 'as for my personal policies... they revolve around, and are cemented in, caring for and protecting my order and my girls.’

‘what kind of protection?’

‘physical and emotional strength is paramount, as you know. if you are being safe, and if it is something that will make you happy, then i have no reason to forbid it.’

you think on that for a minute. then, in a small voice you don’t recognise, you ask her, ‘are you excited for me? can you be excited for me?’ tears sting your eyes and the back of your throat prickles with heat like you’ve drunk hot sauce again, or whiskey, and before superion can say anything, you break in again with, ‘i’m going to be late,’ kind of brusquely. ‘bye.’

after dinner and dancing and drinks, all the things she had promised, dani offers to walk you home.

you lean back against a lamppost and wind your fingers into the lapels of her lilac blazer and tug her forward, kiss her eagerly. the streetlight is almost the same warm gold as the halo, which is snug and silent between your shoulders. dani tastes like coffee, from her espresso martini. she kisses you, bold and unafraid. you’ve thought a couple times tonight about going home with her and you think about it again now, about letting her walk you home, about holding her hand as you let her into the apartment and pushing the same hand down the front of your jeans, into the underwear you bought new for precisely this reason, to where you’re slick between your legs and wanting but–

‘this was fun,’ you tell her, panting just a little.

she groans. kisses your jaw, your neck. fuck. ‘why does it sound like you’re saying goodnight?’

‘i - well - you’re making it fucking hard -’ you say, and laugh, and your stomach twists a little because if you had said that to bea she would press her lips together and shake her head and the way her laugh escapes as a huff makes you feel like you could walk over oceans, shoot up into the fucking sky. you make that joke in front of dani and she laughs, sure, but then half a second later her teeth are on your skin over your pulse and neither of you are thinking about the joke. which is fair. but while you want dani to touch you, she doesn’t make you feel like you can take on the world. she kiss you again. puts her hands on your waist, thumbs sliding up to brush over your belly. hands sliding up until her thumbs are dipping beneath your shirt, fingers wrapping around your hips, and you feel fucking incredible, delicate and wanted and hot. but.

‘dani, fuck -’

‘yeah, i know, saying goodnight.’ she sounds pretty wrecked too, which is a huge boost to your self-esteem because all you’re doing is clinging to her but apparently that’s fine. ‘you’re sure i can’t walk you to your door?’

‘if you walked me back, i’d take you upstairs,’ you tell her, and put a hand to her chest, push her gently away. ‘which - i had a lot of fun, but i can’t.’

dani nods. ‘text me when you get home though.’

‘of course, yeah.’

she takes a step back. out of the halo of the streetlight. you rake your eyes over her—she turned up in matching lilac blazer and slacks with this tiny white crop under the blazer and perfectly white sneakers, a few silver necklaces—and it reminds you a little of seeing doctor salvius for the first time, honestly, in her full pantsuit moment, and maybe you have a thing for women who look like they know what the fuck they want and how to get it.

‘fuck.’

‘baby, i’m trying.’

you flip her off and push away from the lamppost. ‘thanks for tonight. i had a really good time.’

she smiles and watches you leave. you look back when you reach the end of the road and she’s still there, waves.

by the time you get into the apartment, you’re considerably more drunk than you’d felt when you left the bar. you get the door unlocked, kick it closed behind you, and text dani as you struggle out of your jeans, kicking them vaguely in the direction of the wardrobe.

made it home thx for tonight

she doesn’t answer immediately. which is fair, she was drunk too and maybe she went back into the bar or whatever and you don’t really care but beatrice isn’t home and the apartment is quiet and cold and you’re standing pantless in the middle of the room and there’s a sinking feeling in your gut when you realise that you’re sad. it’s not fair. it’s not fair.

the phone is hidden away under a loose floorboard, because of course it is. you hear the wood snap as you peel it up. you’re alive and super strong and drunk and it's fine, the phone shouldn't be hidden away anyway, you shouldn't be hidden away. you pull it out, call the only number programmed into this stupid, bulky phone.

‘beatrice?’

‘no, it’s me.’

‘ah, ava. hello.’

you climb to your knees, push onto your feet. she sounds fine that you’ve called, totally unbothered. ‘i’m not struggling,’ you tell her.

‘i’m glad to hear it.’

‘i’m fine.’

she’s quiet. you think about her towering over you. i know you killed yourself. you are a coward. you think about her standing in front of you, putting herself between you and harm. you are worthy. you are.

‘i’m fine,’ you say again, anger hot on your tongue, hot down your spine. ‘i’ve been fine this whole fucking time but you keep asking so, so if you don’t believe me, let me tell you and maybe you’ll listen this time. i am fine. i’m not struggling. we’re hiding away from the fight and camila is in danger all the time and mary is gone and you - you talk to me but you don’t know me! you don’t know anything about me, and i know you don’t because you still think i’m going to run, or kill myself, but i never did, i never did and i won’t so stop asking me about my fucking life.’

‘ava,’

‘and stop saying my name! scolding me? poor crippled girl out on the streets—i have a job! i have friends! i’m really not fucking interested in what you think of me! fuck. you’re all the same. you nuns…you think b-because i’m not on my knees, crying and praying that i’m not grateful? i died! i’m alive! i’m grateful. you want me to thank you? you w-want me to learn how to be perfect from bea so that i’m worthy of the halo? so you don’t decide you’ve had enough of me? lighten the fucking burden of me? fuck perfection, fuck worthiness, fuck your god, and fuck your halo!’ you yell into the phone. anger stings your lungs; there’s not enough space around it for all the air you need.

‘breathe, ava.’ superion’s voice is muffled by distance and the crackling of the phone line and the dizzy swirl of your head. ‘ava,’ she says more sharply. ‘breathe.’

you breathe in.

‘good. again.’

you breathe in again, til your chest hurts with it. stumble over to the couch and curl into the arm of it, hand on your chest, feeling the trembling of your muscles, the desperation of your body to breathe, to live.

superion can hear when you settle a little. ‘i am sorry. my questions have never been about doubt.’ you scoff. ‘if you had come to the OCS another way, i would have asked you these things. i would have taken the time to know you. it is not doubt, ava.’

‘then what the fuck is it?’

‘it is care.’

‘fuck you.’

‘ava,’

‘no! fuck you. you’re not my mother.’ you want to cry. you want your scars back. you want anything that tells you you’ve been wanted even once, even if it’s that—a sick, dreamy, drowning memory of a twisting road by the ocean, and scars where a parade of people worked to save your life. your skin is blemish free. ‘i had a mother.’ you pick yourself up from the couch. slam through the kitchen cupboards until you find the vodka hans gifted you. you pour a shot into a stripey mug, clear liquid sloshing onto the tabletop. ‘i had a mother and she died and you’re not her. and the nun who cared for me killed me twice, you know. so. fuck.’ you throw back the shot. it stings. ‘you’re not my mother and i hate your stupid god and you don’t get to care about me. i don’t care. i don’t care. it’s not fair. my mum would—i could’ve told her, i could’ve come home to her. hey mum, i went on a date with a girl tonight and it was really nice. but i can’t tell her because she’s dead and you’re a shitty substitute.’

you drink again. and then—because the anger doesn’t feel as good as you hoped it would and doesn’t do anything about the sadness unspooling in your stomach, glossy and tangled like the tape out of a cassette—you twist the cap back onto the vodka and set it back into the cupboard.

superion says, ‘i’m not your mother. that’s true. but i am here to listen to you, and guide you. and i was unduly harsh on you but there is no doubt in my mind or my heart that you are worthy, not only of the halo but of the extraordinary life you will lead. and i am sorry that you cannot kiss someone and go home and call your mother.’

you’re standing, still pantless, in the kitchen and superion is being nice to you when you’ve just yelled at her more than you’ve yelled at anyone, ever. you sniffle. ‘a girl. kiss a girl and call my mother.’

‘yes. a girl.’

‘that’s important.’

‘i understand.’

‘it’s scary,’ you admit. ‘but it’s really awesome. and - and i don’t want to give any time to people and the church who think it’s a sin, i really don’t. because there are people who think - who have been made to think that it is a sin, that they’re bad and they’re not. they’re really wonderful, they’re beautiful and incredible and good. and i know you have faith in something, i don’t want - i don’t want to disrespect that - you love god and that’s cool or whatever. but if god has a plan for me, it’s shitty and it hurt and it’s not fair and i don’t want - i don’t believe in anything that cruel, i’m not going to and you can’t make me.’ you’re really tired all of a sudden. and very drunk. ‘i want my mum. do you have - you can talk to the pope, right? can he talk to god for me? can he make sure my mum is happy? i don’t believe but i think she did. can you - can you tell me if she’s happy? do you think she’d be proud of me?’

superion’s voice is thick with something you are too drunk to decipher. ‘yes, ava. she would.’ you feel turned inside out. like she’s touching raw, exposed nerves when she says, ‘thank you for talking to me.’

‘had to get drunk ‘n’ sad to do it. hooray.’

‘please drink some water and ensure the door is locked.’

‘’kay.’ you shuffle around to lock the door. pour a glass of water. it spills a little down your front but, whatever, it’s just water. ‘okay,’ you say again when you’re done. ‘sorry. for yelling.’

‘you are forgiven. and ava… you are fine. you are good. you do not believe, but i do, that God has made you in His image.’

‘wow. god’s really hot, huh? that’s cool.’

you sleep. beatrice is home when you wake up, sitting at the kitchen table with a book, a bowl of cut-up fruit, and a croissant. you don’t have a headache—thanks, halo—but your mouth is dry like you’ve eaten a mouthful of fucking sand and when you stumble out of bed to dunk your head in the kitchen sink, drinking straight from the table, she watches you, hawk-eyed.

it’s only when you stand, wipe your chin with your wrist, and flop into the chair opposite beatrice, stealing a piece of her fruit, that you realise you are pantless. without pants.

the tips of beatrice’s ears are red. her jaw is tight. ‘please put your pants away when you take them off,’ she says, and turns the page of her book even though you’re pretty sure she wasn’t done reading the last one.

‘uh. yeah. i will.’

her finger taps against the spine of the book. ‘did you - was it fun?’

‘yeah.’

‘good. i’m glad.’ beatrice pushes the croissant over to you. ‘pain au chocolat,’ she says, and you realise that the croissant isn’t hers, it’s yours, she bought it for you because she never buys herself chocolate croissants. you think of her standing in the beautiful, warm bakery after a stupid long shift and buying you a pastry to eat after you went on a date with another woman and she watches your hands for a while as you split the croissant, which flakes between your fingers, smears buttery goodness everywhere. you break off a tiny bit and hold it out to her. ‘it’s for you,’ she says, shakes her head.

‘try it.’

she gives in. she gives in, beautiful when she does it. hungry. takes the little piece and pops it between her lips, which curl upwards, pastry melting, chocolate melting on her tongue. there’s a bit of pastry on her lip and the whole room is full of light.

#tagging my stories #prompt fill #avatrice #warrior nun #i would kill n die for ava i hope u know that #mother superion

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possibilistfanfiction · 5 months

Note

omg hallmark au?!? how abt christmas tree?

[uh. there's a tree at the end lol]

beatrice kisses you. it’s snowing outside and smells like pine and cinammon and her cologne and you’ve kissed her before, in an alley in the dark, but the light from the fireplace here is gentle and bathes her in warmth and she kisses you. it’s a revelation, you think, to be kissed like this, with your eyes closed and a tender hand combing through your hair and the whole world tucked away somewhere else, off this mountainside and hundreds of miles over valleys and rivers and roads away from you here, and now.

beatrice kisses you and you tug on the bottom of her fleece and pull it over her head, the t-shirt underneath coming with it, and a million thoughts run through your head — she’s ripped, first of all, a delight you will revisit soon; the scars that stretch across her flat chest aren’t overwhelmingly surprising, not old but not new either, gorgeous and healed and healing, so much of her unspoken that she wants you to understand; she has a few freckles on her strong shoulders — but she’s looking at you like this is a lot more than a fling while you’re running away from your real life.

you think it clearly, then: this is your real life, too. this is real. beatrice is real.

you trace one of her scars, just for a moment, and then let your fingers trail lightly down her stomach.

‘you’re so beautiful,’ you say and hope it’s right, hope it’s enough.

beatrice, stoic and kind and faithful, takes it in, her eyes meeting yours, gold in the light, and then she smiles softly. ‘you’re the most beautiful person i’ve ever seen.’

you feel the weight of her jaw in the palm of your hand when you bring it to her face; the lightness of it, sharp and soft. i love you runs through your head, unbidden, i’m in love with you, but it’s too much and too soon and you’ll leave anyway, and this isn’t home but it isn’t something else entirely either.

‘please,’ is all you can say, but she seems to understand because she kisses you deeply, like there’s something there she’s searching to tell you. you sink into it, let it wash over you with its warmth.

////

the sheets are still warm when you wake, even though the bed is empty. you don’t mind; the world is heavy sometimes, and you understand.

you take your time to stretch, to wiggle your toes, to flex your hands. it doesn’t escape you, even still, the miracle of touch and movement, the life you have that seems, despite the days that feel intolerable, bigger than you could’ve dreamed.

you put on one of her hoodies — soft and warm and smelling of laundry detergent and a little like her cologne, musk and clove and fresh pine, like this place, an unnamable magic — and pad out to the living room. she’s on the couch looking out over the mountains, snow covered, from her huge a-frame windows, theo asleep at her feet. beatrice seems larger than life sometimes, her seriousness and kindness and strength, her bright, quiet laugh — another magic entirely.

she smiles, small and shy, when you curl up next to her and take her coffee with a wink.

‘this is… disgusting,’ you say, surprised to taste at least three spoonfuls of sugar, and you wait a beat before you both laugh. ‘i would’ve thought you had black coffee, very solemn.’

‘i’m still not quite used to the taste, admittedly, but i thought you might like some instead of tea.’

it’s thoughtful in a way that makes you want to cry, but instead you clear your throat and lean into her side.

you stay like that for a while, her strong arm wrapped around your shoulders and theo snoring softly every now and then. it’s a bluebird day outside, bright and clear and beautiful.

‘even though you’re leaving,’ she says after a while, ‘i’m thankful i’ve known you.’

it aches in your chest, this desire to never move from this spot, to stop running once and for all, to rest in this warm house with its glass wall and the mountains — flowers in the spring, orange leaves in the fall — a home.

she continues, ‘i would’ve longed for you forever, i think, if we hadn’t met.’

and — what do you even say to that? when you imagined this little adventure, you had thought you’d spend quiet days in a silly little town, drink some hot chocolate, instagram the view of the mountains from your window; maybe — maybe — going home with the town hottie and leaving before they woke. you take a deep breath and look at the soft planes of beatrice’s face and then the big, full christmas tree in the corner of the room that camila told you she cut down herself, its carefully strung lights and a few unexpectedly silly ornaments. you can imagine all of it, her care and quiet humor; you had ached, for so long, to be treated with kindness, to be seen and found whole.

you hadn’t expected her — how could you?

‘well,’ you say, your voice rough in your throat, but she gives you the same grace as always, allowing you to clear it without comment, ‘i haven’t left yet.’

she braves a smile. ‘that’s true.’

‘take me back to bed?’

she stands, unfolds herself elegantly and offers her hand. you think you could hold it forever, but your plane leaves this evening and your life looms. still, you kiss her and, after she comes, trace words you can’t say into the soft skin on her back; you think about saying them aloud, but you don’t.

#hallmark au #avatrice #prompts #anyway this is sex that's far too charged for only having known ea other like ten days but #that's how they are! lmfao #butch bea 🥺🫡#tagging for my own organization but. she is butch lol

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keithsandwich · 3 months

Text

Seven Rooms

Pairing: Keith and Alter!Keith/OC (Maeve)

Word Count: ~4k

Rating: Teen and Up

Tags: Breastfeeding, Parenting, Past Trauma Mentions, Family Fluff, Domestic.

Prompts: Storge (Familial Love) mainly, but with hints of Pragma (Enduring Love), and a teeny tiny bit of Eros (Sensual Love) in the Seventh Room.

Summary: Series of drabbles showing Keith and Maeve putting their six children to bed before finishing the day together.

Notes: Written for the Shapes of Love Creation Challenge, hosted by the amazing @lorei-writes and @violettduchess. Thank you so much! And special thanks to Lorei for being the best beta reader!

Watch out for the little Beatrice cameo @bicayaya 💕

First Room —

It was a quiet room where a beautiful scene unfolded, one that Keith looked forward to watching every evening.

By the door, he could see their figures bathed in the dim light of the candles — Maeve rocking in the nursing chair slowly, with their youngest latched onto her breast. She was focused entirely on their baby, smiling and softly cooing, while the little one made little murmurs and stretched his round fingers as if responding to her.

It had been a while since they had a baby as shy as Cosmos. In front of others, even his siblings, he would always hide behind his parents’ legs or stretch his little arms to be picked up, curling up against their chests while avoiding eye contact with anyone. But when alone and enveloped in his mother’s warmth, he would look at her attentively, smile, babble, and move with no inhibition.

And Keith understood him. Dealing with people could be overwhelming, but Maeve possessed this comforting aura that could make anyone feel free to be themselves around her. It certainly worked its magic on him, as her husband. He could only imagine how much more magical it could be for their children, enveloped in her neverending motherly love.

Maybe this was why he enjoyed silently watching such scenes for a while before getting inside the room. The tenderness melted his heart, making all of the day’s hard work even more worth it. Granted, he loved Jade and would give all of himself to his kingdom and for the flowers of happiness to bloom all over the land. But his family were his own flowers of happiness, and witnessing his garden grow radiant and full of love was much more than he could have hoped for in this life.

He would never understand how he could be so lucky.

When Cosmos unlatched and gurgled softly, announcing his satisfaction in his own way, Maeve gently cleaned his little face before covering herself. Finally, she looked up to meet Keith’s loving gaze, offering him a welcoming smile.

“Just in time! His belly is full of milk, and now he’s ready to sleep!” Maeve said with gentle excitement, hoping to make the baby smile without causing agitation. She kissed his cheek before holding him against her shoulder. Meanwhile, Keith approached them, joining their little, perfect world with a delicate touch on Cosmos’ back.

Together with his wife, he would sing him lullabies and rock him to sleep.

Second Room —

The room belonged to a girl that was a bit demanding, nonetheless sweet.

“Dada, tell story.” Aurora squeezed the deer plush tighter in her little arms, hanging on to keep herself awake with her sluggish voice and heavy eyelids.

“But mama just told you one, flower,” Keith said softly, his fingers running soothingly through her olive curls as he gently tried to coax her to sleep. She was properly tucked underneath the blankets, the room was warm, and Maeve, standing on the other side of the crib, had already told her a little fairy tale. However, her mind remained stubbornly alert.

“Baby like story…” she murmured so heartfelt a manner that Keith felt a pang in his chest, tearing up. He blinked back his tears and looked up at Maeve. She seemed to be more prepared to handle Aurora’s pleas than he was, discreetly gesturing for him to just go on.

Trying to convince her to sleep would only make her start fussing and maybe even crying. His heart couldn’t bear to see her cry. Given her drowsiness, telling another story would certainly be more effective, and Aurora would probably drift off in the middle of it.

“Alright…” he said, trying to think of a story to tell her. “Once upon a time, in a mystical forest far, far away, there lived two tiny fairies…”

Aurora wasn’t fully focused on his gentle voice. Her eyelashes fluttered more and more as she battled to keep her eyes open, and she cutely yawned every now and then. Still, Keith continued with the story patiently until her lids finally shut, and Maeve leaned in to place a kiss on her temple.

She was asleep at last.

“Good night, little sweet,” Keith said gently and mimicked his wife, kissing her other temple. Aurora stirred a bit, worrying him for a second. However, she simply turned to her side, still hugging her plushie.

Now that the room was completely silent, Keith caressed her soft hair for a while longer. She was a lot like Mireille, not only in the way she looked but also in her demeanor. He couldn’t help but feel nostalgic for the times when he used to look after his little sister, trying to be there for her since their mother couldn’t, and their father wouldn’t. Of course, he couldn’t really replace them, and eventually, he felt like a failure, which led him to distance himself from her, despite her own opinions about it.

Thankfully, a lot had changed since he found true love. Not only the one he shared with Maeve, although it was what opened his eyes and his heart to everything else. Self-love, loving his other self, and renewing the love for his family through his children by welcoming them with open arms, caused him to no longer feel like a failure when it came to caring for and protecting his loved ones. It had been a long journey, but one that had brought his sister, and surprisingly, even his father closer again — although the former king would always be a better grandfather than a father.

It all fell into place, and everything was flourishing as peacefully as Aurora was sleeping now.

“I promise I’ll always listen to you and never push you away,” he vowed to her silently.

Keith felt Maeve’s hands on his shoulders, and they brought him back to the present. He offered her an apologetic smile before moving on with her to the next room.

Third Room —

The room was… empty.

He and Maeve looked around to find evidence that Iris had been in the room, and that the maid had put her in her pajamas, but her robe and her slippers were missing, as well as the girl. Maeve huffed, placing her hands on her hips and turning to Keith with an exasperated look.

“I bet she’s on the training grounds, again.”

She wasn’t happy, for a good reason. Although Iris developed this habit only recently and had never gone farther than the training grounds — unlike two other little rascals — they couldn’t help but worry about her. Iris had way too much confidence and energy for someone so tiny, and they knew it could put her in trouble, something that definitely gave them a headache.

“She’s been getting a little too much into it, hasn’t she?” Keith asked Maeve with an apologetic tone as they rushed to track down their little girl.

“I wish she was into the discipline part of it as well,” his wife was starting to breathe in relief as they approached the training grounds and the sounds coming from there indicated what they expected.

Iris, in her pajamas and with a wooden sword in her little hands, was sparring with her big brother Helia. During the brief seconds between finding and interrupting them, Keith could see how fiercely the girl charged against the boy twice her size. Granted, Helia was most likely going easy on her. Iris had just started learning how to use a sword — a decision made not by himself or Maeve, but by him. She was younger than her brothers when they had started, but she had always been such an unstoppable force that he assured it was for the best for her to spend her energy in fighting rather than just studying and learning manners. Although it was unusual to have princesses joining in military training, there wasn’t anything official preventing them to. Keith and Maeve didn’t concern themselves with conforming to tradition anyway.

And Keith had to admit, Iris seemed so happy sparring that it warmed his heart and made him feel proud. But too soon him and Maeve had to intervene, and he knew the part each one would take.

Or the one he would not.

“Helianthus!” Maeve surprised the children by calling Helia by his full name. She would only do it when he was in trouble. Wooden swords dropped on the floor when the protective mother stormed in towards her children. “You’re her older brother, you’re supposed to be taking care of her!”

“But I am, mama! She was sneaking out to come here anyway. It’s better if I am with her, is it not?”

By the time the boy replied to Maeve, the other Keith had already surfaced, watching the little troublemaker start running around, yelling “I don’t wanna sleep! I don’t wanna sleep!”. He chuckled. He hadn’t switched because he didn’t want to deal with Iris, but because he knew he was better suited for it.

Each one of their children was unique, but he could also see something of the three of them blooming in their personalities. And Iris was the one who carried more of his heart within her. If Keith had had a chance to enjoy childhood, he could see himself being as free and full of life as she was. This is why what could be considered a challenge was delightful to him. He had fun chasing after the little one while Maeve was busy covering Helia with her cloak and chiding him over the risks of catching a cold. Then both his wife and his son would go inside, and in a more carefree manner, Keith would catch his daughter, throw her in the air, tickle her, and play tag again if it was needed to tire her out.

Because much like Aurora, Iris would only fall asleep when there was no energy left. But while Aurora’s mind was more alert, Iris was more physically active, and getting her to lie down in her bed to sleep was almost an impossible task. In the end, Keith would have to carry her to her room, wrapped snugly in his cape and curled up in his arms, deeply asleep.

Only then could he tuck her under her blankets and kiss her lids goodnight.

Fourth Room —

In the boy’s room, Maeve had already seen that Helia was in bed and with a warm mug of milk in his hands. Despite telling him off only a while ago, she was now caressing his soft hair like the doting mother she was while he drank his milk.

Being born the way he was, Keith had been free to avoid the King and only watch his demands and demeaning insults to his other self. He had never met his mother, and there weren’t good examples of a father around. When Maeve got pregnant for the first time, all he could do was promise to himself that he would be different — he couldn’t risk his children growing up believing themselves a failure. And it got even more important when they had Luna and Helia, twins to be looked down upon by the shitty nobles who still believed that nonsense about twins being bad luck.

In this, Keith ended up being too lenient with them, even more than he and Maeve could be, which ended up causing some problems. “They can’t always ask for fun dada whenever they do something wrong,” his wife told him one day. “Kids need space and encouragement to grow, but they need boundaries too; otherwise they’ll end up hurting themselves.”

And so he understood that being a father should be both fun and boring, at the right times.

“Everything alright there, buddy?” Keith sat on the edge of Helia’s bed and poked his nose playfully, making him giggle. “Did mama explain to you why you can’t train swords with Iris late at night?”

“Mama did, but…” Maeve pursed her lips when the boy said but. Sensing his mother’s disapproval, he leaned towards his father and proceeded more quietly, as if he could keep it a secret between both of them. “Dad, you know I can protect her if anything happens, don’t you?”

“Helia…” Keith understood him, with all his heart. He himself was born to protect, after all. This is why he meant every word when he said next, “I know ya can protect your siblings if you have to, but I don’t want ya to ever need it, especially not now. You’re a kid, shouldn’t be worrying about that.”

Maeve reached out to touch Keith’s hand. Only then he realized he had been tapping the edge of the bed lightly. There was a look in her eyes he was used to seeing when she dealt with him, not him. He turned his hand over hers and squeezed her fingers reassuringly.

Meanwhile, Helia, who couldn’t understand it, frowned.

“Only Aster is older than me! And Luna by some minutes, but it doesn’t matter…” he muttered in the last part. “I’m better than him with a sword, and he’s good with swords! And I always take care of him when we…”

“When ya both are out there sticking your noses where they don’t belong,” Keith finished the sentence for him and poked his nose again to make him stop frowning. “Gotta stop that, and gotta be a good role model for ya sister. I don’t wanna see any of you gettin’ trouble, gotcha?”

“Gotcha…” the boy echoed halfheartedly.

Some things take time to sink in, and Keith could only hope he would learn this lesson smoothly. Until then, he and Maeve would keep a closer eye on the three little rebels they had.

She took the empty cup when he finished his milk, and together they kissed their son goodnight.

Fifth Room —

The room was as peaceful as the girl who lived there. Luna was sitting by the window, a colorful picture book on her knees and a lantern by her side. Her green eyes lit up when she saw her parents by the door, and she immediately closed the book, set it aside, and blew out the candle in the lantern before rushing to meet them. Keith knew she had been eagerly awaiting their arrival, and had she been more outspoken, she would have complained about their delay.

But she was too sweet to say anything. Instead, she took Maeve’s hands and asked, perfectly politely, “Mama, would you braid my hair, please?”

“Why won’t ya ask me to braid your hair?” Keith asked with a playful tone before Maeve could reply to her. He knew his oldest daughter well; she was a reflective child, and he enjoyed teasing her with sudden questions to see her little face twist while trying to find an answer.

And without failing, the girl blinked in confusion a few times, trying to think of an answer to that question. The truth was, both Keiths had done her hair multiple times before, but for some reason she couldn’t quite understand — most likely sheer habit, or the memories of the fun girl’s slumber parties she attended with her mother — Luna always turned to Maeve first.

“Well, do you want your dad to braid your hair, sweetie?” Her mother asked with a smile. Keith could see that she was finding that little interaction funny.

Luna was still hesitating when she nodded in agreement. He clicked his tongue, crouching down to meet her eye level.

“Why don't we each do a braid, and then you can decide which one is better?” Keith suggested, and she paused again to consider.

“I don’t see why not,” she spoke like a true lady, graciously moving between them so she could take both Maeve’s hand and his, and walk with them to her dresser.

Luna sat down and her mother took the hairbrush, parting her long black hair in two so they could each work on one side. Keith still played with her hair a bit, messing it up to try to make her laugh. When he succeeded in amusing his shy and serious daughter, those cute little giggles were enough to warm up his heart. He could keep going just to make her laugh more, but it was late, and she was supposed to go to sleep soon.

“How was your day, flower? I heard you got a letter,” Maeve asked her when she caught her breath. That moment when she was relaxed and enjoying her parents’ company was the best time for conversation.

“Indeed! From godmama. She said Lianna remembers me, can you believe that? We haven’t seen them in two months!” Luna exclaimed joyfully.

“You’re like a big sister to her too, see?” Maeve said with a smile, reaching out for a pink ribbon to tie off her braid.

“There’ll be a goodwill ball in Rhodolite in a few weeks, so we can pay a visit to ya godmama, sweetie,” Keith decided to cheer her up even more, and the gleam in her eyes were better than her giggling.

“Can I write to her to tell we’re visiting?” Luna turned to her mother to ask her.

It was Keith’s turn to fetch a ribbon to tie off the braid he had done.

“Of course, dearest! Beatrice will be so happy to know,” Maeve leaned closer to see her reflection on the mirror, and Keith followed her. “But now tell us. Which braid is the best?”

“Mine, naturally! Isn’t it a perfect braid?” he said with a smug smile.

“I don’t know… Mama’s braid is more neat, but yours got style, papa!”

Keith chuckled. She was way too sweet.

With that matter settled, they tucked her in bed where she talked a bit more about her day before starting to yawn. It was time for their goodnight kiss, and Luna, being the affectionate child she was, returned the kiss on their cheeks every night.

“Papa…” she murmured drowsily. “I wanna give the other papa a kiss too.”

“Of course, sweetheart.”

He would do anything for her.

Sixth Room —

The room wasn’t as cozy as the previous ones, with too many candles lit as if the boy who lived there was still fully active, rather than getting ready to sleep. However, the truth was that Aster was deeply asleep, his head resting on open books as he sat by his desk in an uncomfortable position. He probably had dismissed his attendant earlier that night to study, but had eventually become so tired he dozed off while doing so.

Maeve silently brushed his curls away to reveal his closed lids and flushed face, confirming his slumber. She nodded at Keith, signaling that he could pick Aster up and place him in his bed.

His little boy was growing taller and heavier by the day, Keith thought as he carried him in his arms. Being his first child, he clearly remembered how it felt holding him right after he was born, when everything was new and made him so scared. He was so tiny that Keith felt safer holding him in his hands, where he fit better, rather than in his arms. Now he knew Aster would easily grow as tall as him in some years.

It was magical how a small and fragile sprout could grow to be a tall and strong tree. And Keith knew he would become really magnificent. Sure, he had his share in his parents’ headache when he joined Helia and Iris for some mischief, especially the former, when the boys’ need to explore took them too far into the woods, mobilizing searching parties just to find them. “If I am to be king, I need to know every inch of this land, papa,” he would try to explain himself. And studying how big Jade actually was never made him fret. There were no efforts he wouldn’t make to meet the expectations people had over the prince heir.

Keith placed him in his bed, and he and Maeve gently removed his shoes, belt, and vest to help him feel more comfortable through the night. As Keith tucked his son under the blankets, Aster stretched his body a bit, and his eyelids opened just slightly, revealing unfocused golden eyes that looked straight at him.

“Dad… Will you help me with politics?” His voice sounded distant, and his speech was groggy and slow. Aster wasn’t quite awake, but he echoed a request he likely had been thinking about before falling asleep. “It’s… So hard to get…”

Maeve, who was ceremoniously extinguishing the candles of his room, turned to stare at father and son with a worried look.

“Don’t worry, bud. We will study together in the morning. Now sleep tight.” Keith ruffled his hair softly and reassuringly. The boy didn’t answer, but he smiled before closing his eyes again.

“Isn’t his tutor pushing him too hard?” Maeve finally expressed her concerns in a quiet whisper, moving closer and taking Keith's arm. They watched their son sleeping together. “He’s just a kid.”

“He’s the future king of Jade, love,” he kissed her forehead and brought her a little closer. Even after all those years, he knew many things about the royal life were still new to her, or just hard to accept. “I’m ensuring that his tutor isn’t overwhelming him, and I’m assisting him in every way I can.”

Maeve sighed, but ultimately she smiled and nodded. She trusted Keith would always take the best care of their children, no matter their responsibilities as little princes and princesses. With time, he had learned to accept that he had done the best he could for Mireille and Tio — no matter how painful the memory still was to his heart. Now, he and his other self could do a lot better to nurture, protect, and work side by side with Maeve and their children as he intended to with his brother.

His family, for Keith, was a chance to start over. And together, they would ensure that the flowers of happiness were always blooming in Jade.

Seventh Room —

Every night felt like Heaven. After so much work, and so much love, Keith still could snuggle with his wife, laying his head against her breast and intertwining their legs together. He would never be able to describe that feeling. Maeve had become even warmer and softer over the years, so naturally it took a while for him to realize that all of that comfort he felt whenever they were alone in their bed, right before sleeping, emanated from her. And from the neverending love, support, and acceptance she gave him.

Keith closed his eyes and let himself dive into those delightful sensations. The flowery and herbal scents of her, mixed with the milky one on her skin, filled his mind so deeply he was sure it reached the forest in his head, and his other self was likely indulging in it too.

Maeve was his safe haven; the one who showed him what true love was in many of its shapes. She had taken them — him and his other self — as lovers, as husbands, as the fathers to her babies. She had changed her life to embrace the title of princess and of future queen out of her immense feelings towards them and their land, and she would always be the symbol of that eternal bond between Jade and the spirit of nature. The Goddess she served, he saw, felt, lived and loved in her. For there was no other word to define Maeve to him that wasn’t sacred.

“I love you…” Keith whispered against her skin, pressing their bodies together even further. He wished he could simply melt into her.

“I love you too…” She murmured so softly and earnestly in return that he felt like it could be possible.

They could melt and become one forever.

Or at least until next morning; when the sun would bring their children barging into their room and jumping on their beds so they could live it all again.

Happily, and full of love.

Tagging: @bicayaya @olivermorningstar @queengiuliettafirstlady

#shapesoflovecc #ikepri #ikemen prince #keith howell #ikepri oc #my maeve #oc children #fanfic

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