Chapter Text
Ava and Deborah are on the private jet heading to Vegas, and Deborah feels light in a way she hasn’t felt since the night she made Ava walk away from her. They’d reluctantly pulled themselves out of bed and away from each other. A truly herculean feat leaving the cocoon they built for themselves in that bed, in that hotel. Ava keeps looking at her with this moony look in her eyes. It’s nearly overwhelming the look of pure love and admiration on her face. She did it before all of this started when she thought Deborah wasn’t paying attention to her. Barely trying to hide it as she sat behind Deb in the makeup mirror or when she caught her eye in the wings or in the crowd as she performed her set. She tried to convince herself it was just some weird hero worship, but now she knows it’s definitely not.
“Will you stop staring at me?” Deborah says. She can feel Ava’s eyes boring into her. Ava has one arm up on the back of her seat. Her entire upper body turned toward Deborah.
“No, can do D,” Ava says, refusing to move her gaze off of her. “I spent like a year trying to pretend like I wasn’t into you.”
“That was you hiding it?” Deborah asks with a cackle. Ava could not have been more obvious if she had tried.
“What? You’re fucking hot,” Ava says, echoing the words Kiki had said to her at DJ’s party. That feels like a lifetime ago. The first time she realized she maybe didn’t hate Deborah as much as she said she did. “You make me hot.”
“I’ll carry a spray bottle with me. Cool you down,” Deborah says.
“Deb, trust me, I’ll be wet enough on my own,” Ava says to her, dropping her voice down low. Trying to be sexy, but it just comes out kind of awkward.
Deborah cackles loudly. She missed this. Nothing makes her feel better than Ava making her laugh like this. Except for maybe the orgasms. Those feel pretty fucking great too.
Ava unbuckles her seatbelt standing up; they’re far enough in the air, and they don’t need to wear them anymore. She moves towards Deborah grabbing her hand and pulling lightly. “What are you doing?”
Ava nods towards the couches just behind the seats they are currently in. Far enough away that the pilot shouldn’t even notice. “C’mon. This is our last little bit of alone time for hours today. I want to enjoy it.”
“I’m not fucking you on this plane,” Deborah says, ignoring the way potentially fucking Ava outside of the confines of a locked bedroom door. Somewhere where they might be seen or heard.
Deb thinks for a moment. She should tell Ava to get back in her own seat. But Ava’s got that look on her face again. The one where she looks like she wants to devour Deborah. The same way she looked at her from in between her thighs. So she undoes her own seatbelt stands up, and follows her. Letting herself get pulled down onto the couch.
Ava kisses her, deepening it immediately. Deborah feels hungry. She’s never hungered for another person like she is right now for Ava. Her body feels like it’s on fire, and they’ve just started. After spending months making fun of Ava’s hands, now that she’s desperate to have those hands on her. Deborah loves to feel like she’s in control of her life and her career. But she’s so willing to give all that control to Ava. To let her do whatever she pleases with her body.
So when those giant hands move under her shirt, under her bra, cupping her breasts, tweaking her nipples, she lets her. And maybe it’s Deborah who grabs one of those hands and moves it down to the waistband of her pants, encouraging Ava to unbutton those pants and move that hand inside of her. Getting fingered in her plane doesn’t really count as sex anyway. They didn’t even take any of their clothes off.
When the plane lands, Ava lays her hand on Deborah’s arm, stopping her from disembarking right away. “Look, D, I don’t want to be a secret forever, but I’m cool with following your lead with all of this.” Everything had moved so fast between them that they’d yet to talk about what all this meant. What exactly they are.
Deborah isn’t sure. Calling Ava her girlfriend at seventy just feels a little immature, and the word partner feels so loaded, so serious. Deborah hasn’t dated anyone seriously since Frank. Marty had proposed to her once, but they never had anything more than semiregular sex together. The only thing she’s sure of is that she wants to explore whatever this is.
On the car ride back to her mansion, Deborah sits, and she thinks. She’s not ready for this all to be public and for the media attention that will come with it. Ava is too precious to her. Her career is only starting to recover. She doesn’t need all of this derailing it again. But in her home, around her daughter, and the people who really matter to her, she’s sick of hiding. After 70 years of hiding who she is from everyone, a place where she can just be is appealing.
Ava is sitting next to her in the car, so close and yet so far. It’d be so easy to reach out and hold her hand. Something so mundane and something she can’t say she ever desired with Frank or Marty. But she craves closeness with Ava. Her desire to touch her has been there for months, manifesting in brushes of her hand, picking invisible lint off of her shirt. Now she has permission. She can touch Ava whenever she wants, and she doesn’t think the other woman would ever deny her. The only person putting barriers between them is her.
“Now, who’s the one staring,” Ava says, not looking up from her phone. Probably texting Kiki.
“I am not. I’m just amazed at how tiny your phone looks in those giant hands,” Deborah says, falling back on an old joke to cover herself.
Ava leans in close, talking just above a whisper so the driver doesn’t hear, “You can’t really make fun of my giant hands anymore. Not after I know how much you enjoy them.”
“You’re very confident in your skills,” Deborah leans in, putting their lips very close together. It’s teasing; they both know that nothing can happen right now.
“Fuck, D, if only you knew what I can do with my strap,” Ava makes her voice breathless, really leaning into the bit. The reaction is immediate. Deborah’s face and chest flush, her pupils blow wide, and Ava laughs to herself. This is going to be fun.
Having Ava back in her home brings life back to the place that had been absent when she was gone. The noise and the way Ava seems to constantly be in motion, unable to be still. Deborah even finds it endearing when she trips over Ava’s booth for what feels like the hundredth. Although that lasts for only a moment before she yells at Ava for leaving her shoes in the middle of the floor again. Rolling her eyes when Ava yells that it’s really her fault for not letting her leave her boots on in the house.
The night ends with them in bed together, SVU on the television yet again, but it’s different this time. Instead of Ava attempting to maneuver herself, so she’s as close to Deborah as possible without actually touching her. Close enough to allow for the occasional brush of contact but still allowing for some semblance of personal space. All while she pretends like she’s completely oblivious to what’s happening, and Deborah lets her do it because Today she plops down right next to her. Throwing an arm around her shoulders, tangling their legs together.
Ava’s noticed that while Deborah won’t outwardly ask for affection or initiate it, she really enjoys it. Even if Ava gets a look or a comment at first.
“Do I have to go back to LA?” Ava asks. She doesn’t want to. She never wanted to. Deborah hadn’t given her a choice last time. LA no longer feels like home or the place she wants to be. Deborah is home, whether that place is a Cheesecake Factory-inspired mansion or a ridiculous bus with her coffin-sized bunk and her hook for storage. “I want to work with you. I don’t want to work with anyone else.”
“You’re too good to be following me around writing jokes about pizza and salad,” Deborah says. Ava is good. She’s special, and she has a voice that needs to be heard.
“You know our special was better than that,” Ava has, slightly offended. Their time together was more special than that.
“Sweetie, you can’t put your own career on hold because you’re trying to revive mine,” Deborah says.
Ava pouts, removing her arm from Deborah’s shoulders and crossing them in front of her. “I want to be where you are. Even more now. fuck, Deb being away from you is going to suck.”
Deborah kisses her. “We’ll figure it out.”
She doesn’t like the inconvenience of changing her schedule for anyone. Deborah even made her own child fit into what she wanted to do with her life. Maybe it’s age, or maybe it’s because she regrets that time and the way she behaved back then. But she’s ready to make Ava a priority. Work, DJ, and Ava sound pretty good.
Deborah’s alarm goes off when it always does, and for the first time in a very long time, she doesn’t want to get up. Ava is warm and comfortable, snuggled up against her, head against her chest, and a leg hooked over hers. She needs to get up and work out. But is that really necessary? The amount of calories she’s burned with Ava is more than she could ever burn in a single exercise session.
Her body is sore but in a delicious way. An ache between her legs and the muscles on her things are burning from the strain. Ava’s naked body is still against her own. If she wasn’t worried about Josefna or another member of her staff coming into the room and interrupting them. Making a note that she needs to tell them not to enter when Ava spends the night.
Deborah turns on her side and watches Ava sleep, face obscured by red hair, and she can’t help but move the strands from in front of her face. Ava is pretty. So fucking gorgeous, really. The first time she really let herself look at her, she really noticed her beauty; it wasn’t dissimilar to this. Ava had just had her surgery after that weird and intense time they had together. They’d let her sit by Ava’s side as she waited for her to wake up from surgery, and she really looked at her. Ready to put aside all of that lingering animosity. She wanted her.
Ava shuffles in her sleep again. Mumbles something completely incoherent into Deborah’s neck, pressing a sleepy kiss there before she rests her head down again.
She’ll just lay here with her for a little bit longer. Everything else can wait.
Deborah is sitting at her table, remnants of breakfast on her plate, and an already cold cup of coffee is in front of her. Glancing up at the time, who knows when Ava will be awake. She’d sleep the day away if she was allowed to. There’s a set of footsteps behind her, and she knows that gait.
“She lives,” Deborah says, not looking up from the newspaper she’s been pretending to read while she was really thinking about Ava and all the things she wants to do with her today.
Ava looks around for anyone else who might be able to see them, and then she gives Deborah’s shoulder a squeeze and leans down, and kisses her cheek. It made Deborah feel warm inside and relieved, and just better. The other woman’s presence is enough to make her feel lighter, a tension she didn’t know it was holding inside of her release.
“How did you know it was me?” Ava asks, not knowing if she should be touched or offended.
Deborah rolls her eyes. “Honey, people 50 miles away can hear you stomping around.” Ava is loud. Nothing she does is ever quiet.
Deborah’s hand covers where Ava’s is on her shoulder, and she moves her head down to rest her cheek upon it. She lightly scratched her nails over Ava’s hand’s skin, caressing it. Her once perfectly done nails were cut short.
“You cut your nails?” Ava asks, trying to keep the excitement out of her voice.
Deborah turns her body so she can really look at Ava, wanting to see the sultry look in her eyes. “You said I wasn’t allowed to touch you until I did.” Ava had stopped her last night, not wanting to be gouged by her nails.
While the sex so far has been satisfying, it’s really fucking hot watching Ava get herself off. She was ready to reciprocate. Even if it made her more nervous than she was willing to admit to herself. She wants to feel that power, that controls that Ava has over her as she manipulates her body to give her pleasure.
“Fuck,” Ava says. She was perfectly content getting Deborah off and then getting herself out. It doesn’t take much for her after setting Deb off like that. Getting her partner off has always been so hot for her. Loving to find pleasure by giving her partner pleasure. But fuck, the thought of Deborah with her hands between her legs, with her mouth on her, is almost too much to take, and she flushes, feeling herself get wet just imagining it. Remembering all the times that Ava had taken her in a dream, her unconsciousness came up with so many scenarios. So many places where she wanted to have Deborah or let Deborah have her.
They both look around the room; Deborah doesn’t mind more intimate members of her staff knowing about her new relationship. But she doesn’t necessarily want anyone walking in on a private moment between them. The giant mansion is seemingly empty at the moment. Deborah grabs the hand on her shoulder and yanks, pulling a slightly off-balanced Ava onto her lap, capturing her mouth in a kiss that’s already heated. Their previous conversation did so much for their individual libidos. Not that they needed any help in that department recently.
Deborah’s hand is rubbing her inner thigh, nails running over the rough material of her sweatpants, and she’s not really sure what’s gotten into her. They’ve had sex maybe a dozen times over the past two days, but she’s still hungry for Ava. It’s not even a want. It’s a need. An ache. Deborah had gone through most of her life under the impression that she didn’t need sex. Sure it was nice, but it usually left her feeling unsatisfied and frustrated. But now, with Ava, it’s a necessity. She wants her in as many ways as she can get her before she has to leave, and who knows how long it’ll be before they can see each other. The conversation they have yet to have, but how are they supposed to talk about what they are and what they’re going to be when Ava is near her, and all she wants to do is fuck her.
Things are started to get heated between them when a loud yell of “Holy fuck,” causes them to spring apart from each other. Ava, in her panic, fell to the floor, nearly taking Deb with her. This isn’t exactly how Deborah planned on telling her daughter that she was seeing someone new. Especially someone who’s about twenty years younger than DJ. Things are good between them now. Ava had somehow made things better for them in her strange way. Bonding them in a way that they haven’t managed before.
Ava is babbling, an incessant chatter. Deborah is pretty sure she’s trying to convince DJ that she simply tripped and fell into her lap, which might have worked if Ava’s hand hadn’t been up her shirt.
“You guys are back together?” DJ asks, not at all bothered by finding her mother making out with a woman young enough to be her own daughter.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Deborah asks, slightly offended. Ava is still on the floor, covering her face, possibly praying that the floor will swallow her whole.
“Please, we all thought you were together for months, and then you broke up,” Dj says like it had been obvious. Ava and Deborah could not have been that oblivious to their weird relationship.
“That’s…” was it really ridiculous? They might not have been physically intimate, but it sure was emotionally intimate. They’d been as intertwined as two people could be who was not engaging in a romantic relationship.
“Look, as long you don’t fuck up my inheritance. I’m cool with it,” DJ says. She doesn’t really care who her mom dates, and she likes Ava well enough as long as she doesn’t get the money DJ is banking on from Deborah.
In bed that night, there’s a sense of nervousness that didn’t exist before. Their first time happened so fast that there was no time to really think about it. Followed by a night of sleepy hands groping each other in the dark. They were reaching for each other when one of them woke, desperate and aching for another round. Completely unable to keep their hands off of each other.
Tonight Deb is going to be in the driver’s seat. She was going to be the one with her hands on Ava, and it made them both feel tense with anticipation.
Deborah doesn’t like to admit when she’s feeling insecure or not entirely confident. Still, tonight she says, “You’re gonna have to show me how okay?”
“Have you ever been with a woman before?” Ava asks. They hadn’t discussed this. They hadn’t really discussed anything yet really.
“Once. It was a very long time ago, and I was very drunk. It’s all a blur now,” she’d been very drunk when that happened.
“Just do what feels right. Trust me, there’s not a single way that you can touch me that I’m not going to like,” Ava says to her. She’s been dreaming about this for months, fantasizing about what this might feel like. There was literally nothing that could happen right now that wouldn’t be satisfying for her.
“What? This is the one area that you’re not going to give an opinion,” Deborah says. Ava has to tell her every other thought that comes into her mind. Annoyingly having an opinion on just about everything Deborah ever does.
“Oh trust, I will give you a lot of thoughts,” Ava says, leaning up on her elbows and looking at Deb, slightly desperate. Then, flushed and her pupils blown wide, rubbing her things together to get some kind of friction between her legs.
“Good girl,” Deborah says. It’s supposed to be sarcastic. But Ava groans. “Really, that’s what gets you going?”
“I have mommy issues. Sue me,” Ava bites back.
Deborah kisses her, and it becomes so overwhelming. Deborah’s hand on her breasts, tweaking her nipples, Deborah on top of her with a thigh between her legs
Deborah, who is saying she wants to see her, pulls at her shirt, removing her pants and her panties down her legs. Ava grabs hold of Deb’s hand, helping to guide it to where she wants it. When Deborah enters her with one finger, then two, Ava sees stars, and then Deborah takes her nipple into her mouth, sucking.
“Fuck, fuck,” Ava’s hand is holding Deborah’s head to her chest. Encouraging her. It’s all so overwhelming.
Deborah lifts her head up so it’s next to Ava’s ear, and she starts to talk. Telling her how good she feels around her fingers and how she needs to be a good girl and cum for her.
Ava comes with a shout. Her whole body tensed and then relaxed, and her head was thrown back. Deborah keeps moving her fingers so that by the time her first orgasm ends, another begins.
“Stop, please stop,” Ava says when she gets her voice back, hoarse from shouting. “I’m gonna reciprocate as soon as I can move.”
I want to take you to dinner,” Ava says. “Like a date.”
“I thought you were okay with this not being public,”
“Deb people know we work together. Besides, people know we work together, and two can practically fuck each other in public. People will say they’re such good friends,” Ava says, “If you’re really not comfortable, we don’t have to go. Still, I leave tomorrow, and I don’t know D. I want a better memory of dinner with you; that’s not me reading out that email in a shitty diner.”
Deborah is nervous, and she knows that no one is going to suspect anything. They’re being discreet, with no PDA. They look like two friends having dinner together. But the hypervigilance is suffocating, and she’s unable to fully enjoy herself.
“Did your mother never teach you how to eat?” Deborah asks after watching Ava take another, a frankly inhuman bite of her food.
“My mom cut my food for me until I was 16. After that, she was afraid I choked,” she spears another forkful, “This is living.”
It’s so foreign to Deborah watching Ava actually enjoy her food. She hasn’t since she was a child picking what is healthier rather than what she’ll actually want. Ava called her a high functioning anorexic once during one of their writing sessions.
“So if I like ask you where you’re from are you going to answer that now that we’re doing this,” Ava says, gesturing between them.
Deborah’s life from the start of her career until the present is well documented. She saved everything she could, wanting a record of his accomplishments. But for everything before that, she keeps guard. Close to her chest. Things she doesn’t want anyone to know. Ava overshares. Just about every thought that passes through her head is blurted out without a care in the world. There are things Deborah knows about her that she really never needed to know.
Later in the comfort of her own home, she talks. Tells Ava about growing up in the suburbs of Pennsylvania and then moving to Texas when her parents died. How she spent her teenage years taking care of a sister, and how she loved the idea of Frank more than she ever loved him.
They make love after, not that either one of them would ever describe it like that without gagging, but it’s slow this time. Intimate. They stare into each other’s eyes and share whispers of sweet nothings.
“I don’t want to go,” Ava says. A last-minute punch-up had become available, and Deborah had pretty much demanded she takes it.
“You have to. And if I find out you left early again? You’re spending however many days you were supposed to be in Canada in the guestroom,” Deborah is serious if she’s threatening to withhold sex from her.
Ava had gotten another punch-up job. This one is in Vancouver for three weeks. Deborah was unable to go for that amount, meaning that they had to be separated. Not that they want to be so early on in a relationship. But Ava needs this. Needs to keep making connections if she wants to continue the revival of her career. They’re still waiting to hear if the pilot she worked on got picked up, and right now, she needs to be taking other jobs to get her name out there.
The house doesn’t feel as empty this time. Ava will be back, or Deborah will go and see her in LA. And they talk constantly. Ava sends her practically minute-by-minute updates about her day. TikTok videos (KiKi had to explain these, and they Facetime nightly because Ava couldn’t possibly deal with three weeks without actually seeing her. The calls had gotten longer and longer each night as they were always reluctant to say goodbye.
On day ten, the pictures start. Ava has a night shoot meaning she’s bored in her hotel room during the day. The first picture is innocent. Ava sends her selfies all the time. This time she’s pouting, pushing out her lower lip, the caption I miss you.
I miss you too, Sweetie.
An hour later, another picture comes through. Deborah is talking to Marcus as he gives her her schedule for the rest of the week. When she stops mid-sentence. It’s Ava. Just the lower half of her face and her neck. A flannel Deborah recognizes from being stolen from her own closet hangs loosely off one shoulder, revealing a hint of her breast. Deborah can’t breathe for a moment. She desperately wants to trace that line down her neck to her perfect breasts.
Another picture follows pretty much immediately. Ava looked almost defiantly at the camera. Her top was bare, and an arm covering her breast,
Any parts of me you miss more than others?
Deborah sends Marcus away.
You’re teasing me. She can feel her cheeks flush as she stares, almost willing Ava to move her arm. She’s grown very fond of her breasts over the last weekend.
Maybe ; )
Ava
Say please
Please show me your perfect tits, baby.
The picture comes through. Ava leaned back, smirking. Breasts on full display. Dusty Rose colored nipples are on full display, and Deborah wants to get her mouth on them like she did when Ava was her. She’d spent years taking subtle glances at women’s breasts, but getting her mouth and her hands on them was an entirely different ball game.
Do you like it?
You know I do.
I miss you, D.
Do not leave that job. She sends it and then follows it up. I’m glad to see you don’t just send nudes on my time. All your employers get the same treatment.
I’m an equal opportunity nude taker. What can I say?
She calls Marcus back into the room and tells him to clear her schedule for the week. She’s going to see Ava.
“You’re making a mistake with her,” Marcus says to her. He’s never trusted, Ava.
She’s not. Ava could never be a mistake. “I think I can make my own decisions,” Deborah says. She trusts Marcus and loves him like he’s her own child, but she won’t tolerate Marcus disparaging her.
“She’s using you, and what happens when everyone finds out. Are you prepared for that level of scrutiny?” Marcus asks her.
“Yes,” The thought of the world finding out is terrifying. She dreads the moment it will happen. The articles, the paparazzi, all the awful things they’re going to say about Ava. “Is there anything we can’t move?”
“No,” Marcus says, annoyed, rolling his eyes. He barely recognizes who Deb is with her. So different from the woman he’d come to love.
“Then I would like my plane ready to leave for Vancouver tomorrow night,” Deborah says. She wants to see Ava, and while she told Ava she was not allowed to come, she never agreed she wouldn’t come for a visit.