#sunsafewriting

[sunsafewriting]

Do A Flip - chapter 7 (11.2k words)

chapter excerpt:

Shannon.

She’s always been a light sleeper, prone to waking up a few times a night, and the effect is magnified when she’s somewhere different. 

Tonight, different is their backyard: Diego has been desperate to go camping, and sleeping out under the stars behind Shannon and Mary’s house is their trial attempt at the whole experience. 

Beside her, Mary is still out, eyes closed. She tends to frown in her sleep, which Shannon finds charming; or perhaps what she finds charming is the way the frown clears when Mary wakes up, how she sees Shannon and her expression changes, first thing. 

Shannon slips out of their makeshift bed and stands, stretching her arm, working through a couple of nerve glides. Sometimes, when the weather changes too much too quickly, her old shoulder injury still twinges. It’s not too bad, anymore, but it’s better to get ahead of these things. 

From here, she can see the banked remains of the small fire they’d had in the pit, and the arrangement of the others, strewn out across the lawn. 

Diego, Ava, and Beatrice are lined up on a collection of mats. Ava has curled around Beatrice, and the way the two of them are pressed close makes Shannon sure they’ve slept like this before, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Together, Ava and Beatrice have made an art out of avoiding change, or rather, of changing everything except that last little thing that makes it impossible to go back. 

Diego’s head pops up from his nest of blankets. In the moonlight, Shannon can see him blink, rubbing the back of his hand across his eyes. He catches sight of her and squirms free, scooping up his water bottle from the ground nearby before weaving his way over to her. 

He’s wearing a hoodie that he inherited from Ava recently — it features a graphic of a turtle in a judge’s wig, with the word TORTLE printed below. Shannon’s not sure he actually gets it, but he wears it all the time now anyway. 

"You’re awake, too," he says — softly, so he won’t wake everyone else.

"Yep. Thought I'd check out the stars for a bit."

They sit down together in two of the chairs by the firepit and tip their heads up to look at the sky. 

"How are you liking camping so far?" Shannon asks. 

"It’s cool," he whispers back. "Definitely marshmallows are the best part." 

Only Shannon, Ava, and Diego eat marshmallows — Beatrice is bothered by the texture and Mary finds them too sweet — but between the three of them, they’d managed to finish off a whole packet. Shannon had about three marshmallows total, so most of the credit has to be split between Ava and Diego’s industrious efforts. 

"Marshmallows are the best part," Shannon confirms. 

Diego’s attention drifts back to the stars for a moment, and then over to their campsite: the inflatable mattresses and the sleeping bags and the heaps of pillows — almost every single pillow from their house.

His expression shifts, and she can’t quite read him anymore.

"Everything okay?" 

At Diego’s age, if asked anything about how she was feeling, Beatrice had a variety of responses. She’d inform Shannon, stony-faced, that she was fine, that it didn’t matter, or just change the topic completely. Occasionally, when she did open up, it was almost always accompanied by a preface: this is ridiculous, but —

It’s a habit that stuck through her adolescence, a sense that emotions could only be discussed after having gained distance from them, after positioning them as inconsequential or unimportant. 

Shannon doesn’t really hear Beatrice talk like that anymore. Maybe it’s growing up and growing into herself, and being away from her parents. Maybe it’s Ava’s influence, and how she wants to put every one of Beatrice’s feelings under light and examine it and take it seriously. Or maybe it was a conscious choice, out of fear that Diego might pick it up, might start to speak and think in the same way. 

"Yeah," Diego says. "It’s just nice, isn’t it? It’s really nice."

"It is," Shannon replies. 

There’s a beat, and then Diego admits, "I wanted to try it because of what you said. You said that camping trips were your favourite thing when you were a kid."

Actually, what Shannon said was that family camping trips were her favourite, but this omission, it seems, has been made deliberately: Diego is watching her very carefully, now, his fingers tugging at his hoodie sleeve. 

"Is this like the ones you remember?" he asks. 

"Well, my brother used to snore like a tractor," Shannon answers, and Diego’s nose crinkles in amusement. "But other than that, they were exactly like this." 

Diego nods, satisfied, and the two of them sit there a little longer, until Diego yawns, and then he’s off again, saying goodnight to Shannon before disappearing back into his nest, wriggling a bit closer to Ava before going still.

[daisychainsandbowties]

any avatrice recs :)))) have already read all your fics and now i am depression (genuinely daydream abt ur star wars au daily)

i could hype each of these fics individually but basically if it’s here i think it’s incredible and you have to read it 💖💖🥰

///

the sweetest taboo// 1930s au &

i know now what no angel knows// fallen angel au by @dumpsterfireofsubtext

indy au part 1 & part 2// or, ava peels an orange & makes me feel insane 🫠🫠🫠 by @estherthenormal

lemon drop boy// t boy ava au

lazarus woke with a kiss// scp/ lab rat ava au &

how to stitch holes in the sky// dragon age au, all by @the-darkness-does-not-bargain

teach me to love (as you have loved me)// this is. yeah. this is beautiful. newbea au by @birgittesilverbae (💖💖 ily)

beyond our space and starlight// eldritch au by @thistleation

escape attempt number whatever thousand, some hundred and four, probably// hades au by @foulbearobservation

do a flip// aikido gfs au by @sunsafewriting

if saints and angels spoke of love// (bea is a math teacher & ava’s basically the guy from dead poets society) by @mermaidandthedrunks

choose the devil i know (over the heaven i don’t)// firefighter au by @sapphicstacks

leave the light on (i’ll find my way home)// lighthouse au by @snowandwolves

on the run from a losing game// chef au by @fiddleabout

this must be the place// lumberjack au by @littledata

love thy neighbour// my fav roommates au. pokemon strap-on fic 😌🙏

turning sun into sugar, spinning straw into gold// pnw au by @gohandinhand

the world is just an illusion (trying to change you)// roadtrip au, &

a lover, or something of mine// reincarnation au by @smokestarrules

who needs comfortable love// sentient halo au by @the-ominous-owl

this celestial glow is blinding// firewatch au

the thought of high windows// 60s au

pull back the curtains for venus// alien bea au &

of greater marvels yet to be// fleabag au, all by @seabiscuits-us

[lexa-el-amin]

Warrior Nun - Avatrice: Fan Fiction Recs

let's start with favorite authors:

everything by @sunsafewriting is next level. favorite stories are favourable conditions (pirate au!! the pining in this!) and do a flip (ava and bea take care of little diego! so adorable).

seabiscuit! they are all my favorite but if i had to rank them i'd say the thought of high windows (60s AU, Bea is very repressed and Ava very gay), of greater marvels yet to be (Bea is a nun in a church archive, Ava studies theology and falls in love in said archive), pull back the curtain for venus (Bea is an alien sent to earth to explore, she falls in love with Ava, obviously) and if mine, then yours (and so all yours) (switzerland fic, Ava sees Bea naked accidently and has a gay awakening).

@simplykorra is keeping us entertained singlehandely with all her fics, my favorite remains to be let me photograph you in this light (in case this is the last time) (set after season 2, Bea goes back to Switzerland and tries to live her life like Ava wanted her to).

then some tropes etc.:

my favorite switzerland stories are definitely show me something of a reckoning (fake dating!) and the gods we can touch (mutual pining!)

christmas fluff? christmas fluff! Snapshots for the future is set after season one. Bea wants to arange a perfect christmas for Ava, even if they are on the run from Adriel.

tension! pining! Ava and her stupid (and successful) plans to make Beatrice kiss her: Hickey AU and the to do list are the way to go! (honorary mention: To climb a tree by @frenchsoda. Bea is a personal trainer and Ava is very gay for her)

the planets & fates & all the stars aligned (i couldn’t lose) by @possibilistfanfiction (every wlw pairing needs a footy au! Bea and Ava are both professional football players and fall in love, obviously)

Whisks Worth Taking (a Bake Off AU) where Ava is a punny comedian and Beatrice a five star chef and they film a baking show together

can i get your house key? where Bea and Ava are roomates and besties and secretly in love with each other

[appleciders]

Tagged by @explosionshark! thank u so much!! sorry it took me a minute i shuffled them and wrote them down the day you tagged me but it took me till now to post lol

Rules: put all of your music on shuffle and list the first ten songs that pop up. Tag however many people you want, to keep it going, if you want to, of course.

(I listen to music like all spread out on a ton of playlists, so i don’t have a unified library, but i just hit shuffle on my “on repeat” spotify playlist lmao)

Crowded Table - The Highwomen

Masterpiece (Mona Lisa) - Jazmine Sullivan

Man to Man - Dorian Electra

Ciara - Sudan Archives

Walking Into Battle With the Lord - Chumbawamba

Cerritos Custom - The Mexican Weirdoh’s

My Love - Florence + The Machine

Hottie - Flo Milli

Lynchpin - Dan Mangan

Dártelo - Ruzzi

No pressure to do it at all tagging @weirdandoffputtingpussy @rasam @appleseedsofdiscord @dykeydays @dykerory @kchzndrvh @random-french-girl @talaricula @beatricexbenedick @lightning-in-your-teeth @purplecowboywombatgoth @daisychainsandbowties @gohandinhand @princington @birgittesilverbae @suchacomet @sunsafewriting!! anyone else who wants to - please feel free to say i tagged you <3

[the-ominous-owl]

12, 19, 28

asdfas hi em thank you <3

12. Is there an episode above all others that inspires you just a little bit more?

of wn, not really cos it's all so good. maybe the switzerland ones, for obvious reasons

19. Stephen King once said that his muse is a man who lives in the basement. Do you have a muse?

not really, just random waves of inspiration that i ride until they crash me into the cliff-face of writers' block

28. Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.

limiting it to three is just so rude cos there are so fucking many breathtakingly awesome writers in this fandom, but fineeee if you're gonna make me pick, off the top of my head - @seabiscuits-us is awesome because they do this thing with words that i don't understand but it fills them with new and awesome power and i am in awe; @sunsafewriting has somehow managed to capture the exact feeling of being all cozy in bed under a thick blanket when its raining outside but you don't have anywhere to be and turned it into ficwords; and @birgittesilverbae for the absolutely bonkers rollercoaster of 🥹 to 🥺 that has been inflicted upon me

ask me things i'm procrastinating

[stars-and-birds]

Wenclair fic anon thanking you for the recs!!! I will take a gander! And if you're offering and willing on those WN fic recs, well, I wouldn't say no. :)

HIII ANON

Sorry this is late I was brainstorming but fuck it I’m going for it

So! Wn fic recs! Im new here so I’m just gonna do the ones off the top of my head lol

do a flip by @sunsafewriting. Wait are you the anon who recommended this to me in the first place? Either way, it’s brilliant I love it it’s so adorable.

a lover, or something of mine by @smokestarrules. Brilliant. Literally incredible. I just finished reading it today and it’s sooo good. Another fic author who I would recommend any of their fics. Reincarnation au so ofc it will make you cry.

Eternal silence of these infinite spaces by @lovepotionnumber5 super good. Martian ah which I never would have thought of but it’s really good

there are more but I have a huge fucking headache right now and I have homework so maybe another time. Definitely check out the first two’s other fics as well (haven’t read the third authors other fics but they are probably also great as well). Happy reading anon :)

[sunsafewriting]

favourable conditions - chapter 4 (3.9k)

chapter excerpt:

Beatrice doesn’t sleep that night, but still, there are routines that can’t be broken. 

She slips out of bed, dresses, and runs.

She runs too far and too fast to pretend it’s only exercise for the sake of conditioning. She runs until she can’t breathe, until the muscles in her left side cinch tight and burn, and still, she runs. 

This time, she changes her route and heads for the beach, keeping the Governor’s manor safely out of view. 

It doesn’t matter if Ava is awake. It doesn’t matter if there’s a light on. A candle isn’t a signal, only a flicker in the dark. 

Beatrice knows that; she knows better .

And yet. 

There is still the impulse to find Ava and demand something of her, to tug her close by both her hands, to hold her the way she has always held Beatrice, even without touching. 

But there would be no use in any of it.  

This was always going to happen. 

(Beatrice remembers the first parade of suitors, when they were eighteen — remembers hearing about it second-hand from one of the other officers, and then sparring with Lilith until even Lilith’s usually inexhaustible fury was wrung out, and only Beatrice stood to go again. 

“What has got into you?” Lilith demanded, with something almost like approval. Lilith, the only person to ever like Beatrice more after Beatrice split her lip. 

And later, at the manor — Ava carrying on as she always had, barely waiting for Beatrice to take up her post in the foyer before abandoning her latest art project in favour of other pursuits. “I was informed by one of the guards that you speak Dahulean fluently.”

“Yes, Miss Silva.” 

“I have been teaching myself. Perhaps you might permit me to practise with you?” 

And then, in a lapse of restraint, unexpected and unstoppable, perhaps among the first things she ever said to Ava that she desperately desired to take back: “Wasn’t one of the young men here today from the Dahulea Isles? Surely he would’ve been the better candidate for this revision.” 

Ava fixed Beatrice with a delighted smile. “Are you keeping track of my suitors, Officer?” she asked, twirling her paintbrush to tap Beatrice’s chest with the wooden end, and smearing a streak of blue over her own wrist.

“No, Miss Silva. One merely hears things.” 

Untrue, and Ava might’ve known it, as she seemed to easily know all of Beatrice's secrets. 

“Regrettably, as I had to inform my uncle, they were each exceedingly ill-fitting as matches, although many of them were quite lovely.” 

“Your uncle heeds you on this matter?” 

Something passed across Ava’s face, then — not anger, exactly, but not unlike it. “For now,” she said. And then the unease was gone, replaced by the kind of amusement that Beatrice feared and longed for in equal measure, that was invariably the prelude to head-swimming dizziness. “Have you forgotten my request?”

“No, Miss Silva. I will practise with you.” 

It had not taken especially long for Beatrice to realise that the verbs Ava kept mixing up were very particular verbs with very particular meanings that did not, in fact, sound alike at all. Beatrice gently corrected her as often as she could, flushed and stammering herself, but Ava proved to have an inexhaustible number of mistakes ready to be made.)

[sunsafewriting]

for the prompt: do a flip universe + TLOU

“Well, obviously more than one. Two or three, at least, right?” Ava says. 

She's got her head in Beatrice's lap, having usurped the print-out Beatrice was reading a few minutes ago. It's inarguably the best setup in the world: she's got the whole rest of the couch to stretch out on, and both of Beatrice's hands on her — one gently stroking back her hair, the other resting on Ava's arm. 

“Three seems like a lot,” Beatrice replies.

But that’s not a no, and Ava can work from there. “Diego will help us, won't you, bud?” 

He looks over at them from where he's sitting on the carpet, sketching out a new comic. He prefers to draw on the floor rather than at the table, which is presumably because the artistic vibes are simply better lower to the ground. “Totally,” he confirms. 

Ava beams at Beatrice, reaching up to catch her wrist, to sweep her thumb over the soft skin there. “See? We can do three. Or four.”

There’s a moment of deliberation, but Ava knows when she’s won. Not only does Beatrice have about six different tells — microscopic, but observed by Ava over the years and lovingly documented — but also Ava has a compelling track record when it comes to this sort of thing. 

“Okay. Three,” Beatrice agrees. “But four is definitely too many.”

“True. It might get confusing.”

“Also, I don't feel that a zombie apocalypse is likely enough to merit four separate survival plans.” 

“HBO makes a very compelling case, babe. A lot of things can go wrong.” 

Which Beatrice is aware of, because she sure doesn't turn a lot of pages of her book while Ava's watching The Last of Us on the TV. 

“Plus, it's best to be prepared,” Ava adds. “You love being prepared. This way, we have a backup for our backup.”

While Ava still prefers a general guns-blazing, swing-first-think-second approach to life, she has come to appreciate the value of planning ahead. For example, she’s managed to streamline her morning routine to maximise the window of time she has for making out with Beatrice before one of them has to go to class or work. 

“I have paper,” Diego says. “We can write them up now. I think the most important thing is probably to get a catapult, or a sword. But there aren’t a lot of good places around here to get swords.” 

“Put down get a sword as step one anyway, that’s a great start,” Ava tells him. “I also vote that we steal a really cool car for step two. Obviously, it has to be heavy-duty enough to plough through zombies, but the most important thing is that it’s super dope. Better than Mary’s. I’ve got to have this, because you know she’s going to out-apocalypse me.” 

“Steal a car,” Diego echoes back. “Brackets, cool.”

He’s been getting very into brackets, as of late. Also semicolons, but he seems to just pepper them into sentences whenever he wants, with no regard for their intended function. Although it’s very possible that he actually does understand how they work, and is just drunk on the power of learning a new punctuation mark. 

“Clean water. Or some means of effectively decontaminating water,” Beatrice suggests. 

Ava shakes her head. “No, that’s too legit. We can put that in our, like, good plan. The second plan. This first one should just be based on what you’d most want to do if all of society fell apart.” 

“I’d most want to make sure we had clean drinking water.”

“It has to be ridiculous and fun. Like, we should also steal a boat. The zombies most likely won’t be able to swim. And I think I’d rock a captain’s hat.”

“Or a pirate hat,” Diego supplies. “Boat is step three. Hat is step four.” 

“Exactly. See?”  

“This is starting to seem less like a survival plan and more like a list of your dream crimes.”

“The beauty of the apocalypse is that nothing is a crime,” Ava tells her. She kisses the back of Beatrice’s hand and then nudges it back up to her hair. Beatrice automatically resumes her steady, gentle motions, and Ava settles into the feeling with a pleased hum. 

“Well, I don’t really have a list of dream crimes.”

Ava can’t say that comes as a surprise. Beatrice does have a list of dream bookstores to visit though. If the zombie situation isn’t too out of control, they could totally manage to hit a few of those locations post-apocalypse, too. 

“You can borrow some of mine,” Diego offers generously.

Ava nods. “And then we can put your clean water in the third plan.”

“I thought it was going in the second?” 

“I demoted it. I think our second plan should be to secure a mall. Then we’ve got everything we need. We can just lock all the doors and keep the zombies out. Boom. Nailed it. Can’t have a boat in a mall, though, so that needs to be its own separate plan.”  

Malls are also currently in Ava’s good books because when she went to buy a jacket last week, she got to kiss Beatrice in the changing room. But they’re also strategically defensible strongholds. Never let it be said that Ava's decision-making is too heavily influenced by opportunities to make out with Beatrice. Even though it is. 

“That’s so smart,” Diego says, scribbling down the idea on another sheet of paper. “Malls even have water, too, so that works for everyone.” 

“And we should get a horse for the mall.”

“How does the horse help with the zombies?”

“I don’t know, but that had horses in The Last of Us, and it just feels right.” 

“So then also cowboy hats,” Diego reminds her.  

“Of course.” 

[sunsafewriting]

AU. Ava starts a dumb YouTube channel where she makes complicated recipes badly. Maybe people show up for that, but they kind of stick around for her conversations with her roommate - who stays off-screen. Mostly.

-

chapter 3 excerpt:

Autopilot gets Ava as far as the bathroom, but then she’s stuck staring at the towels on the rack: one is navy, and the other is orange and printed with a bunch of little frogs. And Ava has to grab the right one. For Beatrice. Which is. The. 

(Any moment now, her brain is going to kick into gear again, and she's going to manage to seem totally normal.)

Which is the navy one . Boom. Nailed it. 

She skids back out into the living room, and is confronted once more with the image of Beatrice in the entryway, flushed from her run, her bare arm raised to tug a strand of wet hair out of her eyes.  

Brain in gear, Ava reminds herself sternly. Brain in gear, brain —

"Is something —" 

"Nope!" 

Ava practically throws the towel at Beatrice and then clasps her hands together firmly behind her back — not her smoothest move ever, but a worthwhile investment, because it stops her from doing anything stupid. 

(Except all the stupid things that Ava is thinking of are starting to feel smarter by the second. Like, Nobel Prize-winning, MacArthur Genius Grant-getting, world-changingly smart.) 

Beatrice wipes away the worst of the rain in a fashion that is completely utilitarian and somehow all the more mesmerising for it. Efficiency is hot . Except that it means this will be over quickly. Ideally, then, Beatrice should be incredibly efficient but achieve nothing, so the two of them can stay here forever. 

"Are you just going to stand there and watch me?" Beatrice asks. 

"No," Ava denies. She’s a good friend, a respectful friend. She’s such a good friend that her eyes have not even once gone to — nevermind. "Um, yeah."

Beatrice pauses, the towel twisted in her hands. She looks at Ava, just briefly, and it’s not a reprimanding look or an irritated look or even a confused look. In fact, Ava can’t decode Beatrice’s expression at all. Maybe, if she was operating at full capacity, she’d stand a chance, but as it is, too many of Ava’s mental resources are being rerouted elsewhere. 

"I'm going to go have a shower. Thank you for the towel." Beatrice points to the counter. "You might want to get your phone."

"Huh?"

"It’s buzzing."

Oh. So it is. 

Beatrice’s shoulder just barely brushes Ava’s as she passes by her and heads down the hall. 

Ava counts herself through a few deep breaths — not normally something she does unless she’s panicking, and she’s not panicking exactly — and forces all systems back online. 

She picks up her phone. A dozen questions are visible in the banner: who was that girl, why was she there, are they friends, is Ava dating her, is she single, is she that much taller than Ava or is it the angle, and on and on and on.

Jesus. 

At least it was a Live, which means it’s disappeared off the internet now; at least Beatrice was only in a tiny part of the frame; at least only a fraction of her subscribers were actually watching. 

Since she started this whole YouTube thing, Beatrice has been nothing but supportive and encouraging. She got Ava around a copyright strike so that she could still include a bit from Gossip Girl that was absolutely essential for a joke; she taught Ava how to write and add closed captions; she’s helping her research which camera to buy to improve the quality of her footage without cleaning out her savings. 

And all Beatrice has ever asked in return is that Ava respects her privacy. She hasn’t even asked , not in so many words; she's just trusted Ava with that responsibility. 

And Ava has already fucked it up. She should’ve done the Live in her room, or realised that the storm meant that Beatrice might be back early, or —

She should probably also wait until Beatrice is done with her shower to apologise to her, but the idea of holding out for another five minutes makes her stomach churn, and Ava’s already burned through all her self-control for the day. 

[sunsafewriting]

Do a Flip Extended Cinematic Universe: Ava POV Edition

chapter 1 - scenes in bedrooms (i)

excerpt:

All the most important buttons on Ava’s shirt are done up when she answers the door, so there’s really no reason for Beatrice’s gaze to immediately reroute to the ceiling. 

“Sorry, nearly ready,” Ava says, grabbing Beatrice’s hand and dragging her through the apartment. “I’m not sold on this outfit, though, so you can help me pick something better.”

“Uh, I — I’m not really qualified to give fashion advice, Ava.”

“Sure you are! You have great taste. You always look hot. Help me look hot.” 

Beatrice turns an extremely satisfying shade of pink. 

Lately, Ava’s half-sure that they’re almost, sort of, kind of, a tiny bit getting closer to where she badly wants them to be. 

But Beatrice seems maybe a little genuinely panicked at the prospect of having to reply to that, though, so Ava dials it back. 

“Or you can wait here silently while I pick,” she amends, nudging Beatrice over to sit on the edge of the bed while Ava returns to the open mess of her closet. 

Her closet, which creaks, which has a latch that never holds — and which also has a crappy mirror fixed on the inside of the door, meaning that Ava can see how Beatrice holds herself so carefully, but doesn’t move to get up or retreat.

In the end, Beatrice is not at all helpful, and nods in agreement to every single option that Ava presents, even the obviously bad ones. 

Ava changes in the bathroom, and when she comes back, Beatrice is exactly where she left her, looking across the room at the plant that hasn’t been dying in months. It turns out that overwatering is a thing, even if Ava can’t ever imagine having too much of anything: everything she wants, she wants all of it. 

They should really go — they’re meeting the others at Ava’s bar, where Hans will ply them with discounted drinks — but given that Beatrice is terminally early, Ava figures they’ve probably got at least a few spare minutes. She drops down beside Beatrice on the edge of the bed and loops their arms together. 

“Hey, Ava?” 

Beatrice is frowning slightly, and for a second, Ava’s worried that she’s pushed too much, too fast. 

“Yeah?”

“What do you call it if you help someone steal a mattress?”

Already, a smile is tugging at Ava's mouth. “What?”

“Aiding and abedding.” 

Beatrice looks so pleased when Ava laughs, and that’s the best part of all of it, easy. 

[read the rest on ao3] [if you have followed through the sprawl of this story <3]

[sunsafewriting]

AU - Chapter 2. Ava starts a dumb YouTube channel where she makes complicated recipes badly. Maybe people show up for that, but they kind of stay for her conversations with her roommate - who stays off-screen. Mostly.

-

chapter 2 excerpt:

It’s not, like, massively surprising that her subscribers manage to track down her Instagram account. Her account is public, and while Ava has never linked or promoted any of her other socials on YouTube, she’s no stranger to the idea of a bit of internet sleuthing. 

Every now and then, she’ll even do a little digging herself. Most recently, her research powers have been directed to finding out exactly how tall Gwendolyn Christie is (for an argument with Lilith) and trying to get a read on that pretty girl from the gym who always asks Beatrice to spot her — just a teeny weeny background check, to make sure she’s not a serial killer. Or single.

(Lucia, as it turned out, is single. And she follows Hayley Kiyoko, Emma D’Arcy, and Janelle Monae on Instagram. That was not at all comforting for Ava to learn.)

Anyway, while Ava doesn’t have a problem with her new online buddies trawling through pictures of cool pebbles from the sidewalk and dogs she’s met at the beach, she’s never really considered the amount of identifying information in her posts. Until recently, virtually everyone who followed her was someone Ava knew in real life. 

She raises it with Beatrice while they’re doing dishes. Considering the amount of mess Ava manages to create while cooking, it’s very fortunate that she lives with someone who finds washing up to be relaxing. 

“Maybe you should make another profile,” Beatrice suggests. “Separate professional and personal.”

“I think the last thing anyone would call my channel is professional .” 

“I disagree. Don’t underestimate the skills that go into it, just because you find it fun,” she replies, handing Ava another plate for her to dry. “You’ve managed to produce something engaging. That’s not easy. If I could do that, my students would’ve done better on their midterms.”

“Almost all of them passed! And you’re a great teacher. It’s not your fault they’re lazy little shits.”

“ Ava. ”

“I can say that! I was a lazy little shit. Slash am currently. I nearly gave you an aneurysm freshman year, remember?” 

“You asked me when the exam was on the morning of the exam.” 

“Lucky, right? Imagine if I’d missed it.” 

Beatrice lets out a controlled breath. “Yes. Lucky.” 

Except not that lucky, because Ava had actually been asking in the hopes of roping Beatrice into a study session or two or three. That was back when she was still trying to figure out how to gently nudge Beatrice into being friends with her outside of class, and Ava was not above drastic measures like actually doing revision to make it happen. 

“Just — promise me that you’ll be careful?” Beatrice says, with that serious look she gets whenever Ava expresses even the mildest discomfort, boredom, or unease. “I know that you’re enjoying yourself, but I want you to be safe.”

Ava leans across and kisses Beatrice on the cheek, taking great satisfaction in the way the mug in Beatrice’s hands suddenly slips back into the soapy water. 

“I’ll be super careful,” Ava promises. 

[sunsafewriting]

Do A Flip, chapter 6 (10.2k).

excerpt:

They bump into Lilith at the store. It's kind of disorienting, to be honest. Like, he knows that Lilith eats food, obviously, and doesn't just subsist off of coffee and making fun of Ava, but seeing Lilith doing normal, boring things might always be a little strange to him.

"Hello," she greets evenly. 

Lilith’s basket is full of sensible foods like hummus and salmon, with a bottle of wine tucked alongside, while their own basket is clearly something of a battleground, depicting a silent power struggle between things they probably should eat (Beatrice’s influence), things they want to try (Ava’s influence), and things that have chocolate in them (Diego’s influence). 

"Good morning!" Ava chirps. "Fancy seeing you here."  

Ava’s cheerfulness seems to read like a challenge to Lilith, who raises an eyebrow, and taps the base of her throat in the place where Ava has a band aid plastered haphazardly across her skin. "Careless, were we?" 

"Ava burned her neck with a hair straightener," Diego informs her. He’d asked as soon as she’d come to pick him up from school yesterday; it’s not unusual for Ava to end up with bruises or a cut somewhere on her body, and they almost always have interesting stories attached to them. This one is boring, though. And Ava’s hair isn’t even that straight, so it really wasn’t a worthwhile trade-off. 

Lilith nods shrewdly. "Of course. Hair straighteners are such a hazard."

"Yup," Ava agrees. 

"I wasn’t aware that you owned one."

"I borrowed it." 

"I see. Concealer aisle six, by the way, if you’re running out of band aids." 

Diego has an approximate sense of what concealer is, but absolutely no idea how that might be connected to Ava getting singed by a hair straightener, or why it makes Ava glare at Lilith. 

"Shut up," Ava mutters. 

Lilith smirks and turns to Beatrice, who fidgets with their packet of almonds and says absolutely nothing, her cheeks starting to turn pink as she holds Lilith’s gaze. 

"Well, as delightful as this has been," Lilith drawls, "I’ve got other things to do and subtler people to see."

Diego has long since accepted that he’ll only ever understand about half of what Lilith is talking about. She speaks an invisible language, one that ruffles both Ava and Beatrice but has no effect on him whatsoever. 

Ava scoffs. "Subtler than — you’re a — you should —" 

Lilith waits politely for Ava’s comeback, only walking away with a pleased air when it becomes apparent that Ava’s got nothing. 

"I’m gonna get her back for that somehow," Ava says. "Eventually."

Diego wonders what his chances are of sneaking something else tasty into the basket while they’re both distracted. Probably only medium, but he’s still going to take a shot. 

[sunsafewriting]

AU. Chapter 4

Ava starts a dumb YouTube channel where she makes complicated recipes badly. Maybe people show up for that, but they kind of stick around for her conversations with her roommate — who stays off-screen. Mostly.

chapter 4 excerpt:

The new camera is so fucking shiny. Ava holds it, enjoys the newness of it, the sleekness, while Beatrice flips through the manual. This is how it goes, whenever they get a new thing; Ava wants to touch it, and Beatrice wants to read about it. 

Ava, as she does every time, takes the opportunity to say, "It’s probably super intuitive. We don’t need instructions."

Deriding guides, lists, textbooks, and other itemised sets of information is always a worthwhile investment: Beatrice, very predictably, gets this expression that suggests they may as well walk into traffic if all the structure of the world can be so easily jettisoned. 

"This is a very precise and multifunctional piece of equipment," Beatrice replies. "A thorough understanding of —"

Ava just lets the rest of it wash over her. The essence of the speech is more or less that Beatrice would like Ava to get the absolute most out of her camera, which necessitates an inventory of every single function and feature, so that she fully appreciates her options. 

Ava, by contrast, is of the opinion that the knobs and dials are things she can fuck around with and figure out as she goes, and that the way to get the absolute most of out of her camera is to point it at Beatrice. 

She appreciates her options just fine. 

Beatrice reads the manual in English and then in German; every time, for every appliance, Beatrice checks a minimum of two languages, to account for any lapses in translation. 

While she's doing that, Ava has managed to pop the batteries in and figure out the memory card.

She spins off the lens cap and brings the camera up to her eye, peering through the viewfinder. It's the first camera she's ever owned in her life, and she likes the feeling of it much better than her phone: the weight of it, how the zoom requires twisting and fiddling rather than swiping her fingers, the delightful tactility of the button under her finger.

And yes, it’s supposed to be for her channel, for making better quality videos, but there’s a reason she got this model instead of a lameass camcorder. She also wants to take four hundred million photographs of literally everything in existence — okay, some things more than others — and conveniently, she wants to push this button four hundred million times, so everything is going to work out terrifically. 

"This is going to consume my entire life and brain, I can just feel it," Ava murmurs, adjusting the zoom again, listening to the faint whirring sound it makes. 

She pans the camera across to the actual expert in consuming Ava's life and brain for comment, but Beatrice is frowning down at the warranty information and has very likely not noticed that Ava is talking at all.

"Bea?"

"Hmm?"

"Can I take a photograph of you?"

"Now?"

"Yeah."

"How about we go for a walk?" Beatrice suggests. "I'm sure there are plenty of photographable things outside that you’ll be able to experiment on."

The opportunity to make an experimenting joke is right there, but if Ava goes down that road, they'll never make it back. 

"Just a super quick snap of you, and then we can go on a walk," she bargains. 

Beatrice makes a vague gesture that Ava recognises as a yes before her gaze drops back to the instruction booklet, her finger curling the edge of one of the pages. "I suppose. What do you —"

"Got it!"

It took Ava an age to get Beatrice to smile in photographs without looking somewhat wary and pained — the pictures she has from the first few months of their friendship seem to suggest that Beatrice had a mild headache for all of it — but now, Beatrice smiles like Beatrice, even when there's a camera. 

[cont. on ao3]

[sunsafewriting]

Keep Your Arms In - 1 Do A Flip extended cinematic universe

basically just extra one-shots sets in and after do a flip.

excerpt:

Diego forgets about the lie almost as soon as they leave the grocery store. He’s got other, more important things to think about, like how late he can convince Ava to let him stay up, and whether he’ll be able to get a tattoo like Shannon’s one day. 

Ava’s answers to his questions are, in this order: nine-thirty, and yes, one day, but for now, they can hit the mall kiosk that sells temporary tattoos. 

It’s not until they’re back at Ava’s place, unloading their bags, that he remembers their capsicum. 

“I don’t want to eat that,” he says, wrinkling his nose. 

“Nor do you have to,” Ava promises. “I’m going to try it, though. And you’d better start brainstorming vegetables you will eat, because otherwise you’ll get leprosy. Wait, that’s the wrong one. It’s the sailor one, isn’t it? Scurvy.” She taps her temple. “And Sister Frances thought Pirateology wasn’t an educational text.”

He watches her wash the capsicum, chop a chunk off, and pop it into her mouth. 

“Hmm, okay, that’s not winning any awards from me,” she declares, wrinkling her nose. “Nevermind, you were right. Capsicums suck.” 

“See?”

“It’s no broccoli, that’s for fucking sure.” She pauses. “Should I swear in front of you less? Now that I’m a responsible adult, and everything.” 

Diego shrugs. “I don’t know.” 

That ship has probably well and truly sailed, but they Google it anyway, just to be safe.  

For the next several months, Diego lives a blissfully capsicum-free life. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner at St Michael’s are mostly the same, day in and day out, even if the options have become slightly more nutritional since Mother Superion arrived and overhauled everything. 

When he’s with Ava, they experiment with all sorts of different foods — some he finds he likes and some he finds he doesn’t. It becomes a tradition of theirs. Ava doesn’t have enough money for them to do anything really crazy, but picking out something from the grocery store that neither of them has ever had before is always affordable and always fun. 

It’s still just their thing, even once Beatrice is there, because Ava has never wavered in her promise to keep the things he wants to be just Ava and Diego as just Ava and Diego. But at a certain point, it feels stupid to keep doing it without Beatrice, when like everything else, it would probably be even more fun with her. 

Also, he’s kind of excited to show her their notebook, which is the closest thing he and Ava have ever managed to meticulous record-keeping. 

He presents their ledger while they’re having lunch at Ava’s apartment on a Saturday — the three of them sitting cross-legged on the floor in the living room, because Ava maintains that sandwiches shouldn’t be eaten at a table, that such formality is an affront to the spirit of the sandwich. 

“What’s this?” Beatrice asks, when he hands her the notebook. 

“It’s all the different foods Ava and I have tried this year. And whether we think they’re yuck or not.” 

“Writing it down makes it science,” Ava says wisely. “Learned that from MythBusters. ” 

Diego’s dogeared the page of their most recent entry, and Beatrice opens the book there, reads their review of pineapple upside down cake.

“Is it perhaps slightly unfair to penalise the cake for tasting burned when that’s not an inherent quality of pineapple upside down cake?” she asks, dragging her finger across the line where Ava’s written their criticism. 

“It’s like the Olympics,” Ava replies. “Doesn’t matter how good you are, it’s all about what you bring to the arena on the day. We can only judge based on what’s in front of us.” 

“Also, we got distracted making giant soap bubbles,” Diego explains. “And we had the oven on too high.” 

Once they’ve tried something and it’s gone into the book, Diego doesn’t usually think about it too much anymore. There seem to be repeats of things he really loves and not of things he hates, but he doesn’t really, properly think about the fact that this means that Ava and Beatrice remember .

Or, at least, he doesn’t think about it until the day that they’re cooking together.

Ava’s ducked next door to help Camila with her fire alarm, which won’t stop going off, so it’s just Diego and Beatrice in the kitchen. 

He watches, with moderate to extreme dismay, as she pulls a capsicum out of the grocery bag she’s brought with her. She washes it thoroughly in the sink, just like the zucchini before it, and then slices it up. This time, though, rather than dumping all the slices into the bowl, she offers him one. 

“They’re your favourite, yes?” she says. 

Diego’s chest tightens suddenly, unexpectedly. He can count the number of people who’ve ever bothered to learn his favourite anything on one hand without even needing to use all his fingers. 

But Beatrice only thinks capsicums are his favourite because he and Ava are liars and he doesn’t even understand why they lied, but they did, and now Beatrice is being so kind to him, and her kindness is in capsicum form and it’s like God is punishing him for being deceitful. 

The piece of capsicum looks red and evil — but Beatrice is smiling at him, and he can’t let her down, so he accepts it, thanks her, and shoves it into his mouth. 

It’s wretched, spicy and cold. Still, he swallows. 

“Let me know if you want more, okay? Once it’s in this, you won’t really be able to taste it.”

Diego tries not to let the relief show on his face. 

[sunsafewriting]

turn to above - chapter 1 (3.4k)

Beatrice is the one who goes through the Arc. She doesn't come back the same, but that's alright.

chapter excerpt:

Ava kneels at the base of the Arc. 

She holds Beatrice as carefully as she can, but no amount of care will make any difference now. 

"It’s okay," Beatrice says, even though it isn’t. She lifts her hand, the tips of her fingers brushing Ava’s cheek, and Ava can feel the blood they leave there: proof that they touched. 

A blue glow flickers down over them. 

Is there a sun in Reya’s realm? Ava wonders suddenly. Will she be sending Beatrice somewhere dark?

"I’ll come with you, okay?" Ava promises. "We’ll go together." 

Beatrice shakes her head. "They need you here." 

All that’s really left is to let Beatrice go, but Ava finds that she can’t, that letting go is actually physically impossible, that she’s incapable of it. 

Beatrice isn’t crying, but Ava is; it makes everything blurry, and she does her best to blink it away. 

"It’s okay," Beatrice says again. It’s the last thing she says. 

There’s the echo of Lilith’s footsteps as she approaches, and her presence behind Ava no longer feels like a threat. "You have to send her through." Lilith’s voice sounds flat. A sheer drop. "Ava, send her now ." 

It does have to be now — Ava’s hands are warm with blood and Beatrice’s breathing is getting shallower. 

"I love you," Ava tells her, but already, Beatrice’s eyes have closed.

For a moment, she looks kind of peaceful, and when Ava lifts her, she passes through the Arc so easily, drawn by something on the other side. 

There's a shimmer of brilliant light before the Arc shuts off.

And then it’s just Ava and Lilith, alone in the room where they both tried to kill each other and neither of them died. 

"She was still alive, right?" Ava asks. "She didn’t — she wasn’t — I didn’t wait too long, did I?" 

When Lilith next speaks, she’s closer — beside Ava, as she hasn’t been in months. Maybe they’re not enemies anymore, even if they’ll never forgive each other. "She was still alive," Lilith swears. She grips Ava’s shoulder, and this time, she doesn’t leave claw marks. 

Ava repeats it tonelessly: "She’s still alive." 

Beatrice is still alive, still alive, still alive. 

But she’s also gone. 

[sunsafewriting]

Do A Flip - 4: and then (meanwhile, i)

After leaving St Michael’s, Ava does everything she can to support Diego, including taking him to extracurriculars. Beatrice is his aikido instructor, and it changes everything.

chapter 4 excerpt:

Lilith.

Lilith has never in her life purchased anything from a thrift shop. They're only here to make a donation, which is a task they can usually complete in under two minutes. Except Beatrice — usually the most reliably ruthless ally in any kind of errand, the only one whose efficiency rivals Lilith's — has got distracted. 

By the ugliest shirt Lilith has seen, no less. It's blue and yellow, stamped with garish graphics of pineapples, fireworks, and a Pokemon that Lilith, regrettably, does recognise and could name. 

But she won't, on principle. 

"There are less undignified ways to destroy my opinion of you," Lilith points out, moving to take the hanger out of Beatrice’s hands and return it safely to the rack. Honestly, it’s a testament to how good a friend she is that she’s even willing to touch it.  

Beatrice gives her a look. One of these days, she's actually going to roll her eyes, and then Ava's going to want to have some sort of party to mark the occasion. 

"Not for me," Beatrice says. "Obviously."

And yes, obviously. The shirt is the exact kind of monstrosity that Ava would fall over herself for, because she has no sense of either shame or style, and thinks "it's hilarious" is a desirable quality in an outfit. 

"We can both forget ever seeing it," Lilith offers. It's not as if Ava has a birthday coming up or any other kind of occasion that merits a gift. 

Not that Lilith keeps track of that sort of thing, and even if she did, she'd be sure to get Ava something deeply impersonal, like a bottle of that pinot grigio she doesn’t like, to remind her that they're only friends-in-law. Which is barely more than acquaintances.

"I'm going to buy it," Beatrice decides. 

Lilith sighs. Ava is going to insist on constantly wearing this shirt in public and will be standing right next to Beatrice when she does. 

But judging by Beatrice's pleased expression, she's probably aware of both these facts, only she considers them pros rather than cons. 

They head up the counter. The shirt is only three dollars, although in Lilith's opinion, the true cost is incalculable. 

Not two days later, Ava is wearing the shirt when she brings Diego to aikido. 

She's paired it with bright pink shorts, so the overall effect is, in a word, ridiculous. Especially when she stands next to Beatrice and Diego, who are both dressed in sensible white uniforms. In fact, her outfit is so ridiculous that her ridiculousness spills onto them by association. 

Admittedly, it causes Lilith no small amount of amusement to imagine Beatrice's parents' reaction if they were to witness this: to see the daughter they so diligently, carefully smothered, hanging out with a bisexual idiot in a Bulbasaur shirt and a ten-year-old boy  whose current dream career is watching baby turtles hatch. Lilith had not wanted to be the one to explain that you can't get paid for that, so she'd left it be. Seemed like an Ava problem.