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“AJ, I… what happened? Are you okay?” Ghostie asked, a horrified look on her face as her eyes scanned over AJ’s ragged, haunted form.
She was still standing too far away.
AJ shook her head dismissively.
“Doesn’t matter,” she replied, proud of the way her words were hardly slurred.
She stepped closer into Ghostie’s space, hands poised to pull her into a searing kiss, but Ghostie grabbed her wrists, halting her movements to hold her in place.
“AJ…” she whispered, sounding so sad and scared, and AJ felt tears well up in her eyes again.
“I’m fine,” AJ argued, forcing a bubble of laughter from her throat. “Come on, Ghostie,” she goaded, trying not to sound too desperate, “I’ve missed you, y’know. And I know you’ve missed me, too. How about we show each other how much?”
Instead of taking the bait, Ghostie somehow managed to look even sadder. “AJ, no. Not like this.”
AJ huffed. “Fine,” she bristled, voice cracking at the edges as her cheeks burned with shame, “never mind, then! I’ll go. I thought you still wanted me, but… I guess I was wrong.”
AJ turned to leave, attempting to shake herself from Ghostie’s grip, but her hold remained firm.
“You know that isn’t true,” Ghostie replied, evenly, chasing AJ’s eyes with her own until AJ met her gaze, “but you’re clearly not okay. I didn’t get a good enough look at you earlier… AJ, you still have dried blood all over you. You never cleaned up yesterday, did you? Did you even sleep?”
Ghostie took AJ’s silence as the confirmation that it was.
She sighed, tugging lightly on AJ’s wrist. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”
AJ allowed herself to be led to Ghostie’s bed, allowed the firm but gentle touch of familiar hands to tend to her wounds. She wanted to protest, if only just to say she had, but the truth was that AJ was tired.
She was more than tired: she was utterly drained, and though she still ached from yesterday’s poor excuse for a duel, this ache was deeper. It was raw.
The fear on Drift’s face — a fear AJ had never wanted to give her, never wanted to be the cause of —
AJ screwed her eyes shut.
Ghostie mistook her pain as physical, easing her movements as she cleaned AJ’s cuts. “Sorry,” she murmured.
This was what AJ had come here for, right? She’d made it into Ghostie’s bed, albeit under less exciting circumstances.
There was a comfort in a shared history, in knowing someone so well — the shape of them, the ways their edges made room for yours to fit — Ghostie was the closest thing to a safe space that AJ had left.
(Because she’d sent her safe space away).
“Where’s Flick?” Ghostie asked, applying a final bandage before stepping back to examine her work.
“Sent her away for a bit,” AJ rasped, and Ghostie just sighed, shaking her head in disappointed understanding.
Ghostie crossed the room, kneeling to rummage through her clothes. “Here,” she offered, holding up a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, “let’s get you out of those dirty clothes, okay? You’re lucky I let you sit on my bed for so long. You’re starting to stink.”
It was a pathetic attempt at humor, but the tiniest of smiles ghosted across AJ’s lips at the familiarity of it.
“Can I?” Ghostie asked, gesturing to AJ’s boots. AJ nodded, and Ghostie began to take them off.
She asked again, about AJ’s pants, and then again, about her shirt. AJ rolled her eyes each time as she said yes, exasperated, but a small, quiet part of her — the part of her that always seemed to feel like a kid again when Ghostie was around, that felt young and small and vulnerable and like no time had passed at all — was grateful.
Once Ghostie was done, she changed into comfier clothes of her own before settling down on the bed next to AJ, handing her a glass of water she’d seemingly procured out of nowhere, staring pointedly at AJ until half the glass was empty.
“Good,” Ghostie murmured, setting the glass on the nightstand before settling back down against the pillows, gently coaxing AJ’s head into her lap.
This, too, was familiar.
“Want to tell me what happened?” Ghostie asked, lightly playing with AJ’s hair.
AJ shook her head. “Can’t,” she rasped.
Ghostie hummed. “Okay,” she replied, still far too gentle, far too patient than AJ deserved.
Why do I deserve this? AJ wondered, guilt coating her throat like dirt. If she knew what I just did…
Brown eyes, wide and wet and wild, like a deer in the face of a predator.
AJ swallowed it down, allowing Ghostie’s fingers to card through her hair. She listened to her hum softly, some tune that felt vaguely familiar but not enough to name, until AJ felt herself slipping, lids too heavy to force open.
She was selfish by nature.
It wasn’t about deserving — it was about taking. And if there was anything AJ was good at, other than destroying any good thing that made the fatal mistake of crossing her path, it was taking things she didn’t deserve.