Work Text:
Hexside’s lights beamed down on the field.
It was thoroughly destroyed, with magic having left its mark on the court. It was truly a sight to behold.
The cleanup Hexside managed between Grudgby games truly impressed Raine. Though, if they were being honest, everything on this side of town impressed them.
Especially when Eda was involved.
As she crossed their mind, their eyes went to look for her off the field.
They set her jacket carefully on their seat before standing up and walking to the exit.
Crowds of witches were doing the same as them, abandoning their items to the retractable seating to find their kids or friends coming off the field.
Raine’s eyes darted between uniformed witch to uniformed witch before they fell on Eda.
Her hair was tied back, swinging behind her as she hurriedly jogged off the court.
She approached Raine and they covered the distance between the two of them in a moment.
As they got closer, and as their arms wrapped around her, they noticed how tired she looked.
Her weight then immediately came crashing onto them. Raine’s knees almost buckled as she dug into their arms. Her head pressed against their shoulder and they struggled to a nearby seat.
“Get me water.” Was the first thing she said. She sounded out of breath, panicked even, Raine didn’t have time to notice anything else about her.
“What?” They were a little taken aback. Normally, the first thing she did after a game was leap off the court and into her arms.
She would usually squeal something along the lines of, ‘Did you see that last play?’ ‘Did you see us?’ with more energy than she had starting the game.
But as Raine helped her to an empty seat, they caught how cold she was. Compared to the unnatural amount of sweat drenching her hair—too much of which was stuck to her face—something just looked wrong.
“Water.” She said again.
“I’ll get you some water,” they told her urgently, stepping away. “Stay here.”
Raine raced up to their previous seat and grabbed a large water bottle.
They returned to her side in a flash and handed her the bottle.
Eda chugged a good amount in one sitting, pulling it away and coughing. She tried to catch her breath and wiped the sweat off her lip with the back of her hand.
“Eda, is everything all right?” Raine took a seat beside her.
“No,” she said bluntly. “Is Lily here?” Her breathing became unsteady and she fell back on Raine’s side.
Raine looked around on instinct. But they knew the answer already.
“She’s at your house. She couldn’t make it to this game, remember?”
Eda swore under her breath and squeezed her eyes shut. She drew her knees up to her chest and hugged herself close.
Raine furrowed their eyebrows. “What’s going on?”
She didn’t answer. She just continued to hold herself as her breathing became more ragged. “I’m-I-.. It’s fine.” She struggled out, as if she was fighting with herself on what words to use. “I just…I need Lily.” She said after a long moment.
The crowd cleared out a little more as the two sat there.
Eda groaned and pressed her palms to her eyes.
She sounded less and less tired, which normally Raine would have seen as a good thing. But it was being replaced by more and more panic, evident in the way she was trembling and how her voice shook. Raine frowned and just stared at her, waiting for another request.
“Raine..” She strained.
“Yes?”
A sharp exhale. “Get me out of here.” Eda’s fingers caught a few loose strands of hair and pulled on them.
Raine immediately jumped to their feet and reached for her, disregarding the jacket and water.
“Come on,” they heaved and pulled her to her feet. “Let’s go.”
Eda stumbled into their arms. She could barely keep herself up as they walked, her knees fully giving out every few steps.
“Eda, what’s happening?” They posed their question again. “Is it your curse?”
“I can’t talk right now.” Eda sounded like she was about to retch. “I just need a minute, okay?” She was basically begging them at this point.
Raine obliged in silence and helped her to the back of the seats.
The bright lights were blocked out, the grass was cool, nobody else was around.
As Eda settled on the grass, her hands went to cover her biceps. Her fingers dug into her skin and she keened.
“Please get my things.” She told Raine, curling into herself.
They nodded and sprinted off, weaving through crowds of witches who still hadn’t left.
They grabbed her jacket off the wooden seating before turning around to head back.
Raine’s heartbeat was pounding in their ears. What was going on?
They had never seen this side of Eda. The worst she had let them witness was a few days after she had gotten cursed, but by that point, she seemed to be doing fine.
She had looked tired, and her family was stressed out of course, but she herself had told them not to worry.
This seemed far different, though.
As they approached where they left her, they slowed their steps.
Becoming more cautious, Raine was soft and quiet as they turned the corner.
Eda was sitting up against the retractable seating and panting. Her hands still dug into her arms and she was gritting her teeth tight.
Raine held their breath and backed up to where she couldn’t see them anymore. They figured they’d wait around the edge in case she needed them.
They caught her shaky breathing, in and out faster than they could catch on to, and more intense than what they noticed before.
It sounded like she was fighting with herself not to make a sound, not to move, not to do.. Something.
Raine felt frozen in place. Did they speak? Did they sit with their tongue sewn between their teeth? Did they leave, or stay and listen to something they just knew Eda would want them out of?
Raine knew pity was the last thing she wanted, especially now. She wasn’t one in life to ever want people to see her when she was low. Now was no exception.
But they couldn’t just sit back and hear as their best friend cried just around the corner.
A grunt. A weight-relieving sigh. Immediate panting and something that sounded like strangling a sob.
“Raine?” Her small voice came.
They almost jumped at their own name. Shifting from where they stood, Raine appeared from around the seating frames and met her eyes.
Eda swallowed, so thickly Raine thought they heard it. She licked her lips and blinked, putting her hand back to steady herself up.
“What is it?” They rushed to help her stand, balancing her jacket and water in one arm.
“Can you take me home?”
Her head fell on Raine’s shoulder and she stumbled forward with them.
She gave a huff and bit her lip.
“Of course.” Raine stared down at her.
She avoided looking at them, staring at her wobbling legs as they headed to the exit of the school grounds.
Voiding eye contact, Eda focused on catching her breath as Raine helped keep her standing up.
Raine took a deep breath. “Do you want to ta—”
“No.” Eda cut them off. “I just want to go home.”
Raine nodded.
They continued to help her leave the school area. The other players were cheering a few metres away and Eda stared at them.
The shorter witch caught her reaction. The way her eyes glittered with subtle tears, following each player on her own team talking about a celebratory dinner or flight around town.
They looked happy. Without a care in the world.
Eda let out a shuddering sigh.
“Hey,” Raine rubbed her shoulder. “Don’t worry about them. Let’s just worry about getting home.”
The ginger stayed quiet. She and Raine just walked to the side of the school, where the two could see the backs of banners and signs illuminating the darkened night.
Raine held their breath. Those kinds of banners were hung every single time Hexside hosted a Grudgby game. But for special ones like these, the first games of the month, they went beyond ‘going all out’.
Torches, blue with every other being yellow to represent the team colors, lined the pathway to the front of the school. Raine and Eda cut between two particularly dim ones to get onto the paved ground.
“They’ve been talking about that for days.” Eda muttered.
Raine hummed without thinking. They then blinked to look at her. “What?” They verbalised their confusion.
“The dinner.” She replied. “You heard the other players…” A sigh. “At practices, they kept talking about how much they’d celebrate if they won the first game of the month.”
She sounded dejected. More so than before.
“You know, a dinner is nothing special,” Raine tried to comfort her. “You’ve won these games before, and you’ll do it again. Don’t stress about it.”
They didn’t get a response. But Eda’s stifled and shallow breathing was enough to tell them what she didn’t say.
Raine swallowed. “It’s not like you lost, either, right? You did fine.”
“It’s not that,” Eda pursed her lips. “I just…I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I was doing just fine until the final leg of the game. I needed to be there for my team.”
She slowed down. Raine carefully took their arm from behind her back as she turned around to stare at the front of the school.
“They had to pick up my slack. I just…I started to feel so sick.”
She turned back around.
“Whatever,” her voice was airy. “I don’t expect you to help me figure it out. You won’t get it. Let’s just get out of here.”
Raine couldn’t take their eyes off of hers as she walked past them—almost shoved past. They quickly caught up with her and the two resumed a normal walking speed.
They couldn’t fault her for being upset. It was reasonable; they figured she had a right to be. Fumbling a match so close to the end, likely due to something she couldn’t control—and didn’t want to talk about—during a game she took much pride in being good at..
It had to sting her ego. Even more than that. At the way Eda’s skin tensed when they wrapped their arm around her, they figured it stung far more than just internally.
Eda didn’t need to tell Raine for them to guess what happened.
They handed Eda her coat and she slipped it on slowly. She materialised her staff and handed it to Raine in a silent request for them to fly.
Trading the water bottle for the staff, Raine steadied it under them as Eda sat behind them.
She wrapped her arms around them silently. Both of them seemed to be lost in thought about something.
Raine couldn’t get Eda out of their head. Not just because she was behind them, with her breath on their neck and her wrists on either side of their hips. But for a reason that felt even more wrong than fixating on her touch.
The fact that she had been hurt.
They couldn’t get her face out of their mind. Exhausted, eyes shining in pain and even embarrassment after slowing down on the field. Having to express something Raine could just tell she wanted to stuff down already.
Maybe not by another player, not from the Grudgby ball, not even by her own hand. But something had definitely hurt her that night.
She didn’t need to tell them for them to ‘get it’. To understand, even on a basic level.
There was only one thing to blame.