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Chapter Text

Beau never actually “came out” to her parents. One day her dad caught her fooling around with her girlfriend Tori in the wine cellar and that had been it. She didn’t have to say a word, in a matter of minutes Tori was sent away and her mother was crying because her only child was both a lesbian and a huge disappointment. Of course, she had been a disappointment in their eyes way before they found out she was a lesbian, although she was sure they had suspected it for a long time. The way she cringed every time they tried to put her in girly clothes and rolled her eyes when her mother talked about how handsome her friends’ sons were weren’t exactly subtle hints of her sexuality.

Tori started avoiding her after that. No matter how many times she tried calling or texting her, she never answered. It wasn’t like she could just see her in class, Tori had graduated the year before and worked at a mall a couple of towns over. She tried go to her house once or twice but her sister always came to the door to tell her Tori wasn’t home. She suspected her father had payed her a ridiculous sum to keep her distance and, although it hurt to know Tori had accepted it, she didn’t blame her for it because she knew her family was always tight on cash.

For a week after that, Beau tried her hardest to keep things calm at home. She avoided her parents as much as possible, came right back home after school and made sure to show up for meals on time and dressed in a way that didn’t make her mother have a fit, although she still refused to wear pink. Her father continued to look at her like she was less then garbage in his eyes and would not miss a chance to make a snide comment about her appearance or her grades, but she did her best not to talk back and keep the peace.

That all changed on Friday night when she was just laying in bed, going through Instagram, and got a text from her best friend Fjord.

Fjord: U good? U havent come by my place in a while

Beau: Yeah. Dad being a dick, the usual. Trying to lay low

Fjord: 4 real? Sabian is throwing a party tonight. U not going?

Beau took a while to answer. A part of her wanted to keep being well behaved, at least until her parents forgot about the wine cellar incident. But she also had way too much pent up frustration she needed to drink or punch away. She was pretty sure her dad was already asleep, so it wouldn’t be hard to sneak out and if her parents never found out, did it even count? Also, there was a chance Tori was going to be at the party so she didn’t really have a choice, did she?

Beau: Fuck my dad. See you in 15

She changed into a pair of dark skinny jeans, an old band t-shirt she had turned into a crop top and cut the sleeves off of and her favourite leather jacket. She kept her shoes off, though, holding them in her hand so she didn’t make any noise as she walked down the stairs. She snuck into the kitchen and climbed up on the counter to squeeze herself trough the small window next to the stove. It was the only window on the first floor that opened without creaking and, after some failed attempts at trying to climb down from her bedroom window using the very fragile ivy covered trellis that ran up the wall, she had started using this one instead.

She jumped down, gathering momento so she could clear her mother’s rose bushes and land on the soft grass, and put her shoes on as soon as she was upright again. Fjord’s house was a couple of streets over and she made it there even faster than she had planned.

“Beauuuu, long time no see!” He greeted her at the door, still wearing his football uniform. Sabian was one of Fjord’s football buddies and it was pretty common for the athletes at her school to wear their uniforms to parties, something Beau found extremely obnoxious and refused to do, despite being on the track team herself. It did get them laid a lot though, she couldn’t argue with the results.

“Tell me about it, man. This week has been hell.” She took a seat on the steps of his porch and he followed suit.

“Wanna talk about it?” He passed her a flask and Beau took a long swig, not bothering to even smell it before. It was whiskey, the cheap stuff that burned like rubbing alcohol and tasted like absolute crap but got you nice and drunk fast. She took a couple more sips before giving it back to Fjord.  

“My dad found out about Tori...”

Fjord’s eyes went wide. “Someone told him?”

“No... He caught us in the cellar.” Fjord cursed, also taking a drink. “Completely red handed... Her shirt was off and my hand was down her pants. I’m such a dumbass! I should have been more careful, but I thought he wasn’t returning from his work trip until the next day.”

“Not going to lie, that is probably the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever heard.”  

She scowled. “Thanks man, that really makes me feel better.”

“Sorry... Hey, at least he didn’t freak out and send you to boarding school or something.”

“No, and that’s weird, right? He’s been a dick but not more than usual. I’m afraid that he’s planning something.”

He thought about it for a little while sloshing she whiskey around before passing it back to her. “Maybe he’s trying to be more accepting? You’re his only child and he’s not getting any younger. Maybe he wants to make amends in case... you know... Something happens?”

Beau’s scowl only deepened. “Don’t project your shit on me, Fjord. My dad isn’t the amends type, never was, never will be. Like I said, he hasn’t stopped being a dick and making me feel like shit, he just hasn’t blown up. Yet.”

 She had met Fjord in primary school when he moved to Kamordah to live with his uncle Vandran after his parents died in a car crash. Although they fought from time to time, Beau knew Fjord and his uncle really loved one another and, after sharing the grief of a sudden and tragic loss, they became very big on the concepts of forgiveness and not leaving things unsaid. Beau was happy for them but she knew that would never be her family. The Lionnetts were more into resentment than understanding.

“You never know... Maybe he-” He saw the anger in her eyes and decided to let it go. “How’s Tori dealing with this?”

“I don’t know, she’s avoiding me!” Beau threw her arms up, almost spilling the whiskey. “I’m pretty sure dear ol’ dad payed her to stay away... Do you think she’ll be at Sabian’s?”

“Maybe. But... what are you going to do if she is?” Now he was the one frowning. “Please don’t make a scene.”

“No man, I don’t want to fight! I understand why she would take the money... I just want some... closure?”

“You just want to say goodbye? That’s very mature of you.” He smiled, the scar across his cheek, the only injury he had sustained in the accident, puckered up.

“Yeah yeah, I’ve been Miss Maturity all week. Someone should give me a fucking medal.” She rolled her eyes and took another sip. At least she tried to, there were only a couple of drops of whiskey left. When had that happened? “But, you know... if she tells me she wants to keep things going I’m not going to say no. I know how to keep things on the down low.”

Fjord sighed, took the empty flask from her hands and shoved it back in his pocket. “Don’t get your hopes up, okay? I don’t want you to get hurt, Beau.”

“Me? Hurt? Not going to happen!” She pushed her chest out, all liquid courage and fake bravado. “Me and Tori aren’t even that serious, okay? She is just the first girl I’ve ever been with... and she’s hot and cool and... I just don’t want to give up on a good thing, you get me? I’m not gonna be, like, heartbroken or anything...”

That was only about 50% a lie which, for Beauregard, was a decent amount of honesty. While she called Tori her girlfriend, it wasn’t like they ever had a conversation about it or made it official on social media. Hell, as far as she knew Tori didn’t even think they were exclusive. The thought of her seeing other people didn’t break Beau’s heart, she wasn’t in love with Tori. But she cared for her and she liked what they had and if Tori said she wasn’t willing to keep it going, it would definitely hurt. Because it would mean she wasn’t worth the trouble... she was never worth the trouble. That’s why her parents spent so much time and money going to fertility specialists, trying to have a second child. She had always been a handful and, at some point, they realized she wasn’t worth the trouble, so they were trying to make a baby who was. Maybe getting found in the cellar was that point for Tori, maybe now she saw all the trouble that came with Beauregard Lionett. And she didn’t want to deal with it, no one did.

“If you say so...” Fjord checked the time on his phone and then got up. “C’mon, let’s get this show on the road.”

“Finally! I’m getting too sober again.”

“You better not go overboard, Beau. I’m not holding your hair back while you puke and I’m definitely not taking you home. I don’t want to have to face your dad.”

“Don’t worry,” She grinned, jumping to her feet. “I’ll be on my best behaviour, scouts honor. It’ll be fiiiiine!”

Chapter Text

Beau was definitely not fiiiine.

When she left Fjord’s place, she could hardly feel the whiskey in her system besides a slight warmth in her stomach and the disgusting aftertaste in the back of her throat. As soon as she got to Sabian’s and downed a cup of cheap keg beer, though, it all hit her at once.

All of a sudden, Sabian’s kitchen started to spin, the ugly black and white tile going round and round like a carousel under her feet until it was all just gray. Beau knew she should probably sit down and wait for it to pass but Fjord had left to go say hi to his friends and she wasn’t about to be the loser sitting alone on the kitchen floor at a party. Against her better judgement, she filled up her cup again and stumbled her way into the living room to look for Tori.

Sabian’s house was bursting at the seams, packed wall to wall with people from her school, their bodies writhing against each other to some awful trendy pop song like a massive wave of hormones and sweat. As she pushed her way through the crowd, her cup sloshing dangerously every time she bumped into someone, she kept feeling worse and worse. It was too hot and too dark and the crappy strobe lights Sabian had installed in the living room were making her see double. She had almost made it to the other side of the room when her stomach started to lurch and she had to stop for a second, right in the middle of a group of freshmen girls.

“What?” She yelled at them as they stared. God, she felt sick. And angry, she was so fucking angry... At her dad, at herself, at Tori... Fuck, was Tori even at this party? Had she snuck out for nothing?

The freshmen girls looked at her like she had grown fangs and began to scatter like a flock of scared, red solo cup carrying, birds. Only one stayed behind, a brunette in a blue tube top. She looked at Beau with wide, concerned eyes, fiddling nervously with her empty cup.

“Are you okay?” She asked, her voice barely audible above the music.

“Sure. I’m fucking fantastic!” Beau sneered. “Do I not look okay?”

“Yes! I mean, no! Oh jeez...” The girl stuttered, her cheeks turning red. “I just meant you look a little queasy. But aside from that you look great! Like really great...”

“Hmmm...”

Beau’s alcohol addled brain took an embarrassingly long time to realize the girl was flirting with her. To her defense, she was more focused on taking deep breaths to calm her stomach down than on the way the freshmen’s eyes kept drifting to her bare midriff. Besides, it wasn’t like this happened every day in good ol’ Kamordah. Beau was used to getting hit on when she went out to concerts and clubs in Zaddash or Rexxentrum. But Kamordah was a small, conservative town, to the point where, if there were any other queer kids in her school, she was not aware of it. So this... this was an anomaly, but a very pleasant one.

A part of Beau’s brain kept telling her to ignore the girl and keep looking for Tori, but there was a new voice, a louder voice that was powered by whiskey and deep seethed anger, that yelled at her to forget Tori and move on. They were over, weren’t they? She had taken the money and ignored her calls, she had left her like what they had meant nothing. And maybe it didn’t and Beau was just being clingy and pathetic. Fuck, she needed to move on... and there was no better way to get over someone than getting under someone else.

Letting her grimace fade into a smirk, she turned to the freshman. She was pretty, if a little plain, with a very slim, petite build and curly dark hair. Not exactly Beau’s type but maybe that was what she needed to get over her ex.

“I’m Beauregard. Beauregard Lionett.” She said and stretched her arms over her head, letting her crop top rise a little higher to give her a better view. The girl practically melted, her eyes staring hungrily at Beau’s defined abs before she quickly met her gaze again, her face getting progressively redder.

Beau couldn’t help but grin. This was exactly what she needed! After the shitty week she’d had, the ego boost was much appreciated and she felt herself relax as even her stomach began to calm down and cooperate.  

“Oh, I- I know... I’m Amy. I’m on the track team team too...”

The name didn’t wring any bells but, then again, Beau had missed more practices than she had attended this year. She was pretty sure her coach would have kicked her out of the team already if she wasn’t their best runner, practice attendance didn’t really matter if you kept winning anyway.

“Really? That’s so weird,” She told Amy, taking a small sip from her now slightly warm beer. “I’m usually great at remembering faces. Specially pretty ones.”

The girl smiled like she had just won the lottery. “T-that’s okay. I know freshmen are sort of invisible to you seniors.”

“You’re not invisible, Amy...” She moved closer close and purposeful let her step falter, reaching out and grabbing Amy’s shoulder for support. “Oops... I think you were right, I drank a little too much. I should go splash some water on my face. Do you... want to come upstairs with me?”

She took a minute to digest what Beau had asked, her mouth opening and closing awkwardly before she realized what Beau actually meant and nodded eagerly.

“Yeah, yes, of course!” She stuttered. “Do you want to- do you need to lean on me?”

Beau slid her arm around Amy’s slim waist. “Better safe than sorry, right?” She whispered into her hair.

Amy tried to do the same to her but the minute her hand met Beau’s bare skin she jumped and quickly reached lower, holding her hip instead. Beau didn’t mind either way but Amy’s awkwardness and hesitation had her wondering if she had ever been with another woman before. Normally, Beau would consider being a girl’s first kind of hot, but tonight she just wanted to turn her brain off for a minute. Worrying if Amy was going to regret it in the morning or, even worse, if she was going to develop feelings and expect them to date after this, was the last thing she needed. Yet, there she was, single and mad, with a girl she wasn’t into in one hand and a cup of beer she didn’t want to drink in the other, ignoring every red flag as they made their way upstairs and into Sabian’s guest bathroom.

Beau pushed the door open and let Amy pass before shutting it behind herself and twisting the bolt so no one could bother them. She knew the door locked because the last time she had been in this bathroom, it was with Tori... She tried to stop that train of thought before it made her sad but it was already too late and the way Amy was standing by the sink, looking so scared she was practically shaking, didn’t help either.

“Look, it’s fine if you changed your mind, or if you’re just not into it. Say the word and we can go back to the party.”

Amy’s eyes went as wide as dinner plates and she shook her head frantically. “No, no, that’s not it! I’m... I’m really into it, into you... I’m just nervous. I’m not used to doing this sort of thing.”

Beau put her cup on top of the bathroom counter and got a little closer, still giving Amy plenty of space. “Hooking up at parties or hooking up with girls?”

“Both, I guess.” She giggled and reached for Beau’s beer, taking a drink and looking at her coyly over the brim of the cup. “I really want to kiss you, though.”

“Yeah?” She nodded, biting her lower lip.

Beau closed the distance between them and stole back her cup, putting it carelessly back on the counter. The red solo cup tilted and fell inside the sink, spilling the little bit of warm beer that was left. Beau didn’t even bother to look, she just lifted Amy’s chin with her finger and kissed the younger girl.

Amy’s lips were thin but soft and she tasted like beer and cherry lipgloss. It was... nice. Beau didn’t feel butterflies in her stomach or saw any fireworks behind her closed lids, but she enjoyed the feel of it and the distraction it provided, the way it quieted down her brain for just a little longer. She didn’t want it to stop, she didn’t want to think anymore.

Usually, Beau liked when other girls took charge, she liked when they fought for control of the kiss and pushed her against the wall, but there would be none of that with shy, gentle Amy. She decided to take over instead, grabbing her by her waist and lifting her up so she could sit on the counter. Amy laughed, pulling Beauregard closer between her legs and hooking her arms around her neck, getting bolder with both her touches and her tongue as time passed.

Beau ran her hands up Amy’s thighs and the other girl started playing with her hair, letting it fall down around her shoulders. Beau hated doing her hair, but her mother never let her cut it any shorter than shoulder length so she usually had it up in a messy bun to to at least keep it out of her face. She was about to tell Amy she could pull on it if she wanted, when there was a knock on the door.

“Occupied, use the one downstairs!” She yelled out.

“Lionett, I know you’re in there, get out!” An angry male voice yelled back. She recognized it almost immediately, it was Marius LePual, another one of Fjord’s football buddies and Tori’s cousin.

“Fuck off Marius, I’m busy!” She grumbled, chasing Amy’s lips again. She turned her head, looking frantically between Beau and the door like a frightened doe.

“Should we go? He sounds angry...”

“He’s just a drunken idiot. Ignore him, babe.” Not even the pet name was enough to get Amy to focus back on her so she gave her thighs a squeeze that made her jump. “Ignore him.”

This time she listened and Beau recaptured her lips. She kissed her through the annoying knocking and Marius’ grumblings that sounded suspiciously like “you fucking bitch”. She had just gotten her hands under Amy’s shirt when Marius yelled her name again, louder than before, and kicked the door in. For a moment they all stood still, Marius in the doorway, breathing heavily, Amy on the counter with her lips on Beau’s neck, Beau frozen between her legs. Only the door moved, swinging on its broken hinges.

“Oh, you gotta be kidding me!” Marius screamed, spit collecting in the corners of his mouth. “You’re already with someone else, you slut?”

“Dude, what the fuck? You broke the fucking door!” Beau mumbled, slightly dumbstruck, stepping away from Amy. “What’s wrong with you? Sabian’s going to kill you!”

“Shut up, bitch! You think you can just mess with my cousin’s head, make her think she’s into chicks and then pay her to go away when you want someone new?”

Beau was so stunned she started laughing. “That’s what Tori told you? That I payed her?”

“I saw the money, Lionett! You think you can buy us off because we’re not loaded like you and your fucking family? You think you’re better than us?”

He stomped into the bathroom as he spoke only stopping when he was eye to eye with Beau, close enough that she could see his nostrils flaring and the vein on his forehead pulsing.

 Amy jumped down from the counter and, after giving Beau one last apologetic look, ran for the door. “I’m sorry, I... I can’t deal with this.” She stuttered on her way out.

“Amy, wait...” Beau tried to follow her but Marius stepped in her way, standing a foot taller than her and more than twice her size in his stupid varsity jacket.

“Oh no you don’t! I’m not letting you run after your new little play thing. You’re not leaving this bathroom until you apologise for what you did!”

The slow burning anger that had been steadily heating up inside Beau all night came to a boil and her vision started to go red around the edges. “I didn’t do anything, you idiot! I didn’t give Tori any fucking money, my dad did. She decided to take it and leave me. She sold herself!” She yelled, slapping his chest to push him back.

“Fuck you, Lionett!” He growled, crossing his arms and refusing to back off.

“Sorry buddy, you can’t. But she did.” She hissed right back. “I didn’t trick your cousin, I didn’t trick anyone. Tori isn’t straight, deal with it, you fucking bigot! I know a lot of straight girls and none of them eat pussy like she does!”

“Don’t talk about my cousin like that, bitch!” He snapped and his hand shot out, straight towards Beau’s throat.

There weren’t a lot of things Beau was grateful at her parents for, but letting her learn martial arts was one of those rare few. Once they realized how hyperactive their child was, they had signed her up for every after school activity available in Kamordah. Beau quickly grew bored with piano and ballet, but she liked karate and it tired her out, so they allowed her to keep doing it and, at 13 when she begged for it, they let her start doing muay thai as well. If there was one thing Beau was not a disaster at, it was fighting and no amount of alcohol got in the way of that.

When she felt Marius’ hand close around her throat, his meaty finger squeezing until she couldn’t catch her breath, she instinctively brought her leg up and kneed him in the stomach. He was bigger and stronger than her but she was faster and, when he bent over, gasping in pain, she quickly went for his face, punching the heel of her hand into his nose over and over again until she felt it crack and blood started gushing out. Marius’ cried out, letting go of her neck to cover his nose and attempt to stop the bleeding.

“Are you happy now? Is this what you were looking for?” She yelled. “This shit is between me and your cousin, no one else. Stay out of my business Marius, or a bloody nose will be the least of your problems.”

Beau tried to go around him and leave the bathroom but he caught her arm, pulled her back and slapped her with his bloody palm, sending her flying against the counter. Her back hit the edge of the cabinet and Beau gasped, struggling to get back on her feet. Her lower lip had split from the slap and her mouth filled up with the metallic taste of blood and the little bit of self control Beau was trying to hold on to slipped until all she knew was rage. She felt nothing but the dull pain on her cheek and her blood pounding in her ears, so loud it blocked out any other sound. Her mind went completely, blissfully, blank except for the need to pound Marius into the ground and she smiled. This was what she had really needed all along! Not to drink, not to fuck some stranger... She needed violence!

Pushing herself away from the counter, Beau took a running start and jumped on him, hooking her legs around his waist, and started punching his face repeatedly. He stumbled backwards into the hallway, his hands flailing as he tried to push her off.  Beau was aware that there was a crowd watching them now and that someone was screaming at them to stop but she was too far gone to listen. Her thighs and abs hurt from the effort of keeping her attached to him and upright but she didn’t stop, her fists connecting over and over again with his jaw until he was spitting blood. Eventually he got a good punch in, hitting her right in the eye and Beau lost her grip, falling down on the carpeted floor.

Strong male hands grabbed her shoulders from behind and started helping her to her feet, Beau tried to shrug them off but then she noticed it was Fjord.

“Dude, let go. I don’t want to hurt you.” She said, trying to push her hair away from her face. Across the way, Marius was slumped against the wall, his face a bloodied mess, but he was smirking like he had won, like his nose wasn’t permanently ruined.

“I think you’ve done enough, Beau. Let this go and come downstairs with me, okay?” Fjord begged, trying to move her towards the stairs. “I can’t believe you’d hit a woman, LePual!”

 Marius laughed. “She ain’t a woman, she’s a d*ke. If she wants to talk like the boys and fuck like the boys, she’s gotta learn how to take a punch like a man too.”

“That’s it, you’re fucking dead LePual!” Beau screamed, shrugging off Fjord’s hold with one hard shove. She ran towards Marius again but this time he was ready and when she raised her arm to punch him in the ribs, he kick her feet from under her.

She felt herself falling backwards and tensed up, ready to hit the carpet, but the fall seemed to never end and her stomach dropped like she was in a roller-coaster. It wasn’t until she saw the expression on Marius’ face go from cocky to worried that she realized how close they had been to the stairs.

Her head hit the second step and her vision started to darken, she reached out blindly, trying to grab on to the railing or the edge of a step, anything that would stop her fall, but her hands met only air. By the time she hit the landing, she could only lay there, splayed out, going in and out of consciousness. She heard a girl scream and then the party music was abruptly cut off, giving way to an awful, deafening silence.

Beau closed her eyes. She knew she shouldn’t let herself fall asleep after hitting her head, but she couldn’t help it, she was so tired and everything ached. The last thing she heard, before she passed out, was Fjord calling her name and cursing loudly. After that there was nothing but darkness and the shrill cries of a police siren.

Chapter Text

Beau woke up in an unfamiliar bed. The sheets were stiff and neatly tucked under the mattress so she could barely move and everything smelled like disinfectant and dust. She knew she was in the hospital before the quiet beeping of the heart monitor in the next room even registered.

She opened her eyes slowly, blinking at the sunlight that filtered in through a small window and saw her father sitting on an armchair in the corner of the room. She cleared her throat and he looked up from the newspaper he was reading.

“Ah, you’re awake. Good.”

“What happened?” She said, her voice hoarse.

“You’re asking me what happened? That’s precious, Beauregard.” He scoffed. “Why don’t you tell me why your mother and I got woken up at 4 am by a police officer saying you got drunk at a party, fell down a set of stairs and passed out, when you were supposed to be asleep in your bed?”

“... I wasn’t drunk.” Was all Beau could say.

“Do not lie to me, child! You’re in enough trouble as is.” Thoreau hissed. “They took your blood when you came in, you were very clearly drunk.”

“Could you please not yell at me right now? My head is killing me...” Beau groaned.

“It’s called a hangover. I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept.”

“Or I could have a concussion!” She argued, feeling around her head. There was a small band-aid on the left side of her forehead. “I kind of fell head first...”

“The doctor was concerned about that when you came in. They did a scan, you’re fine.” He folded the newspaper neatly and places it on the arm of the chair.

“Oh, the doctor was concerned? Good to know you don’t care, dad...”

He rolled his eyes, looking ridiculously childish for his age, even in his perfectly pressed slate grey suit. “Don’t be melodramatic, Beauregard. I was too busy to worry. I had to deal with a boy with a broken nose and his mother threatening to press assault charges against you.”

“Charges? Marius? He’s the one who pushed me down the stairs!” She yelled far too loudly, and it made her head pound.

“Not according to him. He says you started the fight and the fall was an accident. And he has a witness.”

Beau’s mind started racing, her blood boiling. There were few things she hated more than liars, probably because she was one herself. If Marius wanted to fight dirty she would too, she would take this to court if necessary. She could get her own witness, she was sure Fjord would stand up for her. Except, he had missed the beginning of the fight, he wasn’t in the bathroom when Marius came in. But, then again, neither were any of Marius’ buddies. It was just the two of them and Amy... but the girl had been so scared when they were found together that Beau knew she would rather die than tell a judge what they had been doing in that bathroom. Beau was sure she couldn’t convince her to testify, but she was also certain Marius’ hadn’t gotten her to be his witness either.

“Who? Who did he get to lie for him?”

His father waved his hand dismissively. “Some other kid from the football team. Shaggy blond hair, bellow average vocabulary, obviously more well off than Mr. LePual.”

“Sabian...” She groaned. “He wasn’t even there! I can totally-”

“It is unimportant.” Her father interrupted her. “I handled it.”

“You... What do you mean, you handled it? Did you pay them off too?”

Thoreau got up and began pacing around the room. “There was quite a lot of money involved, yes. But I couldn’t let you have assault charges on your record, what would people think? It’s bad enough that you were involved in that breaking and entering debacle...”

“I was 12! And it was just a stupid dare... We thought the house was abandoned, we had no idea that old hag lived there.”

He walked up to the window and and began fidgeting with the blinds. “We raised you better than that. You made our family look like a bunch of lowlifes.” The metal blinds creaked as he moved them aside to look outside, avoiding Beau’s stare. “Which is why I had to make special arrangements...”

“Arrangements?” She mumbled, his suddenly quieter tone concerning. “What do you mean?”

“I’m sending you away for the rest of the school year-”

“You’re sending me away?” Beau jumped out of bed. The IV stuck to the crook of her elbow tugged her back as she rushed towards her dad and she carelessly ripped the needle out, not even registering the pain. “You can’t just get rid of me!”

“-to a program for at risk youths.” He continued, not even sparing her a look. “It will just be a couple of weeks, not even two months. Just enough for you to straighten up your act and for people to forget about you recent... scandals.”

“So you admit this isn’t just about last night.” She yelled at his back. “You’re sending me away because of Tori, aren’t you? You’ve been planning this since the day you found us! You’re sending me to some sick conversion camp!”

 “Don’t be ridiculous!” He finally turned, his blue eyes, so similar to Beau’s, full of disdain. “I’m sending you to a renowned monk run reform school, so you can learn to be calmer and more respectful. But if you get over your little experimental phase during your time there, I would appreciate it. You’ve caused this family enough embarrassment with that.”

At this point, Beau was so angry she was shaking. “I knew you were a terrible father but I didn’t know you were a bigot too.”

For all her hand to hand combat training and her speed, Beau did not see the slap coming. One minute her father’s expression was completely neutral and the next he was calling her an ungrateful brat and backhanding her across the face.

“You do not get to talk to me like that! Not after all me and your mother have done for you, all that we have given you!” He spit at her.

Beau just stood there, speechless, her cheek and eyes stinging awfully. Despite all his faults as a father, Thoreau had never hit her before, he had never stooped so low. Until now.

She knew she should be angry, and she was, but she was also hurt and ashamed. In her silence, she thought about all that she had done that led them to this point, every time she had broken a rule or spoken out of term or flirted with someone of the same gender. She thought about it and she felt ashamed and hated herself for it. She knew rationally that there was nothing wrong with her and who she loved but there was also a voice in her head that she couldn’t quiet down that said that if she had just been a little more polite, if she had obeyed and kept her mouth shut and dated some rich boy without a brain like her father wanted, maybe he would love her now.

The sting of the slap didn’t last long but when it subsided Beau felt the tears running down her face and they hurt even worse. She hated showing weakness, specially around her father. She felt humiliated.

Thoreau didn’t pause at the sight of her crying, he didn’t even have the decency to look shocked at what he had done to his only child, he just walked back to the chair he had been sitting on and grabbed a large duffle bag from beside it.

“I took the liberty to pack some of your things. The monks should be arriving within the hour.” He said, holding the bag out for her. She stared at it for a moment and then forced herself to grab it, her tired arms letting it drop until it almost dragged on the floor.

“I-I’m leaving now?” She said once she was able to find her voice again. Thoreau just nodded, eyeing the door. “I just spent a night in the hospital!”

“As I said, you’ve been checked out and you are fine. There is no reason to delay this.”

“Can I at least go home and take a shower first? Can I say goodbye to mom?” She pleaded. Her mother was a meek woman, she didn’t speak up or contradict her husband but Beau was sure she would not be happy with having her child sent away. Maybe together they could convince Thoreau to give her a different punishment.

“No. Your mother and I have spoken and we agreed that it would be better for her not to see you depart. She’s in no state for strong emotions.” His eyes lit up in a way Beau had seen only on very rare occasions and the corners of his lips lifted into a ghost of a smile. “We have just discovered that our last embryo transfer was successful. Your mother is pregnant, with a boy this time.”

Beau’s jaw dropped, fresh tears making her eyes burn. “I’m going to have a little brother?”

“If everything goes as expected.” He sighed. “I would like you to be a part of his life.”

“What is that supposed to mean? Of course I’m going to be a part of his life, he’s my brother!” The new tears didn’t spill down her face, they dried out, burned away by a fresh bout of anger.

“Not if you don’t learn to behave. I won’t have you be a bad influence on him.”

What had she been on about a second ago? Changing herself for him? Yeah, fuck that! She was fine just the way she was. She was more than fine, she was fucking fantastic and she didn’t need to change for anyone, specially not Thoreau Lionett!

“What will you do? Send me to another program?” She hissed, wiping her tear stained cheeks. The skin around her right eye was swollen and tender to the touch, so she knew she probably had a massive shiner. “I’ll be 18 soon. You won’t have any say in where I go.”

“But I’ll get a say in where you don’t. If you don’t change, you won’t be welcomed in my home anymore. You’ll have to move out and get a job.”

“Wait, does that mean you’ll stop giving me my allowance too? What about college? I’m going to Zadash U in the Fall, remember? How am I supposed to pay for everything?” She asked worriedly.

“Your scholarship covers your tuition. You’ll just have to work to pay for food and living accommodations.”

“In Zadash? That would require getting a full time job, maybe a part time too. And you want me to do it while studying? That’s impossible!”

He shrugged. “Then I suggest you take this program seriously and return with a better attitude. For all our sakes.” He reached inside his pocket and fished out his phone. “Speaking of which, your transportation has arrived. You better get changed.”

 That was all the goodbye she got from Thoreau Lionett. No last words of wisdom, no long last hug, not even a wish of good luck. He kept silent, looking back out of the window as she changed from her hospital gown to the outfit she had been wearing the previous night and when she told him she was ready he merely nodded, not bothering to turn. Eventually, there was a knock on the door and he opened it to let two burly guys in blue monk robes in and sneaked out without a word or even one last look at his daughter.

“Miss Lionett, are you ready to go? Do you need any assistance?” One of the monks asked her once her father was gone. His tone suggested that he was less asking if she wanted him to take her bag and more if she needed to get dragged out kicking and screaming.

She considered her options, going down without a fight had never been her style. But then she remembered her father’s words, his threats, and the heartbreaking possibility that she would never get to meet her little brother. In the end, she decided to keep what little of her dignity she still had left and follow them without a fight.

*

The monks led her out of the hospital and into a nondescript white van with tinted windows and Beau had to wonder for a second if her dad had actually secretly sold her off because she had never seen a more suspicious looking vehicle in her life. She was sure anyone passing by would think she was being kidnapped but the hospital parking lot was oddly empty so, unfortunately, no one tried to save her. Beau would pay to see her father’s mortified expression as he tried to explain to the police that she wasn’t actually being kidnapped, just sent to some shady program for ‘troubled teens’ even though she was on her school’s honor roll, had a track and field scholarship to one of the best colleges in the country and a clean record besides a breaking and entry charge from 5 years ago.

She sat in the back of the van, pressed against one of the windows with one of the monks on her other side, watching her like he was afraid she was going to jump out of the moving vehicle. Beau really wished she could get a little more personal space but after feeling so powerless around her dad, she didn’t mind being treated like a flight risk, better to be seen as a dangerous criminal than a helpless child.

They drove for hours without stopping for gas, food or even the bathroom, the sun slowly setting as they passed through small country side towns and then took the highway that led to Zadash but got off past the exit. Beau spent the entire time staring out the window with her headphones on, blaring gangster rap as loud as her phone allowed. From time to time, she would catch her reflection in the window and flinch. She looked almost as bad as she felt. Her hair was a tangled mess, hurriedly pulled up into a bun, her face looked gaunt and pale, her eyes sunken in, the skin around the right one was swollen and purple and her bottom lip had a barely scabbed over gash right in the center. She hoped Marius looked even worse, she wished his nose would never get fixed. But hey, if it did, she could always break it again, once she returned.

She was so busy thinking about her revenge fantasy that she almost didn’t notice the van stopping. The monk beside her pulled the door open and told her to get out, waiting for her to leave before following behind with her bag. The driver didn’t park, as soon as the monk slammed the door shut, he hit the gas and was off, leaving the two of them alone on a dirt road.

“What the...” Beau looked around in confusion, trying to find any sign of a building but only seeing a tree lined dirt path ahead. Suddenly, the idea that she was being kidnapped didn’t seem as funny anymore. “Where are we going?”

“Down the road. Keep moving.” He grunted, hitting her in the arm with her bag to push her forward.

Beau started to walk slowly, slyly checking her phone. She was annoyed but not surprised to see that, wherever they were, didn’t have cell reception. She considered running, she was light and lean and trained for speed, she clearly had an advantage over the bulky monk, but he knew the area and she didn’t. In fact, she had absolutely no idea where she was, even if she managed to lose him, she didn’t know how to get to the nearest road or town, she could very easily get lost in the woods or fall and injure herself, running around in the dark. She decided to follow his instructions, for now, if things got even creepier, she could always kick him in the crotch and run.

They most have walked for over ten minutes when Beau started to see bright floodlights in the distance. They were walking towards what looked to be some sort of compound, a set of cement buildings centered around a courtyard, surrounded by a high barbed wire fence. If Beau was being honest, it looked like a prison, one with a sign up front that said “Cobalt Soul: Youth Retreat”.

Only slightly more relived, Beau walked up to the door and let her burly companion knock. Another monk, a short one with a shaved head and very androgynous features opened the door and smiled when they saw Beau.

“Oh, the new recruit is here! We didn’t expect her until the morning.” The male monk merely shrugged. “Well, that’s alright. Come on in.”

“Isn’t recruit what they call newbies in the military? And in cults?” Beau asked, looking around the reception room. The walls were painted an ugly pea green and there were religious posters everywhere, talking about how “the wisdom of the Goddess Ioun could change your life”. It made her stomach lurch, she wished she had ran before, now the door was closed and she was trapped. And trapped animals tended to lash out.

“Your father did warn us that you had a sense of humour.” The androgynous monk smiled, walking behind a dark wooden desk and retrieving a pile of pamphlets to give Beau. “I would like to officially welcome you to the Cobalt Soul program, Beauregard. I’m Dairon and I’m the director of recruit activities here at the retreat.”

“Hi... I would say it was great to be here but I’m trying to work on my lying habit.”

Dairon didn’t react, keeping up their smile with the kind of patience only a person who dealt with this kind of behaviour often possessed. She opened the pamphlets one by one and started explaining them. “This here is your schedule, it is the same for everyone in the program and the rooms in which each activity is done are labeled. This is a map, the campus isn’t that large but newcomers do tend to get lost. We’re currently in building A, the library and study rooms are upstairs. Building B is the dorm, you’ll be on the second floor, room 7.” Dairon handed her a key with a bright orange piece of plastic with the number 7 scribbled on in marker. “And building C is the cafeteria and the recreational activity rooms. We have a gym, an indoor basketball field, multiple art rooms, a small theater and, of course, a chapel.”

Beau whistled. “Wow, this is a really swanky prison you got here! My dad must have paid top dollar to send me away.”

“We’re a non profit organization actually. We just want to help the youth, as I’m sure your father just wants to help you.”

“With all due respect, you don’t know my father.”

“That’s true, Beauregard. Maybe that’s something you would like to discuss in your daily therapy sessions with Doctor Pumat?”

Beau’s jaw dropped. “Daily therapy? Is that mandatory?”

“Of course, all our activities are. This is a recovery retreat, not a summer camp.” Dairon leaned closer, putting their elbows on the desk. “I get it, not everyone likes to share their feelings. I myself prefer to work through things through physical activity. But that is the way the retreat is structured and I’ve seen it work many times. So I recommend you give it a shot.”

“And if I don’t?”

Dairon grew serious then, their dark eyes like bottomless pits staring Beau down.“Your life here will become much harder than it has to be. I do not advise you test us. You said this was like the military or a cult and I tell you that it can be neither or the worst mixture of the two you can imagine. It’s up to you.” Beau swallowed hard, her palms starting to sweat. “Now, do you have any questions?”

“No, Miss... Mister... Master Dairon?”

“Just Dairon will do, but thank you for asking.” They smiled again but this time Beau saw the danger behind it. “I’ll be inspecting your bag and taking your phone now.”

“My phone? You can’t do that!” Beau protested as the big monk handed Dairon her bag and they started to go through it. Beau herself had no idea what was inside the bag, she was sure her father hadn’t packed it himself, he had probably asked one of the maids and that gave her hope that there were some clothes in there she actually liked.

“Actually I can and I will. It’s part of our rules. But don’t worry, as you may have already noticed we don’t have cell reception here so you won’t really miss it.” Dairon ripped the phone from her hand and chucked it in a plastic bag along with Beau’s embarrassing pink Venus razor. “It will be waiting for you when you graduate from the program, exactly like you left it.”

“Great... Does that mean I won’t be able to communicate with the outside world at all?” She cursed herself for not remembering to send Fjord a text during the drive over, letting him know where she was going. Maybe he had tried to visit her at the hospital and was already freaking out because she wasn’t there. Or maybe he had gone to her house and her father had let him know where she was. Either way, she needed to let him know her side of the story... and maybe convince him to drive over and help her sneak out. Her father would kick her out, of course, but homelessness didn’t sound too bad when compared to this hell hole he had sent her too.

“Well there is a computer room, you’ll be able to use it once a week. And we have a landline if you wish to call your family.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary...”

“Just know it’s there if you need it.” Dairon seemed to finish rummaging through her stuff and zipped the duffle closed. “Alright, you seem to be clean. But know that if we find you in the possession of any sharp objects, firearms, explosive, lighters or matches, tobacco, drugs or alcohol there will be grave consequences. Got it?”

“Yeah yeah, TSA rules. Crystal clear.”

“Wonderful, then I think we’re all done here. There are no more activities today so take the time to rest. Lights out at nine.”

“I know this is a teen program but I haven’t gone to bed that early since I was in primary school.”

“You’ll be glad for the extra sleeping hours in the morning, trust me.” With a  push, she slid the bag over the counter to Beau. “I trust you can find your room by yourself. I’ll see you in the morning, Beauregard.”

Beau swung the bag over her shoulder and gave Dairon a military two finger salute. “Not if I see you first, Master Dairon.”

Chapter Text

Beau could see how people got lost inside the compound, all the buildings looked the same, gray and boxy on the outside, nightmarishly surreal with pea green walls and salmon carpet on the inside. With the help of her map, however, she found the dorm relatively easily and only tried opening the door to the wrong room once before realizing she was on the wrong floor. Fortunately, no one had come to open the door when she fumbled with the lock, so she was at least spared that embarrassment.

The door to her room, the right room, was slightly ajar so Beau didn’t bother with the key, she just pushed it open with her shoulder, dragging her bag behind her. Although she didn’t like to think of herself as a privileged rich girl, the fact that she didn’t even consider that she would have to share her room with someone else and her annoyance upon seeing two beds was more than enough proof that she was still her father’s daughter.

There was no one else in the room but Beau could hear voices coming from the en suite bathroom. Two sets of voices, one male, one female. She stayed as quiet as possible, trying to listen in but all she could make out was the ocasional burst of laughter. She rolled her eyes, sure that her roommate was probably fucking a random dude in the bathroom.

This was truly the most evil punishment Thoreau could have come up with, to make her live for a couple of months with some preppy Becky, bringing guys over, maybe trying to set her up with their friends and asking to give her makeovers. She could picture it already and it looked like the worst version of hell, conversion through exposure to stereotypical straight girl behaviour.

Her anger rising again, she threw her bag down on what she assumed was going to be her bed, since the other one was undone, and cleared her throat loudly.

“Hello? Anyone there?” She called out.

The bathroom door creaked open and one of the most stunning women Beau had ever seen popped her head out. She was ridiculously tall, almost reaching the top of the door frame and heavily muscled, with long black hair bleached white at the tips and beautiful mismatched eyes. Definitely not a Becky.

“Hmmm... who are you?” She asked, her voice low and oddly soothing. She walked into the room and Beau noticed she had a dark stripe running from her bottom lip down her chin and one eye rimmed in dark eyeshadow, the other untouched. Anyone else would have looked ridiculous, but she was rocking the look. Or maybe Beau was just starstruck.

“I...I’m Beau. Beauregard. Lionett.” She tittered, shuffling from one foot to the other. Gods, she looked even better up close, her biceps as thick as Beau’s thighs. Beau had to force herself not to stare. “I’m your roommate, I guess.”

Just then, a guy covered in colorful tattoos, with a crazy mop of purple hair came out of the bathroom, makeup brush in hand.

“Yasha, will you at least let me do your other eye? It’s going to look good I-” He stopped once he noticed Beau and a large, cat-like grin bloomed across his face. “Well, well, well, who do we have here? They finally got your a roommate?”

The girl, Yasha, grunted. “Yeah, I guess so...”

“Hi, I’m Beauregard Lionett.” She repeated awkwardly, suddenly not sure of what to do with her hands.

“Mollymauk Tealeaf, but you can call me Molly. I’m here all the time so you might as well get used to this face.” He took a seat on Yasha’s bed, crossing his paisley legging clad legs like he was about to start doing yoga. “Just consider me your second roommate.”

Yasha leaned against the wall, crossing her arms over her chest in a way that was incredibly distracting. If Thoreau’s objective was to make Beau less gay, he really should have checked who she was rooming with before sending her here.

“Do you not like your room?” Beau asked, sitting on the edge of her own bed.

“He does. He just can’t get his shit together around his roommate.” Yasha chuckled, the sound like a low rumble that Beau found very pleasant.

“It’s not my fault!” Molly pouted. “He’s really hot but he doesn’t talk, like at all! I try to flirt and he just stares at me. It’s really awkward!”

“Is he mute or just straight?” Beau asked. She could feel Yasha’s eyes on her and it was hard not to stare back or say something flirty, like asking her if she was enjoying the view. But they were going to have to share a room for a while and Beau didn’t want to freak her out on the first night.

“Neither! I mean... I don’t have any clue besides my gut feeling on the straight part but no boy that looks that good in a turtle neck sweater has the right to be straight. It just isn’t fair! And I’ve seen him speak to his sister, she’s in the program too. He just refuses to talk to most people.” He sighed dramatically. “I guess he’s a weirdo but we’re all weird here. Which reminds me, what did you get sent here for?”

“Isn’t it a prison rule that you don’t ask other people that?”

He laughed. “There’s way too much therapy and meditation here for this to be called a prison, darling. But keep your secrets if you want, it’ll all come out in a group counseling session anyway, whether you like it or not.”

Beau rolled her eyes. “It’s not that exciting, I just broke some guy’s nose.”

“Assault too? Oh, you and Yasha have so much in common already!” He leaned in closer, precariously balancing himself on the edge of the bed. “You don’t like guys either, do you?”

“Molly!” Yasha groaned, covering her face with her hands and Beau felt her own cheeks redden. “Stop, you’re making her uncomfortable!”

“Oh, come on, look at her! She’s clearly a lesbian!” Beau hopped he was saying that because of the way she looked and not because he noticed how she was ogling Yasha. “And stop touching your face, you’re going to ruin the makeup!”

“I don’t care, I’m taking it off right now!”

“Buzz kill!” She stormed off to the bathroom and Molly turned back to Beau. “You don’t mind, do you?”

Beau shrugged, trying to sneakily peak inside the bathroom. Yasha was leaning over the sink, splashing water on her face, and Beau couldn’t help but stare at her ass. Fuck, she also had a really nice ass! “No. I mean, it’s true, I’m into girls.” She lowered her tone so only Molly could hear her. “But I think maybe Yasha minds and I don’t want to be as awkward around my roommate as you are around yours.”

Molly laughed. “Ouch! Way to rub it in, Lionett!” He followed her gaze to the bathroom and smirked when he noticed what she was staring at. Beau looked away as fast as she could and started rummaging through her bag, searching for nothing in particular. She pretended to be interested in a set of sweatpants for a second before dropping them back in the duffle. “Don’t worry about her, she’s just shy. She’s worried I’m going to scare you off.”

“I don’t scare that easily.” Beau smiled. Yasha being shy was incredibly cute and... she really needed to stop thinking about her roommate like that. They had just met! She didn’t even know the girl’s last name, for Gods’ sake! Not that had ever stopped her before... “How long have you guys known each other? Did you meet here?”

“No, we came as a set. Yash is practically my sister, we’ve been going through the foster system together since we were kids.”

“Wow, that’s rough!”

Molly waved her off dismissively. “It’s the cards we’ve been dealt. Would be worse if we had to do it alone. Now, can you guess what got me sent here? Clue’s in the name, dear.”

“Molly?” She thought it over, taking in all of Molly’s piercings and tattoos, some of them obviously gang related. “Drugs? You used to deal?”

“Bingo!” He smirked. “Although ‘used to’ isn’t the correct wording. I’m just on a long vacation. But don’t let the monks know that.”

“I may be a lot of things, but a snitch isn’t one of them.” She winked at him. “So Mollymauk isn’t your real name?”

“Unfortunately, no. My birth parents were quite unoriginal for circus people.”

Beau pushed her bag to the end of the bed and stretched out on the mattress. It was small in comparison to the king size she had at home but it was comfortable. She still wished she could have brought her own pillow, though.

“Are you going to tell me your real name or is this one of those things I’ll learn during group sessions?”

“Oh no, some secrets you just never share-”

“It’s Lucien.” Yasha interrupted, coming back from the bathroom. Beau noticed that while the eyeshadow was gone, the stripe on her lip was still there. “But don’t call him that.”

“Oh come on, Yasha!” He grumbled.

Yasha shrugged. “She was going to find out tomorrow anyway. The monks refuse to call you Molly. This way she’ll know not to repeat it.”

Molly turned to Beau, his face suddenly serious. It was an odd look with the colorful hair and the dangling earrings. “You heard her, don’t ever call me Lucien.  That’s not me, not anymore. If I hear you say that name even once I’ll make sure you won’t have a single good day in this place, got it?”

Beau propped herself up on one elbow to look him in the eye. “Calm down, dude! If you want me to call you Molly, I’ll call you Molly. It’s not a big deal...”

Yasha put a hand on his shoulder and he turned his head to meet her eyes. Beau didn’t know what he saw there but his expression changed again, as quickly as before, and he grinned.

“Well, I didn’t get called a drama queen in school for nothing.” He got up from Yasha’s bed, stretching his arms out and yawning unconvincingly. “I should get going before they start doing rounds and I get in trouble again. Good night, ladies! Enjoy your first night together, don’t do anything I would do!”

With a wink and a flip of his purple locks, he walked out, slamming the door behind him.  

“I… I’m sorry about that. He’s very sensitive when it comes to his name. It reminds him of his parents...” Yasha sat on her bed and sighed. “But it’s all bark and no bite, don’t worry.”

“That’s alright. I get family issues, trust me.” She shook her head. “Plus, seeing the mess today has been, that was probably the friendliest conversation I’ve had all day.”

“The first day here is always rough.”

“Yeah...I’ve been having a lot of of rough days lately. Even before getting sent here.”

Yasha laid down then, turning on her side so she could look at Beau as they talked. It felt oddly intimate, like they were sharing a bed, the small walkway and the single nightstand the separated them seeming to vanish as Beau stared at the other woman’s face.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Yasha said more quietly, like they had indeed gotten closer, even if she was still as far away as she had been minutes before. “But at least here you don’t have to worry about whatever, or whoever, was bothering you before. Those problems don’t exist here.”

Yasha was right, for the next almost two months, while she was stuck in here, she didn’t have to worry about her dad or think about Tori. They were out of sight, she just had to keep them out of mind too. And without her phone or access to social media, that was slightly easier. Not that she expected Tori to change her mind and try to contact her. But there was always the temptation to creep on her social media and try to figure out how she was doing, if she had already moved on. It was an exercise in misery Beau had fortunately been spared.

Her father was a different story, he was likely to call asking for updates, or just to have someone to yell at, since he had never gone so long without having her around to dump all his frustrations on. But without her cellphone, he was probably going to have to yell at their maids or call the program’s landline and scream at Dairon. Beau hoped he tried that last one because Dairon didn’t look like the type to just take it and keep her mouth shut. The idea of her dad getting told off by the small monk made her smile.

She saw Yasha smile back at her, the corner of her lip quirking up just the tiniest bit, but it was enough to make Beau’s brain short circuit. Her usual bravado and flirty banter died out, she couldn’t even come up with something simple to say that made her seem cool and unbothered. It was ridiculous that she could flirt with girls she wasn’t into without a problem but as soon as a girl she found attractive smiled at her she turned into a flustered mess. She didn’t know which one of the Gods had a say in people’s flirting skills but they had sure done her dirty.

“I...hmm...” She mumbled like an idiot until she was able to string a sentence together. “What about after we leave?”

“Then we’ll have to face those problems again, I guess.” She shrugged. “But a lot can change in a couple of months. Maybe some of those problems will be gone by the time we get out. Or maybe we’ll know how to fix them by them.”

Beau highly doubted her father would have a change of heart in two months if he hadn’t had one in her seventeen years of existence. But the time away would definitely help her get over Tori.

“Maybe. I wouldn’t have taken you for an optimist.” She told Yasha.

“To be honest... I’m not. This is all psychologist crap Doctor Pumat has drilled into my brain.” She rolled her eyes and then flipped around so she was lying on her back, looking up at the ceiling. “ ’Time heals all wounds, Yasha.’ ‘You don’t have to keep dwelling on the past, Yasha’.‘See your time here as a metamorphosis, Yasha.’”

Beau laughed. “So you don’t really believe any of it?”

“The time off from your problems part yeah, I do. But I don’t think time will change anything. Most of the time, we are the problem, we’re the ones who need to change. If there’s something holding us back, something we can’t let go of, then time doesn’t matter...” She stopped suddenly and turned back around to face Beau. “I’m sorry... Molly says I get very gloomy sometimes and bum people out and I didn’t want to do that to you on your first day. But I guess I’m doing it now...”

“No, it’s okay. I’d rather have honesty than optimism.”  

“Good.” She said, sounding relieved. “Honesty I can do, but I don’t know how long I could keep the optimism act up for.”

“My best friend, Fjord, says I’m an annoying downer too, sometimes.... Not that I think you’re annoying!” She added quickly. Gods, she was as bad as Amy and she wasn’t even trying to flirt...at least not consciously. “You seem really nice and cool and... yeah...”

If Beau could dig a hole in the carpet with her bare hands and hide, she would have. But Yasha just smiled a little wider, her pale cheeks turning slightly pink.

“You seem really cool too, Beau. I’m glad they chose you as my roommate.”  

She knew logically that Yasha wasn’t flirting with her. There was nothing about her words or her tone of voice that indicated flirting. Yet, when she said her name in that low, husky voice of hers, Beau’s heart started to race like she had just asked her to take her shirt off.

“I’ll try not to disappoint. But I’ll let you know right away that I’m pretty disorganized. And I’ve also been told I snore.” She said, sounding a lot more calm than she felt.

“That’s okay. If you ask Molly, he’ll deny it, but he snores too. I’m used to it.” Yasha laughed but then grew serious, her smile faltering as she sat up in bed. “I... You should know that I have night terrors sometimes. It’s why they didn’t assign me a roommate before... It doesn’t happen a lot but it can be pretty scary and I don’t want to freak you out in case you wake up with me screaming...”

“Shit... What should I do if that happens?” Crawl into bed with her? Her brain suggested unhelpfully. “Should I go get someone? Dairon? Dr. Pumat?”

“No, no.” Yasha shook her head. “I know how to deal with it, I’ve had them since I was a kid. Just try to wake me up so I don’t bother everyone in the building. Oh, and be careful, I can get aggressive and I don’t want to hurt you.”

Beau sat up too, her feet dangling off the edge. “Don’t worry, I can take a punch.” She joked.

“I don’t doubt that.” Yasha smirked.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah...” Yasha looked at her intently, like she was studying Beau’s face and she leaned in. With only the space between the bed separating them Beau could see that Yasha’s eyes were even more beautiful up close, one a pale green that brightened to an aqua blue close to the iris and the other violet, fading to periwinkle as it reached the edges. Yasha reached out and touched her face and Beau held her breath, her lips parting in anticipation. And then Yasha poked the skin around her eyes and Beau let out a hiss of pain. “That looks like it hurts, it’s really swollen. Can you see out of it?”

“Oh... yeah. Don’t worry, it looks worse than it feels.” She mumbled, standing up in a rush. Shit, her face was on fire! “I’m... I’m going to take a shower before bed, okay?”

“Sure. There’s towels under the sink. Do you need any help?” Yasha called out after her as Beau practically ran for the bathroom.

“No it’s fine! I’ve got it!”

She slammed the door and stood against it, breathing fast, feeling like the biggest idiot in the world. Did she really think Yasha was going to kiss her? They hardly knew each other! This wasn’t some stupid romcom where she ended up going to summer camp and having a fling with her roommate, this was a reform school and her hot, goth, supermodel tall roommate was way out of her league!

Her reflection in the mirror seemed to mock her, she had almost forgotten how messed up she looked. To think Yasha, who was leagues above anyone Beau had ever made out with wanted to kiss her was already hard to imagine, but to think she would want to lock lips with Beau when she looked like a total trainwreck was laughable. She wanted to punch the glass but Yasha would hear it and she didn’t know if she could bear more humiliation that day.

It wasn’t until she had taken off all her clothes and stepped under the hot spray that Beau realized that, in her rush, she hadn’t brought any clothes or shower products with her. She didn’t care, she’d rather use Yasha’s shampoo than walk out now.

Chapter Text

By the time Beau got out of the bathroom, wrapped up tightly in an old towel that was fraying at the edges and slightly too short for comfort, Yasha was already asleep.

She tiptoed around Yasha’s bed and tried to make as little noise as possible as she put her pijamas on. Yasha didn’t stir the entire time, sleeping soundly even though the lights were still on, her leg hanging off the edge of the bed, covers discarded by her feet, her hair like a halo around her. Just looking at her made Beau’s cheeks heat up again with embarrassment. It wasn’t like her to get that nervous around someone and she promised herself that, for her bruised ego’s sake, she would gather the courage to ask Yasha out before the end of the program, maybe even kiss her. She thought about doing it as soon as her face was back to normal but the thought of being rejected and still having to room with the other girl was enough to dissuade her. No, the end of the program was a better deadline. She was sure by then they would know each other a lot better and she would stop being so dumbstruck by Yasha’s sheer presence. Or at least she hoped so.

Although she hadn’t been lying when she told Dairon that she wasn’t used to going to bed that early, the commotion of the day and the pounding headache from the fall that had diminished with time but never fully gone away had Beau feeling exhausted. She turned off the lights, opened the window just a crack and got into bed, her hair still damp. She had just tucked herself in when she heard a monk yell “Lights out!” outside her door and the light that streamed in from the hallway, vanished.

Beau didn’t fall asleep right away, it always took a while for her eyes to get heavy and her mind to slow down, but she usually had her phone to distract her during those moments. Without technology, she had no option but to lay there and just wait for sleep, hearing Yasha’s even breathing and the light pitter-patter of rain falling softly against the windowpane. Summer rain, se could smell the earthy tang of it as it fell on the grass outside. She closed her eyes and breathed it in, imagining herself outside her house in Kamordah, getting slowly soaked by the light drizzle, and not trapped Gods knew where in a monk school. For a moment, she could pretend she was free, she could pretend her father didn’t suck and that she had any semblance of control over her life. Just for a moment...

She didn’t remember falling asleep but she woke up soon after, her body aching all over. She usually slept on her side or her belly, face sunken into the pillow, but with her swollen eye and what she suspected was a bruised rib from the fall, she couldn’t find comfort in any position. She tried moving around, tangling her body in the covers, but nothing helped.

Finally, she flopped onto her back, sighing in exasperation, and gave up. The rain outside had turned into a full on thunder storm and she was about to get up to close the window when a bolt of lightning crossed the sky, filling their room with bright white light. In the moments before the brightness faded and the loud roar of thunder echoed around them, Beau turned her head and saw Yasha, sitting in bed, fully awake and staring at her.

“Oh, shit!” She cursed loudly, jumping at the unexpected sight, and Yasha flinched. “Yasha, I’m so sorry! Did I wake you up?”

“No, no, it’s fine. I was already up because of the storm.” She whispered. “But... are you okay? You were tossing and turning a lot...”

“Yeah... I’m just a little sore from... ” Beau waved a hand around her face. “Do they have a nurse’s office here? I could use some Tylenol.”

Yasha shook her head. “There is one but...They’re really strict with medication here. They keep it hidden away and only hand it out in extreme cases. A lot of us here have issues with addiction.”

“I should have guessed.” Beau groaned. “My dad sent me here to suffer, guess I’m finally doing what he wanted for a change. This program is working wonders already.”

To her surprise, Yasha got up and started putting her shoes on. “Come on, get up. Let’s get you something for that eye.”

“Oh no, I- I was just being dramatic. I’m sure I’ll be better in the morning. You don’t-”

Yasha cut her off, kicking Beau’s sneakers closer to the edge of the bed. “Don’t try to argue, I’m not going back to sleep knowing you’re in pain. You need help, we’re getting you help. Now hurry up and put those on.”

For a moment, all Beau could do was stare at Yasha’s shadowy form in the dark. She wasn’t used to having someone care that much about her well being unless they were being paid by her father to do so - to do the job he didn’t want. Beau didn’t like that kind of care, the artificial smiles, the patronising pats on the head, the tender words that sounded like pity in her ears. With time, she had learned to hide her pain better, to downplay the hurt so no one would pity her, no maid, no babysitter, not even her best friend. But that meant no one showed as much care either. Beau didn’t know she missed being care for, really honestly cared for, until now. Because when Yasha did it, even though Beau hardly knew her, she felt like she meant it, like she thought Beau was worth caring for.

She started getting choked up and tried to push the lump in her throat down as she hastily tied her hair in her usual bun and shoved her feet into her sneakers. Yasha reached inside their shared nightstand, took out a small flashlight and then opened the door, staring carefully out into the hallway before signalling for Beau to follow.

“Keep close and stay quiet. They shouldn’t be patrolling anymore but you can never be too careful.”

Yasha didn’t use the light to guide them through the halls, she stayed close to the wall, feeling her way around with the confidence of someone who had done this hundreds of times. They moved slowly, at least more slowly than Beau was used to walking, stopping at every corner to listen in for footsteps. Beau, blind as a bat in this unknown territory, kept knocking into Yasha.

“Fuck, sorry...” She whispered in the dark, feeling around until she found something to hold on to, always hoping her hands would meet the cold wall and not any warm part of Yasha’s body she had no right to be touching. After the third time this happened, Yasha reached behind her and grabbed Beau by the wrist, her large hand closing firmly around it.

“Here, let me guide you. Don’t worry, we’re almost in the clear.”

Yasha’s fingers were resting right over Beau’s pulse point, she was sure the other girl could feel how fast her heart was beating, but she hoped Yasha thought it was just because of the thrill of sneaking around. In truth, their little adventure was pretty thrilling. Beau had no idea if they were going to get her some ice or break into the compound’s secret drug stash but both of those options involved the possibility of trouble and the certainty of being close to a hot girl in the dark. Two things Beau never said no to.

Eventually, they reached the building’s main door and Yasha opened it carefully, trying to stop it from creaking, but there was only so much one could do with a door that old that had probably never gotten a drop of oil on its hinges. The noise was quick but loud and they both froze in place. Beau started looking around frantically, trying to find a place to hide, but Yasha didn’t panic, she remained perfectly calm, her eyes trained on the darkness ahead, not prepared to run but ready to strike like a predator. After a long, painful minute of waiting and hearing nothing but the distant sound of someone snoring, however, they finally ran out, letting the door close behind them.

Beau breathed a deep sigh of relief, leaning against the damp gray outer wall of the dormitory building. The rain had slowed to a trickle again and it felt wonderful on her feverish skin.

“What now?” She asked Yasha, looking down at where she still held her wrist.

 Yasha’s skin was so pale it looked silver in the moonlight, contrasting starkly with Beau’s deep brown. They both had scars, some older than others, but Yasha’s stood out more, pink against white. Beau had never been with someone who also liked to fight, someone who was also covered in cuts and scars and bruises. Tori had been a former athlete, part of their highschool’s gymnastics team, she wasn’t small and frail but she was soft, she smelled like flowery perfume and her skin was smooth as silk and Beau liked it, she really did. But now she couldn’t stop wondering what it would be like to run her hands over Yasha’s body, to feel each patch of rough, raised skin and have her do the same... Her hand twitched, wanting to touch more of her and Yasha let go, the lack of contact pulling Beau forcefully out of her fantasy.

“We need to get into the C building. There’s never anyone in the courtyard at night so we should be good. Come on.” Yasha turned and started walking away fast, much faster than she did inside the dormitory, forcing Beau to break into a light jog to keep up with her long legged strides. In the dim light Beau swore she could see goosebumps running up Yasha’s arms and she wanted madly to think it was because touching her had also brought some ideas to Yasha’s mind but she knew that, realistically, the other girl was probably just cold in her t-shirt and pajama pants.

They crossed the courtyard in silence and approached the C building. Yasha didn’t go for the main door, instead she snuck around the back of the building until she found a window that was cracked open and pushed it up the rest of the way. Like everything in this compound the window was old and rusty so it made a terrible noise but this time Yasha didn’t seem to care.

“Do you need help climbing up?” She asked, noticing how much higher the window was for Beau who was at least a head shorter than her.

Beau considered the height as well. The window was at chest height for Yasha, which meant Beau’s chin barely reached the ledge. It wasn’t going to be an easy jump but she had climbed far higher walls back in Kamordah. She thought about saying yes to Yasha anyway just to have the chance to be picked up by her but, after the way she had let go of Beau’s wrist, she didn’t want things to get even more awkward between them. Besides, she didn’t want to miss a chance to show off her acrobatic skills. For some reason, she hadn’t been able to verbally flirt with Yasha so far, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t let her body do the talking. She just hoped she didn’t miss and make a complete fool of herself in front of Yasha... again.

“Nah, I got it.” She answered with a smirk.

Beau put her hands on the windowsill and leaned over to look inside, getting on the tips of her toes and arching her back so her toned legs and her ass were on display, barely covered by her short pajama shorts and right at Yasha’s line of sight. She couldn’t be sure that Yasha was looking, but she was certain that she was presenting a really great view.

They were sneaking into what looked to be an industrial kitchen, the kind you only find in schools and prisons, but there were potted plants everywhere, on shelves and over counters and even one next to the window. Beau pushed it carefully aside and then backed away to take a running start and vault through the window, using one hand to push herself up and through and landing in an elegant crouch inside. She turned and flipped her hair with a triumphant smile... Only to see that Yasha had missed it all. She had her back turned as she jumped up and sat on the ledge, swinging her legs around and pushing her large body through the window.

Beau tried to hide her disappointment by looking around the darkened kitchen, hands stuffed inside the pockets of her shorts, she was trying to look like her jump hadn’t been a big deal but she had the sinking suspicion that she just seemed like she was sulking. Yasha got down from the ledge and finally turned on the flashlight, bathing the kitchen in bright yellow light. She left it on top of the counter and made her way up to a large walk in freezer.

“Won’t the light give us away?” Beau asked.

“No, they lock this building after dinner so no one has to patrol it.” She turned the handle that kept the freezer door locked and disappeared inside. “Fortunately, me and Molly found out that the cook always leaves a window open. He says it’s good for the plants.”

“Do you guys sneak in here a lot?” Beau called out, investigating the various plants. Some looked very rare, with large, oddly shaped leaves and brightly colored flowers. Some of them weren’t flowers at all but weird kinds of mushrooms and fungus Beau hoped weren’t being used in their food.

“Every once in a while. When I have a hard time falling asleep, I come here and use the gym for an hour or two. And sometimes Molly just wants to grab a midnight snack.” She returned with something in her hand and patted the kitchen island in front of her. “Sit.”

Despite her issues with authority, Beau found that she did not mind obeying Yasha’s orders when she spoke to her in that low, gentle tone. With a small jump, she sat on the kitchen island and let the other girl press something that was cold, weirdly shaped and wrapped in a kitchen towel to her face.

“What is that?”

“Frozen peas.”

“What? You’re putting peas on my face?” Beau laughed.

“Yes.” Yasha answered in that deadpan tone of hers. “Is it too cold? I can get another towel...”

“No, it’s fine. But it’s also really fucking weird.”

At that Yasha cracked a small smile. “I like them more than ice cubes. They mold better to your face once they start to thaw and the risk of frostbite is lower. Keep them on, but don’t press too hard.”

Beau took the towel wrapped peas from her, their fingers brushing as Yasha let go.

“Cool.” Beau nodded, suddenly very aware of how close they were. “Got any more tips, nurse Yasha?”

“Yeah...” She lifted Beau’s chin with the tip of her callused index finger and brushed her bottom lip with her thumb. Beau’s heart flipped in her chest like a fish out of water. “Stop biting your lip or this cut won’t close. Let it heal a little bit and then put some of that lip moisturizing stuff on it, to stop it from opening again... what is it called? Lip balm? I’m not sure, but I know Molly has some.”

Then, just as quickly as it had come, Yasha’s hand was gone and she was stepping back, leaning against a counter with her arms crossed over her chest.

“I-I’ll give that a try... Thanks.” Beau stammered.

“Does anything else hurt?” Yasha asked quietly.

Besides a slight flush to her cheeks that could just be from the warm air inside the kitchen, she looked about as calm as Beau was on edge and it made Beau so frustrated she wanted to scream. Was all the chemistry between them just in Beau’s head? She had never been so unsure about how someone else felt about her.

“Just my head. I hit it pretty hard during the fight.”

Yasha nodded and started looking inside a cabinet. “I think Mr. Clay has a tea for that. He makes teas for just about anything.”

“You think tea will help? I was still holding out hope that we were going to sneak into the Cobalt Soul’s secret drug vault.”

“Sorry, I wouldn’t even know where to look.” She said, selecting a jar full of dark tea leaves and filling a cattle with water. “When I said they keep their security tight, I meant it.”

 “Bummer. Tea it is then.” Beau sighed and her stomach answered back, complaining loudly. “Actually, tea does sound pretty nice... Also, if you find any food laying around I would love some. The fuckers that brought me in didn’t give me anything to eat all day.”

“Yeah they do that. I head someone say they used to stop at gas stations and let you pick snacks. But that was before Veth.”

“Veth?”

“Molly’s roommate’s sister. She asked to use the bathroom at the gas station while the monks were buying the snacks, stole their keys and her and Caleb drove off. They managed to get to Rexxentrum before the police stopped them.”

“That’s... really badass actually” Beau chuckled.

“Yeah, it is. Specially knowing she’s only 13.” As they waited for the water to boil. Yasha found a loaf of bread and started cutting it into thick slices. “You’ll probably meet her tomorrow. Watch your pockets, she has sticky fingers.”

“I don’t think I’ve brought anything worth stealing with me.”

“She doesn’t really care about value, she just wants trinkets. I’m pretty sure she stole a button from one of my jackets.”

The kettle started whistling and Yasha brought over the tea and the bread, as well as some different types of jam she had found. Beau slathered peach jam on a slice of bread and took a small bite. The bread was fresh, crunchy on the outside and pillowy soft in the middle and the jam was delicious, not overly sweet, the peach mixed in with some sort of herb that complimented it perfectly. Beau’s stomach growled in delight and she started scarfing down food as fast as fast as humanly possible and washing it down with large gulps of the hot ginger tea, trying to satiate the hunger she had been ignoring all day.

It wasn’t until she heard Yasha try to hide her laughter with a cough that she remembered she wasn’t alone. Shit... her mother had signed her up for so many etiquette classes and there she was, eating like a pig in front of the one person she actually wanted to impress.

“Sorry... This is really good bread...” She said awkwardly, swallowing her food and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Which was hardly an improvements as far as manners were concerned but she didn’t have a napkin at hand and anything seemed better than having jam all over her face.

“I’m glad you like it.” Yasha took another sip of her tea, giving her an amused look over the brim of her mug. For her size, she was oddly delicate, holding the mug carefully like it was fine china. “Don’t stop on my account.”

Beau put her bread down and crossed her arms. “Now I can’t continue eating. Not with you watching.” She teased.

“Don’t make me force feed you, Beauregard.”

Yasha leaned against the counted next to Beau, looming over her with those intense, darkened eyes. Beau knew she should be intimidated but it wasn’t fear that pooled low in her gut, making her warm all over. Specially when the corner of Yasha’s lip twitched and she broke into a small smile. Beau had never wanted to touch someone more in her life... and suddenly she knew how.

“I’d like to see you try...” She smirked and jumped down from the counter, steeping around Yasha and putting herself in a defensive position, arms raised, legs slightly flexed.

“Are you serious?” Yasha shook her head, placing her mug down. Despite the disapproving tone Beau could see by the way she followed her movements with her eyes, her brows slightly raised, that she was interested.

“You’re a fighter too, right? Show me what you’ve got. It’ll be a roommate bonding experience or whatever.”

“I don’t want to add on to your bruise collection, Lionett.”

Beau took a step forward and put a hand on the center of Yasha’s chest, shoving her back slightly. “Maybe I’ll give you a matching set.”

That’s when Yasha grinned for real, showing all her teeth. She grabbed Beau by the hand and twisted her around, trying to pin her arm behind her back. But Beau was too fast, she managed to wiggle out of her grip and back away. Yasha’s smile only widened.

“Okay, but remember, you asked for it...” She whispered, her voice so low it was like a purr. Beau felt it run through her entire body, making her legs go weak.

“Yeah. Now make me regret it, Nydoorin.”

Chapter Text

They started circling each other, their stances similar but, to anyone who knew about fighting, very different. Yasha moved like a brawler, someone who had not learned to fight for sport but for survival, her steps were slow and heavy, hands fisted and raised to protect her face. Beau was a martial artist through and through, she was fast on her feet and kept her hands lower, just lightly flexed, ready for any sort of attack, not just a fist. They watched each other carefully, looking for an opening, searching for a weak point, or just waiting for a moment of hesitation where they could strike.

All of a sudden, Yasha seemed to grow tired of waiting and lunged forward, her arm coming around in an arch to punch Beau in the jaw. Beau was taken by surprise but managed to duck right in the nick of time, Yasha’s fist brushing the top of her bun as she crouched.

Beau tried going for Yasha’s legs, bringing her foot around to kick the back of her knee, but Yasha was like a wall of muscle, she took the hit without even wobbling. Beau’s next idea was to take advantage of her lower position and uppercut Yasha right in the liver before she had time to strike back. It was a move she had learned many years ago and it had never failed her, one hit and her opponents were down, gasping for air on the floor. She wished she hadn’t been too drunk to remember it when she fought Marius, she would have ended him in a second and saved herself a trip down the stairs. But that was the problem with using it now. It was too effective and she was enjoying herself too much to let things end this quick. She backed away, raising herself back to her full height.

“You’re holding back.” Yasha said as they went back to circling one another.

“Didn’t want to intimidate you by showing all my moves right away.”  

“It takes a lot to intimidate me.”

“Don’t doubt that. But these are some reeeally great moves.” Beau smirked and wiggled her eyebrows at her opponent. In the middle of a fight, while she felt powerful and capable, her nerves seemed to subside and she started feeling some of her boldness return. She knew she could punch this woman so hard it would stop her breathing, flirting with her should be a piece of cake in comparison...

Except it wasn’t. Because Yasha smiled that mysterious, barely there curl of her lip and knocked the breath out of Beau instead.

“Yeah? Then put them on me.” She whispered, before lifting her knee and kicking Beau square in the stomach, sending her stumbling backwards.

She hit the counter and the pain barely registered, all she could see was Yasha’s intense gaze and that sexy almost smile. Fuck... She was really turned on! This girl had just kicked the crap out of her and all she wanted was to climb her like a tree and make out with her until the sun came up... and maybe punch her in the ribs too. Okay, maybe she did actually need daily therapy...

But, right now, she needed to win this fight more. She ran towards Yasha at full speed, fists raised, aiming for her sides. Yasha avoided her first jab easily, but Beau didn’t stop, she came at her again and again, punching left and right, pushing Yasha back until she was up against a wall with nowhere to run. That’s when she went for a kick, rotating her foot so the top of it hit Yasha’s side, right in the sweet spot. She lifted her leg and waited to feel the impact of flesh on flesh but it didn’t come, Yasha grabbed her ankle, stopping her before her kick connected.

Beau instinctively spun, using her full body weight to kick Yasha with her other foot and this time she hit her target. Yasha let out a pained gasp, bending over at the waist but, even as she went down, she reached for Beau’s leg, grabbing her before she could get her balance back. The now familiar feeling of falling backwards coursed through Beau’s body like the worst type of déjà vu, but this time she wasn’t falling alone.

They fell in heap on the floor. Beau landed on her back, having only the foresight to tuck her chin into her chest so she didn’t hit her head on the tile. Yasha fell on top of her less then a second after, spreading her hands out on each side of Beau’s head to catch herself and not to completely crush the smaller girl. When Beau looked up however, their heads knocked together with a sickening crack.

“Shit!” Beau cried out.

“Fuck!” Yasha screamed at the same time.

They both covered their faces, feeling carefully around the new growing bumps on their foreheads. When they looked at each other again, wearing mirrored expressions of pain, they immediately burst into laughter.

“I’m definitely going to need those peas again.” Beau chuckled.

“At least you kept your promise.” Yasha said, her tone returning to that deadpan seriousness that Beau was starting to grow used to. “We match now.”

Yasha’s hair fell on Beau’s face, the two toned strands incredibly soft and smelling like the fragrant flowery shampoo Beau had used too, and she reached up to tuck it behind Yasha’s ear. They were both breathing hard from the fight, she could feel Yasha’s breath on her skin and the way it stopped when Beau touched her. This is it, Beau thought, staring at the beautiful woman above her, This is the perfect moment to kiss her, it’s now or never.

She pushed herself up on one elbow, closing the distance between them before the adrenaline of the fight wore off and she lost her courage. Her chest met Yasha’s and she angled her head to go in for the kiss, but then she saw Yasha’s eyes widen and hesitated. Yasha looked like she was going to say something, her lips parted slightly before she shook her head and straightened up, taking her weight off of Beau but staying sited on the floor between the other girl’s splayed out legs.

“Should we call it a tie?”

Beau tried to swallow down her disappointment as she sat up as well. She didn’t know if she had been rejected or Yasha hadn’t even noticed what she was about to do and she just missed her shot, either way she was so embarrassed she wanted to run away again. Except that wouldn’t do her any good, the only place she could run to was the room they shared. Unless she wanted to spend the rest of her stay here hiding in the bathroom.

“Yeah, that’s fair. But I’m going to want a rematch eventually.” She said, with fake cheerfulness. If she couldn’t run, she could do the next best thing: pretend it didn’t happen until they both forgot about it!

Yasha’s answering smile was real, though, at it made Beau’s chest feel a little tighter. “I would like that too. That was... very fun.”

Beau never thought she would find someone else who called getting kicked and punched around fun. Specially not someone who was also gorgeous and sweet and, oh yeah, also into girls... She was pretty much perfect, which explained why she didn’t seem to be into Beau.

“Much better than my last one, that’s for sure.” She jumped to her feet and retrieved her peas, pressing them to her forehead now.

“The one that got you sent here? You told Molly you broke someone’s nose, right?” Yasha got up too, rising slowly. Beau noticed she was leaning slightly and couldn’t help but feel a little guilty for how hard that final kick had been, but she knew she was going to be sore in the morning too.

“Yeah. It’s a long, stupid story.” Beau sighed, leaning against the counter and resuming her meal. She realized that, surprisingly, the tea seemed to have actually worked. Besides the new dull pain from the bump, her headache was gone.

“I’m sorry... You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” Yasha picked her mug up and swirled the tea around, avoiding Beau’s eyes. “I’m not usually much of a talker either, I don’t know what’s wrong with me tonight... I guess I’m just curious about you...”

“No, it’s fine. I don’t mind. I’m, like, an open book!” That was most definitely a lie, but if Yasha wanted to know more about her, how could Beau say no? “I was at a party and this dude from my school bursts into the bathroom and starts talking shit-”

“Wait, he walked in while you were using the bathroom?” Yasha interrupted, looking thoroughly confused.

“Well, I wasn’t using it exactly...” Beau’s felt her cheeks start to redden. “I was kind of... making out with someone in there.”

“Oh!” Yasha cleared her throat awkwardly. “I see. Was he... jealous? Were you with his girlfriend?”

“Gods no! Nothing like that!” Beau almost gagged, the idea of kissing someone LePual had traded spit with was repulsive. “He’s just the cousin of... a girl I recently broke up with.” Annnd she was lying again. But there was no way in hell she was going to tell Yasha she was the one who got dumped, she was having a hard enough time trying to seem cool as it was.

“Let me guess, he was trying to ‘defend her honor’ or something?” The way Yasha’s nose scrunched up when she said “honor” was adorable and Beau almost lost track of what she was saying.

“I think that was his intention, yeah.” Beau shrugged. “which, first of all, is some archaic bullshit. What happened between me and Tori was non of his business. And second, if he wanted to play the brave protector, he shouldn’t have started saying homophobic shit.”

 Yasha gave her a long sideways glance, her mouth now turned into a hard frown. “What did he say?”

“What they all say when they don’t want to face the truth. First he denied that Tori was gay, then he cursed me out, thew in some slurs to spice it up and accused me of making his cousin gay, like I’m some witch that can change people’s sexuality.”

Yasha made a noise like a low growl, deep in the back of her throat and Beau was so surprised she jumped. Her face was a mask of murderous rage, her eyes blazing, her upper lip curled in a snarl. Beau had never seen anyone look so gorgeous and terrifying at the same time.

“I’m fucking glad you broke his nose. I would have broken a lot more...” She said in an angry whisper. “Did he at least apologize after that?”

“Oh no, he’s too much on an asshole for that... He pushed me down a set of stairs and then went to the police and filled charges against me.”

Yasha slammed her hands on the stainless steel counter top, making a noise so loud Beau was sure they were going to get caught by a patrolling monk.

“He did what?”

“Yeah... I’ll pay him back for that one once I’m out of here, don’t worry.” Yasha flexed her hands at her sides, opening and closing them into tight fists like she was trying her hardest not to break something. Beau knew she should probably give her some space but something inside her made her reach out and touch her arm instead. Yasha turned towards her, still in a rage but, when their eyes met, she seemed to slowly come out of it. “I mean it, don’t worry. I’m fine.”

Yasha took a couple of deep breaths, the kind they teach you to do in anger management classes. Beau would know, she had been to a couple. When she finally spoke, her tone was deep and gentle again.

“Are you, really? You said you hit your head but I didn’t... I didn’t think...Shit, I almost punched you in the face and then you hit your head again! Maybe we should go to Dairon, you could have a concussion!” She mumbled, looking down at Beau’s hand on her bicep. Against her better judgement, Beau started rubbing circles on her skin with her thumb. To her surprise, Yasha didn’t pull away.

“No need for that, I’m all good, I promise. The cops took me to the hospital after the fall, I got checked out, no concussion. If the stairs didn’t get me, I doubt the headbump did.” When Yasha didn’t react, she leaned closer and whispered like she was sharing a secret. “I’m surprisingly hard headed, it’s one of my sexiest features.”

Yasha let out a loud chuckle then bit her lip, fighting back a full on laughing fit. Beau was immediately mesmerized, she couldn’t take her eyes off of that stripped bottom lip. She would have given her left kidney to be the one sinking her teeth into it.

“I’m sorry if I overreacted, I’ve had a lot of bad experiences with people like that.” Yasha said once she got her laughter under control. “And I have some anger issues...”

“Molly wasn’t joking, we do have a lot in common!” Beau said. “Was it an idiot like that that got you sent here too?”

“No... that was because of Mollymauk, actually. He got snitched on by another dealer who didn’t enjoy the competition. The cops came to our house in the middle of the afternoon and turned our room upside down until they found the drugs. When the put the cuffs on Molly I lost it and started punching anyone that got in my way.”

Beau’s jaw dropped. “You beat up a group of cops?”

“Just two, the third one took me down.” Yasha said, shrugging like it was not a big deal.

“Cool, cool, cool...” She mumbled like an awestruck idiot. She knew she was making a fool of herself but it was impossible to behave when Yasha kept proving again and again that not only was she the most attractive person Beau knew, but also the most badass. Her eyes returned to Yasha’s tattooed lip and she couldn’t help but lick her own.

“I freaked you out, didn’t I?” Yasha asked suddenly.

“What?” Their gazes met and Beau knew she had been caught staring. She quickly looked away and snatched her hand off of Yasha’s arm, stuffing it in her pocket. “No, not at all!”

“Your eyes kind of glazed over...”

“I was just zoning out. I guess the lack of sleep is getting to me.” She had lied quite a bit that evening, but that one had to be the lamest of them all. Not even Fjord would have fallen for that one and he was one of the most gullible people she knew.

“Oh, okay. We can go back as soon as you’re done with your food.” Yasha said, not sounding at all convinced.

There was a long silence between them and Beau felt her stomach turn. She had managed to make things awkward with her roommate in less than 24 hours without even getting to kiss her. Rejection, as painful as it could be, seemed less awful than this stressful, heavy silence.

“Also...” Beau cleared her throat. Saying the truth didn’t come easy to her. “I was kind of staring at the stripe on your lip. It’s a tattoo, right? It looks really good on you...”

Yasha looked up at her and Beau felt like sinking into the chair. Maybe the awkward silence wasn’t that bad after all...

But then Yasha smiled, her cheeks turning a pale pink and lifted her fingers to her lips, like she had forgotten the tattoo was even there. “Thank you... yeah, it’s a tattoo.”

“It’s dope! How did you get it? Most tattoo shops are pretty strict when it comes to tattooing minors.”

“I didn’t go to a shop. My girl-” She stopped herself, her smile dying so quickly Beau had to wonder if she had imagined it. “My... former girlfriend tattooed me.”

“Bad breakup?” Beau asked. Was it possible that they had that in common too? If Yasha had been dumped as well, maybe they could be each other’s rebound, they could help one another forget about their exes...

“No... we didn’t break up. Zuala... she passed away.” Yasha said in a barely audible whisper.

Beau felt her entire body turn to ice. A rush of curse words ran through her head, some in languages she didn’t even speak but had learned to curse in for fun, but she stayed quiet and still, paralyzed with shock and shame.

She often called other people assholes, she liked pointing fingers at others and complaining about how her problems were their fault but, this once, she had no way to deny it: she was the asshole here.

She had spent all night hitting on a girl who was grieving her dead girlfriend, she had fantasised about her, even tried to kiss her... she was gross and self-centered and most definitely an asshole. It was true that she hadn’t known about Yasha’s past but she had been too self-absorbed, too preoccupied with her own libido to take into account Yasha’s hesitation, the way she backed away from Beau’s advances. She hadn’t known because she hadn’t wanted to know, and she hated herself for it.

“Yasha, I’m so sorry...”

She promised herself right there and then that, no matter what she had promised herself before, no matter what she wanted or felt, she would stop thinking about Yasha in that way. She was off limits and Beau would do her best to not cross any lines or make her uncomfortable in any way.

“It’s alright... it was a while ago.” Yasha grabbed her mug and started rinsing it in the sink, her back turned to Beau, her shoulders tense and raised unnaturally, like she was trying to hide inside herself.

“If you ever want to talk about it... I know we don’t really know each other yet, but I’m here if you need me.” Beau said, taking her own empty mug to the sink. She stood by Yasha but made sure to not touch her as they washed their mugs.

Yasha sighed, her shoulders going up even higher but then loosening up and relaxing. “Thank you, Beauregard.”

“I’ve never had a roommate before but it seems like the kind of thing a roommate would do.”

“Yes, but you also think fighting is the kind of thing roommates do.” Despite the serious tone, Beau was starting to recognize Yasha’s attempts at humour and felt the biggest sense of relief wash over her. If Yasha wanted to use a joke to change the subject, she was more than willing to go with it.

“It isn’t? Are you telling me all those kung-fu movies lied to me?” She opened her arms in a dramatic show of frustration. “Did I mess it up and turn us into life long enemies?”

“Something like that.” Yasha gave her a small, tentative smile. “Are you done eating?”

Beau nodded and Yasha proceeded to take the half of Beau’s bread that was left and stuffed it all in her mouth. Beau just stared, mouth agape.

“What?” She said, her mouth full. “You’re right, this is really good bread!”

Beau couldn’t help it, she started laughing, bent over at the waist, sorting in that way her mother found incredibly unattractive. When she managed to catch her breath again, Yasha was next to her with the flashlight in hand. In the bright yellow light Beau could see she had that barely there smile again, her cheeks flushed brighter than before.

“Come on, let’s go to bed.” She said, grabbing Beau by the wrist once more.

Beau’s heart leaped, threatening to jump out of her chest.

Some promises were really hard to keep.

Chapter Text

“Beau... Beauregard!” Beau woke up to the sound of her own name and a hand shaking her shoulder gently.

She blinked her eyes open and found Yasha standing over her, her hair falling around them, like a curtain that kept the harsh sunlight away. Backlit like this, she looked like an angel, her gorgeous eyes peering into Beau’s like she could see right through her. Beau was at a loss for words, she was too beautiful to be real... and Beau was probably blowing her gross morning breath right in her face. Great...

“Hey... you slept through the morning bell. We have meditation class in fifteen minutes.” Yasha said with a small smile, moving away so Beau could get up.

“Meditation? What time is it?”

“Quarter past six.” Yasha was wearing a gray sports bra and sweatpants, showing the pale skin of her toned midriff. Beau wished she could say she didn’t stare but it was way too early in the morning for her to be capable of that much self control.  

“In the morning? That’s insane! ” She groaned, stretching her arms out and cracking her neck. “What about breakfast?”

“That’s right after.” Yasha slipped a loose fitting black hoodie on and started walking towards the door. “Hurry up, you don’t want to be late, trust me. Punishments here are... not pleasant.”

“Don’t worry. You said fifteen? I’ll be ready in five.”

Beau dragged herself to the end of the bed where she had left her bag, grabbed underwear, a random t-shirt and some leggings and unceremoniously took her pajama shirt off and chucked it on the bed.

“Oh!” Yasha gasped from behind her. That’s what finally completely woke Beau up.

“Shit, I’m sorry!” She said, covering her naked chest with her t-shirt. “I never shared a room before... at least not with someone who hadn’t seen me naked before, you know?”

Yasha nodded, her eyes glued to her carpet and her face very, very red. “That’s okay. I just wasn’t expecting it.”

“I’ll... I’ll go change in the bathroom. Just wait a second.”

So much for not making Yasha uncomfortable...

But it hadn’t been her fault, not completely. She wasn’t responsible for what her dumb, half-asleep brain did, right? She wasn’t sure she would like to hear someone else’s answer to that question but, since there was no one else there to judge her, she decided to forgive herself and give this promise another shot. From that moment on Beau would be on her best behaviour... or at least she would try.

She got dressed in a rush, brushed her teeth and fixed her hair. Looking in the mirror, she noticed the frozen peas had actually helped, her eye was still purple, the bruise fading to an ugly greenish yellow at the edges, but the swelling had gone down. Her lip had also closed during the night, although it still felt like it could easily tear if she touched it or smiled too widely. All in all, she still didn’t look great, but it was definitely an improvement.

Yasha was still waiting by the door when she came out and they walked together across the courtyard towards the building they had snuck into the previous night. There were other kids leaving the dormitory, some looked exactly like what Beau expected to see in a reform school, some looked like they had never broken a rule in their life.

They followed three girls who were chatting loudly about Tusk Love - a cheesy TV show for teens that Beau had never bothered to watch - as they made their way into the indoor gymnasium, where people were sitting down on yoga mats spread out on the floor. The loudest of the girls was short and curvy, with bright blue hair up in two buns, she kept gesticulating wildly as her friend, a shy looking brunette with a burn scar that covered half of her face and went all the way down one arm nodded along. The third one, a very pretty blond with deep caramel skin, kept a few steps behind them and, when she saw Beau and Yasha, she smiled pleasantly.

“Good morning, Yasha! Who’s your friend? I don’t think we’ve met.” She said in a bright, almost musical voice.

“Hey, Reani...” Yasha mumbled.

“Hi, I’m Beau.” She introduced herself since Yasha didn’t seem inclined to do it. “I’m new here, it’s my first day.”

“Oh my Gods, I didn’t know they were still taking in new people! It’s so nice to meet you, Beau!”

She extended her hand and Beau reached out to shake it, only to get pulled into a tight hug. Beau didn’t usually like touching strangers but Reani was cute and soft and smelled amazing, like baked goods and fresh cut grass, so hugging her back wasn’t much of a chore.

Besides, just because she wasn’t going to hook up with Yasha, it didn’t mean she couldn’t find someone else in this school to be her rebound. And, all things considered, Reani seemed like a very attractive candidate for that position.

“Sorry, I’m a huger!” Reani giggled as she pulled away. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Nah, it’s all good.” Beau rubbed the back of her neck, a little flustered, and looked around for Yasha. She had walked a little further away but was still looking at them and rolling her eyes so hard it almost looked painful.

“Class is about to start but I would love to chat some more later. Want to grab lunch with us?” Reani said, pointing back at her friends who had already found a couple of free mats and taken their seats.

“Yeah, I’m down for that.”

Reani clapped her hands excitedly and gave her a small wave as they parted ways. Beau weaved her way through the maze of mats until she was by Yasha’s side. She waited for the other girl to say something, about her, about Reani, about the freaking yoga mats even, but Yasha just sat down silently, closing her eyes and crossing her legs like she was meditating already.

“Alright, what’s your problem with her?” Beau asked, sitting down as well.

“What? I don’t have a problem with Reani.” Yasha said, opening one eye. “Why would you think that?”

Beau gave her a very pointed look. “Hmm I don’t know, maybe the way you talked to her?!”

“What way?” For a moment, Beau could almost believe Yasha was genuinely confused. But the way she quickly closed her eyes again, like she was trying to avoid the subject, spoke volumes.

“Like you didn’t want to be talking to her.” 

“I talk to everyone like that.”

“You don’t talk to me like that...” Yasha’s eyebrow twitched. “Or Molly.”

“She’s just... a lot.” Yasha sighed. “I’m not much of a people person and she... is.”

“Well, I thought she was really nice.”

Yasha’s lip curled in a smirk more similar to the expression she wore when they fought than one of her real smiles. “Of course you did.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Beau whispered as Dairon walked into the gymnasium and everyone took a seat and quieted down.

“Nothing...” Beau opened her mouth to ask again, she hated feeling like she was being judged and that was exactly what she felt when she remembered Yasha rolling her eyes. But Yasha put a finger to Beau’s lips, effectively shutting her up, and closed her eyes again. “Shhh, time to meditate.”

Beau licked her lips nervously, still feeling Yasha’s touch, and tried her best to focus on the meditation as well. Her mind was racing now so, as hard meditating had seemed to her before, it looked downright impossible now.

Dairon sat down on a blue mat at the front of the gym, by what looked to be a small stage. They turned on an old dinky radio and the kind of music Beau associated with the fancy spas her mother went to echoed throughout the room.

“Good morning, recruits. I hope you all had a good night’s sleep. This morning we will be focusing on gratitude. Meditate on the things you are grateful for, both in here and in your life outside of the program .”

Beau groaned as she closed her eyes. She wasn’t feeling particularly grateful lately, given the circumstances. She sure as hell wasn’t grateful that her father was a jerk or that she had been ghosted by the girl she dated for almost two years.

She guessed she was grateful she had ended up in here and not in an actual juvenile detention center or somewhere where they would try to “pray her gay away”. She didn’t know much about this place yet but from what she had learned from talking to Yasha and Molly and reading the stuff Dairon had given her, she knew it could be worse.

And she was grateful that she was going to be a big sister, even if she didn’t know how involved she was allowed to be in her brother’s life.

And then there was Yasha... even if she couldn’t date her, she was grateful to have her as a roommate and possible friend.

So yeah, there were a couple of things on her list, more things than she expected, but clearly not enough to fill in the entire meditation class. She opened her eyes just a sliver and poked Yasha’s thigh, trying her best not to dwell on how amazingly firm it felt.

“Hey, how long is this thing supposed to take?” She whispered once Yasha turned towards her, eyes still closed. She lifted her hand and showed her three fingers. “Three minutes? That’s probably almost up, cool!” Yasha shook her head, lifted the three fingers again and then made a zero with her other hand. “Thirty? Thirty fucking minutes of meditation? That’s forever!”

Yasha completely ignored her grumbling, her face softening once more to a peaceful expressionless mask, like she was falling asleep rather than meditating. Beau thought that maybe that was what she should do to pass the time, take a nap. But, no matter how hard she tried and how tired she still felt after their late night kitchen excursion, she couldn’t fall asleep.

She opened her eyes a smidge again and took advantage of everyone’s distraction to get a good look at her new schoolmates. There must have been about thirty of them, most were about her age, right at the edge of being too old to escape actual jail time, but there was a very short girl with brown braids at the front that looked too young to be here. 

She assumed that was Veth, the thirteen year old klepto Yasha had talked about. Beau had almost missed her, she was sitting beside a tall boy with long red hair wearing a very impractical, long tattered coat that seemed to swallow the two of them up. As Beau watched, the boy slipped something from inside the coat, a notebook, and twisted around to write on it while keeping it out of Dairon’s line of sight. With quick fingers, he ripped the page and folded it into a little airplane and sent it flying across the room, straight into the lap of the girl with the blue hair.

Beau was close enough to her that she could see her grin as she opened it up. She tried to imitate the redhead’s technique of twisting around and writing covertly, but without a coat of her own, she had to put it on the floor behind her thigh, right in front of Beau. The note had a poorly drawn figure of a cat holding a sign with its tail that said “Guten Morgen!” in a very neat font. As she watched, the girl took one of the pencils she had stuck in her hair to keep her updo in place, letting one bun fall down into a tangle of blue over her eyes and started drawing a very realistic horse next to the cat. Except... Beau soon realized it wasn’t a horse after all, it was a unicorn, but it had a very detailed dick on its head instead of a horn.

Beau let out a surprised bark of laughter and, although she covered her mouth with her hands as fast as she could, the girl still heard her and turned to look. Beau quickly closed her eyes and pretended to meditate but a couple of seconds later she felt something land on her leg. She opened her eyes to find a tiny piece of paper, clearly ripped from the paper airplane, sitting on top of her knee. She opened it, expecting the see a message cursing her out for looking at other people’s stuff, or maybe just a surprisingly detailed drawing of a middle finger, instead she got a friendship note, the kind little girls sent each other in primary school- or at least Beau had heard they did, she never had any close female friends, even back then. It said “Hi, I’m Jester. Wanna be friends?” with two boxes, one next to a smiley face and one next to a frown.

Beau couldn’t help but smile. It was ridiculously cute and, when she looked up at Jester again, she noticed that she was too. She didn’t have a pencil so she just gave her a thumbs up and Jester grinned back as she fixed her bun.

She has tucking the little note in her sneaker, since she didn’t have any pockets, when she heard Dairon clear their throat, not from the far end of the gym, but right next to her.

“Beauregard, is anything the matter?” They asked as Beau practically jumped out of her skin.

“N-no, no! All good here, Dairon. Really getting into the zen spirit and stuff...” She mumbled.

“It’s alright if you’re having a hard time, it’s your first day. Meditation can be hard for those who are unpracticed... or lack self control.”

The way Dairon said it was so patronizing, like they never expected Beau to be able to do it, like she would never be good enough to achieve something as stupid as meditating. Well, she was going show them! She was going to become an amazing meditation master or whatever they called it!

“No hard time here, doing just fine, thanks.” She said, closing her eyes and actually trying her damnest to meditate.

It wasn’t until the bell rang, announcing the end of the class that Beau realized that maybe that was Dairon’s plan all along, to motivate her by pissing her off. Of course she couldn’t be sure so she couldn’t quit trying either. Sneaky monk...

Yasha opened her eyes and started getting up and Beau followed suit.

“So, was that as bad as you thought?” Yasha asked softly.

“No, it was worse. I got so boreeeed!” She whined and Yasha smiled.

“Well you’ll only have to do it once... a day. Every day. For the rest of your time here.”

“Did you... did you just make a joke?” Beau said, crossing her arms in front of her chest and trying her hardest not to laugh. She failed, bursting into laughter as soon her her eyes met Yasha’s.

“Yeah, I do those sometimes.” Yasha’s pale face started to turn slightly pink. “They aren’t always a hit.”

“I like them... you should do it more often.” Fuck... She was flirting, wasn’t she? First she hadn’t been able to flirt with Yasha at all, now that she had promised not to do it she couldn’t stop. But the way Yasha’s smile widened and her cheeks got a little redder didn’t make her want to stop either. Why was being a good person so hard? “Yeah, well... anyways, we should go get some breakfast. I’m starving!”

“Let me just grab Molly and we can go.”

“I had a look around the gym during meditation, he isn’t here. I thought you said these things were mandatory.” Beau said as Yasha looked around.

“Shit! They are... I-I need to go find him.” Long gone was the look of total peace Yasha had on her face as she meditated, her eyes became intense, her mouth turning into a concerned frown. She placed her hand on Beau’s shoulder and she could feel it shaking slightly. “Go to breakfast, I’ll meet up with you as soon as I can.”

“Hey, I’m sure he’s fine. It’s not like he can get in that much trouble in here, right?”

“You would think so... But you don’t know Molly like I do.”

Chapter Text

By the time Beau found the cafeteria and got a place in line, she was still wondering what Molly had gotten himself into. She knew pretty much nothing about the guy, but the look of fear in Yasha’s eyes spoke volumes about the kind of trouble he had gotten himself into before.

Her stomach grumbled loudly as she got closer to the front of the line. Last night’s bread and tea had not been enough to make up for a full day’s worth of meals and she was really looking forward to some bacon and eggs, maybe some toast with more of that peach jam, if they had it. The cafeteria smelled wonderful, spicy and warm, like Christmas, but the lack of the tell-tale scent of bacon grease was concerning.

There was only one person handling the line, which explained why it moved so slowly, a guy in his twenties with long hair dyed a shockingly bright pink and a matching goatee. Beau had too assume he was the cook, he definitely seemed like the kind of person who would own a ton of weird plants, but he also looked way too young and cheerful to run an entire school’s kitchen, nothing like the grumpy middle aged women that worked in her old highschool.

When it was her turn, Beau stepped up and the cook smiled at her.

“Oh, hello there! You’re new, aren’t you? I’m Caduceus Clay, I handle all the food around here.”

“Beauregard Lionett, it’s my first day.” She repeated, getting tired of her own introduction speech. “You got any bacon, man?”

Caduceus frowned. “I’m afraid not. I run a fully plant based kitchen. No meat, no dairy, no eggs.”

Beau felt herself deflate. No bacon or eggs? How was she supposed to get through the day without protein?

“What about that vegan meat substitute stuff? Tell me you’ve at least got some fake bacon.”

“No, I’m sorry, Miss Beau.” He looked even more disappointed than Beau. It almost made her feel bad for asking.

“It’s fine, I guess. What do you have?”

He smiled again and opened a giant pot to show her. “Today’s special is apple cinnamon oatmeal!”

Beau shrugged, it wasn’t what she was craving but it was hot and it would give her some energy. “Alright, yeah. Give me some of that.”

“That’s the spirit!” He hummed happily as he filled a bowl with steaming oatmeal and sprinkled some extra cinnamon on top before putting it on Beau’s tray. “I also have toast, fresh orange juice and coffee, if you’d like some.”

The word word “coffee” was music to Beau’s ears. She was surprised that, with all the restrictions this school had, they still allowed caffeine, but she sure wasn’t going to argue. 

“Hell, yeah! Now we’re talking! Pour me some of that sweet, sweet wake up juice, Mr. Clay.”

He chuckled. “Coming right up!” He gave her a large mug full of coffee as well as the toast and the juice. Beau was about to say goodbye when he stopped her. “Wait just one more minute, Miss Beau. I have something special to give you for your first day.”

He disappeared back into the kitchen before she could say anything but came back just as quickly, holding a small plate with a single frosted cupcake.

“Here, take it! It’s a blueberry cupcake, they’re my speciality. This is the very last one, I was saving it but I think you deserve it.”

As he talked about the cupcake, Beau saw Jester, who was a couple of people behind her, stick her head out and lean over the counter to listen to their conversation. Beau thanked Caduceus and started to walk away, looking for a free table, when Jester completely left the line and ran towards her, still holding her empty tray.

“Heeeyyyy, new girl!” She squealed as she caught up to her.

“Beau.”

“Right! So… I couldn’t help but overhear you and Mr. Clay talking-”

“Because you were snooping.” Beau interrupted. The words were harsh but she smiled at the blue haired girl.

Jester just shrugged. “Pretty much. But I heard that you got the last cupcake.” She pointed at the small frosted treat. “And I need it.”

“You need it?” Beau found an empty table and took a seat. To her surprise, Jester sat right in front of her. “What’s up with this cupcake? Why does everyone talk about it like it’s so special?... is it an edible?”

“A what?” Jester tilted her head to the side, with her little blue buns she looked like a confused puppy. It was very cute, Beau had to admit.

“An edible. You know, like, it has weed in it?” Jester’s face showed no sign of recognition. “Have you seriously never had an edible before?”

“I was homeschooled before coming here.” She pouted. “But yeah, I totally know a lot about drugs and stuff...”

Beau didn’t believe her in the slightest. “I’m sure you do. It’s not an edible then, I assume.”

“Nope, just a really yummy cupcake. But it’s not what you wanted, right? I can get you what you really want. In exchange for the cupcake, of course.”

“What do you mean?”

 Jester leaned forward, like she wanted to share a secret. “You know how in prison TV shows there’s always someone that can smuggle in stuff? I’m that person here. Tell me what you need and I’ve got you!”

“You mean, food or anything at all?” Beau took a large sip of her coffee... and found out it was decaf. She should have known, but the disappointment still hit her like a ton of bricks. Maybe she could ask Jester for some of the real stuff.

“Pretty much anything. Food, clothes, tech, sex toys...”

Beau nearly choked on her decaf. “Did you just say sex toys?”

“Oh yeah!” Jester smirked. “We’re a bunch of teenagers trapped in here for months. People get lonely.”

Beau arched her brow. “There’s a lot of other people here they could get less lonely with, if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah but that would involve actually talking to other people. You’ll soon find out that most of us here aren’t the social kind.”

“Not even for sex?”

Jester leaned forward, cheek propped up on the palm of her hand. “Not even. There are exceptions, of course. Mollymauk will talk the pants off of anyone. But most people rather play tough and stay quiet.”

“That’s wild.” Beau shook her head. “How do you get that stuff in here?”

“My mama. She feels really bad that I got sent here, so she sends me ‘care packages’ with anything I ask for.”

“Don’t the monks check our mail?”

“Mom has an agreement with one of them.” She winked and Beau got the hint that she should definitely not ask any more questions about that ‘arrangement’. “Soooo, what do you want? I normally take something of equal value but I’ll make an exception for that cupcake.”

Beau took a bite of her toast and thought it over for a minute. There were more important things than bacon and coffee. “I need to contact someone on the outside. I don’t know their phone number from memory so I’ll have to send them a message on social media. I don’t want to use the school’s public computers. I’m sure they track what you do in those.”

Jester nodded slowly. “They do. Which is why the first thing I asked my mother for was a new phone and a portable hotspot. Come to my room after dinner and I’ll let you use them.”

“Deal!” Beau smirked and Jester started to reach for the cupcake. As her fingers brushed the edge of the plate, however, Beau pulled it away. “But first you’ll have to tell me why you want it so much. The real reason. I know there’s no way anyone would go through all of this trouble for just a good cupcake.”

“I’ve done some pretty crazy things for pastries before!” Jester giggled but the laughter died on her lips and she bit her bottom one, suddenly looking a little nervous. “Alright... I’ll tell you. But you can’t make fun of me for it, okay? Friends don’t do that and we’re friends now, right?”

The way she asked was so earnest Beau couldn’t help but smile back at her. “I answered your note, didn’t I, Jessie?”

 Jester beamed at the nickname, her smile like a ray of sunshine that made the entire cafeteria look brighter. “Yeah... I think we’re going to be, like, best friends, Beau.”

“That... that would be cool.”

Beau felt herself start to blush and shoved another piece of toast in her mouth. Why were all the women in this place so goddamn nice and pretty? Her dad really had no idea where he was sending her, did he?

“Ok so...” Jester started. “When I first got here, there weren’t a lot of recruits yet. It was pretty early in the year and I didn’t even have a roommate. I was pretty lonely... I wanted to make friends but everyone seemed so intimidating and I didn’t know what to say. I never had school friends before...” Jester turned in her seat and pointed, not subtly at all, towards the line where the girl with the braids and the guy with the long coat were waiting for their turn to get food. “Caleb was here already and he didn’t seem too scary but when I greeted him he just nodded back. People said he was mute, so I tried using sign language once but he just gave me a funny look.”

“He doesn’t know sign language because he isn’t mute, right?”

“Nope, he does know it. Not because he’s mute, just because he’s a huge nerd.” She giggled and looked back over her shoulder at him. When she turned back around Beau noticed that she blushing a bit. “I’m just terrible at it.”

“Where does the cupcake come in?”

Jester huffed and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Patience, I was getting there! The next day at breakfast I got the last cupcake and he sat at my table and spoke to me for the first time. He said that blueberry cupcakes were his favourite and asked if I would would be willing to trade mine for something else. He didn’t have anything I wanted so I told him we could share it. We’ve been sharing a cupcake every morning since and he finally started opening up to me... Yesterday I made a joke and he actually laughed! It may seem like it isn’t a big deal but it is to me and I’m afraid if I skip a day I’ll lose progress and he will stop talking to me again or something... It’s stupid, I know. I don’t need you to understand, I just need that cupcake.”

Beau shook her head slowly. “It’s not stupid. It’s disgustingly sweet, but not stupid. Take the cupcake, I hope this guy is worth it.”

Jester grinned again. “He is.”

“What’s his deal, anyway?” Beau asked, sipping on her fake coffee. If she didn’t focus on it, it almost tasted like the real thing.

“He just has a hard time trusting people and he figured that if she doesn’t talk they’ll leave him alone. But he’s a great talker actually. He’s super smart and funny and he has this sexy accent-” Jester noticed the look on Beau’s face and stopped talking. “Oh, you meant why did he get sent here, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. Not gonna lie, he kind of gives me school shooter vibes...”

Jester frowned. “Beau, that’s a terrible thing to say! He would never do something that awful. He just set a couple of houses on fire...”

Beau almost dropped her mug. “He what? That’s almost as bad! What if he got someone killed?”

“I’m sure he didn’t... he would be in actual jail if he had!”

“You sure about that? He sounds pretty dangerous, Jester. You should be careful.” Beau didn’t know why she was suddenly so fiercely protective of this girl she had just met but she was 100% sure that she would kick this guy’s ass if he even looked at her wrong.

Jester’s grin returned, mischievous and endearing. “How do you know I’m not dangerous too? I could be a crazy serial killer!”

“The cupcake murderer?” Beau joked.

“Exactly! It has a great ring to it, doesn’t it?”

“Sure does.” Beau shook her head and tried the oatmeal. It was sweat and warm but the slimy texture made her want to gag. “Why are you really here for? More illicit trading?”

“Nah. Just some graffiti.”

“That’s it? They sent you to a reform school for street art? Wasn’t community service enough?”

Jester threw her hands up dramatically. “I know, right? I told the judge that but he said some bullshit about ‘desecrating churches’ and ‘respecting other people’s religions’.” She rolled her eyes. “Blah blah blah.”

“Oh... Yeah, that kind of changes things.”  

“You think? My God would never be offended by a little art...”

Just then, Yasha stomped into the cafeteria like a whirlwind. Even from across the room, Beau could feel the tension coming off of her in waves. She caught sight of Beau and made her way over, pulling up the chair next to her like she had a personal grudge against the seat and dropping down unceremoniously.

“Hey! Did you find him?” Beau asked.

“Yeah...” Yasha grunted, she buried her face in her hands and let out a deep, angry growl. “But I was too late.”

“What do you mean?” Beau stopped playing with her oatmeal, spoon hanging idly in mid air. “Is he okay?”

Suddenly, Jester cleared her throat and both Beau and Yasha jumped. Fuck, Beau had forgotten there was someone else there, she had forgotten there were any other people in that room besides her and Yasha. No matter how many pretty girls she met and how aware she was that Yasha was off limits to her, her brain seemed to only want to focus on her.

“I’m going to take this and get going, don’t mind me...” Jester said, taking the cupcake. “Nice seeing you, Yasha!”

“Oh... did I interrupt your conversation?” Yasha asked quietly. Despite her mood, she seemed much more comfortable around Jester than she had been with Reani. “I’m sorry, Jester! You can keep talking, I’ll just-”

She started getting up but Jester jumped from her seat, shaking her head. “No need. I was just keeping Beau company until you got back, so my job here is done. Have a nice breakfast you two, I’ll see you later!”

Beau watched her new blue haired friend make her way to another table, where Caleb and Veth were eating. When she turned back around, Yasha was leaning back in her chair, eyes closed and brow furrowed. There was tiny little stress crease in between her brows that Beau found adorable. For a moment she thought about leaning over and kissing it better… But of course she didn’t do it. Because that would have been stupid and embarrassing and Yasha would have probably punched her in the face, which was what she deserved for even thinking about it...

“Fuck, this day just keeps getting better...” Yasha groaned and opened her eyes again. They seemed to have darkened with her mood, the blue going gray, the violet a deep indigo, stormy weather. “I’m sorry if I scared Jester off. She’s one of the few genuinely nice people here, I’m glad you two were getting along.”

“It’s fine, I don’t think she minded.” Beau turned in her seat to face her head on. “Forget about that, just tell me what happened.”

 “By the time I got to Molly’s room, there were already two monks there, taking him to Dairon’s office.” Yasha sighed. “We barely had time to talk.”

“But was he okay?”

“He told me he was... He said he just slept through the morning bell. But there was something off about him.”

“What do you mean? Off how?”

Yasha shook her head. “I don’t really know, it’s just a gut feeling. He’s a recovering drug addict with poor impulse control and a knack for befriending terrible people. Whenever I start worrying about him, there’s usually good reason for it.”

“Well, you told me before that one of the perks of being in the program is that those people can’t reach you. Plus, it’s not like he can’t get drugs in here.”

“That’s true... Maybe my gut is off today.” Yasha gave her a small, tentative smile. “He probably just hooked up with someone last night and didn’t get any sleep until the morning.”

 “It’s the second time I hear about Molly getting laid today.” Beau groaned. “Does he really get around that much?”

Yasha shrugged. “It’s the least destructive of his vices.”

“Damn, I thought I had a high libido but he’s making me feel like a prude!” Yasha looked down at the table, lower lip trapped between her teeth and Beau felt her cheeks go red hot. Why the fuck was she discussing her sex life at breakfast? “I mean... not that my libido is crazy high, just like... regular high? A healthy amount?” Gods, she wished somebody would shoot her and end her misery before she embarrassed herself to death. “Anyways... Did you get anything to eat yet?”

“No.” Yasha turned around to look at the cafeteria counter. There was no longer a line and Caduceus seemed to have left. “Aaaaand the kitchen’s already closed... Guess I’ll have to wait until lunch...”

“You can have my oatmeal, if you want.” Beau suggested, pushing her bowl towards Yasha.

“Really? Thank you, Beau! I’m actually starving...” Their fingers touched as Yasha took her spoon and started shoveling oatmeal into her mouth as fast as humanly possible. For a moment, Beau thought that sharing a spoon was the closest her and Yasha would ever get to kissing and sighed, then she immediately silently berated herself for thinking like a 12 year old.

Yasha must have heard her because she stopped mid spoonfull. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing!” Beau lied, trying her hardest not to stare at Yasha’s lips again, specially as she licked her spoon clean. “I was just wondering what Dairon’s going to do to Molly.”

“He’ll probably get a couple of weeks of Behaviour Correction Therapy.” Yasha’s small smile vanished. “It’s what they call detention here. They move you to an individual bedroom in the monk’s quarters, keep you from having contact with the rest of the recruits and force you to do extra homework and exercise. It’s like a military bootcamp, except lonelier.”

“Sounds awful. Did you ever go through it?”

“Yeah, when we first got here I kind of acted out and got a week.” She nodded slowly, stirring the little bit of oatmeal she had left. “I don’t think it worked on me. I like working out. And being alone.”

“Is that your way of saying you don’t want me to hang around you so much?”

Yasha dropped her spoon in the bowl, splattering oatmeal on the table. “No, no! That wasn’t... I didn’t mean...”

“Just kidding.” Beau’s heart somersaulted in her chest. Despite being very aware of Yasha’s situation she couldn’t help but get butterflies every time she managed to make her stoic roommate as nervous as she usually was around her. That probably made her a terrible person, but there were a lot of aspects of her personality that contributed to that, what was one more? With a smirk, she bumped Yasha’s arm with her shoulder. “But good to know. I would be kind of lost here without you.”

Yasha smiled but didn’t say anything as she returned to her food.

“How do you think Molly’s going to handle the isolation? You know, no socializing, no hooking up...” Beau said after a while, breaking the silence between them.

Yasha actually smirked down at the bowl. “He wont. I’ll give him two days before he convinces one of the monks to let him sneak out during the night.”

“They’re that easy to manipulate?” Beau asked, brow raised.

“If you offer to suck their dicks...”

Beau choked on her own spit and had an embarrassingly loud coughing fit. “What? He would actually do that?”

“He would and he has. And the guy said yes.” Yasha answered nonchalantly.

“Geez, Yasha!” She shook her head. “What the fuck is wrong with this school?”

“Are you really sure you’re not a prude?” Yasha chuckled.

“Pretty fucking sure.” Beau scoffed and leaned in closer, a cocky grin on her face. “Do you need me to prove it to you?”

 She only realized what she had said when she saw Yasha’s pale cheeks turn pink and she lowered her head, her long hair falling like a curtain between them.

Beau wanted to punch herself, she wanted to bash her head against the table until she passed out, maybe that would stop her from letting her stupid mouth say things her stupid brain didn’t double check ever again. Gods, she really had no self-control, had she? One smile from Yasha and all her good intentions not to flirt or make her uncomfortable were forgotten and Beau was asking Yasha if she wanted to see how kinky she could get! At least she made it sound like a joke. Fuck, she hoped Yasha took it as a joke...

“That’s okay, I believe you...” Yasha whispered roughly from behind her hair.

Beau really wished she could see her face, although most of the time it gave nothing away. She didn’t know if she should apologise or if that would just make things more awkward. Maybe she should just pretend she hadn’t said anything, that’s what Yasha was doing, wasn’t it?

Before she had time to decide on what to do, or say, or not say, or possibly what to hit herself with, the bell rung again, announcing the end of their breakfast break.

“What’s next on your schedule?” Yasha asked, finally looking up again as she put the oatmeal bowl back on Beau’s tray.  

Beau noticed how close they were, she had practically pushed herself onto Yasha’s lap, and quickly got to her feet, pretending to be looking for a place to put the used tray.

“Oh... ah, I- Individual therapy?” Beau mumbled.

Yasha nodded. “That’s in building A. I have a free period now, was thinking about staying here and hitting the gym for a while. Unless you need me to take you there...”

“It’s fine, I’m sure I can find my way.”

She needed some time apart from Yasha, before she said something so inappropriate it would ruin any chance of a friendship between them for good. And while she wasn’t looking forward to meeting her new therapist, she could use the distraction. Yet, when Yasha asked her if she was sure, her abs popping up from beneath her sweatshirt as she raised her arms to tie her hair in a ponytail, all those arguments left Beau’s brain.

“I mean.. it would suck to get lost and be late for my first therapy session. Kind of gives off a bad impression, right?” Yasha just shrugged. “But I don’t want to get in the way of your workout...”

“You won’t. Five minutes doesn’t really make a difference.”

“If you say so...” They started making their way towards the exit and Yasha took the tray from Beau, placing it gently on a cart by the kitchen door. Beau smiled up at her, still unsure of where they stood. “Actually, I could do a ton of push ups in five minutes.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know, like 150?” Yasha scoffed. “What? You think you can beat that?”

“Easily.”

“Oh, it’s a bet, Nydoorin! Next time we have a free period together we’re putting this to the test!”

She extended her hand out to Yasha and the other girl shook it, a small smile curling the corner of her lip. Just like that, Beau knew they were okay. Just like that, she could breathe again.

Chapter Text

Black and white.

Blue and purple.

Red and pink.

Dr. Pumat showed her card after card with colorful blobs, asking her what she saw or what the colors reminded her of and Beau lied.

“An owl.”

“A bunny.”

“I don’t know man, a butterfly?”

Nice, safe, happy answers. That’s what shrinks wanted to hear, right? Then why was Dr. Pumat’s brow furrowed? She was making his life easier, giving him one less messed up teen to try and fix. She was pretty sure he got payed either way, so why bother with her when she so clearly didn’t want him to?

“Respectfully, Beauregard, I want you to remember that there are no wrong or silly answers here. You can tell me anything that comes to mind.” He said quietly, trying to encourage her.

She didn’t feel encouraged at all. She felt judged and annoyed.

She didn’t want to talk about her life, or the random blobs of color he was showing her. She wanted to run away, right now. She wanted to jump off of Dr. Pumat’s couch and bolt out of the door, running out of the building and past the fence, into the woods until she couldn’t see him or this school anymore.

Yet she stayed, butt glued to the ugly flowery fabric of the couch, as Dr. Pumat pushed one of the cards forward on his coffee table and studied her reaction. It was one of the few with black splotches, the one that reminded her of her father in his pristinely pressed suits, with it’s black blob of an arm raised to strike her. Beau didn’t tell Dr. Pumat any of this, she jus tried her hardest not to flinch as she looked at it with mock boredom and then turned her eyes to another card.

“Do you see anything else in this one, Beauregard?” He asked, trying to get her to look at the card again. Beau wondered what had given her away... then she realized she was holding her breath. Shit...

“Not really, it’s just a bunch of blobs, Doc. I’m not really the imaginative type.”

He nodded like he understood much more than what she had said and wrote something down on his notebook. Beau wished she could rip that sheet of paper from his hands and burn it.

“What about that one? I notice you keep looking at it.”

Double shit... Beau had always considered herself a good liar but her body kept giving her away. Maybe she was off her game after all the commotion of the last few days, or maybe this guy was some sort of body language analyst like that one dude from TV. Either way, Beau didn’t like it.

“I just like the colors.” She picked the card up and examined it more closely. The blobs in it were so oddly shaped she couldn’t make up a cute animal to tell Dr. Pumat, but they were in a gorgeous mix of blues and purples. They were Yasha’s eyes in the early morning light, and during a midnight storm, and right before they said goodbye at the office door, when she looked like she wanted to say something to Beau but just walked away... “They’re pretty.”

“How do the colors make you feel?”

“I don’t know... nervous?”

She didn’t realize she had said too much until she heard Dr. Pumat scribble something else on his notebook.

“Like you’re unsafe?”

Beau shook her head. “No, not that. The opposite of that. A good nervous. Like... excited?”

“Excited is good.” He smiled kindly at her, leaning his heavy body forward. There was something bovine about his big dark eyes that was disarming and Beau hated how she was falling for it, saying more than she intended. “What are some things that usually make you feel like that?”

Beau dropped the card on her lap and leaned back on the couch. “Traveling to new places. Running at track meets. Fighting, even if it’s just sparing or practicing moves, that’ always exciting. Basically everything I can’t do here.”

“So you really enjoy physical activity.”

Beau laughed. “Yeah, that’s an understatement.”

Dr. Pumat just gave her another one of his large smiles. “Forgive me, I’m not one for those kinds of activities. Specially running, it always makes me nauseous. I’m always surprised to find someone who genuinely enjoys it. But I do know that some find it very therapeutic.”

“It’s just something fun to do. Don’t read that much into it, Doc.”

“Unfortunately, that is my job.” He wrote something else on his notebook and then his pen glided through the paper as he underlined another note. Beau’s hands itched with the need to tear that paper to shreds. “Your records tell me that you got sent here because of a fight. Were you looking for that excitement? The physical release?”

Beau immediately became defensive, she dropped the card back on the table and crossed her arms over her chest. “I wasn’t looking for anything. I didn’t start that fight.”

“Alright. Did you attempt to resolve things amicably before it got physical?”

Beau scoffed, even though she knew it was rude and the doctor didn’t deserve it. He had been nothing but nice so far, even if that didn’t exactly put her at ease. Dr. Pumat didn’t seem the slightest bit bothered, however. Beau guessed he saw much worse behavior on a regular basis, working in a reform school. “It already started that way.”

“And why was that? Why did this person, this Mr....” He checked his notes again. “LePual? Why did he approach you in such an aggressive manner?”

“He heard about something that was my business and decided to make it his. Except idiots are never good with words so they go in fists first.”

“Would you like to talk about this... business of yours?”

Beau rolled her eyes. “Not really.”

She expected him to push the subject, but he just closed the notebook, dropping it on his lap and nodded. “That’s alright. Maybe next session?”

“Maybe.” She shrugged. She had no intention of discussing Tori with this man.

“Then I think we are done for today, Beauregard.”

Beau looked at the door, a little unsure. They had only been there for half an hour tops, her session was supposed to be an hour an a half long.

“I can... I can go?”

He nodded, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Yes, of course!” As she got up, however, he spoke up again. “Beauregard... I need to inform you that your father left Dairon an indication that he would rather not have family issues discussed here. As your new therapist, I must tell you that I have no intention of following his instructions. Family plays an integral role in a young person’s mental and emotional development and, as such, it needs to be addressed. Is that alright with you?”

Normally, Beau would be all for not talking about her family, specially with a stranger. But if her father didn’t want her to, if he was afraid of what she could say, then it suddenly seemed like a much more appealing idea in Beau’s mind.

“Sure...” She muttered, playing with the door handle, anxious to leave.

“Wonderful.” Dr. Pumat let the word hang between them until Beau started shuffling from one foot to the to the other. Only then did he smile and dismiss her. Beau walked out as fast as she could, but not fast enough that she didn’t see him open the notebook back up and reach for his phone. The urge to turn back around and steal the notebook was almost overwhelming, but she took a deep breath and just kept walking.

Only when she left the building and found herself in the courtyard, did Beau realize she didn’t know where to go. She had a while before her next class and nothing to do. She could meet up with Yasha at the gym, but she didn’t want to interrupt her workout. Or she could go back to her room, alone, without even a phone or a book to distract her.

Trapped between the possibilities of awkwardness and boredom, Beau sat down on a cement bench that was still slightly damp from the previous night’s storm and turned her face towards the sun, closing her eyes and soaking in the little bit of sunshine that made it through the clouds. It was nice, for a while she could picture herself somewhere else, somewhere without a fence, or concrete buildings, or mandatory therapy sessions...

Her small peaceful moment was cut short, however, when she heard loud voices coming closer. Opening her eyes, Beau saw a monk walking her way, followed by a grinning Mollymauk in what looked to be a garish hot pink robe, carrying a large rucksack.

“Beauregard!” He yelled out when he saw her and ran past the monk to get to her. Before Beau had time to react, he threw his arms around her like they were the best of friends and gave her a tight hug. “Just the person I wanted to see!”

“Me? Really?” She muttered awkwardly. He was so uncomfortably close she could feel his breath on her face and, to her surprise, it didn’t smell like alcohol. But by the way he was slurring his words and his blown out pupils, she could tell that he was definitely not sober.

“Not reeeeeally, but close enough.”

“Mr. Tealeaf, keep walking.” The monk grumbled, giving him an exasperated look that let Beau know that Molly had been this much of a handful the entire morning. “You know you can’t fraternize while on the correction program.”

Molly turned his head to roll his eyes at the monk. “Calm down, Greg! Even inmates get one last phone call. Consider this mine.”

“Greg?” Beau whispered.

“I have no idea what his name is but he hasn’t corrected me yet, so I’m sticking with Greg.” He shrugged. “Now listen, dear. I need you to watch over Yasha while I’m gone.”

Beau raised a single pierced brow. “Yasha doesn’t need babysitting. As far as I can tell, you’re the one who needs to be watched over.”

Molly’s face grew serious and, for a moment, he almost seemed to sober up as he leaned in so close their noses almost touched. “I know she looks indestructible, like nothing ever gets to her, but she’s not like that, deep down. She feels, sometimes so intensely it scares me. She learned to keep all her shit together so she can help me clean up my messes. Because there’s so many... there’s so fucking many...” He swallowed hard and looked away and Beau was sure he was about to star crying when he turned back around with a lazy grin. “She’s an angel, she really is. Tell her I’m sorry, okay? Tell her I’ll see her soon.”

“Yeah, sure.” Beau nodded.

He looked at something over her shoulder and his expression became so incredibly blank it was frightening. His voice became hollow, almost breathless, like he was talking to himself, like he wasn’t aware that Beau was there at all. “Do you know what it’s like, to be so used to surviving hurricanes that when it’s finally over and there’s quiet, you don’t know how to handle it? Living through the chaos ends up being less frightening than handling the silence of the aftermath.”

Beau’s mouth went dry. “Yeah...”

That’s what her life felt like, wasn’t it? Constantly looking for hurricanes to chase, because the silence was too much. Her silent home, her silent parents, her silent mind… She couldn’t bare it.

Molly nodded. “I know I’m a hurricane most of the time. I know I drag her in and we both get hurt. But it’s what happens to us when there’s peace that scares me.” He sighed and blinked a couple of times, seeming to go back to his usual self. “So, I need you to keep her distracted for me.”  

“How am I supposed to do that?”

He wiggled his brows. “I can think of a couple of ways.”

“You gotta be fucking kidding me.” Beau scoffed. “Are you really telling me to have sex with your best friend?”

“I didn’t say anything!” He grinned, his tongue ring flashing in the pale morning light. “Wonder why that was the first thing that came to your mind...”

“Shut up or I’m walking away and leaving you with Greg!” Beau grumbled, her cheeks growing uncomfortably warm.

“I just meant you should keep her company... what kind of company is completely up to you.”

“Sure, yeah. That’s totally what you meant... ” He just grinned wider.”You’re such a bastard, Mollymauk.”

“Oh, come on, don’t act like you don’t want it! I see the way you look at her, darling.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t ... I mean, have you seen her? She’s like... unbelievably hot!” Beau’s cheeks were on fire at this point. Molly looked delighted. “But it wouldn’t be right. She’s still dealing with Zuala’s death and stuff...”

Molly’s eyebrows rose up, disappearing behind his messy curls. “You know about that?”

“Yeah, she told me about her.”

He took a while to answer, his mouth screwing into weird shapes as he considered the new information. Finally, he frowned at the ground and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Well, it’s been over two years since she killed herself. Yasha has to move on at some point...”

Beau felt like she had been slapped across the face.

Killed herself.

Yasha wasn’t just mourning her girlfriend’s death, she was mourning her suicide. How was anyone supposed to get over a loss like that? She hated that Molly had even suggested that Beau could help her with it. But she hated the fact that she considered more, even if it was just for a second.

She felt sick to her stomach and it must have shown on her face because Molly sighed. “But you didn’t know that, did you?”  

“She didn’t go into detail...”

“And I shouldn’t have either. Just... keep an eye on her, tell me if anything happens.” He started walking back towards the monk but stopped mid way and turned back towards her. “If things get really bad, you come get me. I don’t care who you have to go over, you get me right away. Alright?”

“How am I supposed to know if things are really bad? I don’t know her that well, we just met.” Beau huffed.

She wasn’t annoyed that this responsibility was being put upon her, although she knew that if she had been tasked with looking after anyone else, specially someone else she barely knew, she would have been. But there was something different between her and Yasha, something that went past her physical attraction. It didn’t matter that they had met for less than 48 hours, Beau felt like they got each other in a way she had never felt with anyone else before. Whatever shit life had thrown at then, they had adapted in the same way, masks of indifference to cover up what was going on inside, fists always at the ready in case someone didn’t get the message. She didn’t know everything Yasha was dealing with and Yasha didn’t know about Beau’s issues but she was sure that if, at any point, one of them decided to open up, the other would understand their pain, better than any psychologist ever could.

She wanted to be there for Yasha, to make sure she was okay. But just keeping an eye on her and getting Molly didn’t seem like enough. She wanted to actually help, to be the one who made sure she never got to that really bad stage. But she didn’t know how to do that for her and, even if she did, she didn’t know if Yasha would let her. And that made her feel infuriatingly powerless.

“You’ll just know, trust me.” Molly said darkly as he returned to the monk’s side. He didn’t say goodbye, he didn’t even wave, he just walked away in silence, his overwhelming energy from before seemingly drained.

Beau watched him disappear into one of the buildings and then rushed back to the her room. She still had no idea what she was going to do, but she sure as hell couldn’t just stand there sunbathing after being told all of that.

By the time she got to her door, she had decided that she needed a nap. She hadn’t gotten nearly enough sleep that night and should take advantage of that extra time, although she had no idea how she was going to sleep with all that was swirling around in her head.

She slammed her door shut and threw herself down on her bed. As she turned, trying to find a comfortable position, she looked at Yasha’s bed and found a towel and a water bottle, placed precariously on the edge of the mattress. Yasha must have forgotten to take them to the gym with her. She probably needed them right now...

Beau tried to flip back around and ignore it. It wasn’t her problem. She had told Molly she would keep an eye out for Yasha, not that she would babysit her. She was perfectly capable of coming back for her stuff if she really needed it.

Except...it would be a nice thing to do for someone who had helped her out so much since she had gotten to this school. And Molly did say she needed distractions...

With a groan, Beau jumped out of bed, grabbed Yasha’s things and ran back to the gym.

She could hear her before she even stepped inside the weight room in the back, the slight clinking of the weights, the rhythmic hush of her breath, it all filled Beau with a strange nervousness. Which was stupid. Nothing had changed, Yasha was still as off limits as before, more so even. Then why did she feel the need to smooth down her shirt and re-tie her hair before walking in?

Because you have a major crush on her. A voice that sounded suspiciously like Mollymauk whispered in her ear. And now that I suggested you two should hook up, you can’t stop thinking about it.

I’m still not going to do it. She whispered back, not even bothering to deny any of his allegations. It would be wrong. She’s grieving.

That doesn’t mean you don’t want it.

With a decided huff, she finally walked in, towel tucked under her arm. Yasha didn’t seem to notice her at first, she was laying on a bench, doing chest presses, her upper body gleaming with a light coating of sweat. Beau cleared her throat and Yasha sat up, whipping her face with the back of her hand.

Beau wanted to say something, to announce herself or throw in a joke about the small weight room, but her mouth went dry at the sight of all that glistening pale skin and muscle. It was one thing to deny the things you wanted behind a closed door, another to see them head on and remind yourself that you were not allowed to even look at them with wanting eyes.

“Good workout?” She finally forced herself to say with a lightness she didn’t feel as she walk up to Yasha and gave her the towel.

“Yeah...” Yasha said as she wiped the back of her neck. “Thanks. For the towel, I mean.”

Her voice was slightly strained and she wasn’t meeting Beau’s eyes. Beau felt something in her chest tighten as she remembered Molly’s warnings but the rational part of her said that she was probably being paranoid because of that conversation. Yasha was fine. She was probably just annoyed that Beau had interrupted her workout and wanted to be left alone.

“I didn’t want to interrupt you, but my therapy session ended early so I went back to our room and saw it laying on your bed. Thought you might need it.” Beau mumbled lamely, trying to justify her presence.

She expected Yasha to tell her that she could go now that she had done what she came to do but she finally looked up at Beau and gave her a small, grateful smile.

“I did... I do.”

The pressure on her chest seemed to lift a bit and Beau grinned and leaned back against the closest machine, crossing her arms in what she hoped was a nonchalant way.

“If you’re done with that, maybe we can get that push up competition going. What do you think?”

As Yasha seemed to consider the idea, she brought the towel around to wipe her chest and Beau couldn’t help but stare.

Fuck...

Beau had learned very early on that there were some things in the world that just weren’t fair. The way Yasha’s body balanced muscles and soft curves was one of those things. It did not make sense how someone so buff could still have a perfectly rounded ass and a waist that tucked in at just the right place and, Beau had just realized, the most perfect set of tits she had ever laid eyes upon. Having seen her in mostly baggy t-shirts and hoodies so far, Beau hadn’t been able to tell just how... well endowed Yasha was in that department and if there was one thing that made Beau weaker than strong arms, it was boobs.

Yes, she was aware that her brain worked like a horny 13 year old boy’s sometimes and she wasn’t proud of it. But what was she supposed to do? Girls were just so damn hot!

She forced herself to look away and hoped that her face didn’t show what she was thinking. As she cast her eyes down, however, she caught sight of Yasha’s hand and froze.

The pinky on her left hand was swollen to twice its size and quickly turning an alarming shade of purple. Had it been like that this morning? Beau couldn’t recall. Maybe she had accidentally hurt Yasha during their fight the previous night...

“Hey, what happened to your finger?” Beau asked.

Yasha looked down at it, gripping the towel tighter and, tried to look surprised. It wasn’t a very good attempt, Beau could tell she knew right away what Beau was asking about. How could she not? It looked like it really fucking hurt.

“Oh! It- it’s nothing! I just... had an accident with the weights.” Yasha tried to shrug it off like it wasn’t a big deal but Beau leaned in and grabbed her hand before she could pull away. Maybe she was crossing a line, touching Yasha like this, but she couldn’t care less at the moment. All her inappropriate thoughts had been wiped away as soon as her worry kicked in.

As gently as she could, she tried to examine Yasha’s injury. She knew pretty much nothing when it came to medicine, but she had had enough bruises and brakes and sprains of her own to tell if something was seriously wrong. Yasha’s hands were cold but her pinky wasn’t, blood pumping hard just under the skin to the rhythm of a thundering heartbeat. She pressed slightly harder, trying to see it if was broken, Yasha didn’t complain but she went as still as a statue.  

“Doesn’t feel like it’s broken, but it’s really swollen. Do you need to go to the nurses office?” Yasha bit her bottom lip and shook her hear the tiniest bit. “Or I could go ask Mr. Clay for some ice.”

She immediately knew Yasha was going to say no, her eyes darted around wildly and then she jumped up from the bench, stepping backwards towards the locker rooms.

“No, it’s fine! It doesn’t even hurt. I’ll...I’ll just put some cold water on it. I’ll be right back!”

 There had been a nagging idea in the back of Beau’s mind that came forward as a certainty as soon as Yasha disappeared from sight: she had hurt herself on purpose. Beau didn’t know if it had been Molly’s speech or the look in Yasha’s eyes when she pointed her finger out that had made Beau realize it but, much like an oddly shaped puzzle piece finally sliding into its place, it just fit.

Beau had no idea what had made Yasha do it, but she understood it. She felt the impulse too, sometimes, like an itch beneath her skin, a voice she needed to quiet down. She had never hurt herself, not directly, but she was no stranger to getting herself into dangerous situations when her feelings got too complicated. Egging someone twice her size into a fight or skateboarding down the steepest hill in town while drunk knowing she was going to fall weren’t typical kinds of self harm, but they also left bruises and broken bones, pain she could focus on instead of what was really bothering her and that was what mattered. While holding Yasha’s finger, she realized she had been looking for that focus too, even if she couldn’t tell what she had been trying to distract herself from.

Seconds felt like hours as she waited for Yasha to return from the locker room. She knew she should give Yasha some alone time if that’s what she needed but she also couldn’t hear any water running and was worried Yasha was just making her finger worse, in the same way that she poked bruises and pressed on fractures when the ache of them started to fade. So she ended up walking up to the locker room door and leaning in, not quite following her, but looking for her in the darkened room - a compromise. She was nowhere to be seen but Beau could hear her, just around the corner where the bathroom stalls were, breading harshly, like maybe she was crying.

“Yasha? Are you okay?” Beau called out before she could stop herself.

As soon as she spoke, her nerves doubled. Of course she wasn’t okay! She shouldn’t have asked that, it was probably the worst thing in the world she could have said at the moment... But it was too late to swallow the words back down, so she just took a step inside the locker room and waited for an answer. In for a penny, in for a pound, right?

“Y-yeah...Yeah, I’m fine.” Yasha yelled back after a beat, her voice low and a little hoarse. “I think I’m too tired to do the push up thing now. Can we reschedule?”

“Yeah, of c-” Beau started, before Yasha interrupted her.

“I’m going to take a shower. See you at lunch, okay?”

It was a clear dismissal, the kind Beau had expected before. And, if Yasha had said it just a couple of minutes ago, Beau would have turned on her heal and left her alone but now? After seeing her finger? No way in hell, not before she made good on her word to Molly and made sure she was okay. Or as okay as possible, given the circumstances.

She wordlessly walked around the corner to the bathroom stall area, checking that Yasha was in fact not using any of the sinks. One of the stalls was closed, however, and Beau stopped in front of it, placing her hand against the wood like it would help her reach out to Yasha somehow.

“Look, I don’t want to imply anything about your finger.” She said quietly. “But I want you to know I won’t tell anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Yasha took a minute to answer, Beau could hear her trying to steady her breathing and it made her heart ache.

“I-I would appreciate that.” She muttered. “T-thank you... for that and for not judging, I guess.”

“Have you seen me? Who am I to judge.” Beau laughed dryly. “No one gets sent here because they don’t have issues. I’m a mess too...”

It took a whole heartbeat for Beau to register what she said and she stumbled on to ad a quick, “Not that I’m saying you’re a mess!”

She was pretty sure she had made things worse and was trying to think of a way to apologise when she heard Yasha laugh. It was a surprised, high pitch giggle, mixed with a snort. It was real and awkward and a little sad. And it was probably one of the cutest things Beau had ever heard.

She found herself smiling as she turned around and leaned back against the door, knowing that laugh meant Yasha was going to be alright. This was not the really bad stage, this was just a step in that direction. But if Beau could help her take back that small step, even if it was just with a distraction or some laughter, maybe that would be enough. Maybe she could help after all.

“What I meant is that we’re all complicated and if you ever want to talk about that with someone who doesn’t take notes or makes you look at an ink blot test, I’m here.” She whispered, looking forward at the row of mirrors above the sinks. Yasha was so tall some of her hair poked out of the top of the stall and Beau could tell she had her back to the door too, like they were leaning on each other with just that piece of wood between them. “But I guess I said that before...”

“It’s nice to hear it again, though...”

“Anytime, angel.” The word slipped out before she realized what she was saying and Beau felt not just herself but also Yasha freeze. Angel - it sounded like just a nickname when Molly said it before, but when she whispered it in that empty bathroom the word grew larger, heavier, like the confessions of affection shared between lovers. It felt so right on her tongue, but so wrong as it echoed against Yasha’s sudden silence.

 It made her wonder if Zuala called her that too. It made her want to punch herself in the face for thinking she had a right to say it.

“Anyways... I’ll see you at lunch, yeah?” She blurted out after the silence stretched to much and she began to feel her own itch for pain.

She didn’t look at Yasha’s weights on the way out of the gym, she didn’t yell at anyone she met in the halls to see if they would punch her in the face. She just bolted out of the C building and kept running like she had wanted to all morning, making lap after lap around the school grounds in the little red track they had haphazardly painted on the cement until her lungs started to ache and her legs shook with the effort.

Only when she had to stop and put her hands on her knees to catch her breath did she realize that she was still holding Yasha’s water bottle. With a surprised laugh of her own, she twisted the cap open and took a long sip. Her body felt like crap, her legs were noodles, her lungs thorn plastic bags in the wind, but her mind felt a lot clearer.

She knew she was going to be fine too.

Even if she had an inappropriate unrequited crush and family issues and college finance problems and a stupid break up to deal with, she knew she was going to push through it like she pushed through the tiredness in her limbs and forced herself to jog a little further.

She.

Was going to be.

OKAY.

Maybe Doctor Pumat was on to something with this “exercise as therapy” thing after all. But she sure as hell wasn’t going to admit that to him.

Chapter Text

Beau didn’t know how long she had been running for. Far longer than she expected, that was for sure.

She had just intended on doing a couple of laps to fully clear her head and go on with the rest of the day. But, after breaking through that initial wall of exhaustion, she had started to feel the endorphins kicking in and now she couldn’t stop. She felt so free, so weightless despite everything she was going through. She couldn’t just let that go because the bell announcing her next class was starting had rung. She couldn’t even remember what that class was supposed to be or what room it was held in and that felt like a sign that she was not meant to go anyway.

As she cut the corner around the A building, almost crossing once again the gate she had established as her finish line, she saw a figure standing in her way. Dairon was like a statue in the middle of the track, arms crossed, bald head shinning in the sun, expression completely unreadable. Beau slowed her steps and started preparing to be yelled at, knowing there was a big chance she would be joining Molly in the Behavioral Correction Program soon.

“Look, I know I shouldn’t be-” Se started explaining herself. She knew from experience that if she admitted she had done wrong right away, she could spare herself at least half of the yelling. But Dairon didn’t let her finish, they raised their hand to shut Beau up.

“On the floor, give me twenty sit ups.” They said calmly.

“What?” Beau mumbled, confused.

“Did I stutter, Beauregard? Twenty. Go.”

Well, this was a new one, but her father did say these monks were specialists in what they did. Why just give someone a painful sermon when you could maximise the pain with added exercise? Too bad Beau actually enjoyed a good ab workout, if she focused long enough she could probably tune Dairon out completely and just focus on the movement.

She lowered herself down to the slightly damp ground and began doing her sit ups but Dairon didn’t start talking, they just watched, their face never changing. Eventually, Beau’s reps and her patience came to an end.

“Done. You’re going to tell me what this is about now?” She glared from the floor.

“Sure. After you give me twenty push ups.”

“Push ups? Now? Why?”

Dairon tilted their head down, their eyes were polished jet in the sunlight. “Because I said so. You need to learn to follow instructions, Beauregard.”

“Oh, so this really is about me skipping class!” She grumbled but Dairon remained silent.

She flipped around and started doing the push ups. The school’s “track” was just a red painted strip of cement that went around the A and B buildings and, after what had to be decades of use, was a little worse for wear. The cement crumbled into tiny little sharp pebbles that dug painfully into Beau’s palms, every time she pushed her weight up and down. She didn’t complain, however, she didn’t even let herself flinch, she just did as she was told and looked up at the monk with murder in her eyes.

Dairon crouched down to her level as she did her last push up.

“How did that feel?”

Beau wasn’t expecting that but she just gritted her teeth and said, “Fine.”

Dairon shook their head like that was the wrong answer. “Alright then, give me ten with just one arm now. Then switch to the other one.”

Beau huffed. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me...”

“What’s wrong? I thought you said it was fine.” Dairon said with a small, sadistic smile.

Beau set her jaw so hard her teeth hurt. “Yeah, it’s fine. It’s fucking peachy.”

“Get on with it then. And watch your tongue.”

That last comment made Beau want to curse them out even more but she just started her push ups. And it was agony. She could barely balance her body weight on one hand on an even floor, doing it on that cheesegrater they called a courtyard was absolute torture.

She managed to do two shaky push ups when Dairon got up and put their foot on her back, sending Beau chest first into the cement.

“What the fuck! What’s wrong with you?”

“I told you to watch your mouth.” Dairon said, not lifting their foot.

“Get the fuck off me, then I’ll mind my manners!” Beau spit back. Slowly, the weight on top of her lifted and she quickly sat up.

“I’m going to ask you this again, think about your answer carefully this time. How did that feel?”

Beau shot them a dirty look. “How do you think that felt?” Dairon said nothing. “Fucking awful, alright?”

“Good. That’s the first honest thing you’ve said to me all day.”

Beau rolled her eyes and began cleaning the tiny little pebbles that were still stuck to her palms. Her hands looked like shit, red and scrapped in some spots. They felt even worse.

“Would I be in less trouble if I had told you your little drill sargent act is bullshit and I’m not sorry I skipped whatever class I was meant to be in right now?”

Dairon crossed their arms again. “Yes, actually. Although I still don’t appreciate the language.”

Beau scoffed. “Now that’s a lie.”

“No, Beauregard. It’s just not the truth you expected.” They bent down to look Beau in the eye. “You know what I thought yesterday when you told me you had a problem with lying?”

“That I was joking? Because I was...”

Dairon acted like Beau hadn’t said anything. “I thought ‘who taught this girl to be afraid to tell the truth?’ ”

An image of Thoreau flashed through Beau’s mind, his angry eyes, his scowling mouth. “What is up with everyone here and over analysing everything I say? It was just a joke!”

“Because, for me, it was my grandmother.” Beau had been keeping her stare glued to her hands but it snapped up to meet Dairon’s now. “Cold, hard woman, impossible to please. But I found out very early on that if I lied, if I told her what she wanted to hear instead of the truth, living with her became less terrible. I got so used to lying that I started doing it with everyone else too. Eventually I didn’t even know what the truth was anymore.”

“What changed?”

“I lied to the wrong person and got into some serious trouble. Then I was sent here.” 

Beau felt her jaw drop. “Wait, you were one of us?”

“Yeah, a long time ago.”Dairon smirked. “I know you probably think this program is a waste of time and it wont help you at all, but it can. It helped me. Learning about the Cobalt Soul and Ion’s teachings taught me that the truth is important. It is powerful, even when it’s hard. Specially when it’s hard.”

 Beau felt like rolling her eyes again but she stopped herself. “Look, out there, the truth is not just hard. Sometimes it’s dangerous too.”

“I get that.” Dairon nodded. “I don’t expect you to never lie. I’ve seen your grades, you’re a smart kid, you can tell when lying is necessary and that’s a very important skill. I just don’t want you to lose track of the truth.” They reached inside their pocket and took a piece of paper out. “Ou there, feel free to lie if you need to. But there’s no need for it here, I promise. I don’t want you to lie to me or to Dr. Pumat. But specially not to yourself.”

Beau didn’t know how to answer that, her throat felt dry again in a way that water couldn’t fix. So she just pointed towards the paper. “What’s that?”

Dairon gave it to her. “Your new schedule. I talked to Dr. Pumat and he said physical activity would be very useful for your development here so, from now on, you’re training with me once a day.”

Most of her schedule looked the same but some of her individual therapy sessions and art therapy classes had been substituted by Dairon’s name.

“Does that mean I’ll have to do more push ups on cement?”

“Oh yeah. Every. Single. Day.” Beau groaned and they chuckled. “Now go take a shower and grab some lunch. I’ll forgive you for skipping class this once, because it’s your first day. But if you do it again, the push ups will be the least of your concern, recruit.”

--

The rest of the day went by in a blur. She didn’t see much of Yasha and she got the feeling that she was avoiding her.

Beau didn’t blame her. She had caught Yasha in a moment of vulnerability and that was scary as hell. If if had been the other way around she was sure that she would be avoiding Yasha like the plague as well.

Still, it didn’t feel great when Beau saw her at lunch and she practically ran away.

Beau had been ambushed by Reani as soon as she walked into the cafeteria. The bubbly blonde had come up to her while she was in line, trying to pick between a tofu scramble sandwich and pasta with what looked like pesto but had some oddly colored chunks mixed in, and guided her to the table where Jester and their other friend, Calianna, were sited.

The trio were incredibly friendly, specially in comparison to any other group of girls Beau had tried to befriend back in Kamordah. They didn’t judge her still damp hair and sporty clothes, they didn’t give her strange looks, they didn’t even ask her intrusive questions. They just chatted away, cluing her in on random pieces of gossip about the school and their fellow recruits. Their constant chattiness more than made up for Beau’s absentmindedness, she wasn’t exactly in the mood for socializing after the morning she’d had and feared she was being poor company but every time she spoke up they all smiled and nodded along like Beau was an integral part of their conversation.

It was nice, to be accepted so easily, to feel like she belonged with her peers. Beau was beginning to relax and get actually invested in their conversation when she saw Yasha walk into the cafeteria from the corder of her eye. Even as a blur in her peripheral vision, Beau knew right away it was her and her heart jumped into a higher gear immediately. She would have recognised her anywhere, her large shapely frame, her heavy sure gait, the subtle sway of her hips and that wild, beautiful mane of hair. She was like a magnet and Beau felt herself turn in her seat to look at her without even thinking.

She had changed into black jeans and a t-shirt with a metal band’s logo on it and looked... well, really hot, she always did. But also really somber, to say the least. There was a dark aura around her and everyone could feel it, people moved out of her way and avoided her gaze. Everyone, that is, except Beau.

She tried to catch Yasha’s eye as she picked a couple of tofu sandwiches and when she finally managed it, she waved her over. Yasha seemed startled, she clutched the saran wrapped sandwiches to her chest, as she looked between Beau and the exit. Beau could literally see the fight or flight instinct kick in behind her multi-colored eyes. She was a second away from bolting but Beau hoped that maybe, just maybe, it would be towards her and not out the door.

One of the girls must have asked Beau something she didn’t hear because Reani finally noticed she was half turned away from the table and totally not listening to anything they were saying and placed her hand on Beau’s bicep to get her attention. When that didn’t work, she leaned over Beau’s shoulder to see what she was looking at and waved cheerfully at Yasha, motioning for her to join them as well.

Yasha’s face went completely blank, her eyes dull. Beau could have sworn she saw her stare drop to where Reani was touching her before she shook her head stiffly and walked away. But maybe she was just staring at Beau and remembering their conversation back at the gym as she left with her food.

The reason didn’t matter, Beau felt her heart sink either way.

Behind her, Reani made a sad, confused noise, like a wounded puppy, her hand still on Beau’s arm.

“Did I do something wrong? Yasha looked like she was mad at me...”

Beau couldn’t find the energy to answer, she didn’t even know what to say. I think she’s jealous of you but I’m probably just projecting because I have a giant crush on her? Yeah right... It was hard enough admitting that to herself, she wasn’t about to confess it to a table full of girls she had just met.

As far as she knew, Reani could have actually done something that pissed Yasha off before Beau came to this school. It probably had nothing to do with her, she was just being as self absorbed as her father constantly accused her of being.

Fortunately, Calianna answered Reani’s question before Beau’s heavy silence became obvious. “She’s probably just worried about Mollymauk. Don’t take it personally.”

“What happened to Molly?” Reani asked with a dramatic gasp, her hand absentmindedly petting Beau’s bicep. Beau almost didn’t notice it, Reani could have been feeling her up all over at that moment and she wouldn’t have cared.

“Caleb told me he got sent to detention for skipping meditation this morning.” Jester answered, mouth full of pasta.

“Oh, that’s awful!”

The girls then started sharing rumors they had heard about the Behavior Correction Program, since none of them had ever gotten detention. Some of the rumors sounded very credible from what little information Yasha had told Beau about her time in detention, while others were obviously fake, but Beau couldn’t brig herself to participate, not even to disprove the rumors. She pushed her food around until the bell rang again and then, shrugging Reani’s hand from her arm as subtly as she could, excused herself.

Her afternoon schedule was pretty much just 3 hours of regular school. Most kids that got sent to that reform school still had classes to finish so the monks got their regular school’s curriculum and sent back all the work they did so they could still be graded and hopefully pass. Beau had all the credits she needed to graduate and then some, the two months of classes she still had to attend until graduation were just a formality. So their teacher, Professor Thelyss, sent her to the library with the only other recruit who was in the same situation as her, Caleb Widogast.

They were both given a random assignment, to write a report on an important event in Wildemount’s history, that would supposedly give them credits towards graduating not from their regular school but from this program. Beau wasn’t particularly excited about it but she kept remembering her father’s threats of what would happen if she didn’t graduate from this program and that was enough to motivate her into starting her research.

Caleb didn’t seem to need motivation, however. As soon as Thelyss told them what they had to do he was off, searching the library for reference books like it was his favorite thing in the world. They worked together the entire afternoon, sharing a large round table by a window, often swapping books they no longer needed or silently pointing things out to one another. Caleb never talked, but that suited Beau just fine and, eventually, the silence between them grew comfortable, even friendly.

By the time the bell rung again, Beau had an outline for her paper and a massive headache from lack of sleep. She got up and started collecting her books, ready to put them back on their shelves and head back to her room, when she saw something down bellow from their second story window.

Molly was running around the track, much like she had done earlier in the day. Except that unlike her, he was half bent over, moving at barely a jog as a monk that wasn’t Greg stood by the sidelines, yelling something Beau couldn’t hear.

Molly looked terrible, his face was a sickly white and dripping sweat, the skin sunken around his eyes and the hollows of his cheeks. His usual jolly grin was long gone, replaced by a dead eyed scowl that only made him seem more cadaveric as he shambled forward.

He had put on a track suit that obviously was part of the monks’ wardrobe and not his because it was just a plain blue, with no pattern, no neon accents and no rhinestones spelling out something inappropriate across his ass. And, as Beau watched, Molly fell to his knees and threw up all the way down the front of the jacket, covering the blue in a mix of yellow and green.

“Holy shit...” Beau whispered as she watched it unfold, half expecting to see him pass out after retching.

Caleb had joined her by the window, looking down with his brows furrowed deeply.

“They’re trying to sober him up by making him sweat it out. Thy did the same for Veth when we first got here, forced detox. He’s going to have a rough couple of weeks...”

Beau’s jaw dropped and she turned her head to look at the ginger boy next to her. “You spoke!”

Caleb rolled his eyes. “Ja, I do that sometimes.”

“Not often, from what I’ve heard.”

He shrugged. “Jester seems to like you and she’s a good judge of character. If you’re her friend I guess you’re my friend too. Besides, I hate working with other people but these 3 hours with you didn’t totally suck.”

“I feel honored, Widogast.” Beau smirked.

“Don’t be, you’ll make me regret it.”

She turned back to the window with a chuckle. Molly was still conscious but, besides his open eyes, he didn’t look it. The monk was pulling him up by the arm and his legs were shaking so hard Beau didn’t know if he could take a single step.

“Why don’t you ever talk to him?”

“Mollymauk?” Caleb asked. “He just... he makes me nervous, I guess.”

Beau scoffed. “You saying I don’t? I take offense to that.”

“Sorry but sporty lesbians aren’t really my type.” He smirked, picking his books up.

“Oh, so you’re into dudes?” Caleb didn’t answer, he just took his books and disappeared between the shelves. “Does Jester know that?”

Beau expected him not to say anything else but, after a little while, she heard his voice coming from the History section.

“Just because I’m into guys doesn’t mean I’m not into Jester too.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Not that that is any of your business.”

“Right... sorry I asked.” Beau shrugged and turned back to the window, only to see that Molly and the monk were gone. She hoped that meant he was feeling better, or at least well enough to walk, but she suspected the monk had carried him away.

She sighed and leaned against the glass, knowing she had to talk to Yasha about her conversation with Molly at some point and dreading it. Yasha couldn’t avoid her forever, after all, they were sharing a room. But just knowing Yasha wanted to avoid her made Beau’s stomach tie in knots. She had way too much experience living with people who made her feel like her presence was unwanted.

 She wanted to groan and knock her head against the glass but doubted that would help her headache. Instead, she turned to leave the library, but Caleb got in her way.

“Did she... did she say anything, though? You know, about me?”

For a moment, Beau was completely lost. Who was he talking about? Yasha? Why would Yasha say anything about him?

Caleb seemed to read the confusion on her face. “Jester. Did she tell you anything about me? Like about being... into me?”

Ah, right... It seemed like they both had a one track mind, it was just focused on different people.

“Look, man-” Beau started, rubbing the back of her neck. She was never involved in other people’s love life back in Kamordah besides that one time Fjord’s ex, Avantika, had accused Beau of trying to steal him away and then slapped her when Beau laughed in her face. She couldn’t say she enjoyed this new messenger role Caleb was putting her in. Kicking Avantika’s ass had been much more fun.

“You know what? Never mind.” He interrupted her, shaking his head. “Of course she didn’t, she’s Jester Lavorre!”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Beau huffed, crossing her arms.

“Jester is... she’s special, okay?” He sighed, scratching his arm over his sweater. “Everyone who meets her falls a little in love with her! I don’t have a chance in all the Nine Hells...”

 “Let me use your own logic for a second: just because everyone loves her doesn’t mean she doesn’t like you, you idiot!” Beau smacked him in the head with a book. It was just a gentle tap but he complained and rubbed his head, scowling dramatically. “Not that I’m saying she does, I have no idea. I just met her, remember? You should just talk to her. Tell her how you feel or whatever.”

“That’s easy to say, a lot harder to do.” One of his hands sneaked under his sleeve to scratch is skin directly and Beau couldn’t help but notice that his forearm was criss-crossed with scars. Not the burn scars Beau would expect from a known arsonist, but thin almost geometrically placed healed cuts. Beau averted her eyes. She was too curious for her own good sometimes but, growing up under Thoreau Lionett’s roof, she had also learned when to keep her mouth shut. “Maybe when we’re done with this program? Graduation sounds like a good time to get rejected.”

“Now that’s a plan...” Just a day ago she had though of the exact same thing and now asking Yasha out felt like an impossible fantasy. How had things gotten so messed up between them in such a short time? She really wasn’t the person Caleb should go to for romantic advice but she sure as fuck wasn’t going to admit that to him. “Just try not to fuck things up between you two until then.”

“Thanks for the words of encouragement.” Caleb muttered sarcastically. “You’re a real ray of sunshine, aren’t you?”

Beau quirked her pierced brow. “Look who’s talking.”

“Which is why I rarely do it!”

“Fair point, Widogast.”

Chapter Text

There was something particularly disconcerting about the feeling of being watched.

Beau had always been specially sensitive to it. As a baby, she could not fall asleep if anyone was watching over her and she would always wake up if she sensed someone entering her room while she slept. That sleep anxiety had improved as she grew up but Beau never lost the ability to tell when she was being watched.

When she go back to her room from the library, she found it dark and silent and completely empty. She hadn’t expected to find Yasha there, yet her mind had raced as she turned the knob, her heart beating out of her chest as she tried to decide what she was going to say. You know, just in case she actually was there.

Coming down from that adrenaline into full disappointment left Beau even more exhausted, so she slammed the door shut and threw herself on the bed, falling asleep over the covers without even bothering to take her clothes off.

She didn’t know how much time had passed since then but at some point, in her in between state of consciousness, Beau realized she was no longer alone. There was somebody else in the room and they were close.

Her sleep addled brain didn’t try to comprehend who it could be, it just acted on impulse, trying to keep her safe. Beau readied herself, her body tensing to strike the person looming above her, then she sat up in bed and threw a punch, before she even got her eyes open. In the split second before her hit landed, she looked up and saw Yasha’s face, like a pale beacon in the dark room.

Beau tried to stop herself but couldn’t halt the momento in time and ended up punching her anyway, the height difference making it so her fist connected with Yasha thigh.

“Argh!” Yasha groaned, eyes scrunched closed in pain and shock.   

“Y-Yasha?” Beau stuttered, stumbling out of bed. “Shit, I’m so sorry!”

“It’s okay, it’s okay! I’m fine!” She called out as Beau reached out in the dark for her.

Yasha flicked the lightswitch next to their bedside table on and bright yellow light filled the room, completely blinding Beau for a second. When she was able to blink her eyes back open again, she realized she had one hand fisted in Yasha’s t-shirt and the other one perched on her hip.

“Oh fuck, sorry!” She unwound her hand from Yasha’s shirt and knew she should pull the other one away too but instead she slid it down her leg, to where she had punched her, massaging Yasha’s muscled thigh through her jeans. “Does it hurt?”

Blame it on being sleepy, or on concern overriding common sense, or just on how fucking good Yasha felt under her hands, but she couldn’t bring herself to pull away. Specially when Yasha’s teeth sunk into her plump lower lip, her eyes locked on Beau’s hand.

“No, it’s fine...” Yasha whispered. She didn’t seem to be breathing. “I was just caught by surprise.”

“You and me both!” Beau chuckled, when Yasha didn’t laugh along she finally let go and sat back down on her bed, silently cursing herself for fucking things up between them even more. “What the fuck were you doing sneaking around in the dark?”

Yasha took a deep breath and practically shoved an old ipod in Beau’s direction, still not meeting her eyes. “I was just trying to get this. Didn’t want to wake you up.”

Beau turned the pink ipod in her hands, it was one of the small ones and it looked a little beat up but it turned on without a problem when she clicked the buttons.

“How did you sneak this in?”

“I didn’t.” Yasha laid down on her bed and kicked her sneakers off. “I got it from Jester, she put all the songs I wanted in it too.”

“That explains the color.” Beau smirked, she couldn’t picture Yasha buying anything that wasn’t black or gray, maybe a dark blue but that’s as wild of a color as she had seen on any of Yasha’s belongings. “What did you have to do for it?”

Yasha shrugged and crossed her arms under her head, her biceps flexing in a way that was far too distracting. “Not much, just helped her move her furniture around. She wanted to redecorate her room.”

“Is that even allowed?”

“No.” Yasha smiled at the ceiling. “But the rules don’t really apply to Jester.”

“Clearly.” Beau put one of the earbuds on and started flipping through the songs on the ipod. Most she didn’t recognize, she usually listened to rap and Yasha’s playlist flipflopped between metal and indie. But the songs’ titles said a lot. When she stumbled upon a song called ‘Pussy is God’ she almost choked. “Hey... I think I’m sensing a theme here.”

Yasha turned to look at her. “Which is?”

“Angry lesbian.”

Yasha snorted, her ear turning slightly pink. “Yeah, that’s pretty accurate.”

Beau let one of the songs play, a girl singing about falling in love in October, as she stretched out on her bed. She was starting to get sleepy again when something  caught her eye and woke her right back up, the time flashing on the top of the screen.

“Shit, is it really 9 o’clock already?” Yasha nodded. “Fuck... I slept through dinner.”

“I brought you a sandwich. It’s on the nightstand if you want it.”

Beau turned and saw a seran wrapped baguette sitting next to their lamp and her jade bracelets she had forgot to put back on after the shower.

“You got me food?” She almost jokingly said ‘I think I love you’ like she wold have if she was talking to Fjord. But Yasha was not Fjord and those words felt too dangerously close to the truth. “I... that... Thank you! It was really nice of you...”

“Not a big deal...” Yasha said, the blush in her ears spreading to her cheeks. She looked so fucking cute when she blushed and Beau had to pretend to be puzzled by her sandwich’s wrapper to stop herself from staring. “It’s a BLT, by the way. Well, a vegan BLT. Mr. Clay said you’d like it.”

Beau unwrapped the baguette and took a big bite, then moaned loudly, her eyes rolling back in her head. It was definitely not real bacon, the texture was tough and rubbery, but the taste was close enough, smokey and salty. Together with the fresh lettuce and tomatoes and the crunchy bread, it was fucking delicious.

She didn’t realize what she had done until Yasha cleared her throat. She looked up from her food, embarrassed, and saw that Yasha was even redder.

“Sorry, I just really love bacon...”

“I can tell...”

 An awkward silence settled between them as Beau ate and Yasha looked at the ceiling, nibbling on one of her nails.

“I saw Molly this afternoon...” Beau said eventually.

“Really? How was he doing?” Yasha turned to her side to look at her.

“Pretty terrible, not gonna lie. The monks made him run until he threw up...” Yasha just nodded like she already expected that. “But before that he told me to let you know he was sorry and that he would be back soon. He didn’t want you to worry about him.”

Yasha smiled just a little. “Typical. He knows I’ll stop worrying the day he stops getting into trouble.”

“So never?”

“Yup.” Yasha nodded. “Did he say anything else?”

Beau’s mind immediately recalled him talking about Zuala’s suicide. Yeah, she wasn’t going to go there....

“Nah,” She lied. “Greg pulled him away after that.”

“Greg?”

“The monk that was with him. I’m pretty sure he’s not actually named Greg but that’s what Molly called him and he didn’t correct him...” Yasha groaned, covering her face with her hands. “What?”

“....He’s going to fuck Greg.”

Beau didn’t know how she hadn’t realized it sooner. That was why he was sure he would be back soon, he had already set his escape plan out of the detention program into motion. “Shit, he’s totally going to fuck Greg! And I did not need that mental image!” She whined, gagging dramatically. “I need brain bleach after that one!”

Yasha chuckled. “Be glad you didn’t witness it first hand.”

“Did that happen to you a lot?”

“Yeah...” Yasha sighed. “We shared a lot of rooms throughout the years and even here...” Her eyes fell on Beau’s bed and Beau jumped up, half eaten sandwich in hand.

“No!”

“They changed the sheets after that, don’t worry!”

“Not good enough!” She whined and pushed Yasha’s legs away so she could sit at the bottom of her bed. “Hell, burning the entire bed would probably still not be good enough! You’re going to have to share yours now.”

Yasha sat up and adjusted so they both had enough room, their backs against the wall, crossed legs a breath away from touching.

“Pretty tight fit.”

“I’m fine with that.” Beau shrugged, totally nonchalant, despite feeling everything but that. As she moved, her knee touched Yasha’s and she tensed expecting things to grow awkward again, but Yasha didn’t move away.

“What if I did stuff on this bed too?”  

Beau looked up at her flushed face, so very close now, and smirked.

Yasha, despite her closed off attitude and her intimidating appearance, was surprisingly bad at lying. Even if Beau didn’t know how very obviously not over Zuala Yasha was and how she was clearly not the type to get over someone by getting under someone else, Beau would have been able to tell by the way her voice went up and she avoided eye contact that she wasn’t telling the truth.

And Beau kind of loved that. She loved that she could read the truth in her eyes and not have to second guess her words.

 Everyone back in Kamordah lied and kept secrets, even Fjord (although he didn’t lie to her, as far as she knew), and Beau always felt like every conversation at home or school was a riddle to be solved, every sentence laced with the possibility of untruth.

Yasha’s honesty, whether in words or gestures, was refreshing and it made Beau want to be honest too... except every once of truth inside her would only ruin things between them. Dairon had been right, she had a lying problem, one that was equal parts nature and nurture. But sometimes your vices were necessary evils.

“Was it with another one of the recruits or one of the monks?” Beau asked just to see how Yasha would react.

“I- I don’t kiss and tell...” Yasha mumbled, fiddling with the edge of her pillow.

The idea of her fooling around with someone else in their room, as fake as it obviously was, made Beau’s chest tight in a way that felt almost exactly like jealousy, but she swallowed it down and tried to ignore it.

“Classy. Doesn’t really matter though. The idea of sleeping where you were with another woman? A hundred percent less gross to me than whatever Molly defiled my bed doing.”

Yasha scoffed, her cheeks turning even more impossibly red. She silently picked up the earbud Beau wasn’t using and put it on, listening in just as the song changed but the same singer started saying ‘I don’t wanna to be your friend I wanna kiss your lips’.

She leaned back against the wall with her arms crossed and her eyes closed, but Beau saw how her brows furrowed as she thought things over.

“I didn’t, by the way.” She said quietly after a while. “I didn’t do anything with anyone here.”

Beau didn’t really know how to answer. ‘I know’ was too cocky and a ‘thank fuck’ seemed a bit too earnest.

“Good to know.” She said instead, bumping her shoulder against Yasha’s arm. Still with her eyes closed, Yasha smiled and Beau felt her heart flutter. She was so gorgeous up close, it made it hard to even think. “In that case I’ll be moving in immediately.”

“Don’t complain if I roll over and crush you in the night, though.”

Beau tried her hardest not to think about having Yasha on top of her, she really fucking did... But after a comment like that it was impossible.

“Nah, I wouldn’t complain at all...” She hurriedly shoved what was left of her sandwich in her mouth to stop herself from saying something she would later regret. Only once she was done chewing did she speak again. “How’s your finger doing, by the way?”

Yasha opened her eyes and looked down at her hand like she had completely forgotten she had ever been hurt. “Oh, it’s fine. Didn’t even bother me while I was playing.”

“Playing?”

“In Art Therapy.” Beau must have looked confused because she elaborated further. “We don’t just do arts and crafts in that class, some of us play instruments.”

“Ah, that’s cool! What do you play? Guitar? Drums?”

Yasha looked down sheepishly. “No... I actually play the harp.”

“The harp? Like those big, classical music ones?”

Yasha nodded. “Yeah. Not as cool as the guitar, I know. But I’ve been playing it on and off since I was a kid.”

“You kidding? That’s way cooler! I would love to hear you play some day...” Beau watched Yasha’s smile grow from the corner of her eye. Gods... she was stunning! “I don’t know how to play anything. Maybe I’ll try the drums while I’m here. I was actually supposed to go to that class today but got a little... sidetracked.”

Yasha’s smile fell almost as quickly as it has showed up and her mouth formed a hard line, her gaze moving back to the other end of the room. Beau knew straight away that she had said the wrong thing, even though she didn’t know what that was. Then she remembered the last time Yasha had seen her that day with Reani wrapped around her and how her face had taken on the same expression.

“I mean, Dairon sidetracked me.”

Yasha’s face changed again, not back to that beautiful smile but to something less emotionless, and Beau almost sighed in relief. “Did you get in trouble?”

“Kind of? I mean, not really, but they want me to start working out with them every day as some kind of weird therapy.”

Yasha nodded. “I heard some of the monks take students under their wing and try to get them to join the Cobalt Soul. I guess you’re Dairon’s pick.”

“Me, a monk?” Beau snorted. “Yeah, right. Maybe when pigs fly.”

“You sure? Those blue uniformes would look good on you.” Yasha teased.

“I’m sure they would. I look good in most things. And better out of them.” She teased back.

Under any other circumstances Beau would have been proud of herself for how easily that line spilled from her lips, and specially for the smooth wink that followed it.

But this was Yasha. So she just felt guilty and like a complete idiot instead.

“I...ah...” Yasha mumbled before choking on her own tongue and having a coughing fit.

Feeling her cheeks turn as hot as Yasha’s looked, Beau jumped out of the bed and practically sprinted towards the door.

“Anyways... I need to go. Jester promised I could use her internet to message a friend on the outside. Need to let him know I’m alive.”

She had her hand on the doorknob when Yasha took a deep breath, recovering from her fit, and called out to her, stopping her in her tracks.

“Beau!” She was too embarrassed to turn around, she couldn’t even look at the other girl over her shoulder. Yasha’s voice was soft, not annoyed or reproachful like she feared, but that somehow made things worse. “It’s almost curfew time. If the monks catch you outside you’ll get in trouble.”

“Don’t worry, I’m Dairon’s protégé, remember?” She joked flippantly. “I’m untouchable.”

“I’m not kidding. If they catch you they’ll put you in detention like Molly. I don’t want to see both of my only friends get taken away in the same day.”

Beau’s hand slipped from the doorknob and she turned slowly.

The word “friend” stung.

She knew that given Yasha’s situation, friendship was the best she could hope for between them and that she should be glad that Yasha seemed to even care that much about her when she kept being such an awkward, inconsiderate mess around her. But, when she looked at Yasha sitting at the edge of her bed, her brow furrowed over those beautiful heterochromatic eyes with worry for her, she couldn’t help but want more.

“I won’t get caught. Jester’s room is just down the hall, I’ll be back before they start doing rounds.” She smirked. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

“Promise?” Yasha said with a slight smile.

“Pinky promise!”

She put her pinky up jokingly but Yasha actually got up and came over to lace their pinkies together. Beau looked down at their intertwined fingers, hers dark and slim, nail trimmed short, knuckle scarred from years of martial arts practice, Yasha’s pale and still a little bruised, probably double the size and thickness of Beau’s, nail bitten down to the quick with a small left over bit of black nail polish. So different, yet they fit so well together.

“I’ll hold you up to that, Lionett.” Yasha took a step forward, making Beau step back until she was pressed against the door and Beau forgot how to speak, how to breathe, maybe even how to think at all.

“Yasha...” She finally croaked, not able to remember anything else she wanted to add on to that sentence.

The other girl looked into her eyes and then reached out with her free hand but did not touch Beau. She grabbed the doorknob and opened the door, leaning in over Beau’s shoulder to look out into the hallway.

“Coast is clear.” She whispered in Beau’s ear. “You can go.”

Beau just stared at her, her body locked into place, unable to even consider moving away from where it pressed against Yasha’s.

“I-” Beau swallowed down the lump in her throat. In that moment she knew she couldn’t be Yasha’s friend. At least not just her friend. Not if Yasha’s friendship came with this many mixed signals, this constant tension and this intimacy that felt like too much for just a friend and entirely not enough for what Beau wanted them to be. If they couldn’t be more, Beau would rather they were less. “Yeah, I need to go.”

Squaring her shoulders, she let go of Yasha’s finger and turned around, dashing down the hallway while forcing herself not to look back at Yasha.

She didn’t knock on Jester’s door, she didn’t even announce herself, she just barged in and closed the door behind her. It didn’t even occur to her that she could have walked in on a number of very private, very awkward things until way after. But, fortunately, Jester was just sitting in bed, showing her roommate Calianna something on her phone.

They both looked up at her and Calianna waved awkwardly.

“Hi, Beauregard!” She said quietly, getting up to go to her own bed.

“Hey...” Beau mumbled back.

“Cutting it really close to curfew, Beau!” Jester smiled. “I was starting to think you weren’t showing up tonight after all.”

“Got distracted and forgot about the time...”

Jester wiggled her brows suggestively. “Uhhhh distracted with what?”

“I’d rather not talk about it.” Beau grumbled. “It’s not nearly as interesting as what you’re imagining.”

“I wasn’t imagining anything, swear to the Traveler!” She batted her lashes, all fake innocence that clashed with her mischievous grin.

“Can I use your internet? I need to be back before the monks start doing their rounds.”

“Sure!” Jester patted the mattress next to her and when Beau sat down, handed her the phone. “Hotspot is already on, go right ahead.”

Beau knew privacy wasn’t a part of their deal but she didn’t mind having Jester look over her shoulder as she searched on Instagram for Fjord’s profile either. She found it easily and seeing the last picture he had posted, one with the two of them on Halloween dressed like pirates, made her chest a little tight.

She missed him so fucking much. She didn’t really miss anything else from her life outside but she needed her best friend, specially tonight. Fjord would probably not know how to help her with the Yasha situation, but at least he would have listen to all the rambling thoughts she was now forced to keep inside.

“Oh my Gods, he’s so hot!” Jester squealed next to her. “You didn’t tell me your friend was hot!”

“Not exactly my type.” Beau shrugged. “Besides, I thought you were already interested in someone else.”

Jester’s cheeks turned a dusky pink. “Me? No... I’m not into anyone.” She giggled and Calianna just shook her head and smiled, like this was a conversation they had often and she was never convinced.

“Not even Caleb?” Beau asked, not looking up from the screen as she started typing her message to Fjord.

“We’re just friends...” Jester said quietly. “Besides, he has a girlfriend back in Rexxentrum.”

That made Beau stop texting. “Are you sure?”

Jester nodded, looking down at her pink comforter. “Yeah, he told me about her. Astrid.” She said the name like it was a curse word and it made Beau laugh.

“Maybe they broke up since then? Not that it matters because you don’t like him, right?”

“Right!” Jester sat up straighter. “Doesn’t matter at all... Let’s focus back on your hot friend. Is he single?”

“Fjord? Yeah.” She hit send on her message and it showed up as read in less than a second, then the phone started vibrating as a video call request popped up. “And he’s calling me!”

“What are you waiting for? Pick up!” Jester yelled.

Beau accepted the call and Fjord’s face showed up on the small screen, looking mildly confused.

“Shit, it’s really you!” He said. “Where the fuck have you been?”

“I explained it all in that message.” Beau grumbled even though she couldn’t really be mad at her best friend at that moment. “You didn’t read it, did you?”

“Of course not! You’ve been missing for days and then you contact me from a random girl’s Instagram account? I thought it was your kidnapper asking my broke ass for ransom money!”

Jester popped up from behind Beau’s shoulder. “Hi, it’s my account and I swear I didn’t kidnap her!”

Even through the camera Beau could see Fjord’s cheeks get a little red. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that you... Sorry!”

“That’s okay!” Jester laughed. “I’m Jester, by the way. But you can call me Jessie.”

“Hi, I’m F-”

“Shut up and listen to me before you embarrass yourself some more.” Beau cut in. “ I don’t have much time so I’ll just give you the cliff notes version: I wasn’t kidnapped, my father sent me to a reform school.”

“Goddamn ...really? I know we talked about it but I never thought he would ever go through with it...”

“Well, he did. Don’t worry, I’m okay. I don’t have access to my phone and there’s no visitation day, but I’ll be out before the end of the Summer.”

Fjord huffed. “Fuck that! Send me the address of the school, I’ll hop in my car right now and you’ll be back in Kamordah by tomorrow night.”

Beau thought it over, she knew if Fjord has told her he was coming to get her just 24 hours ago she would have accepted it with no hesitation, but now she felt conflicted.

A part of her wanted to see her friend again, it wanted to tell her father that he had no power over her and neither did that school and feel the sweet taste of freedom as they drove away from that place.

But her father’s words weighed heavy on her mind and the other part of her wanted to show him that she could finish this program, it wanted to prove to him that she wasn’t always a fuck up and, above all, it wanted to be able to meet her little brother.

Besides, as she looked around Jester’s room and met the other girl’s wide gaze, she realized she didn’t mind staying. In fact, this place was starting to grow on her. The therapy and the rules were annoying but the people she met were mostly nice and she felt... she felt like she belonged, as messed up as that was. She felt more accepted here than she ever had at her old school and if she had survived years and years in that place, what was a couple of months in this one?

“It’s alright, Fjord, I don’t need to be rescued. I’m staying.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me!” Fjord gasped. “Did they brainwash you already?”

Beau chuckled. “Maybe they did.”

“Is that place like female prisons in movies?” Fjord moved closer to the camera like they were sharing a secret in person. “You know... full of hot lesbians?”

Behind her, Jester laughed. “There’s a couple...”

“That explains her wanting to stay.”

Beau knew Jester meant multiple people but she only thought of Yasha. Was Yasha why she wanted to stay? If anything, she should be a reason for her to leave. She wouldn’t have to deal with these complicated feelings if she was back home. But Yasha was also a big part of why she felt like she belonged in this place, she had made Beau feel welcomed and cared for. Beau knew that if she stayed she would have to keep some distance from Yasha, for both of their sakes. And that was going to suck, that was going to hurt. But the thought of never seeing her again was like a punch to the gut, she couldn’t even consider it without feeling like she couldn’t catch her breath.

So maybe yes, she was staying because of Yasha and she was staying because of her father and her future brother too. But she was also staying for herself. Because she could tell that whatever happened to her in this school would change her, it had started to change her already. And while that scared her, Beau also had to admit that she wanted to meet the person she could become.

Chapter Text

The next week was a blur.

Beau had given herself the complicated task of spending as little time alone with Yasha as possible without making it too obvious that she was avoiding her. For the most part, she had been successful. But it was mentally and physically exhausting and she had no idea if she could keep it up for much longer.

She ate every meal with Reani, Jester and Calianna and spent all her free time either in the library with Caleb or working out in the weight room. She went to sleep early, something she had gotten used to surprisingly quickly thanks to her new ‘therapy workouts’ with Dairon, which put every single other martial arts program she had participated in to shame and absolutely kicked her ass. And she always tried to get up late enough that Yasha had already left for meditation but not so late that she would get in trouble.

For the most part, Yasha seemed like she did not notice what she was doing, or she didn’t care. She barely spoke when they crossed paths in the hall or their room, and would not even acknowledge her if she saw her with Reani and the other girls. Beau wished she could say that it didn’t hurt, being ignored by the person she was avoiding. She wished she could say it made things easier. But it just made her miserable, it made her feel like she didn’t matter at all.

The only times Yasha didn’t seem as unbothered, was while she slept. She had warned Beau about her night terrors, but it wasn’t until Molly was taken away and Beau started avoiding her that Yasha’s nights turned fitful. Beau often woke up to the sound of her screams as she trashed in bed, but they would usually stop as suddenly as they had started.

That night, however, Beau was startled awake from a dream where she kept chasing an owl that bit her every time she tried to grab it, by a loud crashing sound. She sat up in bed, heart racing, and tried to turn on the lamp on their night stand, only to realize that was what had fallen and caused the noise.

Yasha was clearly having an episode, she tossed and turned and flailed her arms, trying to punch an enemy that wasn’t there. But the worst part were the sounds that she was making, not screams but choked sobs and small whimpering noises that broke Beau’s heart.

“Yasha...” She whispered, trying to wake her. When that got no reaction from the other girl, she called her name again, this time as loudly as she dared while trying not to wake everyone else in their dorm. “Yasha!”

“No!” Yasha yelled back, throwing another jab at the air. “Stop!”

Beau got up from her bed and walked to the edge of Yasha’s, leaning over her. “Yash, it’s okay! You’re just having a dream, wake up!”

She put her hand on Yasha’s shoulder to try and shake her back to consciousness and a fist flew in her direction, grazing her jaw. Beau took a step back and grabbed Yasha’s arm, trying to push it back down to the mattress, but she was ridiculously strong and only seemed to grow more frantic once she felt Beau’s touch.

They struggled for a while, fighting for control of Yasha’s limbs, until Beau lost her grip and was flung backwards into Yasha’s bed. She tried to get right back up, not wanting to get punched while she was down, but Yasha snaked an arm around her waist and held her in place.

Beau wished she could have said she stayed calm and collected and acted rationally, but she started to panic and squirmed desperately, trying to wiggle her way out of Yasha’s iron grip.

She had never feared Yasha before but now she was freaking out. She knew that Yasha would never willingly hurt her, but in her sleeping mind she was not seeing Beau, she was seeing some dream enemy she wanted to punch to a pulp. And, judging by the fact that Yasha had more than a couple of pounds of muscle on Beau, she could very well do it if she tried.

When Beau imagined dying in a hot girl’s bed, that was not what she had had in mind...

It was only when that ridiculous thought crossed her brain and she found herself wanting to laugh despite it all, that she realized that Yasha wasn’t flailing anymore. In fact, she had gone completely quiet and still, her breath calming and her body relaxing except for the arm around Beau.

“Yasha?” She stopped squirming, suspecting that the night terror had passed and the other girl had fallen back into a deep slumber.

Yasha didn’t answer but tugged her down to the bed until Beau was laying on her back next to her, clearly not completely done with her sleepwalking even though she seemed done with the boxing portion of it.

“Yash, you need to let go-”

“Don’t go.” Yasha mumbled, turning on her side and pulling her closer. Beau’s eyes grew wide in the dark room but she could tell that Yasha was still asleep. “Stay a little longer, please.”

“O-Okay... I guess I can do that...” Beau whispered, not knowing if Yasha could hear her at all. “Just for a little bit...”

As the minutes passed, her heart slowed down and she let her weight sink into the mattress and into Yasha. Tori had never spent the night at her place - it was too risky - and Beau’s parents didn’t allow her to sleep over at other people’s homes, not even Fjord’s. So while she was nowhere close to being a virgin, she had never actually slept with someone before.

Not that she was sleeping with someone now either... She was very aware that she was not actually sleeping with Yasha. But if the real thing felt anywhere near as nice as this, she knew why people chose never to sleep alone.

She really liked how strong yet soft Yasha’s body felt pressed against hers, how comfortable and warm she was in her arms, and how wonderful her bed smelled, like rain and flowers and leather. Like Yasha.

“I wish we could spent all night like this. Every night.” Yasha said suddenly, echoing Beau’s thoughts.

Her heart jumped in her chest and she turned slightly to look at Yasha. She was as lovely in sleep as she was awake, lips pouty in between words, long lashes laying against high cheekbones, hair strewn all over the place. Beau knew she wouldn’t mind if the last thing she saw every night and the first thing she saw every morning was that face.

“I hate letting you go, Z.” Yasha nuzzled against Beau’s neck, letting out a soft sigh, totally unaware that Beau had gone completely stiff beside her.

She knew Yasha was unconscious. She knew she was dreaming, not actually talking to her. But she hadn’t realized that Yasha thought she was Zuala. That, in her mind, she was cuddling her dead girlfriend, not the roommate she didn’t even want to speak to.

But she should have known, the same way she knew that a conscious Yasha would never hurt her. Yasha would also never touch her like this.

Beau felt like every second that she allowed this to continue she was taking advantage of Yasha and it made her sick to her stomach.

“It’s Beau, Yasha.” She said in a choked voice, desperately trying to wake her up. “Beauregard, your roommate? I’m not- I’m not her, okay?”

She tried to pull away but Yasha held strong, her body growing tense once more. She let out what could only be described as a growl, her teeth grinding together.

“I don’t care if your parents find us!” She cried out. “I love you and you love me, isn’t that what matters?”

The pain in her voice was overwhelming, it made Beau’s chest ache. “Yash... you have to wake up!”

Beau knew she had technically been in the closet until her father walked in on her and Tori. But if Tori had ever told her that she wanted their relationship to be public, she would have marched right up to her parents and introduce them to her girlfriend, consequences be damned.

But she had always been Tori’s dirty little secret as much as she was hers. There was a lot of lust between them, maybe some friendship too, but it had never been love.

“Please stay, baby...” Yasha tucked herself into the crook of Beau’s neck again and kissed it, then her jaw, going up to her cheek. Her lips were incredibly soft, each kiss burning its way through Beau’s skin. It was pleasure and agony all wrapped in one and Beau knew that if she allowed Yasha to reach her lips she would kiss her back and hate herself for it.

As soon as Yasha kissed the corner of her mouth, Beau closed her eyes tightly and raised her palm.

“Fuck Yasha, wake up!” She yelled as she slapped her roommate as hard as she could.

Yasha jerked and her eyes snapped open, staring into Beau’s with fear and confusion. “B-Beauregard?”

“I’m sorry! You were having a night terror and I tried to wake you up and you pulled me down and I didn’t know what to do and-” She started to blab at lightning speed, trying to justify their current position.

The other girl just looked at her, her cheeks growing redder and redder as Beau spoke until she realized that she still had her arm around Beau and jumped out of bed.

“Oh Gods, I am so sorry! I- I didn’t... I wasn’t... I’m gonna go!” Yasha started heading for the door, stumbling in the dark.

“Yasha, wait! It’s the middle of the night, where are you going?”

“I... I don’t know.” She whispered, standing frozen in the center of the room.

“I’m the one in the wrong bed, I’ll go back to mine.” Beau said softly, getting up. “Just go back to sleep, alright?”

Yasha just nodded, still turned away, and stayed like that until Beau was back in her own bed. Then she crawled back into hers, pulled the covers up to her nose and turned towards the wall.

She didn’t move at all the rest of the night and Beau couldn’t tell if she had fallen asleep at some point or just stared at the wall for hours.

Beau doubted that she would be able to fall asleep either. Every time she closed her eyes she could feel Yasha’s lips on her skin and she felt so guilty it made her nauseous.

But, at some point, she must have because when the morning bell rang, she opened her eyes and found their room drenched in pale sunlight and Yasha’s bed neatly made and empty.

Beau tried even harder to avoid Yasha that day, spending all her time with Jester and Reani, purposefully not going to parts of the school where she knew Yasha would spend time between classes. She knew they would have to face each other again at some point, but she was dreading that moment, dreading seeing the look of disgust on Yasha’s face, now that she realized the woman she had held so tenderly was Beau, not Zuala.

It was fairly easy to avoid Yasha in the morning, after meditation and training with Dairon, she had only regular school subjects and she didn’t share any of those classes with Yasha. But that afternoon, she had Group Therapy and everyone her age had to attend that session, meaning Yasha was going to be there.

Beau was glad that it wasn’t Art Therapy day, at least. She didn’t have to go to Art Therapy often, most of those classes had been substituted by Dairon’s training sessions. But when she did, it was absolute torture.

Yasha always practiced her harp during that time and, while Beau tried to stay as far away as she could, across the room with Jester, drawing and painting the ugliest things imaginable, she could hear Yasha play and couldn’t keep her eyes off of her.

Yasha never fit her nickname more than while she was playing, her music was nothing if not angelic, the sounds she plucked from the harp as haunting as they were beautiful. She gave herself to the music completely, eyes falling close as her face took on an intense concentration that was captivating to anyone watching.

Beau couldn’t focus on anything else when she heard her play, not even her stupid paintings. She had once considered going forward with her plan to learn how to play the drums just so she could drown Yasha’s music out, but it felt like a crime to destroy something so lovely.

At least during Dr. Pumat’s Group Therapy sessions Yasha barely made herself noticed, preferring to never speak unless asked to, and Beau could just focus on the activity of the day and pretend she wasn’t there. Or she could try, at least.

Sometimes group sessions were held outside, when the weather was nice. That day, however, it was overcast and windy, so they gathered in the gym, making a circle with the blue meditation mats around Dr. Pumat.

Beau sat down next to Jester, legs crisscrossed as she leaned back on the palms of her hands. The picture of relaxation, except for the deep crease of worry between her brows as she scoured the room and did not find Yasha among the other recruits.

“Hey, where’s Yasha?” Jester asked her suddenly, like she could read Beau’s mind. “I haven’t seen her since meditation. She wasn’t even in the cafeteria for lunch. Is she sick or something?”

“Not that I know off.” Beau mumbled. It was true that she hadn’t seen her during breakfast or lunch, but she had been trying so hard not to look for her that she figured Yasha had just slipped in and out while she was distracted.

“How can you not know? She’s your roommate!”

Beau looked away. “We don’t talk much.”

“But you two got along so well when you first got here!” Jester looked as distraught about it as Beau felt. It was honestly adorable that she cared so much and it almost made Beau want to do something mushy and ridiculous, like give her a hug. “What happened? Did you have a fight? Are you mad at each other?”

If only it was that simple. “No, Jessie. We just figured out that we don’t have that much in common.”

Jester didn’t seem to believe her for a second, but she didn’t press the issue.

“I hope she didn’t get into trouble like Molly...”

“No… She wouldn’t.” At least Beau hoped not.

She knew Yasha wasn’t in the best head space but surely she was smart enough to know that getting thrown into detention like Molly wouldn’t make things any better. And Beau wasn’t vain enough to think that her roommate would get herself into trouble on purpose and risk not graduating from the program just to get away from her.

“You didn’t see her when she first got here.” Jester said with a rueful smile. “She would.”

Beau started to fidget nervously but then, just as Dr. Pumat sat down to start their therapy session, the gym door creaked open and Yasha slipped in.

“Sorry I’m late...” She whispered, head low.

“No need to apologize, you are just in time, Miss Nydoorin. Take a seat.”

Beau watched from the corner of her eye as she sat on the other side of the circle, between Caleb and a short, stocky girl, with closely cropped hair. Yasha tucked her long legs under herself and crossed her arms, seeming to want to disappear between the other recruits, but only managing to attract more attention as her muscled arms bulged out menacingly.

Caleb glanced at her, swallowed loudly and then moved further away, visibly uncomfortable. Yasha clearly noticed and stared at the mattress beneath her with the intensity of someone who was wishing for it to open up and swallow her whole.

After a while, she eventually looked up again to listen to what Dr. Pumat was saying, but her gaze met Beau’s instead. Beau tried to look away but it was too late, she had been caught staring and her heart jumped into a guilt fueled gallop. Her palms started to sweat, slipping on the blue mattress and she had no idea what to do with her face. She supposed she should nod, or smile or do anything that seemed even slightly normal. But the most she managed was a sort of pained tilt of her mouth that felt as awkward as it probably looked.

Yasha’s eye widened a fraction and her face paled, before she quickly looked away.

Beau felt like she had been punched in the gut.

She knew Yasha would be angry about what had happened during the night, but the fact that she was so disgusted that she wouldn’t even look Beau in the eye hurt so much more than she could have ever imagined. She had her fair share of people who disliked her at school, back in Kamordah, but their disdain never bothered her much. This was utter misery.

Dr. Pumat handed them sheets of paper and pens and Beau struggled to pay attention as he told them their assignment for the day. They had to write a letter to a person that motivated and inspired them to be better, to improve their behavior and graduate the program.

It wasn’t a task Beau would have normally wanted to do, but at that moment she would have welcomed any distraction. She threw herself into the task wholeheartedly, her pen flying through the page, words spilling out in a mix of careful thoughts and utter nonsense.

There was only one person she could have written that letter to and Beau realized how odd it was to write to a baby, specially one whose name she didn’t even know and who would never read this letter. But it was also freeing, being able to express her thoughts to someone who was too new to this world to judge and who would, for better or worse, one day understand what it was like to grow up with her parents.

She didn’t even notice how much time she had spent writing until Dr. Pumat cleared his throat and told them to put their pens down.

“Alright, who wants to go first?” He asked, pacing around the circle of blue mats. Several of the other students kept looking at their papers, pretending to still be writing things in order to avoid making eye contact with Dr. Pumat.

“Wait, what? Are we reading these out loud? In front of everyone?” Beau’s voice got high and she felt her hands close into fists, crumpling the paper.

“Yes, Miss Lionett, that is the point of these group therapy sessions. You have nothing to worry about, everyone in this room is here to heal and grow. This is a safe space for sharing, judgement free.” He stopped walking in front of Yasha, leaning down to look her in the eye. “Miss Nydoorin, why don’t you start? Make your roommate more comfortable with this exercise.”

“Oh I...” Yasha fidgeted uncomfortably in her spot on the mat, chewing on the corner of her lip. Beau was sure that she was going to refuse, maybe even walk out, but Yasha just nodded once and lifted the letter up to her face, meeting Beau’s eyes over the edge of the page.

“Dear Zuala,” She started to read and the tenderness with which she said her former lover’s name made Beau’s chest feel hollow and achy. “You used to tell me that-”

“Miss Nydoorin,” Dr. Pumat interrupted her suddenly, his tone wasn’t harsh but it was certainly disapproving and slightly exasperated, like someone who had grown tired of repeating himself. “While I think it is wonderful to be inspired by the memory of those who have passed away, I would prefer it if you chose someone living as your motivation. Someone who can hold you accountable for your progress.”

“Can’t I hold myself accountable in her memory?” Yasha asked, her voice barely audible.

“Well... yes, but that was not the point of this exercise.”

“Then maybe I shouldn’t be doing this exercise.” Yasha crumpled her letter into a ball and dropped it on the floor as she stood up. “You can’t make me simply chose someone else. I won’t replace her, I can’t...”

“Miss Nydoorin, I’m not trying to-”

She cut him off, her voice going gravelly, like she was fighting back tears. “You are! It’s what you’ve been trying to do in every single one of my therapy sessions! ‘Move on, Yasha’. I won’t!” She took a shake breath, lowering her voice to a whisper. “I won’t...”

With that, she turned on her heel and ran out of the room, leaving the gym doors swinging wildly behind her. Dr. Pumat looked frustrated and then defeated, he sighed deeply, leaning down to catch Yasha’s crumpled letter.

“Miss Lionett, would you mind checking up on her?”

Beau fidgeted with her own letter and cleared her throat awkwardly. “I don’t know if I’m the best person for it...”

“She doesn’t need the best person, she needs a friend Beau.” Jester told her in a gentle whisper.

Beau knew she was right and, despite her fear of messing up and make things between them even worse, she got up and followed after Yasha.

It took a while for Beau to find her. She hadn’t been in their room, the cafeteria or the courtyard. Just when Beau was about to give up and returned to the gym, she walked by the locker room connected to it and know, somehow, that she would find Yasha there.

She found her leaning over one of the sinks, staring with dead, red rimmed eyes at her own reflection. She looked even paler than usual, the skin under her eyes sunken in and purple in the low florescent light. Her lips were pressed into a thin, colorless line and her hair was a tangled mess in the back, like she had only bothered to finger comb the front bits before coming to Group Therapy. It was a frightening sight, but Beau was only scared for her .

Their eyes met in the mirror and Yasha took a startled step back. “Beau…”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. Dr. Pumat asked me to see if you were okay.”

Yasha looked down at the empty porcelain sink. “I’m fine. You can go back.”

“That’s a lie and we both know it.” She leaned against a wall and crossed her arms, showing Yasha that she wasn’t going to leave, but giving her some room. “Look, ignore what Dr. Pumat said, you’re entitled to write a letter to whomever you want. He fucked up-”

“No, he didn’t.” She interrupted Beau. “He is right, she is dead. I can’t live for her and I can’t bring her back… But every single second I breathe and smile and feel when she can’t... feels like a betrayal!”

“Yasha, simply living shouldn’t make you feel guilty. You’re not responsible for her death… You know that, right?”

Yasha’s eyes stared blankly at her reflection once again. “What if I am?”

“Yasha-”

“She would still be alive if we never met…” She cried out, twin tears marking a path down her cheeks.

Beau didn’t think, she just moved then and, before she knew it, she was holding Yasha in her arms. The taller girl seemed to lose all her strength in the embrace, her knees buckled and soon they had both slipped onto the tiled floor. Beau held her as she wept, rubbing soothing circles on her back, as she tried to comfort her with words she wasn’t sure Yasha could even hear between sobs.

Despite her size, Yasha felt so small in that moment, her spirit so diminished beneath the weight of all the grief she had been carrying. Beau would have given anything to find the right words to tell her then, to lift that weight of her shoulders, to make it all better. But she knew there wasn’t such a thing or, if there was, she wasn’t going to be the one to find them. After all, she had never been the best with words, even in the best of circumstances. So she just did what she could, she was there for her and hoped it would be enough.

She couldn’t help but wonder, though, if this was the really really bad Molly had talked about and if it should have been him holding Yasha instead. For a moment, she thought about going to get him, but she couldn’t bring herself to let go of Yasha, even if it was to help her.

Eventually, Yasha calmed down, she wiped her eyes hurriedly with the back of her hand and started trying to get up, but Beau stopped her with a hand on her thigh.

“Don’t. Not yet, take your time.”

“I’m… I’m sorry!” She mumbled, sniffling. “I shouldn’t- I can’t believe I-”

“You should, if it’s what you needed. You have nothing to apologize for.”

“But I shouldn’t have burdened you with my shit…”

Beau looked her in the eye. “I told you before I would be here for you, so let me.”

Yasha looked away and was quiet for a long time, staring off into the distance. “I was never going to hold you up to that, you had no idea what you were in for with that kind of promise. I don’t blame you for distancing yourself and finding new friends.”

Beau was left almost speechless. “Is that what you think I’ve been doing? Trading you off for another friend group?”

“You’ve been avoiding me and spending all your time with other people…”

“I admit I’ve been distant, and I’m sorry. I never wanted to hurt you, Yash. I just had my own shit to deal with and I thought it would be easier for both of us if I stayed away.”

Yasha swallowed dryly. “Maybe it would be easier... But I don’t want easy if it means losing you… I already lost so many people, even Molly feels so far away… I don’t want to lose you too.”

Beau grabbed her hand, giving it a firm squeeze. “Then you won’t lose me. I promise, angel.”

Yasha didn’t answer, but her eyes went wide and Beau felt her cheeks redden.

“I’m sorry, did Zuala use to call you that? I’ll stop saying it if you want-”

“No.” Yasha shook her messy locks. “Only Molly calls me that. You can keep saying it… I- I like it.”

Beau smiled and let the comfortable moment of silence stretch between them. Outside, the bell signaling the end of their classes for the day chimed, but they stayed sitting on the floor, holding hands.

“You don’t really believe you’re responsible for Zuala’s death, do you?” Beau eventually asked.

“Rationally, I know I’m not. It was her choice.” Yasha said in a hoarse whisper. “But sometimes I can’t help but wonder if she would still be alive and happy if we never met.”

“Would you be happier if you never met her?” Beau asked bluntly.

“No! Of course not!”

“Then you shouldn’t assume she would feel differently. And you can’t blame yourself for fate bringing you two together either.”

“That’s easier said than done.” Yasha muttered.

“How did you meet anyway?”

Yasha’s gaze traveled to the far corner of he locker room, as she recalled old memories. “When I was fourteen, me and Molly were sent to a new foster home. Our last foster mom had sent us back to the orphanage after she caught us smoking pot, so this time we were sent to a much stricter family who took in more ‘complicated cases’. They were a pastor and his wife. A lot of the foster families we had gone through were religious, but not like them. They were extremists and they made our lives Hell from the moment we walked in. I think I would have lost my mind living there and actually murdered someone, if it wasn’t for their daughter, Zuala.”

“Did she protect you from their craziness?” Beau asked.

“No.” Yasha shook her head. “She couldn’t. She was as much a victim of their rules and punishments as we were. But she was a light in those dark times. She was my light…”

Beau’s heart felt like it was being squeezed by a giant, angry fist.

She was jealous of a dead girl. Jealous of the memories Yasha had of her and of the sweetness with which she talked about her.

No one had ever talked about Beau like that… And no one would, because she didn’t deserve it. She wasn’t a light, she was a self centered little bitch, focused on her own petty feelings instead of Yasha’s.

But, despite knowing she would never truly be as good as Yasha deserved, she wanted to be better, to give her friend the help she needed. So she swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded encouragingly at Yasha, wordlessly telling her to keep going.

“She always had a smile on her face and she did everything she could to make others smile too. It was impossible not to like her. And, trust me, Molly tried.”

“He wasn’t a fan?”

Yasha smiled the tiniest bit. “He was going through a needy phase and thought she was going to steal me away from him. As if that was possible.” She rolled her eyes. “She was my friend, but my best friend will always be Molly.”

“Just a friend?” Beau raised one eyebrow.

“For over a year, yeah. Then one day things changed and we became… each other’s everything.”

Another blow to Beau’s heart, but she covered it up with a shaky smile. “Sounds like you made each other very happy.”

Yasha’s smile vanished. “She made me very happy. But I don’t know if I could do the same for her. She had a lot of… complicated feelings about being attracted to women, because of her parents and their religion. She never fully accepted herself, even after we started dating. I think that’s why she did it...”

“Why she-” Yasha cut her off with a curt nod.

“Her mother started noticing that things were not just friendly between us anymore. She caught us holding hands under the table once and had a fit. Next thing I know, a social worker is coming by the house to take me and Molly away.” Yasha’s voice started to tremble and she took a deep breath before continuing. “That was the last time I saw her, I didn’t even get to say a proper goodbye. I had to learn from that social worker that they sent Zuala to a conversion camp after I left and that, after two weeks there… she hung herself.”

“Yasha, I’m so sorry…” Beau bit her lower lip, knowing her clumsy words were not enough. “I know how soul crushing it can be, growing up knowing those who are meant to love you the most will never accept who you are. It can make you hate yourself to the core.”

Yasha gave her hand a gentle squeeze, but there was steel in her voice now. “Is your family like that too?”

“I… That doesn’t matter. This isn’t about me.” Beau tried to pull her hand away but Yasha didn’t let her go. “I didn’t mean to make this about me.”

“But it is about you, if you’re hurting like she did.” Yasha said. “I couldn’t help her, but I want to be here for you. If you’ll let me.”

“You don’t have to worry about me, Yash. I’m good.” Beau took a deep breath, hating the shaky, vulnerable tone of her voice. “It was harder when I was younger. But now, most of the time, I don’t give a fuck what my parents think anymore.”

Yasha looked like she didn’t quite believe her. “You said ‘most of the time’. What about the rest?”

Beau smirked humorlessly. “I know I look like I’m perfect, but I’m still Human.”

“Well then, whenever you have one of those Human moments, talk to me. Okay?”

“I will, angel-”

Before she could even finish her promise, Yasha pulled her into a rib crushing hug. Yasha’s strong arms wrapped around Beau’s waist, practically dragging her into her lap and Beau stumbled forward, falling against her chest. Yasha didn’t care, however, she just held her close, her long hair falling forward and creating a canopy above them.

Beau felt her face turn crimson, but she wrapped her arms around Yasha’s neck and hugged her back with equal fierceness. She could feel the other girl’s heart beating fast as she tilted her face up to look her in the eye and, for a moment, they just stared at each other.

Yasha lowered her face, touching her forehead to Beau’s and Beau couldn’t help but look at her mouth, so close and so tempting. She knew she couldn’t kiss her. Not now, not after all that they had shared. It was not the time or the place for something like that. But Gods, did she want to…

Before her needs got the better of her, however, a low growl broke the silence and Beau started laughing.

“Was that your stomach?” She asked Yasha, whose pale face started to redden.

“Yeah… I didn’t have lunch.”

“Come on, let’s annoy Caduceus until he makes us a snack.”

She stood up, hating the feeling of leaving Yasha’s arms. But when she held her hand to the other girl to help her up, Yasha took it and didn’t let go as they walked out of the locker room.