Chapter Text
The hockey rink has always been a safe place for Ava Silva. It’s somewhere she can go when she’s stressed about school, or pissed at one of her professors, or frustrated because that one guy from chemistry won’t stop making the same stupid pun to try to get her to go out with him. Normally she finds that endearing, but not when it's used like it’s going out of style. Which it did. A long, long time ago.
Anyways, the point is that the rink has always been the place that Ava goes to when she needs to think or blow off some steam. So there she finds herself, at 5:00 in the freaking morning, because she’s stressed out about the first day of practice with a team that she’s unfamiliar with.
Even though she’s been at Cruciform Academy for almost half a semester now, she still has yet to meet most of the team. Of course, there’s Camila, who she had been randomly paired to room with, and the bubbly brunette’s Satan spawn of a girlfriend with the appropriate name of Lilith. But other than that, she hasn’t really been formally introduced to anyone.
Instead of voicing her concerns about all of this to Camila, Ava finds herself up at the ass crack of dawn, lacing up her skates and putting on her gloves. She fiddles with the peeling tape on her stick, making a mental note to redo it before practice so that she looks more presentable than she usually does.
When she’s all geared up, Ava steps out of the locker room and out into the cold of the rink. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath in, relishing in the smell of artificial ice and sweat. Weird combination, she knows, but it’s just such an iconic scent to her, one that’s been a part of her joy for most of her life.
Opening her eyes, Ava steps out onto the ice and takes her first stride, propelling off towards the center dot. She does a little hop step as she gets there and turns towards the left end boards, crossing over and building up power in her stride. After taking a few laps to get warm, she goes to the bench and leans over, grabbing a puck out of the bucket and tossing it on the ice.
The next few minutes are spent stickhandling, with Ava working the puck from forehand to backhand, incorporating toe drags into her movements. She pulls her shoulders all the way back, curling the puck behind her body and then flicking it off the inside of her skate blade and back to her forehand. It’s a move that she’d mastered a long time ago, but the ease of it makes her smile anyway.
As she gets more into her routine, she starts to skate with the puck, keeping it tight to her body and mimicking body position to protect it. She works along the boards, banking the puck off the boards before turning on a dime and picking it back up moving at full speed. As she takes long strides to the goal, she imagines going in on a breakaway.
Ava cycles through her go to moves in her head before deciding on a classic. She angles her right skate to hit the brakes, bringing the puck back into a shooting position and faking a wristflick before angling her left skate out to get a better angle for a toe drag. All in one motion, she brings the puck to her backhand and roofs it into the top left corner of the net, over what would be the goalie’s stick side shoulder.
Continuing her forward movement, Ava picks the puck out of the back of the net and starts skating down to the other goal, pulling out another one of the moves she has in her repertoire. After a few laps, she decides to move on to something more beneficial, and heads back over to the bench to grab the bucket of pucks and some magnetic targets. She sets them up on the net closest to the rink door and gets to work.
After another hour of working on hitting the mini plastic circles, Ava decides to call it a morning. Her first class is at 9:00 AM, and if she wants to shower beforehand, she’s going to need to head out now. She makes her way back into the locker room and takes off her skates and gloves, putting them back in her locker before grabbing her bag and returning her stick to the rack by the door on the way out.
The walk back to her dorm room isn’t bad, only a mere five minutes in the increasingly frigid New England weather. If she wasn’t so used to spending all of her time in freezing hockey rinks, she’s sure that it would be a pain in the ass. Instead, she finds herself swiping into her building with little more than rosy cheeks to show for the low temperatures.
Two flights of stairs and half a halfway later, Ava finds herself walking into her dorm room. Camila is nowhere to be found, but that isn’t surprising since she is probably getting ready for class. Looking at the clock, Ava moves to her wardrobe to choose an outfit for the day, then grabs her towel and shower caddy and heads back out of the room.
When she gets to the bathroom, Ava sees her roommate sitting on the countertop, applying eyeliner as she chats with a dark haired girl. She immediately recognizes Beatrice, one of Camila’s friends and the captain of the hockey team. Suddenly, Ava feels a little shy, so she starts to walk over to the showers. Before she makes it though, Camila spots her.
“Hey, where were you this morning?” the curly haired girl asks.
“The rink,” Ava says nonchalantly, not wanting to give away the reason she went there in the first place.
“Why? We have practice this afternoon?”
“I’ve been working on a move, but I haven’t been able to get part of it right.” It’s a blatant lie, but Ava knows that Camila won’t question it. “I just wanted a little time to get it down so I wouldn’t get told off for fooling around during practice.”
“Oh, what move?”
“I think I’ll be keeping it to myself for now. You never know when you’ll have to pull something out of the bag of tricks, and I’d rather you see it first hand.”
“That’s fair,” Camila concedes. “Whatever it is, I’m sure I’ll be blown away. You have the filthiest hands I’ve ever seen, and I watched Areala literally stickhandle in a phonebooth.”
“Where the fuck did you find a phonebooth?” Ava asks, chuckling.
“At some tournament we went to in Montreal last year. They have something about preserving old buildings and culture, and when we found one while we were walking around the city, we couldn’t not try it.”
“I didn’t know that phone booths are considered culture, but okay I guess. Anyways, I should shower. I skated for two hours, so I definitely worked up a sweat.”
“Yeah, you stink!” Camila says jokingly.
“Hey, fuck you. This is the smell of hard work.”
“Yeah, yeah, just go take your shower.”
Ava sticks her tongue out at her roommate playfully before turning back to the shower stalls. They’re all empty, so she picks the closest one and puts her clean clothes on the bench before starting to strip. She turns the shower on once she’s undressed, and ice cold water splashes into her face. Letting out a few mumbled curses, she turns the temperature up and gets to work.
After taking a solid ten minutes to rid her body of sweat, Ava washes her hair and then turns the shower off. She grabs the towel that she had hung off the back of the door and dries her body before grabbing her bra and panties to slip them on. Her jeans are pulled on next, followed by the button up shirt she had chosen to pair with them.
Once she is finished getting dressed, Ava picks up all of her stuff and heads out into the bathroom. There is no trace of Camila, but Beatrice is still standing in front of the mirror, applying a generous amount of chapstick to her lips. Ava finds herself staring a little, but she manages to snap out of it before Beatrice can catch her.
Taking a deep breath, Ava walks over to the counter and puts her stuff down on it. She quickly grabs her hairdryer out of her shower caddy and plugs it in, turning it on and directing the stream of hot air at her head. It doesn’t take long for her short locks to dry, at which point she moves on to doing her makeup. She only applies a little mascara and eyeliner, but it makes her feel a whole lot more presentable.
When she finishes, Ava packs up her stuff and goes to say goodbye to Beatrice, since it’s the polite thing to do. As she turns and opens her mouth, her eyes catch on the woman’s hands, which are rubbing lotion into soft looking skin. Her eyes immediately shoot upwards, trying to expel the seriously explicit thoughts that are now running through her head, but oh God, Beatrice is wearing a tank top , and she gets sucked into staring at the flex of her biceps.
Swallowing hard, Ava decides not to say anything lest her horny brain dig her an early grave. She grabs her stuff and turns on her heels, walking out of the bathroom and down the hallway to her dorm room. When she walks inside, she leans back against the door and lets out a long sigh.
“Are you okay?” Camila asks.
“Fine,” Ava grumbles in reply, walking over to her desk. “Just feeling things I shouldn’t be feeling this early in the morning.”
“Oh?”
“Trust me, you do not want me to elaborate.”
“Fair enough. Well, I have to get going, so I’ll see you at practice later, yeah?”
“See you then,” Ava replies.
Camila nods and walks out of the room, shutting the door behind her. Heaving another sigh, Ava grabs her laptop and her chemistry book, shoving them into her bag before zipping it up and hurrying out of the dorm. It only takes five minutes to walk to class, and she arrives just in time for the professor to start going over their agenda for the day.
After explaining the titration lab that they’re going to be doing for the next week, the professor instructs them to break off into sets of two. Ava is immediately approached by JC, the guy with the terrible chemistry pun and the even more terrible vibe that he gives off. He’s grinning as he walks over to her, puffing out his chest confidently.
“So, it looks like we need a partner for this,” JC says, smirking. “We already have chemistry, so wanna pair up?”
It’s not even a pun at this point, like seriously? Ava thinks. She sighs, realizing that she’s probably going to have to say yes to him since she really doesn’t know anyone in this class and almost everybody else is already partnered up. Just as she’s about to say yes, Ava hears her name being called in a tantalizing accent.
“Ava, are you coming?”
“Huh?” Ava says, looking over to where the voice came from. She sees Beatrice watching her carefully, her head tilted to the side in a silent question. “Uh, yeah, sorry.” Ava looks over at JC and smiles apologetically. “Sorry, I already have a partner.”
“Right, um, okay,” the boy replies, scratching the back of his head. “Yeah, that’s cool.”
Giving him an awkward nod, Ava picks up her bag and walks over to Beatrice, whose lab table is front and center. It’s certainly not where she’s used to being, but she’ll take the slight awkwardness of being so close to the professor over having to deal with JC coming onto her any day of the week.
“Thanks,” Ava says, setting her bag down on the table. “I think you just saved my life.”
“Oh?” Beatrice raises an eyebrow at her.
“Yeah, if I had to listen to one more terrible pun about us having chemistry, I might have shot myself.”
“Ah yes, his dreadful attempt at flirting.”
“So you noticed that, huh?”
“Oh yes,” Beatrice says, her lips quirking up playfully. “It’s hard not to notice someone sucking all of the joy out of a good pun.”
“It’s not even a pun at this point, it’s just him repeating that we have chemistry.”
“That is so terrible.”
“I know,” Ava says, laughing. “It’s a terrible pick up line.”
“The worst,” Beatrice agrees, before shifting her attention to the lab worksheets that had been placed on their bench. “Shall we get started?”
Ava nods and pulls one of the worksheets closer, looking for the list of things they’ll need. They decide to split up, with Beatrice going to get the acid and other organic compounds that they’ll need and Ava grabbing the physical equipment that they need. After grabbing the erlenmeyer flask and buret that they need, along with a clamp and stand, she heads back to the lab bench and starts setting up.
“Here, catch,” Beatrice calls out.
Ava looks up, and all of a sudden a small container filled with little white crystals is flying at her. She nearly knocks everything that she had just set up over in an attempt to catch whatever Beatrice just threw, and she fumbles it a little before securing it. After taking a second to steady her heart rate after that terrifying experience, she looks up and gives her lab partner her best pout.
“Hey, that’s assault.”
“Did you…” Beatrice cuts herself off with a chuckle. “Did you just make a chemistry pun?”
“Yes,” Ava states matter of factly. “How was it?”
“It would have been better if that was sodium chloride and not sodium nitrate.”
“Ah, whatever. It’s still salt.”
“It’s salt peter , actually, but I’ll allow it.”
“Oh, how noble of you.”
As Ava shakes her head and lets out a soft laugh, she realizes just how much trouble she could be in. Just this morning, she was thirsting over Beatrice’s hands and arms like a horny invalid, and now they’re laughing and joking around as if they’ve been friends forever.
Oh, this could be bad. This could be really bad. Crushing on the captain of her team seems like a really bad idea, but at this point, Ava is powerless to stop it. She finds herself smiling a little wider when they make conversation while prepping for the experiment, and she feels butterflies in her stomach when Beatrice smiles at her.
Yeah, this is going to be bad.