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piratekane · 1 year

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She’s bone-tired, aches in places she didn’t know could ache and muscles stretched out in a way they haven’t been for a long time. Since her physical therapy, at least. The rock climbing a few weeks ago certainly hadn’t helped, but there was no way she was going to stay with her feet rooted to the floor. Not when she could climb up 15 feet and hang there like Spider-man. Better than Spider-man.

Suck it, Tom Holland.

She paid for it later, though, and spent the next day letting her body remember how to stretch, going through yoga poses and washing her breakfast down with ibuprofen.

It was worth it, still, to see the look on Bea’s friend’s faces. Mary was impressed, clapping her on the shoulder when she got to the bottom and telling Camila - who made it up the wall the fastest - that she had competition. Even Lilith regarded her with a level of approval that Ava ate up. She’s going to make Lilith like her. Or at least smile politely, even if it is with all her teeth.

But it was Bea’s face that made it even better.

She hasn’t known Bea long - she’s known others longer, including that one cafeteria lady who always saves her a side of mac and cheese because Ava said one time that it was her favorite - but she already knows that a big part of her wants to impress Bea. She can’t quite put it into words. There’s something about Bea that makes Ava want to show off. Maybe it’s because one thing she’s learned about Beatrice is that her smiles are fleeting. Ava wants to collect every one of them.

She’ll have a lot of opportunities, now that Bea is her friend and her roommate.

“Where do you want this one?” Beatrice asks from the doorway. She’s holding a paper box with tons of smiley faces drawn on it in a thick-tipped permanent marker. There’s a method to her packing madness, but Ava is big enough to admit that she has no idea what’s in this particular box.

“Here is fine.” She shifts in the computer chair Bea got her, a slight pinch in her back.

Bea looks down at the last few inches of floor where Ava points and frowns. “How will you get out?”

Ava lifts her legs, wiggling her socked toes. “I’ll jump. Have you jumped on this bed? Is it a solid bed for jumping?”

“Jumped on the…” Beatrice blinks at her. “No, Ava. I haven’t jumped on the bed.”

Ava shrugs. “You’re missing out. My dorm room was not good jumping material. When’s the last time you jumped on a bed?”

“Nev-never.”

Her mouth drops open. “Never?” She immediately frowns. Beatrice wasn’t kidding when she told her that her life hadn’t been normal kid stuff and her parents were hardly around. They had that in common: a girl who lived in an orphanage and a girl who grew up alone. It makes her a little sad for Bea. “We have to fix this.”

“I am not jumping on the bed,” Bea says firmly.

Ava shrugs. Today is not the day, and tomorrow won’t be either, but soon. She stands and stretches her arms above her head, immediately dropping them so that her shirt doesn’t ride up any higher. Bea seems like the kind of girl who appreciates a little modesty. Ava can do that. Or, she can try really hard to do that.

“I am officially all moved in.” She grins, surveying her kingdom. There’s a desk in one corner, left behind by Bea’s roommate who went to study abroad and didn’t come back. A nightstand by the bed has her lamp and her hat on it. She’ll have to hang her clothes, fill the dresser, find a few posters to put up on the walls. But it’s hers. “So, roomie, what’s next?”

Bea looks around, clasping her hands behind her. “I believe those are all your things.”

“Except for the kitchen stuff.”

“Yes.” There’s a faint smile on Bea’s face and Ava feels a thrill, knowing she put it there. “How could I forget your… hot dog maker.”

“Not sure. It’s fire engine red.” But she looks around too. “I think we’re done. Now we can get ready for movie night!”

A proper end to moving day. Movie night with an Ava-curated predetermined list, tons of drinks and movie theater popcorn and Bea’s friends. She had hesitantly suggested it to Bea a few days ago. She’d never done a movie night and her College Experiences bucket list clearly had it marked as item #8. But Bea had said yes almost immediately, and Ava went to work, making a list of options in between packing and classes and meals with Bea and her friends.

They’re going to be my friends, she decides. That’s on her bucket list too.

Now she just needed them to get here. The minutes have been dragging on as she’s waited as patiently as possible. But time didn’t seem to be cooperating. It’s doing its best to drag its heels. Ava wants to grab it by the neck and shake it.

Bea seems to notice that. “They’ll be here soon.” She says it very patiently, like she already knows Ava does terrible with waiting. And Ava likes that. She likes that Bea is paying attention to her enough to notice these things.

Bea’s going to be a great roommate. Ava wants to be just as good. She looks around her room, satisfied. She can unpack later - there’s enough space to get from the bed to the door and Bea insisted she make the bed first, almost like she knew that Ava was going to stack everything in insurmountable piles and try her best to get around them.

See? she thinks. She knows me already.

She’s about to say that, to tell Bea that she’s already killing this ‘best roommate’ contest that Bea doesn’t know they’re having, when someone knocks on the door. Once, twice, three times.

Ava does jump on the bed this time, beating Beatrice to the door and pulling it open to find Camila on the other side.

Ava beams. “Movie night!”

“Is the whole movie about… biking?” Lilith makes it seem like a swear word.

Ava grins, shoves a handful of popcorn into her mouth, and says, “id bub nimnasts.” Everyone turns to her. She swallows and smiles more sheepishly this time. “It’s about gymnastics.”

Lilith heaves a long-suffering sound. “Gymnastics.” It’s really a testament to her disdain for everyday things, that everything that comes out of her mouth sounds like she’s spitting it from between her teeth. But then the running biker rips off her helmet and it’s Missy Peregrym and even Lilith seems interested.

Ava gets it. She does. This is peak Missy Peregrym. And it only gets better. She stops watching the movie when Missy Peregrym’s character, Haley, finds her way back to the gym and on Vanessa Lengies’ character, Joanne’s, last nerve and starts watching the room instead. Onscreen, Haley pretends to be on the phone while Joanne stomps her foot angrily, and Mary snorts, lips curled up in a smile, and that’s when Ava knows this is a good choice.

She wants to impress them so badly. It consumes her. Partly because she thinks they’re really cool, even Lilith. And partly because she thinks Bea is amazing and these people agree. Sister Frances always told her to stop wasting her time and do everyone the favor of aligning herself with the right people. Ava is pretty sure she was saying it to get rid of her, to go out and be someone else’s problem, but Ava thinks she found the right people all the same.

“Isn’t that the guy from Twilight?” Camila asks, abandoning her popcorn. Ava meets Bea’s eyes and smiles. Bea shakes her head fondly at Camila and Ava wonders when she’ll get the same look. Someday, she thinks. She looks back at Camila, leaning forward in her seat on the bean bag chair she wrestled through their front door earlier. “He’s the cute one, I think. The other one kind of freaked me out. I don’t think he ever blinked.”

Their front door. Ava’s heart beats a little harder.

Ava could go into detail about Twilight - it was basically contraband at the orphanage. But they’re in the middle of a movie. And she thinks Lilith might actually throw a soda at her. She doesn’t think Bea would appreciate the mess. So that’s a Camila-and-Ava conversation for later.

“Yikes. Ice baths.” Shannon shudders. “I used to do those in high school, during the season. Need a wake up call? Submerge yourself in a metal tub of ice cubes.” She points her entire soda towards the screen. “Though, I never looked like that doing it.”

Mary snakes her arm across the back of Shannon’s shoulder. “No, you didn’t.”

Ava slaps her hand over her mouth to keep in her laugh but Shannon rolls her eyes and elbows Mary gently. “You’re right. I looked better.”

“Damn right you did.” Mary meets Ava’s eye and smirks. It feels like a secret between them. That swelling feeling in her chest reaches a crescendo.

She shoves another handful of popcorn into her mouth and spares a glance at Bea, finding that Bea is already looking back at her. She inhales, nearly choking on a kernel. Bea sits forward, worry on her face, but Ava holds up a hand, stopping her. She swallows a few times, washes down what she can with her soda, and takes a deep breath.

“Do you like it?” Ava whispers, aware that she can be too loud sometimes.

Bea has to lean closer to hear her. “It’s entertaining.”

Ava’s eyes narrow. She doesn’t know what that word means to Bea yet. Sometimes entertaining means not good, and sometimes it means the best thing I’ve watched in my whole life. She’s still learning to read her.

“Good,” Bea fills in. Ava exhales in relief. “Gymnastics takes a considerable amount of skill.”

“You could do it,” Ava says confidently. She nods when Bea goes to argue with her. “I saw you rock climbing. And all the martial arts you talk about? I bet you could beat Nastia Liukin.”

Bea’s cheeks might redden but Ava can’t tell in the dim light. “Actual Olympic gold medalist Nastia Liukin? I doubt that.”

Ava shrugs. “Guess we’ll have to call her and find out. But my money's on you.”

Lilith shushes them, glaring. Ava puts one hand up in surrender and grins at Bea when Lilith turns back to the movie. She pushes the popcorn back to Bea and waits expectantly. Bea is much more graceful than Ava, picking out a few pieces delicately. Ava doesn’t offer the same grace; she shoves her hand in and grabs as much as she can.

“Wait, her mom cheated on her dad with her coach?” Lilith doesn’t pull her eyes away from the screen, but scoffs. “Pathetic.”

Camila claps when it ends, grinning. Ava matches her smile, looking around excitedly.

She pats herself on the shoulder mentally, though her hand itches to do it physically. She made a good choice, a strong start. She stands up, twists her back side to side so she can stretch it out, and grins. “Who wants more popcorn?”

She waits until a quiet moment, after everyone has been settled into movie and Bea has finished what Ava is sure to be the first of many comments on the historical validity of The Mummy before she says:

“This movie was my bisexual awakening.”

There’s a cough and sputter from her left where Beatrice is sitting. She thinks about reaching out and giving her a friendly whack on the back, to clear out whatever has gotten stuck in her windpipe, but Mary laughs so loudly, Ava just ends up grinning instead.

Lilith eyes her critically. “Brendan Fraser isn’t the worst you could do, I suppose.”

It’s a glowing compliment coming from Lilith. Ava files it away for the next time she inevitably says something that isn’t.

Camila leans her head back, staring at Ava upside down. “Rachel Weisz is my ‘if I had to pick a girl’.”

“Fraser is not the guy I’d pick,” Mary says firmly. “I’m more of an Usher kind of girl.”

Shannon shrugs. “I think I’d take Mummy-Fraser over Tarzan-Fraser. The long hair is… Eh.”

The TV flickers, brightening the room as Rick O’Connell crosses the screen with a torch in his hand. Ava turns expectantly to Bea. “What about you?”

“What about-” Bea’s voice is slightly squeaky, if Ava had to put a word to it. Almost as if she doesn’t know where to break the syllables. “This movie was not my bisexual awakening,” she finally says.

“Well, of course not.” Ava reaches over and does touch Bea this time, patting her knee gently. “I assume you’d be too focused on the truth of all this history stuff to even focus on either of them.” She smiles warmly. “Am I right?”

Everyone seems to be looking at the two of them. Ava feels the room tip a little. She’s suddenly worried she said the wrong thing. She just thought, with Mary and Shannon clearly dating, that it’d be okay to say something like that. They seem to be open enough, not shying away from each other. But maybe she shouldn’t have. Or maybe it’s the movie choice. Catherine Zeta-Jones and Antonio Banderas also had something good going on.

Bea stares and Ava starts to count the seconds as they stretch.

“I’m not—” Bea begins haltingly, then stops.

A tendril of panic curls around Ava’s chest. She just assumed. Sure, Bea never explicitly said she liked girls, but Ava isn’t usually wrong about this kind of stuff. Maybe she did get it wrong. Or maybe she just said it too loud. She has a tendency to barrel head first into things without thinking.

Bea clears her throat. “I suppose…” Her eyes dart over Ava’s shoulder to where Mary and Shannon are. Ava looks, smiling a little, still confused. “I suppose… Rachel Weisz is someone a person might find appealing.”

“Attractive,” Ava corrects, slightly relieved that she didn’t read Bea incorrectly. “And good choice.” She nods in total agreement. Bea’s taste is up there.

She shoves her hand into the candy bowl that’s replaced the popcorn. M&Ms in this bowl, but Bea has Junior Mints. She looks up, mouth full, and finds Bea still staring back at her. An M&M falls out of her mouth and lands in her hand. She feels her face flush and she quickly tosses it back in.

Lilith’s face is twisted in disgust. There goes that good favor. But Mary and Shannon are looking at her too, and Ava gets a weird feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“I’m sorry,” she says slowly. “I think I said something wrong.” Even though she has no clue what that might be. Her worry that she’s made Bea uncomfortable by talking about her sexuality rises again in her head.

There’s quiet for a moment before Bea says, “No.” She reaches forward like she’s trying to get Ava to understand something but her hand hovers over Ava’s, the one with a small chocolate smudge on it, and she pulls it back into her own lap. “You don’t mind?”

“Mind…” Ava blinks, looks back again. Mary is staring at her and there’s a slight edge she hasn’t seen before. “That you like Rachel Weisz?” No one says yes or no and she’s still so confused. “I totally don’t mind, if that’s what you think. Like I said.” She points both of her thumbs back at herself and tries to smile in a way she knows is charming. “Awakening.”

Bea’s face is pinched, though. Ava has the strongest urge to press her hands to it and smooth it out. Mary clears her throat and Bea’s face does it all on its own.

“I mean, I’d still be okay with it if you liked Patricia Velasquez better,” Ava admits. “The gold costume was…” She whistles low and reaches out a hand, nudging Bea in the shoulder. Bea sways away and back in again stiffly, but she seems to be breathing out.

Ava exhales. She looks back over her shoulder and Mary is still looking at her but she’s smiling too, nodding once at her. Whatever test that was, she knows she passed it. And honestly, Bea can’t go wrong with either choice. And if she is into someone like Patricia Velasquez, Ava knows a girl in her Humanities class who can pull off that same kind of eyeliner.

She offers Bea the bowl of M&Ms silently, gesturing for the Junior Mints. Bea hands it over slowly, her eyes still searching Ava’s face. She hopes Bea finds whatever she’s looking for. Because she wants to show Bea that she’s someone to trust, that Bea made a good decision, and that moving in was something that was going to be great.

She smiles encouragingly and Bea smiles back, ducking her head slightly. Ava turns back to the TV screen, silently passing Camila the bowl of Junior Mints in return for the Skittles.

“Actually,” Bea says quietly, almost as if she’s only talking to Ava. “Did you know that Medjay, the Pharoh’s bodyguards in the movie, actually refers to people from the land of Medja. It was believed to be located in Nubia, near the Second Nile Cataract.”

Ava abandons the screen, turning to Bea now. “How do you know this stuff?”

Bea shrugs a shoulder. “I like knowing things.”

“We’re finding a trivia night and going out,” Ava decides. Lilith shushes her and she ignores it. “The brains between you, Shannon, and Camila, plus my good looks, Mary’s brawn, and the whole… scary thing Lilith has going on, we’ll clean up.”

Bea smiles fully this time. A pillow hits Ava in the side of the head but it doesn’t stop her from smiling back at Bea before snatching the pillow off the floor and holding onto it until Lilith wrestles it out of her hands ten minutes later.

They’ve moved onto pizza by the time Atlantis queues up on the TV. Six different boxes sit open on the breakfast bar, greasy plates on the floor and coffee table. Ava rests a hand on her stomach, her whole body stretched out and her socked feet dangerously close to a mushroom sliding around in a puddle of grease. She peers down. Bea’s plate is full of mushrooms, picked out from the other toppings.

Huh. No mushrooms. Maybe Bea does have a flaw.

“I dated a guy who looked like Milo once,” Camila offers. “Soft spoken, too.” She squints, looking into the middle distance. “I think his name was Ted.”

“Ted.” Mary wrinkles her nose. “There was a Ted in my Women’s Safety class freshman year. Thought it was an easy A and he’d get to feel up a few girls.” She scoffs. “He sure felt my fist in his stomach.”

Ava lifts an arm in solidarity, her whole body weighed down with hot dough and spicy tomato sauce. “I beat up someone once. When I was 6. He broke my ant farm.” She gets a sudden burst of energy as damp anger flows through her. She sits up. “I was the one who got in trouble though, the little jerk.”

Lilith pushes a piece of half-eaten veggie pizza towards Ava. Ava’s stomach protests, but the mushrooms are just that good, so she takes it and polishes off the rest of it. Lilith is warming up to her and Ava revels in it. It’s all part of her master plan to win Lilith over, one small step at a time.

With the understanding, of course, that she’s going to go backwards more than she goes forward. But she can tell how much Lilith means to Beatrice and she can play the long game. It’ll be a good exercise in patience.

“What about you, Beatrice? Beat a lot of people up? I know you can, like, kill a man with your bare hands.”

Lilith snorts. “Beatrice would never.”

Ava grins. “So you would?”

“No,” Bea says loudly over Lilith opening her mouth. “Our training is for self-defense. I have never found any reason to escalate a fight outside of tournaments and educational exercises.” She sees Ava’s eyes tracking the table and nudges the plate of mushroom slices towards her. She thinks she sees Bea’s nose wrinkled in disgust.

“Okay, but, if someone like Helga Sinclair - a total babe, by the way - came charging at you, you wouldn’t fight her?” Ava points at the screen where Helga is lifting boxes up, just to show off her muscles. Her mind gets stuck for a minute. They’re impressive arms. But then, Bea’s arms kind of look the same, now that she thinks about it. Helga has more of a Lilith-attitude, though.

Bea blinks. “She’s a cartoon character.”

“But if she was real,” Ava stresses. “Are you just too proud to tell me you’d wipe the floor with her pretty, 2-dimensional face?” She looks at Shannon. “Is she always this modest?”

Shannon snorts softly. “Yeah, Beatrice never really sells herself well.”

“We’re going to fix that,” Ava decides. Bea opens her mouth but Ava shakes her head. “It’s decided. Operation Beatrice is a Badass henceforth commences tonight, on this Saturday, in Apartment 3B. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Order.”

Bea’s mouth opens and closes a few times. “That’s not at all how that goes.”

“What a ridiculous thing to say,” Lilith mutters.

“It was kind of sweet,” Camila says kindly. “I think Beatrice needs a personal cheerleader.”

“Seems like Ava is up for the job,” Mary says. Her eyes are on Beatrice, a small smirk on her face. “I say go for it.”

Ava beams. “That’s four votes yes.”

Shannon hums. “I didn’t vote.”

“My vote counts twice,” Ava says without even looking at her. She goes to say something else, but Atlantis comes into view and she forgets what she was going to say, staring in wonder as Milo sees the lost city for the first time.

She watched this movie a lot when she was in the orphanage. Sister Frances was fond of donations and didn’t usually splurge on new things; a handful of DVDs, including Atlantis, were the last thing that showed up that wasn’t already in pieces by the time it got to them. Osmosis Jones was the other one, but one of the older boys broke it when he thought Osmosis Jones was living inside his body.

Atlantis always caught her attention, though. The idea that there was a secret world out there where anything was possible? It was all she dreamed about as a kid, confined to a bed and locked away under Sister Frances’ crow-like eyes. She imagined she was Milo, on the hunt for the one thing that would make her life make sense. Sure, she never found her Atlantis, but Milo did. And she could live through that.

Her eyes stray to Bea. She’s caught herself doing that all night - constantly tuned into Bea, wondering what she’s thinking or if she likes Ava’s choices or if she’s regretting agreeing to this new living situation. She thinks everyone is warming up to her and it makes her grin. Friends. Friends she can hang out with and do movie nights and trivia nights and lunch dates like the one she has scheduled with Camila on Monday between her morning and afternoon classes.

And all thanks to the person who is quickly becoming her favorite person. Bea is her Princess Kira, showing her a whole new world. She frowns. Wrong movie. But then she shrugs; the point still stands.

“Well, you eat enough for two people,” Mary says, pulling Ava’s attention back in. She sounds impressed, though. “I’ve never seen anyone put away what you have in the last few hours.”

Ava grins and pats her stomach. “There’s still room in this ol’ thing. Just you wait.”

Mary shakes her head, a smile on her face. “Okay, baby girl. Whatever you say.”

A rush of affection swells in her chest. No one has ever called her ‘baby girl’ before. Or said it with a smile like Mary’s, like it’s some secret between the two of them. She holds onto it. She wants to wear it again. She wonders what Bea will call her, what her nickname will be.

“None of you seem to understand what a movie night is, do you?” Lilith cuts in. She has her arms crossed over her chest, eyes narrowed. “It means watching a movie, not talking through it.”

“I didn’t realize you liked this movie so much,” Mary says lightly. “If we knew it was your favorite-”

“Not my favorite,” Lilith sniffs.

“-we would have quieted down,” she finishes. “You heard her, ladies, no talking through Lilith’s favorite movie.”

Mary, unlike Ava, catches the pillow Lilith throws and chucks it right back, hitting her right in the face. Ava gasps but the sound is swallowed up by the growl of disbelief from Lilith, the weary groan from Beatrice, Shannon tutting, and Camila clapping her hands together lightly.

It takes considerable effort, and they have to rewind twice, missing the mark both times and just giving up, but now Ava can put an X across the “bloodshed” square on her “how to be friends with girls” bingo card.

Lilith pouts for the next twenty minutes, Mary gloats, and Ava eats two more pieces of pizza, chewing happily.

“You’ll like this one,” Ava promises Bea as she loads the DVD unseen into the player. “It’s Shakespeare.”

A soccer ball bounces across the screen and the look of confusion on Bea’s face deepens. Ava holds out a hand, anticipating a question.

“Just wait, okay? This is pop culture history.”

Bea looks skeptical. “It really is,” Ava insists. “It takes Shakespeare and modernizes it. Think 10 Things I Hate About You. Think Romeo + Juliet. This is a cinematic marvel.”

“Sit down,” Shannon says without any bite. “We’ve liked the other ones so far.”

“Speak for yourself,” Lilith mutters. She scowls, but closes her mouth when Camila looks at her.

Ava doesn’t let it bother her. She swears she saw Lilith crying at the end of Atlantis. But Shannon’s words give her enough courage to take her seat again and watch Bea’s face, eager to see her reaction. She doesn’t have to wait long.

“I love this movie!”

“Not this one.”

Ava looks between Shannon and Mary. They look at each other.

Shannon blinks first. “You don’t like this movie?”

“I want to strangle her boyfriend every time he’s on screen.” Mary scowls, like she’s imagining his throat under her hand. “And Channing Tatum is just…”

“He’s a baby in this movie.”

“He’s not a good actor in this movie.”

Camila raises her hand weakly. “I like him in Magic Mike.” She balks at everyone’s sudden frown. Ava shakes her head. “My freshman year roommate was, like, obsessed with him. Actually, I think her mom was. And it just sort of… trickled down.”

Ava reaches out and pats her head gently. “I’m so sorry. That sounds terrible.”

Camila shrugs. “We traded off. Horror movies for me-”

“Horibble movies for her,” Mary finishes.

Shannon shrugs. “Well, I like this movie. Though, Olivia and Viola should have ended up together.”

That, Ava can get behind. She nods furiously. “Best chemistry, definitely.” She reaches for her bowl of ice cream - she has a scoop of every flavor they got at the grocery store. She digs into it, lifting her spoon to her mouth before she pauses, speaking first. “Do you think Amanda Bynes really knows how to play soccer?”

“No,” echoes around her.

She shrugs. “Didn’t think so.”

They turn their attention back to the movie, ignoring the comments Lilith makes critiquing Sebastian’s girlfriend and Marcus the creep and the principal - who she says reminds her of her tutor. The one you made cry? Bea asks. Lilith grins with all her teeth.

Ava soaks it in like the sun on a beach. She catalogues the way Bea laughs at the pizza shop scene, the way she repeats the ug-lay as if it’s some foreign word she’s learning for the first time. She wonders if she’ll ever hear Bea say it out loud. Maybe she’ll wear something really loud - a word she picked up from Chanel - and see what the reaction is. She watches the way Mary and Shannon whisper to each other, soft murmurs over Olivia and Viola-Sebasatian arguing about cutting open a frog. Even Lilith makes a noise that sounds like a short laugh when Duke shoves a tampon up his nose. Camila mouths the words along with the characters, body jerking a little as if she’s the one playing soccer on the screen.

If 12-year-old Ava could see her now. If 17-year-old Ava could see her now. She wouldn’t believe it. She’d think her whole world extended only as far as the four walls of that orphanage. But it doesn’t. It’s bigger and brighter and filled with the coolest people she’s ever met.

Amanda Bynes flashes the soccer team and Ava laughs and laughs until Bea is smiling and shaking her head - that look, the one Ava saw Bea give Camila, that slight hint of fondness, is aimed directly at her.

The Illyria soccer team wins against Cornwall and Ava feels like she’s won something too.

She barely hears the door click shut as Lilith closes it behind her, the last one to leave.

Ava had watched Camila wrestle her bean bag back out into the hallway, smiling too brightly for someone still up at two-thirty in the morning before she slumped back down on the couch, her energy spent. Mary patted the top of her head with a heavy hand, smoothing it out with a smile, and Shannon had squeezed her shoulder gently in a goodbye before they followed Camila. Lilith had stayed, helping to pick up a few things and talking quietly with Bea. Quiet enough that Ava couldn’t hear it - and too tired to tune into.

The popcorn and the candy and the pizza and the ice cream were catching up to her, making her a little nauseous and a lot full. She slumped down further on the couch and watched Lilith move through the apartment like she knew all its corners. She couldn’t wait until she could do the same.

Bea closes the refrigerator now and turns to Ava, smiling. “Did you have fun?”

“Best night ever.” It’s not a lie. This has kicked ‘First Night out with Chanel’ off the top of her list without a care in the world. “Did you?”

“I had a very nice time. We haven’t done that in a long time.” Bea drifts closer. She sits on the edge of the couch, hovering a little above the cushion.

“Monthly movie nights, then.” A thought crosses her mind and she pouts. “Hey, we forgot National Treasure.”

Bea laughs breathlessly. “I think four movies in one night is more than enough, Ava. There will be more nights for movies. We can watch it another time.”

Ava nods decisively. “Monthly movie nights. We have all the time in the world.”

“We do,” Bea says, and it feels a little bit like they’ll have this forever.

Ava reaches behind her, groping at the back of the couch until she finds the corner of the blanket she’s searching for. She pulls it down over her head.

She thinks she hears Bea laugh, soft and melodic. But she could be imagining it, a holdover from her being hyper-aware of each time she did during movie night. She curls into it and smiles into the arm of the couch. She doesn’t know how she started sliding down, but it’s comfortable here.

“Ava,” Beatrice says gently. “You have a bed.”

Ava pulls the blanket off her head and throws it onto her legs. She squirms, trying to get it to settle over her body. “But this is so comfortable. Where did you find this couch?”

“Shannon picked it out. I’ll ask her the next time I talk to her.”

“I’ve always wanted a couch like this,” she admits. “Big, comfy. Just for us.” Her eyes flutter closed and the room goes hazy before her vision goes dark. “I’m going to sleep here.” She wiggles again. The blanket tangles around her waist.

Bea is quiet for a moment. “Come on. I have something for you.”

Her eyes open quickly, rolling off the couch and onto her feet. “What is it?”

Bea looks nervous but crosses the room to her bedroom, slipping in through the closed door. Ava hears some things moving and then Bea is in the living room again, hands clasped behind her back. She’s holding something.

“It’s- Now that I have it, I’m not sure it-” Bea takes a deep breath and smiles tightly. “I got you something. A sort of housewarming present.”

Ava grins. “I love presents. What is it?”

There’s still an undercurrent of nervousness in the way Bea uncharacteristically shifts. “Hold out your hands. And close your eyes.”

Ava immediately slams her eyes closed and thrusts her hands out. The air feels still but not uncomfortable. Silences with Bea don’t feel weird, which is crazy. So she doesn’t mind the wait as Bea obviously works up the courage to put something in her hands. After a long moment, she feels something soft and nearly weightless drop into her cupped palms.

Bea clears her throat. “You can open your eyes.”

Ava does. She blinks. A long, thin, soft stuffed animal with a white belly and tiger stripes stares back at her. She’s confused for a moment before the pieces slot into her place in her mind. “Is this… Is this Hobbes? From Calvin and Hobbes?

Bea’s cheeks are just the slightest hint of pink. She clears her throat again. “I’m sorry if this is overstepping.”

“It’s really not,” Ava rushes out. Her heart is too big in her chest. Her eyes start to burn a little, hot beads forming in the corners. “How did you-”

“The internet is more than just Wikipedia and Reddit.” Bea’s hands are tucked back behind her again. “But after our conversation…”

Their conversation.

The one where Ava told Bea everything: her accident and the grueling years of work, the orphanage, years spent in the libraries reading everything she could get her hands on. She told her about the Peanuts comics she liked and how one of the older kids had called her Linus because she carried around a blue blanket for a few years. She told Bea about the hours she would spend reading the Calvin and Hobbes comic collections and pretending she could join them on their adventures: riding in a wagon, bubble bath statues, exploring the forest, sledding, waiting for the school bus.

She told Bea she always wanted a Hobbes stuffed animal to take with her on her own adventures, just as soon as she could go and have them. She’d never admitted that to anyone else, not even Diego, the little boy she shared a room with. But something about Bea made it easy to talk about these kinds of things, Maybe it was the way she listened. She didn’t judge, she didn’t laugh.

Ava knows that’s going to be a problem. She’s going to end up telling Bea everything all the time.

And when Bea is ready to talk more about herself, about what her parents were like and how they were never around, Ava is going to be ready to listen.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she says quietly.

Bea’s voice is just as quiet. “I wanted to. You deserve to go on adventures.”

She breathes in slowly. “Today was an adventure. The best kind. And I know there’s going to be a million more.” She hugs Hobbes to her chest. “Because now I have someone. Two someones.” She smiles softly at Bea. “Hobbes. And you.”

Bea’s cheeks pinken just a hint more. She opens her mouth like she’s going to say something, but closes it again. Ava doesn’t want to say anything either, afraid to break this precarious moment. So she just looks at Hobbes, her Hobbes, and feels her chest swell with affection for this new friend she’s found.

‘Thank you,” she whispers. Bea doesn’t whisper back, but Ava doesn't think she needs to. She places Hobbes carefully on the couch. She strokes down his soft belly, fingers lingering before she turns to Bea. “I’m going to hug you. Brace yourself.”

She sees Bea physically prepare for it, watches the muscles under her thin cotton shirt tense. And she laughs, inwardly, that Bea seems to ready herself, as if Ava is going to knock her down. But she doesn’t blame her. Ava crashes into her, arms tight around her middle, trapping Bea’s arms against her sides. She feels Bea struggle for a moment before she frees her arms. Hands hover above her back before Bea pats her gently. Ava grins into the soft skin of Bea's arm.

“I think we’re going to be best friends,” she says quietly in the space between them.

She doesn’t break away from the hug until her arms start to ache. Then she steps back, giving Bea a hesitant smile before she ducks around her, headed to her new bedroom with Hobbies in her hands. With a soft goodnight, she lets Bea have a moment to herself. She seems like the type of person who needs to recover from a hug, but Ava will take care of that.

She’s a very good hugger. And they have time.

#warrior nun #avatrice #ava silva #sister beatrice #forever roommates #this was supposed to be a movie night FICLET #okay listen #this got SO FAR out of hand i cannot even begin to tell you what happened #everyone say thank you kay thank you kay #because she pushed for this and now you get to read if you'd like to #and she spent her time looking it over so she deserves extra thanks #also shout out to dren who opened a floodgate that i didn't realize needed to be let loose #is there a word limit to posts?#apparently not #for those counting along at home it's 6k #i can rest now

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wondrouswendy · 22 days

Text

Why Fictional CaseyWake Is Interesting

Back by popular demand (one person asking me to continue my essay), I will continue promoting my Fictional CaseyWake agenda. The Fictional CaseyWake tiger has escaped its cage (and is doing just fine, if a little tortured).

DISCLAIMER: While some of this post involves media analysis, I am not an expert by any means. I am just a fan interpreting things. Don't take what I say as gospel. Also, I am only working with canon presented to us through the video games.

Further, this post is not to discredit or attack FBI Casey/Alan Wake. This is just my way of explaining why this other version of CaseyWake is interesting to me. Don't come at me with a pitchfork.

As a reminder, this post was made with fun in mind.

With that said, this will be a much longer post than those I usually make, so buckle up buckaroos.

I. What's the Deal With Fictional Casey?

The Casey we meet in the Dark Place in Alan Wake 2 is not the same as FBI Agent Alex Casey. There are certainly parallels between the two men, they of course share the same name, the same face, the same voice, a handful of the exact same dialogue lines, but their perspectives on life, Alan Wake, and everything in between is extremely different.

In Abhi Jha's interview with Sam Lake, Lake describes how he decided to revive his love of hardboiled fiction through the Casey we see in the Dark Place. Alan has received visions he doesn't understand of the real Alex Casey which he has then interpreted and curated into becoming his own character named Alex Casey. At the time of this creation, Alan believes Casey came from his imagination. We later learn in Vision 02 that Alan was receiving visions of the real Alex Casey as his inspiration. In Lake's words, this is "an echo of Casey he has molded... turning the knobs more, going more into that hardboiled inspirations." He is a "fictional character coming to life" who is different than the "actual FBI Agent in Washington with Saga who does have similarities and potential of being pushed in that direction but not quite. More three dimensional. With real worries and all of that."

From this, we can extrapolate that Fictional Casey is an exaggerated version of the real Alex Casey and not necessarily a one for one copy of him. Fictional Casey's worries are therefore extremely different than his source material's worries. They live in two entirely different contexts and have vastly different people around them. FBI Agent Alex Casey had an ex-wife and currently has a partner he has a close relationship with. Fictional Casey essentially only has Alan.

Also, Fictional Alex Casey has a little hair floof whereas FBI Casey does not. Their wardrobes are completely different. FBI Casey prefers coffee as his poison of choice; Fictional Casey prefers whiskey.

II. Tropes of Interest

A. Hatemance/Enemies to Lovers

If you’re looking for a hatemance, the pairing has you covered given the whole “Alan killed Casey off for shock value” situation. There’s sex appeal in that alone, but I also think there’s this tender bond between Alan and his character which I will continue to go through later. Alan calls on Casey for help in the Dark Place later on. Maybe it’s on a subconscious level, but it’s certainly there.

In the QR code videos released by Remedy and added into the remastered version of the game, Alan brings up the importance of his character, Alex Casey several times.

In Vision 01, he describes how the Dark Place tapped into his "unconscious mind." Taking things and twisting them to ultimately create a mystery for him to unravel. He specifically writes, "I needed a detective to guide me. Echoes of Casey haunted me."

From Vision 02, he writes, "I saw visions carried by the ebb and flow of different dream states, they seeped in from the reality beyond, things I had a connection to but also things I couldn't possibly know. I used them in my writing to make it real so the parts that weren't would become so. And there were visions that I knew were not real. Ideas I had lost. Often of Casey. I had written about him for years. I use them as well."

In Initiation 2: Casey from Alan Wake 2, Fictional Casey introduces himself with no aggression. To me, in this scene, he is almost acting like a questgiver, an NPC you'd meet in a game whose purpose is to be the guide for the protagonist. There's no immediate malice. In fact, he sacrifices himself to the monster that threatens them.

Casey, who's supposed to be the hero in the narrative, is killed by the Dark Presence. Alan doesn't protect him. You could argue that Casey's final lines of dialogue in this chapter are a moment in which he's breaking through the narrative, implying that he's tired of being used as cannon fodder to protect Alan and to further him on his quest to escape the Dark Place.

B. The History Between Alan Wake and Fictional Casey

For six books, Alan exclusively wrote Alex Casey's story. I would argue that most authors do not stick with a character as long as this. Authors tend to write trilogies if they stick with one character. Often, authors tend to write a story with a character for the course of one novel and then in their next novel, they may shift that character to the background to let another character take the spotlight (this happens all the time in romance novels, for example).

For Alan to write six books worth of Alex Casey, he must have enjoyed it in some way. Something must have appealed to him. His character, the universe, the mysteries. However, something changed with Alan to cause him to not only kill off his star character, but to then proverbially shit-talk him during an interview with Harry Garrett (though the argument could be made that because this interview is shown in a dream sequence that it isn't necessarily something we can reliably trust happened in the real world; if this has been confirmed to be real canonically, please feel free to tell me).

You could argue that Alan killing off Casey in The Sudden Stop threw his marriage and his life out of control. Alan experiences writer's block because Casey's gone. Now this could simply be because the well of inspiration with real life Casey ran dry, because FBI Agent Casey's life had become warped because of Alan's novels.

Alan spends an undefined time with his character Alex Casey. Six novels worth and then thirteen years in the Dark Place. That's a lot of time together.

C. Hurt/Comfort, Angst, and Whump

Alan hurt Casey, personally. He killed him off. Not once, not twice. Several times. He sacrifices Casey over and over.

Casey's echoes in Alan Wake 2 are familiar to Alan. They guide him along to create suitable plots for his escape attempts.

Even though Alan has hurt Casey so much, Casey can't help but assist him with escaping the Dark Place. Even when Casey begins to question his existence, even when Casey starts breaking the fourth wall, he doesn't

This lends itself to juicy Hurt/Comfort, Angst, and Whump potential.

D. Alan Wake: Dude in Distress

The bodyguard trope. Casey arguably functions as a bodyguard to Alan in the Dark Place. Casey is always there for Alan.

I hear what you're saying. Is it because he has no choice in the narrative? I would argue no. He has a choice. We see moments where Casey questions his state of being, he breaks the fourth wall. He acknowledges his status as a fictional character as Alan leaves Zane's theater. He knows there will always be another case for Casey. he walks off into the night's loving arms and cheekily says, "Roll credits."

In my interpretation, there's a part of Casey that enjoys this life, fucked up as it may be sometimes.

E. Forbidden and Star-Crossed Romance

There is potential for forbidden romance between these two. After all, you aren't supposed to fall in love with your creation. It isn't real in the physical sense.

If Fictional Casey isn't important to Alan, if he isn't a threat, then why does the Dark Presence continue to kill off Casey? Why does it continue to separate them, as it does in Initiation 5 when Scratch takes over Alan's body to shoot Casey? It knows that Casey is Alan's guardian angel in the Dark Place. It knows that Casey has been useful in creating plot points to help Alan figure it out.

Further, there is the potential for no happy endings with these two. Of course, that could be a turn off for some and a delicious morsel for others.

F. Sexual Tension

In culmination, these elements of their relationship create sexual tension between Alan and Casey. There's so much potential in their history for romance. Charged moments in the Dark Place.

One could argue there's a will they/won't they moment in Initiation 5 - Room 665 when Casey is pinning Alan to the alley wall. Freud did say, after all, that gun's have phallic imagery. Take that as you will.

On a more superficial level, Alan can shape his fictional character to be his vision of the ideal man, the ideal partner. Or, conversely, his ideal fling. His ideal hot mess. Maybe Alan's version of the manic pixie dream girl is a hardboiled detective.

III. The Act of Creation as a Form of Love of the Self, the Creative Process, and the Creation Itself

Prepare yourself for a bumpy ride through my philosophizing. Sorry in advance. I'm sure others could dive deeper into these particular subtopics better than I could, but I want to just throw this spaghetti at the wall and pray something sticks.

A. Love of the Self

Loving yourself is hard. It's a platitude to say it, but it's true.

Alan and his character Casey do share some qualities. Depression, alcohol abuse. Often as writers, we do draw inspiration from ourselves to add dimension to our characters. Alan doesn't need to be a hardboiled detective himself to share similarities to his fictional character. Alan is destructive, angry, confused, self-loathing, and dysfunctional all throughout Alan Wake 1 and 2. Much of Alan's worst qualities are in Fictional Alex Casey.

In Initiation 5, as Casey lays dying from Alan/Scratch shooting him, he says,

"I was dead tired. I just wanted it to be over. It was all my fault."

Circling back to Alan's writer's block, arguably Alan being in the Dark Place is Casey's fault to an extent. Something happened to cause Alan to want to quit telling Casey's story. Perhaps if Casey had continued to be a source of inspiration, Alan would have continued writing his books?

Going back further, if Alan had never created Casey, his life could have taken an infinite amount of turns. But because Casey came to life through Alan's writing, because of their history, Casey feels some degree of responsibility for how events in the Dark Place have shaped up.

Continuing, he says,

"...I'd had this dark place in my head for so long. Sometimes I'd forget the pain was there. Like it was the way you were supposed to feel. I was not in a dark place. I was the dark place, the source of it all, the vessel. Me and the writer, we were the same."

Casey's final monologue in this chapter echoes sentiments Alan is experiencing. The overall metaphor of the Dark Place as not necessarily a physical or supernatural realm, but a state of mind. Some days are better than others. Some days, you're used to your pain that it feels natural.

This then relates to Fictional Casey's potential guilt. What broke down between Alan and his character to cause Alan to want to kill him off? Did writing Casey's story leave Alan feeling too depressed? Too gloomy as he tells Harry Garrett? Was it early signs of writer's block? A lack of direction?

Relating back to Alan, Alan and the Dark Place are largely one. He finds out Scratch is him. Scratch is Alan + the Dark Presence. Alan/Scratch has been the one haunting Alice, tormenting her. He is the source of it all.

Thus, there is a recursive relationship where Alan's self-loathing feeds Casey and vice versa.

However, there are positive elements of Alan's character in Fictional Casey and vice versa. Casey solves mysteries, he protects others, even at risk to himself. Alan has goodness inside him, but it is cloaked by his own self-doubt and self-loathing.

Alan so badly wants to be the hero all throughout Alan Wake 1 and 2 to save Alice (from the Dark Place and later Scratch), but he's struggling against his own narrative and the meta narrative at large. Fictional Casey is arguably the idealized hero-fantasy he has for himself, which is later realized when he sacrifices himself. He willingly goes back to the Dark Place to save Saga, her daughter, and FBI Casey from the Dark Place and its jailor, the Dark Presence.

B. Love (and Hatred) of the Creative Process

To quote a great tumblr post for the 100th time, the act of creation is like sticking your hand in a cylinder of irradiated water full of piranhas. At the bottom is a button, that when pressed, will give you the best orgasm of your life. However, the irradiated water is obviously toxic and the piranhas are constantly biting. In short, the act of creating something is a struggle. But when you manage to hit that button...

Ask any writer (and any creative person at large), there's nothing more enjoyable than being inspired and filled with energy. Writing a new story is exciting. It's often why people tend to have a backlog of WIPs, because sometimes creatives are always chasing after the next new rush of endorphins. Sometimes we fall in love with a universe, sometimes it's a character, an idea of ours.

On the other side of the coin, hating the creative process, I'll quote a tweet from one of my favorite Youtube video essayists, "I hate literally every step in the filmmaking process. The only thing I hate more than making a film is not making a film." Similarly, most authors state that the worst thing about the writing process is not writing.

Alan can't write because he has writer's block, and he has writer's block because he killed off his character, and he hates that he isn't creating. See the vicious cycle? He can't psych himself up for whatever new book he was supposedly going to write prior to the events of the first game.

C. Love of the Creation Itself

Even in Alan's nightmares, he has copies of The Sudden Stop stuffed into his car's trunk like that meme about the person who trips and has pictures of their senpai shoved up their sleeves.

Art is subjective. It's tailored to our personal experiences and vision. Alan (and on a meta level, Sam Lake) enjoy hardboiled detective fiction. Alex Casey is the realization of that love come to life.

Understandably, there are elements of this style of relationship which are not equal in power. We see these elements repeatedly with how Alan uses, yes even abuses Fictional Casey to further his own goals.

Yes, you could say that loving your own creation (no matter the medium) is masturbatory. It's self-aggrandizing. But loving something you put time, effort, blood, sweat, and tears just feels good. We as creators have a right to feel proud of our works.

IV. Interesting Parallels

I'm sorry to all my English major friends for the fumbling I'm about to commit with literary analysis.

A. Biblical

It wouldn't be a deep dive analysis if we didn't bring up the Bible. Of course I'm talking about God and Adam. Anyone creating their own original universe with their own original characters is playing God. Alan creates Alex Casey through the divine act of turning his imagination into tangible writing.

Will someone PLEASE draw Alan Wake and Fictional Casey in the vein of Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam already???

B. Literary

John Milton's famous lines from his work Paradise Lost:

Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould Me man? Did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me?

Of course, Paradise Lost is an epic poem about the story of Genesis, but this stanza in particular, spoken by Adam to God can easily be applied to Fictional Casey towards Alan. Casey didn't ask for any of this. He didn't ask to be created, he didn't ask to become Alan's guide in the Dark Place.

I’m a sucker for Frankenstein by Mary Shelley so I regret to inform everyone we're bringing it up.

I think there’s some Frankenstein/His Monster vibes with this flavor of CaseyWake. I think there were moments where Casey resented coming to life, certainly much later on as he lives and dies over and over.

From his dying moments in Initiation 2:

"I remembered dying in this alley in a dream I had. He was just gonna keep killing me here, loop by loop. You're not gonna get what you want. You think you know. You know shit. You don't really wanna know. You're gonna get what's coming to you."

And then from Frankenstein:

"Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good – misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous."

Unlike his real counterpart, Fictional Casey has no one other than Alan. He has no friends, no found family. Arguably, even FBI Casey wants nothing to do with his fictional self. He is completely reliant upon Alan. I suppose you could say we the audience are his only true friend, as we function as voyeurs into his fictional life, much like Alan (but we seem to want to take better care of him than Alan does).

C. Mythological

Pygmalion and Galatea.

The Greek sculptor Pygmalion fell in love with his sculpture of a woman. He asked the goddess Aphrodite if his sculpture could become real, and somehow the goddess of love was like "yeah sure bud." The sculpture, Galatea, comes to life, and they live happily ever after.

(This is the part where I'll make a brief Weird Science shoutout since it's a somewhat similar premise).

V. Conclusion

If you have somehow made it this far, thanks for reading.

There are likely things I've forgotten that I wanted to talk about at some point. Maybe I'll have to make a part two if I end up remembering them.

Hopefully my essay will help inspire others to create fanworks featuring this particular version of CaseyWake. I would love to hear what others think, so please don't hesitate to share your thoughts!!

And finally,

#caseywake #fictional alex casey #alan wake #alex casey #remedy entertainment #ch: alan wake #I can rest now

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