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AJ pounded on the door.
Distantly, she remembered that there may have been a doorbell, but the damage had already been done as Magpie opened, their two-toned eyes wide in panic and seeming, somehow, equally as out of breath as she was.
“AJ?” they asked, eyes flitting across AJ’s face before scanning her whole body, as if looking for signs she’d been hurt.
“Are you alright?” Magpie ushered AJ in as they said it, quickly closing the door behind them.
AJ did her best to contort her mouth into a smile, but it must have looked as pained as it felt, because Magpie’s expression hardened in understanding.
Magpie nodded, once, with a sobered sort of determination. “Alright,” she said, “what do you need? Did you want to hit me, or…”
Wordlessly, AJ shook her head, folding her hands behind her back.
Magpie’s expression fractured, for a moment, as they stared at AJ’s blank, glassy eyes, pleading without words for oblivion — their lips stuttered with emotion before settling into a thin, carefully expressionless line.
“Okay,” they whispered, taking a deep, steadying breath, “okay.”
AJ deflated, a little, with such palpable relief that the sight alone nearly caused Magpie to gather her into their arms instead, but they let their eyes unfocus and their mind creep towards a blissful blankness, and she raised a closed fist instead of an open hand.
“Tell me if you want me to stop,” Magpie said, somehow sounding both desperate and like an after-thought, “okay? Promise that you will.”
AJ nodded, blinking through the haze that had seemingly overcome her, and that was all that Magpie needed before she let the part of her that would always be a little too wild, a little too sharp gravity take hold — potential energy simply made kinetic.
The first punch landed near her jaw with a sickening crunch.
Magpie shoved down the part of them that became instantly nauseous with regret, forcing herself to think of AJ as a thing rather than their friend: a physical representation of everyone who had hurt them, had thought of her as an abomination, an animal to be locked away in a cage —
At some point, AJ must have fallen to the floor.
They both must have: AJ first, with the force of the blow, and Magpie with her — like magnets; like an inevitability.
Magpie heaved, thoroughly exhausted, and found themself straddling her lap. They, too, collapsed, falling beside AJ, the floor of their room cold enough to ground her back in reality, just a little bit.
Someone was crying.
With trembling hands, Magpie touched her cheeks, surprised to find that their fingers came back wet. They hissed as the salt of their tears seeped into the open wounds on their knuckles.
AJ was crying, too, Magpie realized, as they felt the slight pressure of a hand on their shoulder and turned their head to locate the source.
AJ looked… God.
“I—” Magpie’s voice broke partway, overwhelmed by the flood of emotion and bile that rose in her throat.
They watched in silent horror as AJ’s lips cracked open into a toothy smile that was likely meant to be comforting, her mouth full of blood.
“Thank you,” AJ croaked, swollen eyes falling shut, looking for all the world like she was at peace instead of a half-dead bloodied mess crumpled on Magpie’s floor.
In a few minutes, Magpie would muster up all of their strength to push herself up and find Ros, or someone else who would come and heal them without asking too many questions, but she didn’t just yet.
For just a moment, they leaned into AJ’s touch and allowed themself to feel every part of them that ached.
For just a moment, they did nothing at all.