Chapter Text
It was a normal afternoon at Cat’s Cradle. Beatrice and Ava had plans to train together earlier that day, only for the idea to be scrapped due to the most perfectly timed rainy weather.
“There will be a change of plans, Ava… The current weather prohibits us from training outdoors.”
“Aw man, I was really looking forward to it too…”
After a few moments of silence and a short discussion, the pair decide on putting a small surprise together instead for the upcoming birthday of a fellow sister of theirs, Camila.
“You think she’d like a cake? Cookies maybe? Ooh! How about cupcakes?”, Ava rambles on.
“Slow down, Ava. We are hardly certain whether or not we have the ingredients these recipes would require.”
Ava and Beatrice eventually agree on a small and simple chocolate cake, the option being influenced by the lack of brown sugar or cupcake liners in Cat’s Cradle pantries.
Putting powdery ingredients such as flour, baking soda, and cocoa powder together, they (mainly Ava) were bound to make at least a small mess on the kitchen counters.
“Ava, let me break the eggs, please. I think Camila would appreciate the absence of eggshells in her birthday cake.”
“Are you saying I’m incapable of cracking eggs cleanly?”
“It's just a safety precaution, don’t take it personally… Here, you can pour in the other ingredients, so long as you minimize the mess you make.”
Ava, in fact, did not keep the mess to a minimum, spilling some flour on the counters, herself, and somehow, on Beatrice while she was at it.
Ava had also taken it ever so slightly personally, as she swiped some of the spilled flour onto her index finger, and proceeded to swiftly dab at the tip of Bea’s nose.
“Ava!”, Beatrice exclaimed as she mimicked Ava’s previous actions in an attempt to get her back.
She chased Ava around the floating kitchen island with hopes of catching up to her, but to no success as Ava had been making use of the Halo’s energy to gain an advantage in agility.
Beatrice had resorted to gathering some of the remaining spilled flour from the counter, holding the fine powder in the palm of her hand. She slowed to a stop as she aimed and threw the flour towards Ava.
“OH MY GOD, BEA!”
Ava was covered in quite the amount of flour, all thanks to a determined Beatrice and her flawless aim.
“Language, Ava.”, Beatrice barely manages to say in the midst of her fit of giggles at the appearance of her- friend…
Ava had convinced Beatrice to allow her to pour the batter into the cake tin, which was done surprisingly mess-free, and into the preheated oven.
As they waited, they made amends and cleaned the workspace up. They prepared the icing and gathered whatever not expired cake decorations they had lying around.
After taking the cake out, they started to decorate. The pair stood in comfortable silence as icing was spread across the now cool surface of the cake.
The women reached towards the piping bag of icing, hands gently brushing against one another. Brief eye contact was made, before Beatrice quickly pulled away and apologies were exchanged, then came Beatrice avoiding any form of interaction with the other.
They continued to decorate in silence, the awkwardness lingering in the air around them.
“Hey, Bea?”, Ava softly says, breaking the silence.
“Hmm?”, Beatrice responds, barely audible.
“You do know how much you mean to me, right?”
“...”
“L-Look, I know this is all quite out of the blue, but I just thought you should know just how much you mean to me, that’s all…”
The silence from Beatrice’s end was slowly killing her. Eating her alive, making her regret saying anything in the first place. Why did she even say that? There was really no reason for her to ha-
“I…”
Her train of anxious thoughts were interrupted.
“I appreciate you too, Ava.”