#TKO_Writes

[kaisollisto]

“Are you here?" Ava barely breathes it, there's a tension in the air that she can't recognize, an energy that squashes her. Her throat feels scratchy and she can feel the Halo slotted between her shoulders. Ava's flat on her back head turned to look over at Beatrice. She feels wimpy like a stomped flower, her left arm dangles dangerously close to Beatrice-territory. She wants to reach out, to touch Beatrice to confirm that she's here but something stops her. She feels so silly, she could easily shift over to touch Beatrice, shake her gently and - 

Beatrice slides over, a firm sleepy sister warrior knife wielding badass with frumpy hair poofing from what remains of her low bun. She moves towards Ava, inches away from her but moves to answer her. It’s rare for Ava to see her like this. Beatrice is clearly fighting sleep, rubbing her eyes and doing her best to move in hopes that it’ll shake the sleepy spell. 

She’s dressed in one of Ava’s ugly loose white shirts, a huge bass clashing with faded big blocky lettering that just reads “FISH”. Beatrice had looked at her weirdly when Ava had dug it out of the bins at a thrift store disheveled and ecstatic. 

Ava had spent hours coaxing her into it doing her damn best to hide Beatrice’s laundry when she wasn’t looking. It fills a warm feeling in her chest and Ava wants to burrow further into it. It was a fool proof plan. 

Ava found her shortness made it exhausting to reach up towards the Beatrice-level-cabinets. The halo pulls at her pinching and knotting up the muscles in her back after a long day of training. She feels it alive within her, an uncomfortable reminder sealed inside her back. 

At the end of the day Ava settled on hinging at the waist. She had slowly started integrating Beatrice’s sleep shirts in cabinets that Beatrice had to bend down to reach. Ava always tried to situate herself at the scene of the crime doing her best to seem inconspicuous while she leaned over hungry for Beatrice’s reaction. Ava thumbed her findings down in the recess of her mind, her finger tracing over it in a hurried desperation. The time would pass and she did not want to forget. 

(It helped, the imagery of Bea’s furrow when she would find her sleepwear underneath the sink when Ava would have to tuck her spine into the halo as she placed the shirt somewhere clean.) 

Thanks to her genius planning Beatrice had finally caved and worn Ava’s huge “FISH” t-shirt after weeks of her persistence. She looked adorable, she was drowning in it and constantly tugging at it. She had found Beatrice loved to tuck it into the band of her sleep shorts creating puffy funny creases distorting the text even further to say “FSH”. It looked so ugly and old and endearing. 

She looked out of her depth and it made Ava’s heart thump funny. Beatrice with her weird posh mannerisms combined with the peaceful unguarded look when she slumbered made her feel hot all over. 

It was the prospect of the future, a glimpse into her life with Beatrice, of when they would grow old together. It shakes her, the idea that Beatrice will get wrinkles with her. She takes it seriously, a study that she isn’t well versed in but preparing for. It is a long hard internal debate flipping between what wrinkles will show first. Ava selfishly hopes it’s smile lines, that Beatrice will smile at her as much as she does in secret. She’s happy to be wrong, Beatrice’s forehead crinkles have always been cute. She hopes that Beatrice never stops looking at her, thinking of her. She wants to spend a long time being the source of her wrinkles. And just for right now she can handle the role of being just her friend. 

Beatrice blinks one eye open, the other pressed against the pillow as she stifles a yawn. Her hand blocks her mouth in a delicate way and Ava can see her nails are short and uneven in places. Ava wishes she could touch them, study them in a way no one has done before. She wants to press against Beatrice hard enough to watch her skin fold around hers. Some sort of truth that she was here, that she is here. 

Beatrice scoots over slowly, her elbow tucked under the pillow. She stops inches away from Ava, a frown set in her jaw. Ava mirrors her position albeit more awkwardly and more wiggling than Beatrice’s but she finds a place where the Halo won’t bite her back. 

“I’m here,” Beatrice murmurs it, a quiet thing between them. 

Ava closes her eyes hoping Beatrice won’t notice her shakiness. She blinks a few times before she presses closer, the arm she’s laying on moving to support her head underneath the pillow. 

There’s so much to tell her, anything and nothing at all and Ava doesn’t know where to start. It constricts her throat, the constant stream of consciousness from inside of her heart. It’s horrible and she can’t stop it as the feeling balloons inside of her lungs. Ava wants help, she so desperately wants to feel okay again, to feel anything other than the stupid fucking halo. It grates on her nerves and muscles, a burning hot metal ring poking and prodding at the entirety of her upper torso. It leaves her reeling, a sort of anger that beckons for her to hurt (hurt something, hurt someone, hurt), disregarding the aftermath of tears and shame. 

Ava is sure she’s shaking, a layer of sweat gathers between the space of her shoulder blades as the Halo lights up with her inner turmoil. It’s a faint pitiful thing that Ava would be ashamed of if not for the bone aching tiredness. 

She wants to say she’s sorry the words clawing their way up her throat and it feels wrong to feel anything but that. There’s a sort of unspoken shame that haunts her with the Halo. It’s a thing she’s known long before any of this. 

Beatrice drags her out of her turmoil with her hand hovering near Ava’s pinky. She has a gracefulness to it, like she has practiced it a hundred times over. It’s weird, to be in a bed, a soft and lumpy bed looking at Beatrice. Beatrice with such plain features and subtle cheekbones that Ava can’t stop looking. It pays off, watching Beatrice, Ava knows it when Bea smiles a grin too wide for polite acknowledgement and Ava can see her dimples pronounced. 

“Can I?” Beatrice’s finger lingers near her hand, a hovering itch that Ava needs scratched. It’s so wholeheartedly Beatrice that Ava can do nothing but nod. Something inside of Ava aches harder than the rest of the organs inside of her. It’s the unwavering crushing thumping feeling that squeezes around her heart. The sincerity of Beatrice. 

She places her hand over Ava’s and squeezes her gently. Beatrice’s hands are firm and soft. She can feel the callouses on her palms prodding at the back of her hand and wonders if Beatrice has ever had them fade away. If she’s had the pleasure of unscathed palms. Her hands are warm but not sweaty, not like Ava’s.

Ava can’t feel Beatrice’s pulse but she tries her best to match it. She imagines it would be a slow melody playing a duet with a classical track. Some sort of tune that spurs comfort or a feeling of nostalgia. She briefly wonders if Beatrice listens to music, if she seeks out music that has spoken to her. If there was a song that shook her to her core so deeply she had to sit down and digest it. There’s so much she still needs to know and so little time. 

“I admit I’m not sure what you need from me.” Beatrice whispers it quietly, she’s hunched awkwardly, hovering close in Ava’s space but too far away for her own comfort. 

Ava clamps her mouth shut, sure that “come closer” will betray her. That she will reach too far into Beatrice and take far too much. 

Beatrice pays no mind to Ava’s silence and slowly caresses her hand, it’s a small little gesture that seems to have no set course. Ava briefly wonders if it’s the start of a massage or if Beatrice is looking for her joints underneath her skin and touching her tendons in apology. 

It should be awkward, Beatrice and Ava orbiting each other in a lopsided manner. A rotational tilt that is unfamiliar to both of them and yet feels intimate. An unknown dance with their eyes closed and their breaths mingling. (It’s easy to follow Beatrice’s lead, Ava knows love.) 

There’s nothing Ava can say to her, she chokes up at the prospect and they both blink at each other. She’s not sure what she needs, only that it’s nice having someone here. 

Beatrice drowsily blinks rapidly and slowly at the same time as Ava watches swallowing the bits of her smile. Her hand has slowed its pathing, opting to curl on the inside of Ava’s fingers. It’s endearing watching one of her favorite bad ass sister warriors lose against sleep. It softens the edges of Beatrice who is always carrying some unseen obligation. (Here it is only the two of them free of their past and future burdens, just two girls sprawled thinly on hopes and dreams). 

She can feel Beatrice’s grip loosen, she’s going to fall back asleep any minute now but Ava doesn’t have the heart to keep her up. Beatrice is no doubt tired, powered by her own sleeping and eating habits unlike Ava who has the artifact to juice her up. 

She isn’t quite unwound but she feels manageable now. It’s weird to be within reach of Beatrice, someone who cares about her. To be in proximity of someone who will look for her, be in step with her, maybe it’s duty but Ava holds it close to her heart regardless. (It’s all the same to her, devotion, loyalty, love). 

She clings to Beatrice afraid to let the moment go, she had called and someone had answered, Bea had answered. Ava can feel her eyes watering, it almost feels like a distant dream. She tucks her chin closer to chest and thinks, how awful to be loved. 

She can feel her throat closing up and she squeezes Bea’s hand just a tiny bit harder. (She answers in the twitch of her hand, clearly on the cusp of sleep). The Halo still thunders in her back throbbing some fatal fate but here in the hush of night grounded by the touch of Beatrice she has some reprieve.  (Part 1)

[kaisollisto]

(Based off of the reality of having a metal ring in your back as a constant reminder of your fate and how that affects you as a person set in the Switzerland arc)

“Does it hurt?” 

Ava’s pressed face down into the pillow sleep curling around her limbs. She hums, she can’t remember what she says, she’s exhausted. Her arms are tangled beneath her pillow. She holds her fingers tightly between each other, her bones ache from the pressure but her hands no longer shake. Ava hasn’t experienced this before, a fear that haunts her at night. (She finds she cannot stop dreaming about dying. It’s stifling in the cover of night trying to figure out where she is.) 

She slowly opens her eyes and squints in the darkness. Beatrice is facing her a furrow in her brow that Ava knows she’s doing unconsciously. Ava’s lip quirks a smidgen, Beatrice looks funny. It’s a bit silly to her, Beatrice no doubt working out a solution to an unknown problem that Ava has yet to see in the middle of the night. In her sleepy state she wants to laugh at the imaginary cogs churning in Beatrice’s head. 

Beatrice scooches closer and Ava panics, her skin can taste the dust of Bea’s forearm. She hoists herself up on her elbows, turning to face Beatrice. “Wha?” Ava’s shaking off bits of sleep from her mouth when Beatrice repeats herself. 

“Does the Halo hurt?” 

She doesn’t know if she wants to answer that. Ava peers over Beatrice squinting at the harsh light of the digital clock on Beatrice’s side. Ava loves it, it reminds her of the early 2000’s and the aesthetic of waking up to an alarm to go somewhere. The clock blinks an innocent 1:43 Am, and Ava debates on letting her head thump back down. 

She turns her body on her side, she can feel the halo shifting in her back and it makes her want to throw up. The sides of the halo press against her shoulder blades and Ava resists the urge to yank it out. She grits her teeth and settles ignoring the skin of her back pulling tight to accommodate for the ring. Beatrice is still expecting an answer and Ava can’t lie to her, she pulls the covers of the sheet up to her chest hoping to bide more time for an answer. 

"Everything hurts Bea," Ava smiles, "getting my ass handed to me is hard work."

Beatrice frowns displeased but looks at her through her lashes, it's unguarded, the stress and worries of the world stay out of their room in the dead of night. Her lashes are so pretty and Ava wants to curse the soft glow of the moon. There’s just enough moonlight to illuminate her eyes but overshadow her freckles. Ava swallows down the taste of defeat, she can’t win, she thinks. 

Her gaze is soft, Beatrice is looking at her and it’s different yet the same. The same feeling in her chest constricting her lungs, the same soft gaze of Beatrice. Beatrice who likes what she sees in Ava when Ava can barely see where she begins. She doesn’t like to dwell on it, the truth of the matter being what belongs to Ava.

If she closes her eyes she can pretend just a little longer. She can give herself the hope of the future and what comes after all this. She can put down the fighting and the artifact and live. Ava doesn't want to think about it anymore, at least not tonight when Beatrice is here with her. 

Beatrice is soft. She knows it from hours and hours of training. She's felt it when Beatrice corrects her form, in the way she talks. She speaks from a place of care like she has turned the harsh words in her brain over and over to soften the syllables spoken to Ava. And Ava doesn't linger on it, the meaning behind it, (Ava didn't think she'd make it this far, finding a person who cares quite like Bea does.)

And Ava's got it bad, she knows she's fucked because Beatrice doesn’t say anything about her language and Ava can't not tell her the truth. She looks down, her hand fiddling with the bed sheet underneath them. 

"It doesn't hurt," if she thinks about it she can feel the fibers of the cotton between the pads of her fingers. "But it's very uncomfortable." She doesn't want to find the response in Beatrice's eyes, content to hear it from her voice. The soft British lilting accent that holds her just as soft as a touch. 

She waits, she can picture Bea’s mannerisms with her eyes closed but maybe she should check just to be sure. Ava peers up at Beatrice and she’s suddenly closer. Her eyes really are pretty, there’s a depth to them that Ava wants to spend an ungodly amount of time studying.

“Can I help?” (part 2)

[kaisollisto]

(set sometime after this)

what do I look like_

Beatrice pauses, she knows there is only one correct answer but she hesitates. She runs a quick diagnostic scan in her system before she hovers over the chatbox. 

She’s run data on Ava for so long it should be easy to rattle off the numbers and geometry of her curves, the environment and the scale and magnitude of her body. She could close her eyes and sculpt her 3D model running on the barest of functions of her own body. She could chart her topography map on the stars. She could describe how and why every single rock and soil sediment came to be and formed on Ava. What forces of nature changed and shaped her the way she is now. 

The “_” bar flickers at her, Beatrice thinks that’s Ava’s way of blinking at her. She should start at the beginning, should describe the grueling process of creating an infrastructure to be supported by her, the new agriculture that has emerged because of her but it seems like there is no answer she can give that can match the weight of Ava’s question. 

There’s a rawness to her message, like Ava has invited her inside to peer inside a panel with a fraction of her wiring. (She’s seen vague blueprints for it, has even attempted to emulate a new environment from Jillian’s leftover notes but none of them make it past the first couple tests.) It’s a new thing to learn from her, to realize that she will always be changing but Beatrice is stagnant. 

Beatrice places her hand on the patch of grass on the cliff side. She can peer over the edge and watch as they pass by the blinking cities below. She wonders if this may help, if it could bring her closer to describing her in a way that Ava has only known. 

Ava is silent and Beatrice didn’t think she could feel this much from one question. She doesn’t know how to describe it but it feels like all of the bolts inside of her are expanding and she too must adapt. It’s odd what Ava is asking, (at the core of it all am I still me?) 

The numbers don't seem to matter anymore, how could she even begin to quantify any sort of Ava with her data. There are no words fit to describe her. It’s frustrating, everything that she’s ever known is running away from her. There must be something wrong, she must be doing this wrong. 

And for a moment Beatrice falters, she falters, she feels diminutive. A query to an answer that she doesn't have. A tender sort of thing from Ava that she cannot grasp, a whisper that she cannot hear. 

She’s missing something, she must have missed something on Ava. It’s incomplete and wrong and she must start over. There must be an adequate way of seeking her, finding Ava’s answer. 

I don’t know._

[kaisollisto]

“Soooo,” Ava can’t stop herself from dangling dangerously over the stool, “anything that I shouldn’t be around?” She doesn’t quite want to mention the time she blew out the power in the area when she had tried her first greenhouse strawberry. The sucker was juicy and the perfect blend of tartness. It’s not Ava’s fault everything about it made her combust. She can still fondly recall the texture of its skin, firm yet pliable to her teeth. The juice staining her lips and teeth in such a hungry way she forgot she was starving. 

Beatrice pauses, as if accessing the question with her entire body, her cells running around to come to one conclusion together. It was funny to watch unfold, the monotony of cleaning the hardware screeching to a stop for Ava’s question. All cells in motion halting for her. 

Beatrice stands up stiffly, Ava shouldn’t notice, but she can see the way she favors her right side. She cringes at the memory, ripping through flesh, tearing and scraping her way out of Beatrice’s abdomen. She doesn’t want to linger on the feeling, the Halo pulsing in her veins, the adrenaline racing through her. 

Beatrice walks around her in a methodical fashion, Ava almost expects her to reach out and touch her but it never happens. Ava’s nervous, there’s such a vulnerable thing about being seen. Maybe Beatrice will see Ava, the aloof lighthearted girl, or maybe she will see Ava. (Or worse, she’ll see something that Ava can’t). It’s unnerving, Beatrice eyes her in such a consuming way Ava almost feels like they’re about to go for a round 2. 

Her heart races at the prospect and Ava can feel her bones start to lock up when Beatrice nods, “Me.” 

Ava does fall out of her stool. 

[kaisollisto]

"Beatrice," Ava calls softly, Beatrice has trapped her in a hold, one she's felt thousands of times before. Ava can feel her underlying desperation (this time it seems to say, please, please fight back). Ava steels herself (one last time). Bea's arms are thick, corded with muscle from years of use and Ava doesn't want to linger on the truth of it. (A soldier weathered over the course of many years). The cruelty doesn't spare her, it sits with her forcing her to relive the same day over and over.

"Beatrice, I know the end." Ava tries again, It shakes Beatrice and it's gut wrenching. Ava can feel the uncertainty brewing, her grapple is no longer precise just frantic. "I have to go," Ava swallows the bitterness in her chest, (failure, failure, failure, it tells her).

"You can't," She's shaking and Ava has never seen her fight harder than now to choke back sobs. "You can't." Beatrice is grabbing her hard and Ava pivots, leading them chest to chest.

She can feel the crown of thorns bite into her hand but nothing ever hurts more than looking into Bea's eyes. They're so stupidly brown and soft and so full of hope and Ava wants to throw up. (She curses every stupid higher being above for making Beatrice watch Ava die over and over. She just hopes she's the only one who remembers.)

"It all ends the same. Please, just one last time let me have this with you." Ava forces herself to look at her, Beatrice, to take it all in one last time. She's done this a thousand times, maybe a million, but it still hurts all the same. The sight of her never grows old, (Ava doesn't want to ever get used to seeing her), she's breathtaking. It softens the goodbye in her heart.  

She can't say it but she knows Beatrice can feel it. The defeat permeating from her. It's suspended between the two and Ava is never going to see her again.

She blinks through the tears, Ava is never going to see her again. She can feel Bea's heart racing through her wrist and she's never going to see her again.

And she can't kiss her, she can't kiss her because she's never going to see her again and she couldn't stop if she did. But Ava has never been the strongest between them, she ends up on her toes gently holding her face between her hands. She can feel Bea's breath reverberate through her hands and she kisses her forehead.

A sister warrior officiated goodbye, (Shannon's last moments leak through her and Ava has never felt like herself these past thousand lives).

"I love you," She lets it slip, (the part of her that exists outside being a warrior nun,) and Ava hasn't quite learned how to stop running. She closes her eyes, unwilling to see the devastation across Beatrice's face and she falls for the last time.

-

Something's changed. Ava can feel pain a heavy thing in her chest. And it hurts, it hurts that it wasn't enough that she left the earth a heartbroken mess. She's tired and Ava doesn't want to hurt anymore.

Something crosses her vision and someone grabs her -

"I know the end, you idiot." Beatrice shakes her in disbelief, "we go back to the alps." She kisses her before Ava can say anything swallowing her bloody mouth. It's raw and needy and it makes her feel alive. She can't feel anything below her chest (but this blooms a feeling she had forgotten about, hope).

Beatrice knocks her head into Ava's, panting harshly against her face, their foreheads pressed tightly like Beatrice is sure Ava's going to disappear again.   

Ava hands weakly snake around Beatrice's and she smiles through bloody teeth and swollen lips. Her throat feels hoarse but she couldn’t be happier. 

[kaisollisto]

Just had a thought

Beatrice comes back from a run and Ava is doing something mundane and glances over at her. Shes been making breakfast and was wondering where Beatrice left and she just sees sweaty huffing and puffing Beatrice.

And it's exhilarating, like Beatrice heaving with her chest being the most alive she's ever seen her. And it's just hot, Beatrice in her own little world gulping down water and Ava in a trance a smile tugging at her lips. She strides over to Beatrice adamant on shoving her against the wall and swallowing her breath.

And Beatrice poor Beatrice is just thinking what she's gonna do for the day is pushed up against a wall and kissed heavily. Shes surprised but not unphased and she kisses her back, with less intensity but matching passion, with care, content to be ravaged. Ava's pushing into her like she wants to melt inside of her and Beatrice is all too willing to push back.

Their lips bruise against each other and Beatrice has an overwhelming urge to taste Ava's teeth. But she's running out of breath and she gently places her hands against Ava's stomach (oh god her bare stomach,((fucking crop tops)).

Ava pulls away and the image of Beatrice is something she wants to burn into her mind. She's out of breath unfocused slumped against the wall with her hair falling out of her bun. And it's like ava wants to steal her breath, she wants to Beatrice to need her like air. She needs to swallow everything Beatrice can give her. She wants to push Beatrice harder so the only thing she can taste in her mouth is ava. She needs her gasping taking what Ava can give her and more.

With Ava's pawing insistence Beatrice has crawled up the bed and Ava in pursuit. Ava's pressing her hand against Beatrice's chest ignoring her growing protests of 'I need a shower first' and locking her hips on beas torso. Beatrice is flushed, panicking and turned on. Shes embarrassed at how out of breath she is but it seems to fuel Ava's desires.

[kaisollisto]

based off of this

Today is frigid and windy, she feels it unforgivingly on her cheeks. Clouds part around her, clinging to her jagged features. They are wet and stifling, a brushing reminder of what she cannot have. It is the only thing claimed from the earth she can touch.

She passes above skylines and craggy mountains and watches. The earth is still cold and unyielding and she yearns for it in a reckless way. A silly wish to feel all that it has to offer in her mouth. She wants to touch, to feel the grainy sands between her fingers and find sand in horrible unbefitting places. The encapsulating experience of teetering the fine line of tasting the sun and burning herself. She wants to be down there.  

She’s heard many names weaved in between her. There are many she’s been called but one that has truly stuck with her, Ava. 

A soft sound pressed between lips, a gentle thing for a large entity like her. She likes to believe that’s who she was before this, a force too big to contain that she had to become this. A mangled thing of roots and chunks of dirt. 

It’s better this way, someone tells her in a foggy haze, she’s fighting them, a sloppy sluggish battle of desperation. Ava doesn’t know why but the memory lingers like a prolonged goodbye. A sort of awkward suspension holding her rooted to the spot like there’s more to it, a truth sitting in plain sight. 

(pt 2.)

[kaisollisto]

don't go where i cannot follow (aka table au pt 2)

Home is something Beatrice has grappled with. A word that sits on her tongue unyielding, it sours the inside of her mouth. The taste lingers and there is no reprieve for breathing. She does not care for a place in the world but something inside her needs it. The thought shames her, to need something so desperately. (To want on the brink of desperation and longing, to search for an answer only to be scorned tramples her heart). The need sweeps through her and she is helpless to do anything but let it pass. (And yet she cannot stop looking, she is not human but she hopes wildly like one). 

Beatrice has always felt rigid, a tension in her bones that shadows her. There's something inside of her that coils, it twists and twists and Beatrice sees no end. A hole inside of her that swells to the size of her heart. It’s all encompassing and Beatrice cannot escape. She is a mouthpiece to pain and it is clear to her how much it is just Beatrice and the expanding absence of Beatrice. 

There is nothing but time for Beatrice, she holds it heavily with tight hands. She was pressed from a weeping willow, crushed, squeezed to an unbearable degree of pressure that Beatrice can’t remember how to let go. (She dreams of it, hands pressing insistently against her, shoving her back into the absence of herself). She holds a tight relationship with time, it passes and she holds on. 

She remembers everything and nothing at all but the only thing that has mattered to her was pain.

It is what makes her Beatrice. The pain leads her down a path, it becomes her. There is no Beatrice without pain. She cannot find herself amidst the sensation, she cannot separate anything memorable without pain. She doesn’t know who she is without pain. She is shaped by the people who have hurt her and she wishes she could let go, (but the scars stay permanent and she is still a table). 

There is no god, Beatrice doesn’t believe in such trivial things. But when you’re a table all you have is time. She entertains the thought, some deity, a higher power pulling strings, a fate predetermined and she hates the idea. She would pull them thread from thread, vein from vein with her bare soul. She would claw her way to the heavens to rip the tether of pride between gods and watch them fall.

But there is no place for bitter resentment in her heart so she tucks it away. A feeling never to be touched but always too close for comfort. She fills her day falling into habits. She’s particular about her routine, she spends the first few hours of dawn sitting inside of herself. If she were a tree it'd be easier, freeing, but confined to the shape of a table she feels wrong. A loss she doesn’t want to dwell on for the fear of being consumed. (She doesn’t know grief directly, but she knows this feels something akin to it). 

It’s taxing to be okay with where she is, there is no life here. (Some days she wakes up with a deep rooted fear that she was dying herself, a willow tree rotting from the inside out and how do you even begin to save yourself?) But she has to move on.

Beatrice never stays in one place too long. She's seen quite a few places, each one different than the last. She thinks she must be an ugly table to be passed around in different hands (and yet they all still seem to treat her with care).

Her current stay hurts her eyes. Everything's a bit too bright for her even with her fuzzy vision. She can make out shapes and objects she recognizes but it's still straining. 

She doesn’t notice her at first, Beatrice spends an obscene amount of time tasting the environment. It’s clean, albeit a bit suffocating but there’s airflow, proper ventilation and if she closes her eyes she can pretend. She likes the muted buzz of other voices, she can’t understand them but it comforts her knowing they’re there. 

She finds her slotted in between ungodly times of the day, she always seems to be in the midst of something. 

There is something about her that bothers Beatrice. She can feel her vibrating, there’s something palpable there, something tangible there that will burn her. And Beatrice, (who has only known pain), has never wanted it so bad. 

[kaisollisto]

Hello remember when i wrote that avalil smut roughly a year ago?

It takes Lilith by surprise but she watches vehemently as Ava desperately sucks her spit covered hand in hopes to catch a taste. It feels intimate, like Ava is seeing her, choosing her all over again.

Ava’s tongue tickles her hand and she resists the urge to curl her fingers deep inside. She watches, content as Ava finishes and presses kisses to each finger. Her lips quirk before she pulls Ava in for a kiss sitting up. It’s tender with Ava’s lips mouthing slowly against hers. Her lips are soft and Lilith has to reel in the urge to bite down hard. 

Ava’s teeth scrape against hers as if reading her mind and Lilith growls, lips peeling back to bite. Her teeth prick against Ava’s bottom lip in warning before she swipes her tongue over it. Ava presses into her mouth desperately and Lilith answers just as passionately. Puffs of air linger between her teeth and Lilith cannot resist any longer. Lilith knows Ava can feel her hunger, urging her to break skin. Lilith can feel it in the way Ava presses into her hard, desperate to feel her. She slides her hands up Ava’s neck, rubbing in warning before grabbing a handful of her hair. Lilith yanks her head back exposing her neck and she bares her teeth. Ava moans stilling as Lilith holds her suspended, throat swallowing in anticipation.

Lilith admires her neck, the veins thumping wildly. She’s so pretty, Lilith pauses starstruck. Ava with her pale chest begging to be bruised. Ava with her heaving breaths, vulnerable and open and trembling. Lilith presses her lips against her collar bones feeling Ava’s shudder. 

[kaisollisto]

camlil silence (i trace the silence with my lips for any part of you)

Lilith presses into her back pushing her cheek into the training mat. She can feel the frustration rolling off of Lilith in waves but it doesn't deter her. Lilith's mad, she's always mad but this feels like desperation. Camila can taste the dew in the air, she doesn't need to turn around to know, she can feel the animosity.

Lilith has something to get off her chest but something won't let her. Camila can feel a shift, a knot in Lilith's chest has tightened and she finds her opening. She slips out from underneath her using her small frame to her advantage.

Lilith's grip had faltered and Camila knows it, she slams her digging her limbs between the shoulder blades of her broad back. Camila's not strong, at least not strong enough as Lilith but she knows what feels tender, what bruises easily, what hurts.

(Lilith brushes her fingers gently down her arms, it raises goosebumps on her skin but Camila has to focus. Lilith is prattling on about wrists and their field of mobility and Camila misses her. She doesn't think about what Lilith did today and why her shoulders are tense. She doesn't think about the furrow in her brow or the paleness of her skin. She doesn't think about much other than the light filtering through the room. It softens the angular cheekbones in her face, it whispers a memory of a smile Lilith had given her wholeheartedly another time.

It's always disarmed Camila how soft Lilith smiles. Her teeth poke out from her lips symmetrically and Cam needs to know if there's any more facets to her smile. A crooked grin? A chewed lip? The questions hold a home inside of her clawing and shaking her to her core.

Camila knows how Lilith gets her scars, each one has their tells. There's a constriction in her throat every time she looks too hard. Some of them scar so bad Camila doesn't have to guess what happened. She watches the way Lilith carries herself after long missions. A jaw twisted too tight, scabs in her hands, a twitch in her eyebrow, she knows her. (But she still can't figure out how to lift the corner of Lilith's mouth with a quip).

It speaks volumes, her smiles, her scars, her mannerisms, layers of who she used to be, who she could be and Camila knows how to process information. She just doesn't know what to do with it, it sits in cabinets, in hard drives, in the absence of Lilith. She needs to break it all down, she needs to do something with it, she's just not sure what.

Lilith is complex, she's always contradicting herself in the face of emotions. That's what Camila likes about her, she's unpredictable especially when she smiles. She doesn't see it often but once or twice she catches something predatory.

She wants to see more of it, hints of it, the absence of it, a shy lip, a bold snarl, a swallowed smile, she's selfish and she wants more.

Lilith had swatted her across her forehead when she had finally noticed she wasn't paying attention. It had devolved into a harmless argument and had startled Camila, in her yearning she had missed Lilith once again.)

Even now Camila's mind drifts which leaves her flipped on her back. Lilith's forearm pins her chest against the mat and Lilith's eyes are cold. She flickers back and forth between frustration and fear. Camila recognizes the turmoil, a heavy burden that has been hefted on Lilith from birth.

Lilith doesn't want to talk about it and Camila knows it but her lips tingle, she itches to reach past her, down deep into her and touch her. Grab her hand and tell her she will be okay. To shield her, to hold her like others have done before

(and Camila has never been good at letting things go.)

But she can't, the words get lodged in her throat and she fears. She is no stranger to doubt, she knows doubt, (in dark nights, in hushed prayer sessions, in broken bones and swollen lips). Camila isn't strong enough but it's so much easier to be strong when it's her.

She grabs Lilith, (she can feel herself lingering on the jut of her forearm, the muscles are tight and she can't let herself get lost in familiarity,) the material of her shirt feels soft. Her hands screw up against the material bunching them up, Lilith's going to grumble at her for the wrinkles, and yanks her down.

Lilith can sense her predictability and jerks her head to the side narrowly avoiding a head on collision. Camila feels her hiss tickle her ear but she pays it no mind as her hand falls on the left side of her face and plants a soft kiss on her cheekbone. The skin bends to her touch and her cheekbone has never felt softer.

She doesn't dare to go further but she longs for it, she can feel an inky memory ghosting her skin but her treacherous thumb anchors her to the present as it lingers on the fold of the corner of her mouth. She doesn't press down just skims lightly. She can feel the soft hairs of her face and it's different yet the same as always. It's still Lilith but if she lingers she can feel scarred tissue.

Camila's huffing, the only sound between them and if she were braver she would give Lilith another kiss, a kiss dappled underneath her lashes. (The softest part of Camila reaching for the softest part of Lilith.) Her hand twitches on instinct to press up and kiss her again but she holds still. She can feel Lilith's gaze boring into her but she's not ready for what answer lies in her face. She skirts around the slopes of her face, taking in the contours of her skin. They're unfit for a warrior, a fighter like Lilith, Lilith whom's only mistake was being born to a lineage.

(And Camila can understand Lilith's anger, can feel a familiarity with it. They shouldn't be here, fighting, hurting, and dying.)

She is pinned at the mercy of Lilith but that's just who Camila is. She's drawn to the hunt, the danger and she wants to be devoured by her. But most importantly she wants her, she wants Lilith so deeply that any part of her fills some depraved part of her.

And Lilith answers, she presses their lips together in a hunger Camila has missed. She lurks at the edges of her lips teasing her, taunting her. Her teeth scrape against every corner of her lips and she gets lost in it. It douses her on fire, scratching angry Lilith biting into her face, searching for the same depraved thing inside of her.

It's hot and messy and Lilith is whimpering into her mouth, a pathetic sad noise that breaks Camila's heart. It keens between them and Camila does her best to hold it with her lips. She presses harder into Lilith swallowing everything she has to give and it's enough. Her hands wander hurriedly on her, in places she couldn't touch before: the underside of her ribs, the fat of her stomach, the dips in between her shoulder blades.

She debates pulling back to hug her, hold her, to kiss her, to burrow into her, there's too much to do and so little time. She feels Lilith push away from her, her fingers fold delicately over the shape of her mouth. They trace her lips as Lilith heaves inches away from her face and Camila has to swallow the urge to taste them. She's content to feel as the fingers flex and move across her face.

She presses her fingers against Lilith's cheek and she knows that something's changed for them, for the better.

[kaisollisto]

When she’s lonely, (when she’s sagging against a rock, gazing at the moon. The stars reaching back to her, mouthing her name, Beatrice, she can pretend they are hers. In the corner of the universe someone out there has knitted the stars carefully together to twinkle for her. A blanket of galaxies to soothe her pain. It’s easy to pretend that they’re hers, the unfamiliar planet holds no place for her but the stars remain constant. It’s irrational but a thought that Beatrice holds gently between her knees curled up.) she imagines reconstructing herself. 

She starts with the loneliness. 

She folds it away, tucks it neatly into a box each time meticulously with firm hands. She smothers the feeling, squeezing it between her palms, it’s inkiness sliding through each knuckle. (And when her hands shake, the feeling twisting her chest, she tries over and over again.) 

She wraps her flesh around the box, molding around the lump. Her muscles bulge against it pulling, pushing and shoving.  

[kaisollisto]

The hard truth is Beatrice cannot remember why she’s here. There’s a plain reason but when she’s alone the answer doesn’t exist. She looks inward and can only find flesh and bones. Beatrice knows there is no right or wrong in this world but all she feels is wrong. There must be a reason and Beatrice must keep looking. 

[kaisollisto]

Lilith teases her, ghosting her teeth against her neck. She feels Ava take in a breath before she peels back her lips and bites down. Ava chokes out a garbled moan as Lilith digs into her neck. Lilith can taste the salt of her skin but it’s not enough, she needs to feel Ava. She needs to taste the roaring blood beneath her skin. She sucks, pressing her tongue against the flesh. It’s supple and soothes the ache but she can feel her teeth throbbing. 

“Yours,” Ava gasps out, her hips writhe into Lilith. “It’s yours, please.” She presses harder into Lilith’s mouth just shy of breaking skin for her. Lilith feels a heat pass over her, a raging want that has fueled her. A yearning that has stood beside her hand in hand. A want that rips open her chest cavity and takes without remorse. 

[kaisollisto]

Home is something Beatrice has grappled with. A word that sits on her tongue unyielding, it sours the inside of her mouth. The taste lingers and there is no reprieve for breathing. She does not care for a place in the world but something inside her needs it. The thought shames her, to need something so desperately. (To want on the brink of desperation and longing, to search for an answer only to be scorned tramples her heart). The need sweeps through her and she is helpless to do anything but let it pass. (And yet she cannot stop looking, she is not human but she hopes wildly like one).

[tragedylure]

Ah, delicious. I love when a thing about canon makes you want to turn into it more and really put weight into what that means for the everyday function of it.

Also immediately, I like how hushed the setting is. It’s very, intimate mooding, turned down, like a scene cut from film. Whoo that movie magic aspect!!

For her, dreaming abt dying, too real.

For Beatrice, to be concerned after Ava and for that thought kind of being inexplicable to Ava. The way that your blindness to kindness can shield you. Me, reading super deeply into something hahahaha. Anyway she’s so gone, finds it cute mhm.

Ohdamn I love the desperation of that panic reflected in the absolute thirst of the phrasing, “her skin can taste the dust”. GET WREKT, GET WREKT GET WREKT. Shaking off bits of sleep from her mouth lol, cute way to say girl’s barely cognizant and mumbling.

How discomforting the way you describe a lodged halo, how visceral one can feel the phantom echo of it in between blades too. Pulling tight. YUM. Metallic, bare teeth gritting against the tension whoo!

Wooow the deflection. What a strong voice denoting her kind of character. Can’t forget the longing either, that’s integral.

“The same feeling in her chest constricting her lungs, the same soft gaze of Beatrice.” The pairing of these two winding around each other is so sexy tbh.

When you live in a space of being loved and cherished but you can’t believe it. YEAH I WONDER IF YOU KNOW WHAT THAT’S LIKE KAISO. I WONDER INDEED. Also the worn away stones of Bea smoothing away edges before she gives them to Ava. Beautifully worded.

Yo this is a perfect bit of softness to hold to yourself lmao. It’s a perfect rendition of hurt and comfort, and the ways that you distract yourself from the pain and embrace the love around you, and I love that, “she’s suddenly closer” because we can’t not help to touch.

I hope you come back to it because the ppl deserve!!

(Based off of the reality of having a metal ring in your back as a constant reminder of your fate and how that affects you as a person set in the Switzerland arc)

“Does it hurt?” 

Ava’s pressed face down into the pillow sleep curling around her limbs. She hums, she can’t remember what she says, she’s exhausted. Her arms are tangled beneath her pillow. She holds her fingers tightly between each other, her bones ache from the pressure but her hands no longer shake. Ava hasn’t experienced this before, a fear that haunts her at night. (She finds she cannot stop dreaming about dying. It’s stifling in the cover of night trying to figure out where she is.) 

She slowly opens her eyes and squints in the darkness. Beatrice is facing her a furrow in her brow that Ava knows she’s doing unconsciously. Ava’s lip quirks a smidgen, Beatrice looks funny. It’s a bit silly to her, Beatrice no doubt working out a solution to an unknown problem that Ava has yet to see in the middle of the night. In her sleepy state she wants to laugh at the imaginary cogs churning in Beatrice’s head. 

Beatrice scooches closer and Ava panics, her skin can taste the dust of Bea’s forearm. She hoists herself up on her elbows, turning to face Beatrice. “Wha?” Ava’s shaking off bits of sleep from her mouth when Beatrice repeats herself. 

“Does the Halo hurt?” 

She doesn’t know if she wants to answer that. Ava peers over Beatrice squinting at the harsh light of the digital clock on Beatrice’s side. Ava loves it, it reminds her of the early 2000’s and the aesthetic of waking up to an alarm to go somewhere. The clock blinks an innocent 1:43 Am, and Ava debates on letting her head thump back down. 

She turns her body on her side, she can feel the halo shifting in her back and it makes her want to throw up. The sides of the halo press against her shoulder blades and Ava resists the urge to yank it out. She grits her teeth and settles ignoring the skin of her back pulling tight to accommodate for the ring. Beatrice is still expecting an answer and Ava can’t lie to her, she pulls the covers of the sheet up to her chest hoping to bide more time for an answer. 

"Everything hurts Bea," Ava smiles, "getting my ass handed to me is hard work."

Beatrice frowns displeased but looks at her through her lashes, it's unguarded, the stress and worries of the world stay out of their room in the dead of night. Her lashes are so pretty and Ava wants to curse the soft glow of the moon. There’s just enough moonlight to illuminate her eyes but overshadow her freckles. Ava swallows down the taste of defeat, she can’t win, she thinks. 

Her gaze is soft, Beatrice is looking at her and it’s different yet the same. The same feeling in her chest constricting her lungs, the same soft gaze of Beatrice. Beatrice who likes what she sees in Ava when Ava can barely see where she begins. She doesn’t like to dwell on it, the truth of the matter being what belongs to Ava.

If she closes her eyes she can pretend just a little longer. She can give herself the hope of the future and what comes after all this. She can put down the fighting and the artifact and live. Ava doesn't want to think about it anymore, at least not tonight when Beatrice is here with her. 

Beatrice is soft. She knows it from hours and hours of training. She's felt it when Beatrice corrects her form, in the way she talks. She speaks from a place of care like she has turned the harsh words in her brain over and over to soften the syllables spoken to Ava. And Ava doesn't linger on it, the meaning behind it, (Ava didn't think she'd make it this far, finding a person who cares quite like Bea does.)

And Ava's got it bad, she knows she's fucked because Beatrice doesn’t say anything about her language and Ava can't not tell her the truth. She looks down, her hand fiddling with the bed sheet underneath them. 

"It doesn't hurt," if she thinks about it she can feel the fibers of the cotton between the pads of her fingers. "But it's very uncomfortable." She doesn't want to find the response in Beatrice's eyes, content to hear it from her voice. The soft British lilting accent that holds her just as soft as a touch. 

She waits, she can picture Bea’s mannerisms with her eyes closed but maybe she should check just to be sure. Ava peers up at Beatrice and she’s suddenly closer. Her eyes really are pretty, there’s a depth to them that Ava wants to spend an ungodly amount of time studying.

“Can I help?”