#TKO_Writes

[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?”

[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]

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. 

[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?”