Chapter Text
“You would. Wouldn’t you?”
It wasn’t really a question. Deborah Vance would. But that didn’t stop Ava from having a panic attack on the way home.
Ava winced as her fingertips scraped against hideous brick, an attempt to both steady and bring herself back to reality. The way her heart thudded within her chest felt violent, and seemingly all that she could hear, as if it were beating against her skull as well. She had pulled over at this fast food joint to be sick, but instead, she found herself clutching this wall and sweating profusely.
Did Judas make it?, she whispered to herself. Fuck. She had no idea. What happened to Judas? Jesus was nailed, but something bad must have happened to the one who betrayed him. Death by all-consuming guilt, or maybe he became known as a disloyal social pariah and nobody ever fucked him again.
None of this eased her mind. She was too young to be unfuckable. And Deborah’s tits would look too good with her arms spread against a cross. The last thing the world needed was Deborah’s sainthood established, looking fucking hot, while Ava was left withering and blacklisted.
She sucked in her breath, held it, and hobbled back to her car. With the AC blasting, she was able to breathe again and stop her head from spinning.
She had known what she was doing. It wasn’t much of a whim, even if her plan came together quite fast. Being a comedian required her to think quickly but make her words intentional. She could be edited, if not polished. And that’s how she stabbed a legend in the back (perhaps more fitting to liken it to drop-kicking her in the vagina).
She drove to her new apartment on autopilot, not registering a single detail of her surroundings. The sound of her Bluetooth allowing a call to come through made her jump and bash her knee against the steering wheel.
“Ava? Am I booking funerals now? Were you going to tell me you were in the business of grave digging?”
Jimmy.
“I’ll call you later, I can’t talk right now, by—“
Jimmy growled. Does he growl? Maybe the sound was more like a baby cougar mimicking its more fierce parental figure.
“Tell me why Deborah just called to politely warn me that she is going to eat you piece by piece and use your man hands as forks. Deborah doesn’t ‘do’ polite, Ava. And even Hannibal Lecter used cutlery!”
Ava could have cried, and her eyes felt damp for the briefest moment before she let out a nervous laugh. But then the rage she felt the past few days set in all over again.
This was a war. And she wasn’t the one who started it.
“I’m going to say this once.” She twisted her lips into a smile. Fake it until you make it. “Deborah can do whatever she wants to me but tell her to start with my cunt first. It tastes even better now that I’ve fucked her with her own game.”
Ava heard Kayla hovering on the other end of the line. “Gross. And hot. But gross, I think,” Kayla lilted.
Ava hung up.
She pounded a closed fist against the side of her steering wheel and let out a scream. She needed to get her head in the game if she was going to take what she wanted.
What she wanted… which was? The job. The praise. For Deborah’s piercing eyes to be level with hers when she finally accepted Ava as an equal.
But these desires, and the details surrounding them that played out in Ava’s head, did not translate to her dreams that first night. Or the night after, and so on.
So many of them started the same. With Deborah Vance’s soft hands holding Ava’s face, a melancholy look in her glistening eyes. Her right thumb would stroke the high arch of Ava’s cheekbone with a surprisingly gentle touch. She could never remember, within that dream-moment, why Deborah looked at her like that. What had happened to cause the aching sadness? Was it her?
But that’s where the blissfully ignorant part ended, and the weird shit really began.