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“What are you up to, AJ?” Magpie asked, having caught AJ on her way out of the Academy.
It was an innocent enough question, of course, if it were directed at anyone else… but Magpie had asked AJ, who was rarely “up to” anything that could be classified as strictly innocent.
“Well,” AJ drawled, smirking, “I was on my way to” — she made some elaborate hand gestures roughly indicating smoke a joint, but eventually took pity on them as Magpie’s two-toned eyes stared blankly back — “to smoke. A joint.”
“Oh!” Magpie replied, nodding sagely. “Okay, cool.”
AJ’s mouth twitched. “You wanna come with?”
Magpie hesitated for barely a moment before shrugging. “Sure, why not?”
AJ grinned. “Seriously?” she questioned, but she was already holding the door open, knowing that Magpie would follow.
“Hey,” Magpie huffed, quickening her pace to catch up, “I’ll have you know, I got drunk the other day. I’m not as straight edge as you might think, AJ!”
“Oh, I know you’re not straight, Magpie,” AJ quipped, before stopping short. “Wait,” she asked, turning to face them, “you got drunk? Without me?!”
Magpie just shrugged, looking positively smug.
AJ shook her head, playing up her sadness with a long-suffering sigh. “That is so unbelievably fucked up, Magpie. I hope you know that.”
“Well,” Magpie offered, “my first time smoking will be with you.”
“That’s true…” AJ acquiesced, drawing the word out as if considering it carefully.
Magpie fell into step beside each other, AJ leading the way.
“Where are we going, anyway?” Magpie asked, tilting their head.
“The lavender fields,” AJ answered, easily, without thinking.
“Oh,” was all Magpie said in response, sounding uncertain for the first time since they’d agreed to come.
“That’s where I get The Good Stuff,” AJ explained with a grin, before faltering as she glanced over at her companion. Magpie was chewing uncertainly at her bottom lip, clearly picturing what the fields had come to represent: a safe space that AJ had ruined.
AJ admitted, quietly, “It, um, helps me. With pain. From my magic. We don’t have to stay there, but, um, that’s where I get the lavender to smoke.”
Magpie’s expression softened. “I didn’t know that your magic hurt you, AJ. I’m sorry.”
AJ shrugged it off. “It’s alright,” she replied, grinning wickedly, “just gives me more of an excuse to get lit.”
Magpie laughed, shaking her head in fond exasperation. “Maybe it’ll be a good thing to make some more positive memories there, anyway,” they mused, following AJ into the portal. “Not let the entire place be ruined by one bad moment, right?”
AJ shoved their shoulder playfully with her own. “See, this is why I call you Smart One!”
Magpie watched intently as AJ deftly packed the now-ground up lavender into the rolling paper, catching their eye — the blue one — with a wink as she licked the edge before sealing it up.
Magpie huffed out a laugh and rolled their eyes, but AJ took the pretty pinkening of their cheeks as a win.
“Alright, Smart One,” AJ said, putting the filter to her lips as she flicked on her lighter, inhaling as the flame caught, before turning away to exhale, “you ready?”
Magpie nodded.
“So, you may cough a lot the first time,” AJ explained with a surprising lack of condescension, “it’s completely normal.”
Magpie nodded again, accepting the joint as AJ placed it between their fingers. “So I just… put it to my mouth, and inhale?”
AJ nodded. “You put it to your lips, take in a breath, and then exhale. You don’t have to hold it in for too long.”
Magpie did as instructed, the smoky lavender coating her throat, and then coughed, suddenly feeling parched.
AJ laughed, goodnaturedly, and silently handed them a flask she’d unclipped from her belt.
Magpie downed the drink gratefully, wincing at the harsh taste of alcohol.
AJ held her hands up in mock-surrender. “What did you expect it to be? Water?”
Magpie shot her a glare, but it lacked any real heat.
“Hey, you’re the one that’s a big drinker all of a sudden,” AJ added, smirking as she took back the joint.
“You’re so annoying,” Magpie groaned, fighting back a smile.
They stayed like that for nearly an hour, sat in the field passing the joint back and forth as they watched the sun begin to dip below the horizon.
At first, they made small talk, carefully tiptoeing around the Drift-shaped elephant between them, but eventually the world had become soft and warm and pleasantly lavender-scented, and they’d taken to simply watching as shades of pink and gold spread across the sky.
“I’m glad that she has you,” AJ said on an exhale, eyes fixed carefully on the sky.
She did her best not to chance a look at them, but in the corner of her eye, she watched as Magpie laughed, their two-colored eyes crinkling at the edges with the sudden force of it.
AJ turned to her, aghast.
“What’s so funny about that?!” she demanded, slightly affronted but unable to keep from laughing, too.
Magpie shook their head, plucking the joint from AJ’s hand. “She said the same thing, y’know,” they replied, taking a puff.
AJ stilled, for a moment, then laughed again, trying to play it off. “What, that she’s glad she has you? Bit narcissistic of you to point that out, Magpie.”
Magpie snorted, completely undignified but somehow equally adorable, and shook their head again. “Well, that too,” she said with a small giggle, “but she was talking about you.”
She took another hit, then offered the joint back to AJ, who took it with a grateful hum.
“That she’s glad you have me,” Magpie continued, propping herself up on their elbows as she gazed up at the sky, “and- and that I have you. She said we’re good for each other. She didn’t want your guy’s shit ruining that.”
AJ took another hit of lavender, grateful for the excuse not to speak.
“Is it?” AJ asked before she could think it through, mentally cursing herself at how weak she sounded.
Magpie looked at her, then, their face filled with emotions AJ wasn’t sober enough to put in proper order. Kindness? Sadness? Something nearing pity, but not as harsh?
“Not yet,” they said, finally, reaching to grab the joint again, “but, well. That’s up to you, isn’t it?”
AJ blinked as Magpie turned back to the sky, her words punctuated by a plume of lavender smoke.
The words played in AJ’s mind.
“She said we’re good for each other.”
“I want to be good for you.”
AJ took a swig from her flask. “If every sunrise is a privilege, and a chance to try again, what are sunsets?”
Magpie’s eyes widened in surprise at her own words from days before being echoed back at her.
(Every sunrise is a privilege. It isn’t about getting it ‘right’ the first time, it’s about getting another chance to try again.
As long as there’s another morning to wake up to, there’s still time to start anew.
So try. Keep trying. And then try again).
“You read it?” they asked, and AJ nodded.
“I burned it after,” AJ admitted with a shrug.
“But you still read it. And memorized it.”
AJ took another swill of her drink in lieu of a response.
“Sunsets are a privilege, too,” Magpie said, after a moment, fighting against the lavender-addled haze of their mind, “but… they’re also a time to reflect. Reflecting is always easier to do at night. There’s less… distraction. Less noise.
“Sunsets are an opportunity to sit with yourself, for a moment, and think about what you want to change. What you’ll do if you’re granted the gift of a sunrise come morning.” She took another puff from the joint — which was nearly dead and certainly not going to be gifted another sunrise — before passing it back to AJ.
AJ swallowed down the question in her mind as she inhaled — do you think I’m good for you? Do you think I’m good? — and pressed the burnt end of the joint into the grass to snuff it out.
“I never knew you were this philosophical, Magpie,” AJ said, after a while.
Magpie grinned. “I never knew you could shut up for this long.”
Stars began to trickle in as the sky slowly darkened, and they both sat there, watching, and they laughed and laughed and laughed.