Chapter Text
Ava didn’t want to talk last night after Crimson. She was in too much pain. So she slept. Fitful, but she slept. It’s the next morning, and it feels better with her healthy dose of pain meds. She’s on the made-up bed with Bea beside her, just staring up at the ceiling. Not knowing the next move. She never intended for this to happen.
She wasn’t going to say anything to Bea. Ever. But she has now. Bea isn’t stupid; she’s intelligent, and she heard Ava tell her things she thought Beatrice was too drunk and out of it to remember. That helped too, but she pieced things together.
“Are we going to talk about it?” She asks the burning question. Her hands fitted together by her fingers over her pyjama shirt. She wants it. She can’t stop wanting it. But it’s not what Bea deserves. She should have someone unashamed and brave.
“I love you. You love me. I wish it was that simple, but I want this. I want you, and if I have to be with you in secret, then I’ll do it. I’ll do it without hesitation.” Bea is as stubborn as Ava thought she’d be. Bea wants her too. But for Ava, it’s just not that simple. Not for her.
She smiles at that, but it’s a pained one. “You deserve more than that, Trix; you…” She exhales a shaky little laboured breath, her heart feeling so tight.
She feels this big lump in her throat about this. It feels surreal. That Bea knows now. It feels like something she shouldn’t do but wants so much that if she doesn’t give in to it, it’ll keep on crushing her.
It feels like a first day back at school after a summer break… No, it’s not bad, but it feels so big, so world-altering, to try it. It won’t stop terrifying her. It can’t.
She closes her eyes too tight. Imagining the touch of Bea’s lips. How will it feel? To kiss her childhood companion? To see her? To unravel her? To be unravelled by her? To lie with her naked and exposed in a way she hasn’t with Bea.
Bea’s family. What if she loses her? There’s so much she doesn’t want, but it’s unbearable. So unbearable.
She feels Bea turn over, but she stays in place, silent with closed eyes. Not giving in. She can’t. But she will. She can’t in so much of it, though, and that’s not for Bea.
“Tell me everything; let’s just go from there.” Bea suggests quietly.
“That sounds like a plan.” She laughs, but it catches quickly in her closed-up throat. “It started with Rafael. He would flirt, and I couldn’t stop flirting back. I knew he was married, but he…was a smooth talker, shall we say.” She smirks, but that fades fast too. “He kept it up and up until Crimson approached me last year at the pre-French Open party. I saw her and…something shifted.”
She lets it flow out of her, feeling a liberation in it. It starts to feel good too. It’s been such a burden. She’s loved Bea harder and harder and carried such a weight of this on her back. It feels good. Really good.
“I think I’ve always been this way. It’s always been there. I just buried it. Ignored it. I saw how you were treated Bea and it terrified me. To be attacked like that just for who you are – I’m not like you. I’m…weak where you’re strong. I can’t do it.” She takes a breath, and Bea just waits; she doesn’t ask questions. She just lets Ava take her time.
Typical calming Bea.
“Crimson that night… She just had a way about her that drew me in. I can’t explain it. I just saw her. I saw you with Zori; I think deep down before then I loved you like this. Crimson made me see just how much. She knew I liked Rafael and had this…thing with him I wanted, and she said she wanted me to have him. She wanted to watch. She did. We went to their hotel room that night, and I’d never felt so hot. Never felt so desperate for something like that. It was like something exploded in me. But… Crimson’s way was what did it. She was dominant and hard and commanding, and I wanted it. I wanted it more than Rafael. She kissed me, and it wasn’t gentle; none of it was ever gentle. It was rough and ragged and intense.” She takes a moment again.
She’s just saying it all. Unvarnished. She feels free to. Bea has to know everything now that she’s seen things as they are.
“It left marks; it was constant. We had threesomes and were with each other separately. It was just sex, never love; it was just the passion of it that had me and wouldn’t let me go. I crave to be submissive now because of it. I enjoyed being treated like shit. I loved it. Rafael was gentler, so I guess I preferred him to a degree. It’s why it was so easy to fall back into him first. They’ve never been nice people; it wasn’t about that. It was sex, as I said. But…” She breathes out through her nose, opening her eyes to stare at the white ceiling.
God, this feels really, really amazing. It makes her body just melt into the bed at how good it feels.
How untethered she feels now.
“The more sex I had with Crimson in particular, the more I saw you with Zori. I just couldn’t bear it. It got too much, Bea. I loved you and loved you and loved you harder, and it became harder to not say anything when Zori made you talk so little of yourself. It crushed me. I had to end it. Crimson didn't like that. She made it clear what she’d do. She surprised me as I left her room and then punched me. You know the rest of that particular trip.” She quips at the memory. The blood. Bea helping her.
Bea still doesn’t speak. She just listens. Fuck, she knows how much she needs her to not interrupt. She just knows her.
“I increased my match load to bury it, but my body couldn’t take it. I didn’t care about being called a cheater in comparison to coming out. It was the easiest of the choices for me. It stung a lot. But I could take it. I had you still in my life, but when I saw you slipping away when I saw Zori taking over your life and my tennis was going to be gone, my distraction from you was at risk. I clung to it. But I clung till I broke down. When we pulled out, I needed something else to distract me. You were going away, and I loved you, but I could never have you. So… I went back to the drug I knew. To Rafael. It helped. I’ve had to separate this side of myself from you; it was cleaner and less risky that you’d find out. But it didn’t matter in the end. You’ve found out. You’ve found it all out.”
She turns over and sees Bea. She’s in one of her Kanga pyjama shirts that’s too small for her, but she looks so nice in. Her hair is tied back but messy. Her bare legs like Ava’s, so close to Ava’s. Knees inches from hers.
She sees Bea’s eyes glistening. Emotional but listening. Patient and her best friend she’s terrified of losing.
“I can’t let you be with me, Bea. You deserve better than hiding. You don’t want someone that likes the sex like I do now. You should have someone not ashamed of themselves like me. Not afraid of being themselves like you. You deserve the world. And that’s not something I can give.” She finishes, and she feels tired after it but unburdened. She said it all, she thinks.
Bea smiles softly and frustratingly, not giving up. But… Ava doesn’t want her to. It’s selfish. But she wants Bea to be stubborn.
Bea doesn’t say words, but her eyes understand. The touch of her hand on Ava’s cheek makes everything else, however wrong it is, feel unimportant. Ava can’t stop or want to stop herself from relaxing at the touch.
No more secrets. No more hidden pain from Bea.
“I know how hard it is to be out. I know. And if you don’t want to, I won’t force you. That’s your choice always. But…” Bea laughs emotionally and then tearfully that it swells, a familiar ache in Ava. Too much love in her for Bea. Too much pull to her. “I love you. I love you, and I can’t let you go now that I know you love me in the way I never thought you could. You’re stuck with me. Knowing you love me made leaving Zori the easiest choice I’ve ever made.” Bea’s tears start to fall down the side of her face, and Ava feels the pull become something she doesn’t think she’ll be able to endure now. She thinks she’s fucked.
“But I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to love you in the way you deserve to be loved. I won’t hold your hand in public. I won’t kiss you. I won’t tell people about us. You can’t want that. It’s not something you’ll like eventually, and then what? Our friendship could be broken, and if that happened…” She shakes her head, breaking at the thought of it. Her face showing nothing but fear and emotion in pain at the idea of it. She cries too. Gentle and terrified. “I can’t lose you.”
Bea’s thumb drag over Ava’s skin. Centring and centring Ava. Calming her. Bea’s eyes don’t stop looking at her with a love she feels for Bea too. “I’m scared too. You’ll never lose me, Aviebug. Never. No matter what, you’ll never lose me. If you’ll let me, I wanna support you in this. We can keep it secret, but I want this, and I know you want it too. I know you, and you know me. It’ll be the easiest thing for me to do. If I get…”
“It won’t be. You’ll get hurt when you see I’ll never come out. I can’t hurt you. I can’t.” She feels and hears her voice break. She can’t. She wants to. But she can’t.
“You don’t give yourself enough credit; you are strong enough. However long it takes for you to want to, I wanna hold your hand when you do.”
Bea scoffs playfully. “I don’t need kissing in public if you don’t want that. I can do this with you, and I know you can do this too. I know it.” Bea whispers the final words with such sureness and warmth that Ava knows and loves.
Bea moves close to rest her forehead against Ava’s there breaths however small, mingling like they’ve always been linked throughout their lives.
Bea’s smile turns into a smirk up close. Creating a little still in Ava’s heart. Her breath. ”And as for the sex part, I don’t mind if you have a kink; I don’t mind being a certain way if you want that. You’re not fucked up, Avielicious.”
Ava giggles; she loves Bea using more nicknames too. She loves it like she loves Bea.
Bea caresses and caresses Ava’s cheek with her thumb and this pull. It’s only heading one way. “I’ll be with you in any way you’d like. I just wanna be with you if you want me. I’m yours. If you…kiss me.”
“I can’t.” Ava refutes it, but it’s pointless. It’s pointless to deny. It’s happening, and Bea has her now. She has her. She shouldn’t. But she has her. She does.
She looks to Bea’s lips. Lines on the pinkness she knows. The Cupid's bow she knows. The lips she knows but has never felt and desired to feel every day for longer than just a year deep down.
“You can. I love you; you love me. So kiss me.” Bea says it likes it’s simple.
“It’s not that simple.” She rubs her forehead against Bea’s. About to kiss Bea for the first time.
Bea inches closer. Their knees touch. Bea’s hand stills on Ava’s cheek. “Kiss me…please. I want this. So kiss me.”
“You’re so stubborn.” She despairs with a wilting smile and inches closer so her nose touches Bea’s at the tip.
“And you’re so perfect. You’re my home. You’ll always be my home.” Bea leans in. Their lips inches apart. Ava does too.
“You’re mine too. Fuck, you’re mine.” She whispers, feeling this feeling of love pulsing more than ever.
“I am, you’re right, you big goofy silly. I’m yours. So what are you waiting for?” Bea’s breath hits Ava’s lips. It’s too good too much.
“I love you.” Ava closes the distance and her lips… They find Bea’s, and they smoosh against Bea’s. It feels right – so unbelievably right. A whimper comes out of her into Bea’s lips. She needs to have a hand on Bea’s cheek too. So she does. She caresses Bea’s upper lip. Bea her lower one. Sticking so wetly together. Two puzzle pieces coming together to make one right picture. That’s what it feels like.
Bea’s hand transitions to Ava’s hip, but there lips don’t part. Ava can’t part from these lips now. She’s already addicted. There’s no going back, and as Ava feels pulled to Bea’s hips so gently but surely and kisses Bea like she’s the only kiss that’s ever truly felt important, she doesn’t want to go back. She’s never going back to before now, and she can’t want to now that she’s kissed these lips. So right and perfect, caressing hers too.
Bea’s lips slide off hers, her lower lip...flicking off Ava’s so wetly. “I love you too.” Bea saying that again. Ava can’t let Bea’s lips go away now. She’s screwed, and Bea’s lips... she needs them to stay. “I can’t believe mph.” Bea places a small kiss on Ava’s trembling lips and then another.
“Mm.” Ava whimpers. She gets another one and another. “Can’t...believe what?”
“That I’m kissing you. I’m fucked.” Bea smiles into the next kiss, lasting longer. More caressing. First contact of tongue. Why does Bea’s tongue have to feel so perfect? Why does she have to be? She’s imagined this and imagined it, but this is better than anything she’s imagined.
Ava slithers her fingertips to the back of Bea’s neck, pushing her to stay. “So am I. Are you sure about this?” She rasps, and she is. She’s fucked, and Bea has made her this way.
Bea kisses her and kisses her again and kissing Bea to Ava’s reluctant but happy tears shakes the foundation of what was. “I’m so sure.” Bea ends the talking and smoothly covers her Ava’s lips with her own. She wraps her arm around Ava, and Ava’s locked in now. She knows Bea isn’t going to let her go...nor does she want her to.