Chapter Text
AJ didn’t know what was happening.
Except she did. She knew what was happening—
It was another episode.
Another episode of a show she hated. Another episode of laying in bed, barely conscious but unable to sleep. Another episode of wanting tears to drip from her eyes, but being entirely unable to even think a sad thought.
Because her body was sad, so her mind went on pause. Her body, even, went on pause: legs too heavy to move, arms too weak to even flinch. Eyes that were weighed down so much, it was impossible to even open them.
AJ was used to this, to these episodes. What she was not used to was the feeling of someone playing with her hair as she went through it. To the soft humming and whispering around her, voices cloaked in worry and concern. To the nudging of a straw to her lip, sending water down her throat.
What was happening?
AJ didn’t know. What she did know, though, was that there was a familiar hand on her back, patting it softly, helping her eyes droop asleep. She was on someone’s chest, too, feeling the rising and falling of their breath, the aliveness of their heartbeat. There were whispers and mutters and songs all around her, both from the person who she laid on top of, and the person next to them.
The voices, the hands, the affection, were all painfully familiar. As if she should remember them. As if even a sliver of their voice should awaken AJ.
But it didn’t. The Mage, the depressed, tired Mage, couldn’t think to even lift a finger, let alone consider who the two people who held her fatigued body without demands were.
They must be kind, she knew. They must love her, or want her, unconditionally. Enough to lie with her when she was half-dead, when she had nothing to offer them but pale skin and rotting memories.
But they were still here. They still hummed in her ear, and played with her hair. She was sure one of them changed her clothes periodically, too, washing her of sweat, feeding bits of food between her lips.
AJ didn’t know what was happening.
…she had never had this, before.