#ship: a light in the dark | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thee-morrigan · 3 months

Text

ode to a conversation stuck in your throat

The Wayhaven Chronicles Ava du Mortain/Petra Carlisle (f!detective) 4.3k words rated G read it on AO3

Petra hides from her own welcome-home party by organizing her bedroom. Ava plays a word in Scrabble I've only ever seen in Chaucer. Both of these are totally normal behaviors. (also shout-out to @serially-wayhaven for having the Brilliant and Inspired idea that A would use Middle English words in Scrabble. Most correct take of all time, tysm for the inspo 💖)

—

She had been in her room when Ava found her, cross-legged on her bed, somewhat aimlessly rifling through a cardboard box, one of several such half-emptied boxes lining one wall of her bedroom. Strewn across the bedspread next to her lay a scattered sweep of trinkets she'd evidently been sorting through when Ava interrupted her.

"Avoiding your own party, detective?"

"Technically I'm not a detective anymore," Petra replied, looking up from her unboxing and smiling at the woman in her doorway.

Ava shot her a look that suggested she was missing the point. "You're still the guest of honor."

"It's my party, I can hide if I want to?" Petra offered back with a sheepish grin.

Ava rolled her eyes, the corners of her mouth twitching in amused exasperation. "Seems unusual for you, though."

"Unusual times," Petra shrugged, turning her attention back to the box in her lap. "And I think I just needed a break," she admitted.

Ava studied her for a moment, her keen eyes softening as she took in the other woman's unusually subdued demeanor. Tried not to take in the amount of long, bare leg currently on display, thanks to the small white shorts Petra wore.

"I can understand that," she said finally, leaning against the door frame and crossing her arms. "Things have been... turbulent, to say the least."

Petra glanced up from her task and offered Ava a small, lopsided smile. "That's one way to put it."

Ava hesitated, stiffening a bit and looking as if she might be contemplating a retreat. "Would you prefer to be alone?"

"No, stay," Petra said, her smile lingering. "Please."

Ava nodded, once, a hint of something like relief flashing across her face as she pushed herself off the door frame and stepped further into the room, letting the door swing shut behind her. Whether to buy herself time to decide where in the small space to situate herself or from the force of a habit centuries in the making, Ava paused a few steps in, eyes sweeping across the room as though she were considering the strengths and weaknesses of its layout (few and many, respectively).

She jerked her chin towards the box in Petra's lap. "You're...unpacking, then?" She glanced sidelong at the assortment of objects next to Petra's bent knee, trying to determine any possible thematic coherence to the spread, though none presented itself.

"It needed doing at some point," Petra replied, her own gaze flicking across the haphazardly sorted items beside her: a pile of faded postcards and Polaroids, several brightly colored notebooks, and what appeared to be a small, stuffed walrus in an improbably bright shade of blue. Little more than a jumble of memories, and ones she'd been on the verge of re-boxing. "I think this one is probably better left as it is, though."

"Why?" Ava asked. "What's in this one?"

"Other than a mess, you mean?" Petra answered with a huff of a laugh. "I think this one is mostly stuff from undergrad. It was probably in this box already when I had to pack everything up for the...renovations." She pursed her lips, though whether in thought over whether that were truly the word she wanted or resigned amusement at the memories it brought to mind, Ava couldn't quite tell.

"Renovations," Ava echoed dryly, corners of her mouth quirking upwards. "An interesting way to describe your upstairs neighbor's bath crashing through your ceiling."

Petra laughed then, a hint of her usual good spirits sparking in her eyes. "It did result in renovations," she defended, her fingers tracing along one corner of the box. "Not ones I'd planned for or particularly wanted, but renovations nonetheless."

"I suppose that's one perspective," Ava conceded, her gaze softening as Petra's laughter filled the room. In that moment, she looked a little less weary, a little less subdued.

The room became quiet once again, silent save for the soft rustling of Petra sifting through the hodgepodge contents of her college self and the muffled chatter and laughter from the party outside her bedroom door. For a moment, Ava let herself watch her, eyes tracing the curve of her shoulder as she leaned over the box, the delicate lines of her fingers as she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, dark strands lined with silver in the dim glow of the lamps she had placed about the room. Her gaze lingered on Petra's profile, features cast into soft relief by the warm wash of light. She felt the now too familiar longing to reach for her, accompanied by an equally familiar ache pushing against her ribs.

She cleared her throat, pulling herself out of her reverie. "Find anything interesting?"

Petra shook her head, not looking up from the box. "Nothing too exciting," she replied. "Just some old papers, some cards from friends, that sort of thing. Oh!"

A faint smile tugged at her lips as she gingerly lifted a worn-out Scrabble box from amidst the clutter. It was worn at the edges but still intact.

She held it up and wiggled the box slightly. "Ava," she started, her grin widening, "Any chance I could interest you in playing a game with me?"

Ava's lips twitched at the proposition, the tension that had settled between her shoulder blades unwinding at the sight of Petra's brightening expression.

She looked at the box, then at Petra, and inclined her head, trying to keep her voice steady. "I think I could be persuaded. Though you would likely find Nat to be a more worthy opponent for such a game," Ava said, although she had already crossed the remaining distance between them, moving to perch at the foot of bed across from Petra, her back ramrod straight as if she needed the posture to keep more than her spine in check.

"Perhaps," she replied with a shrug, shifting the half-unpacked cardboard box off her lap and onto the floor, settling the game box on the bed between them. "But I'd rather play with you."

Though her tone was playful, her eyes were serious as they met Ava's. For a fleeting moment, the world seemed to shrink until it contained only the two of them and that single, sparkling thread that seemed always to stretch and tangle between them. Ava felt the weight of Petra's gaze, tangible as any physical touch as it traced the contours of her face. "Very well," Ava conceded, her voice whisper-soft. She reached for the box, her hand brushing against Petra's for a fleeting moment. A soft shiver ran through her at the contact, and she jerked her hand back as if even that brief touch had burned her.

"I suppose it would be impolite to refuse, especially since this is your party," she added, trying to regain her composure.

"Indeed it would," Petra agreed with a soft breath of laughter, though her grin dimmed a bit, face growing a little more distant, as if she were reeling herself back in.

# The better part of an hour later, and the two were in a deadlock.

“Thirty-two points,” Petra said evenly, though she couldn’t quite hide the pleased grin curling up at the corners of her mouth as she sat back from straightening an e.

“Xebec?” Ava asked, one pale brow arched with obvious curiosity.

“It’s a Mediterranean sailing vessel,” Petra replied promptly.

“Is your memory that good or do you simply make a habit of reading the Scrabble dictionary for fun?”

“A woman likes to maintain an air of mystery about these things,” she grinned back.

Ava laughed then, quiet but open. Petra wanted to bottle that sound and mount it on her wall, like one of those ridiculous, tacky singing fish that were so strangely ubiquitous in the early 2000s — wanted to be able to release that unexpected waterfall of melody whenever she needed a boost of serotonin.

She watched as Ava studied the Scrabble board, her lips pressing together as she mentally shuffled around letters and possibilities. Petra couldn’t help but study her in return, those green eyes alight with competitive focus, her nose scrunched slightly in concentration, which Petra found endearing in a way she couldn't quite articulate.

“Shend. Twenty-two points.” Ava’s voice pierced through her thoughts, drawing her back to the present moment.

"Shend?" Petra asked, tilting her head and raising an eyebrow. "Is that even a word?"

"I assure you, it is a word. Although you are free to challenge it, if you'd like to forfeit your next turn."

Petra narrowed her eyes, tapping one violet nail against the wood of her letter rack, lips pursed as she considered. Ava's face was, as ever, impassive — a mask of cool, collected certainty. But she could be certain and still be wrong.

"Challenge," she said finally, sliding her phone out of her shorts pocket.

Ava crossed her arms and watched as Petra tapped away at her phone, brow furrowed in concentration. And smirked when, after a moment, Petra gave an indignant hiss. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me."

She squinted at Ava. "This should not count."

"So it is once again my turn?"

"It's archaic."

"But an acceptable word."

"It's Middle English!"

"But it is permissible."

Ava's smile broadened, pleased, and Petra couldn't ignore the flutter of warmth that spread inside her at the sight. She turned her attention back to her own tiles. "Just...play your next word," she muttered, the corners of her own mouth twitching upwards despite her vexation.

Those green eyes glittered as Ava drew fresh tiles and turned her focus back to the board. After another moment, she announced, "Waded for twenty."

Petra shot her a teasing grin. "Back in this century, are we?"

Ava rolled her eyes but shrugged good-naturedly. "I didn't want you to have to forfeit another turn simply because you didn't know a word."

"How very considerate of you," Petra replied, lips quirking as she dropped her eyes to her tiles. Her fingers ran over the raised letters as she mentally formed and discarded potential words before scooping up a handful of tiles, arranging them neatly on the board.

"Quetzal." She looked up at Ava with a triumphant glimmer in her eyes, the corners of her lips curling upwards. "For 127 points. Plus la, so one twenty-eight total."

"One hundred and—" Ava started incredulously, her eyebrows raising as she leaned forward to study the board.

"It's a bird," Petra explained, her triumphant smile morphing into a teasing grin. "From Central America."

"I know what it is."

"And a Q and a Z on a triple-word score..." Petra hummed, propping her chin on one hand, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

Ava narrowed her eyes at Petra, but there was no real heat in her gaze. Instead, she let out a huff of laughter before shaking her head in disbelief. "I ask again: do you spend your free time studying the Scrabble dictionary?"

"You should know better than anyone how little free time I have."

"And yet you somehow find a way to acquire an encyclopedic knowledge of high-scoring Scrabble words," Ava retorted, her gaze fixed on the board before them. Her lips were pinched in deep thought as she studied the sea of letters sprawled across the game board.

Just as Ava reached out to arrange her next set of tiles, the door bumped open, the no-longer-muffled noise of the party beyond breaking their tranquil bubble and causing both women to look up at the surge of noise.

Tina leaned against the door frame, her silhouette bathed in the soft, amber light spilling in from the hallway. "Well, look at this," she said with a mock gasp, the words laced with humor. "Petra's actually found someone brave enough to face her across a Scrabble board."

Tina’s grin widened as she stepped into the room, a gust of laughter and chatter from the party beyond entering with her, breaking the fragile quietude of their bubble.

Ava raised an eyebrow, glancing across at Petra. To her surprise, Petra blushed, a soft pink dusting her face.

"Hi, Tina," she said, leaning back away from the game and folding her arms.

"Hey." Tina's grin grew wider, her gaze traveling from Petra to the letters scattered across the board. "No wonder we couldn't find you."

"Well, you would've had to look in like, four whole rooms for me, so I can understand the difficulty."

Tina ignored her and leaned back against the door frame, shifting her Cheshire-cat smile to Ava. "She didn't tell you?"

Ava lifted a brow. "Tell me what?"

"We should probably get back to the party," Petra interrupted, unfolding herself from the bed and rising, stretching as she did so.

Tina was unable to contain her mirth, her eyes dancing with delight as she glanced back and forth between a flustered Petra and the bewildered Ava. “Petra here,” she began, jabbing her thumb in Petra's direction, “Used to be quite the sensation on the Scrabble circuit. Nationally ranked, too."

"Yeah, like five years ago! It's not that big a deal," Petra objected.

"No one will play with her more than once," Tina continued, ignoring Petra's protests. "Because she's insufferable about it."

"I am not insufferable," Petra muttered, rolling her eyes, flush deepening.

Ava's eyes widened as she took in this new information, her gaze shifting to the game board then to Petra. There was an amused twinkle in her eyes as she said, "There's a national Scrabble circuit?"

"Sounds made up, right?" Tina tilted her head toward Ava, still grinning as she pushed off the door frame. "But it's totally true. You should ask to see her trophies sometime."

"I don't have trophies."

Ava's mouth curved upwards.

Petra scowled. "I don't!"

Then: "They're medals."

Tina tipped her head back and laughed. "Medals! That's even better," she declared, clapping her hands together.

"Go away, please." Petra groaned, dragging a hand through her dark hair and squeezing her eyes shut.

Still giggling, Tina raised her hands in surrender. "All right, all right. I'll let you get back to your game. Just wanted to check in on you."

"And make fun of me, apparently," Petra muttered, her arms crossed over her chest. The flush still hadn't faded from her cheeks, although the corners of her mouth kept twitching upwards.

Tina gave her a wink. "That's just a bonus," she said, before turning on her heel to exit the room. The door closed behind her with a soft click, muffling the party's noise once more.

Ava’s gaze remained fixed on Petra for a long moment as repressed amusement simmered in her eyes.

"All right, all right, don't look at me like that," Petra said, attempting to muster a glare and sinking back into her seat on the bed.

"I suppose I should feel pleased," Ava murmured, a teasing lilt in her voice. "I managed to play at least one word you didn't know."

"Because it was from the twelfth century."

"Perhaps," she said, her eyes turning back to the Scrabble board. "But a word is a word. Not that I think it has done much to improve my chances of winning this game."

"Admitting defeat already? How unlike you," Petra teased, folding her legs back underneath herself and propping her elbows on her knees, chin resting in her hands as she leaned forward to survey the board and their scant few remaining tiles.

Ava tilted her head and smiled slightly, her gaze locked with Petra's. "Why would I admit defeat when the game is not yet over?"

Petra chuckled lightly, her eyes sparkling with undisguised mirth. "Fair enough," she said, eyes shifting once again to the game board.

# In point of fact, the game had been over for awhile. At least in terms of determining a highest final score, anyway, given the well-padded lead Petra had secured for herself with words like "quetzal." "Hey, thank you, by the way," Petra said, pausing their cleanup of the finished game and wrapping one hand loosely around Ava's wrist.

The other woman's eyes flicked down to Petra's hand, though she didn't pull away. When she looked back up, her eyes showed only confusion. "For what?"

Petra shrugged, hand falling back to her side. "Just...I dunno. Hanging out with me, I suppose." She gave a light laugh, raising her eyebrows at Ava. "And maybe for not being a sore loser."

Ava's lips twitched at the corners, a ghost of a smile. "Consider it a welcome home gift, agent."

Petra snorted softly. "Guess I'll need to get used to your calling me that from now on."

"It will be an adjustment for us all, I'm sure. Though not an unwelcome one."

"Well, original offer stands," Petra grinned, leaning forward and sweeping tiles from the board and into her open palm. "Unless my new job requires I change my name, you're always welcome to just use that."

She brushed a hand over her hair, curving it behind an ear where it had fallen in a smooth, dark sheet across her face when she'd bent over the game board, glancing up at Ava as she did so. "Not that I expect you to. I mean," she corrected, mouth smoothing into a tense little smile as she looked back down at the board. "I know you prefer to...not do that. Which is fine! Whatever is more comfortable for you is fine. I want you to be comfortable around me. I mean I want you to be comfortable in general, obviously," she fumbled, giving another awkward hiccup of a laugh before pressing her lips tightly together and refocusing her attention on the Scrabble board, feeling her cheeks heat as she did so.

Conversations, she thought, unfortunately did not reward one for using all the words they knew in one fell tumble.

Not that Scrabble really did, either, of course. Bananagrams did, though. That game would have been the more apt analogy, she supposed.

...And now she was rambling in her own head, too.

Speaking of Bananagrams, she thought.

She did want Ava to be comfortable around her, though. For lots of practical reasons, of course, not least of which was their increasingly close work together. But also because she liked Ava. (More than liked her, actually, but she shut down that line of thought fast and hard, slamming and dead-bolting that particular mental door before it pulled her in like a tiny black hole.)

But liked her as a person — as a friend, she hoped — too. She hadn't regretted that disaster of a kiss, or any of the rest of it, even if, in hindsight, she might wish to have navigated that whole...encounter...differently. But she would regret it, she thought, if it meant no more evenings like this, no more conversations that didn't feel like playing hopscotch in a minefield.

Ava regarded her for a moment, then another, before she, too, began collecting tiles, perching once more on the foot of the bed across from her. A quiet settled between them, not entirely uncomfortably, the quiet scraping of wood on cardboard, the muffled clink of bagged tiles against one another, and the somewhat less muffled sounds of the party beyond Petra's bedroom door the only sounds.

Ava was the first to break it, sitting upright as Petra slid the lid of the Scrabble box shut, letting it rest on the bed between them. "It wasn't a bad way to spend an evening," she admitted, her tone softer than usual.

Petra blinked, the words sinking in. "No," she agreed cautiously, her gaze flicking to Ava's face and then back down at her own hands, pressed flat against the cardboard box. "No, it wasn't."

"Even if you did neglect to mention your...past accolades when you suggested this particular game," Ava continued, a wry smile once again playing at the corners of her lips.

Petra looked up again, that lingering rigidity easing from her a little, and she arched a brow. "Would you have preferred we played something else? I'm sure Tina had many additional drinking games she'd have loved to pull us into."

Ava shook her head, that almost-smile stretching just a little bit more as she huffed a laugh. "I do not care for losing," she began, and Petra snorted, rolling her lips together to keep from whatever laughter or commentary was itching to spill past them, though her eyes still danced with amusement.

Ava gave her a withering look, though it wasn't terribly convincing. "As you know. But I would rather lose to you in any board game, any number of times, than participate in further rounds of —" she tipped her head toward the noise coming from beyond the closed door. "—that."

The look that crossed Ava's face — deeply, intently unamused — undid her, and the giggles Petra had been holding so valiantly at bay bubbled forth. She clamped a hand over her mouth, but it did little to muffle the sound, warm and bright and infectious, sunlight piercing storm clouds.

"I never realized I was quite so entertaining." Ava tilted her head to one side, arching a single eyebrow at Petra's amusement, but the corners of her lips twitched upward nonetheless. It occurred to her that she hadn't seen Petra laugh quite this openly — this freely — in a long while.

The laughter slowly faded, leaving them in a comfortable silence within the confines of the room—away from the party, away from the outside world. Petra's hand fell away from her mouth and landed back onto the Scrabble box. She smoothed her thumb along one edge of it, eyes settling on Ava again.

"Next time there's a party we both want to avoid," she said, eyes still glimmering with residual mirth, "I promise to let you pick the game."

Ava raised a brow, her smile still tracing the edges of her lips, all the while a soft chuckle escaped her. "A generous proposition," she responded, leaning back and crossing her arms over her chest. "I might just take you up on it."

"I hope you do," Petra said, her voice laced with sincerity.

"I should actually be thanking you," Ava said after a moment, her tone dropping into something softer, something vulnerable. "For providing an excuse for a reprieve from... that." She tipped her head once more towards the door, her gaze following suit, as if she could peer through the wood and paint to the party on the other side.

"It is nice to have something almost resembling a break," Petra agreed with a lopsided grin, although her eyes lingering on Ava were somber as she studied her expression. As ever, she gained little insight from the profile of the commanding agent. "Though I don't imagine we're likely to get many such moments in the near future. You probably least of any of us, I'm guessing."

Ava's lips compressed into a thin line, a faint shadow of acknowledgment flickering across her face. "The nature of our work seldom allows for such... indulgences," she acknowledged, the familiar weight of duty and obligation settling across her shoulders like a well-worn cloak.

Petra nodded, understanding the unspoken burden that came with the roles they played— figures on a relentless, ever-turning carousel. She reached out, her fingertips brushing against Ava's hand in fleeting solidarity before she pulled back again, folding her hands in her lap.

"Ava..." she started, then paused, looking down at her hands again, her restless fingers, for a long moment. “If you ever need a place to go—a place where you don’t have to be decisive and tackle the hard stuff—a place where you don’t have to be the commanding agent—I can be that. If you wanted." She looked up from her hands with another half-formed smile, all blurred edges. "I won't even make you play Scrabble with me again."

“I cannot.” The words fell, quick and solid, from Ava's lips, as if pulled from rote memory, as if she had practiced denying herself the mere suggestion of seeking solace for so long that it had become basic instinct. Weighted by a lifetime of forging herself into something impenetrable.

Petra nodded slowly, a single dip of her head, something like resignation tightening along her jaw, her mouth. She couldn't really say she was surprised, or even truly disappointed, although she felt the bud of something like it pushing against her ribs.

Then Ava did surprise her, just a little, because she spoke again: “I do not know how.”

It was as if the words stumbled out from behind that stoic facade, laced with a vulnerability that Ava seldom allowed to surface. Her gaze shifted away from Petra's earnest eyes, fixing on some distant point, as if she were viewing a tapestry woven with the complexities of her own inner conflict.

“Well if you ever feel like trying…if you ever need a break, I can be that. I will be that place. For you.” Petra said gently, her voice a low murmur in the quiet of the small room.

She waited a beat, then another, and when Ava still said nothing further, she shrugged, rising from the edge of the bed and moving towards the door, the world beyond. As she reached the doorway, she turned, twisting back towards Ava, still seated at the foot of her bed. "If that ever feels like something you might want. Now or five years from now. Or whenever. Standing offer."

The corners of Ava's lips turned upward in a small smile, gaze softening as she looked at the other woman. "I'll keep that in mind, Petra," she murmured.

"I hope you do," Petra said, quietly but not weakly. With another flicker of a smile, small but genuine, she pulled open her bedroom door and re-entered her party.

#this fic brought to you by the time my partner learned why my sister and I aren't allowed to play Scrabble anymore #god help the rest of UB if they ever have a team game night #katie writes things #twc #ship: a light in the dark #oc: petra carlisle

20 notes · View notes