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AJ didn’t like it when pretty girls cried. She really, really didn't like it at all. It was right up there with self-sacrificial bullshit and confronting her own emotions. It was a little fucked up, a little funny, that pretty girls usually cried in front of AJ while she was avoiding said emotions; in fact, it was usually the cause of the metaphorical pretty girls crying. And when those figurative, perhaps symbolic, pretty girls cried, AJ always took her time to review those few options one could take after committing such a sin against reality.
And right now AJ was watching Magpie stand by the door of AJ’s dorm with tears welling up in their eyes. Magpie, who told AJ she loved her; Magpie, who wasn’t even fucking supposed to know what that was; Magpie, who wanted to rend AJ’s safely guarded secrets out of her heart after offering AJ so much of herself already. Ok, so AJ also hated owing people, another thing to add to her evergrowing god damned list.
A crying pretty girl was fleeing AJ’s presence after AJ avoided her own feelings, the classic situation. And a classic called for reviewing the options. The most common was to let it happen, let Magpie leave because guilt couldn’t pin AJ down if she pretended it didn’t exist. Another was to make it worse, and she was fairly sure that wouldn’t work because the worse AJ was, the more inclined Magpie seemed to be to love her. There was always old reliable, deflecting until the entire topic of conversation shifted and tensions were seemingly forgotten.
That didn’t work with Magpie either. Not much of what AJ was used to worked on the other mage. That’s what made it all so hard. Two minutes ago, Magpie had called her a wounded animal in a cage, with all the biting and lashing out you'd expect from a feral creature. Magpie was feral too and always just ended up biting AJ back. What is someone even supposed to do when they’re fought to a standstill?
Let her go. She should let Magpie go. She should, she should. Like she let Drift go. Like her memory was going. It was better, it was better, it was all better. Everything was better.
“Ok.” Came a voice sweeter than what AJ usually let herself give; was it a facade, or because Magpie had just told her she’d make up for the love AJ refused and denied was there, building a bridge and dragging AJ, kicking and flailing, over it? “
“Let’s talk about this later, ok?” AJ said and watched as somber acquiescence took over the other mage’s face. They said goodbye, as empty as the one who had pushed for it.
The door closed, and AJ stood there with Flick.
Easy, it was all so fucking easy. She’d known it would be and had grasped that knowledge like a lifeline to escape a situation she hadn’t wanted. AJ had chosen an option, at last.
So why.
Why, why, why, why, why, why, why.
Why were her feet moving?
Her hand wrenched the handle of the door to the side, and desperate steps had AJ stumbling down the hall like she was drunk. God, she wished she was. She was horrifyingly sober.
AJ had felt like she’d been stuck in that moment forever in her dorm, before she realized she was even moving. But apparently it’d been less time than she thought, as Magpie was at the bottom of the stairs, her eyes directed up at AJ. “Mag-Megii,” the correction came at the last sentence, thicker in her mouth than the blood she always coughed up whenever Magpie beat the shit out of her. It was too hard to say the real name right now.
“Megii.” She said again. It was the only thing to say; AJ didn’t have a damn clue as to why. “Megi-” it almost escaped her again, and the name died on her lips at the intimately familiar sight of Magpie’s anger.
They were so incredibly, unfairly beautiful when they were angry. It was that sharp sort of thing that made AJ want to lean into it, to laugh in Magpie’s face, all so she could see how much harder that glare could get. Ah, that sort of thing would probably get her murdered if attempted right now.
“You’re looking at me like you're the one who's hurt,” Magpie said with just enough vitriol to sound lethal. “It’s fucking annoying, the mask one second and now this?”
Their face screwed up. “You can just tell me, AJ, do you know that? Have I not made myself clear?” Magpie looked around at their surroundings, on the stairs not that far from AJ’s dorm, as if to emphasize a point. Magpie had tried a few moments ago, one of many attempts. Some failed, and others didn’t. Clearly, the other mage had deemed this moment a failure, a rejection even, before AJ’s dumbass had come stumbling after her.
AJ leaned over the banister until she almost fell and craned her head. Her fingers ached when she gripped the dark wood railing; it splintered a little. “You’ve made yourself pretty clear.” The words fell between them, half-formed and useless.
“I fucking told you. Every time, I fucking tell you.” Magpie muttered. And started going up the stairs. Up the stairs?
Ah hell.
AJ straightened up and didn’t try to run from the inevitable. God, she was actually relieved this was happening because it was so much easier to communicate with Magpie this way. The fist that was thrown into AJ’s jaw was delivered with the same momentum it always did when it became obvious that the only way to make AJ realize something was to beat it into her.
A hollow crack followed her as her back collided with the wall behind her. For someone not too accustomed to touch, Magpie was startlingly close. AJ spat out a glob of blood onto the pretty blue running of the Lupi dorm floor, vision swimming in and out as she was harshly pinned against the wall by Magpie.
AJ gave her a silly, bloody smile. “You really do punch harder when you're pissed off. It’s cute.” She giggled. She wheezed and giggled even more when the arm across her collarbone shoved her even harder into the wall.
Magpie shifted her arm up onto AJ’s throat until air was barely reaching AJ’s lungs. Magpie leaned forward until their forehead almost collided with AJ’s. AJ admired the oddity of Magpie’s different colored lashes in a way she'd never admit to herself or others. “I’ll break your jaw if that’s what makes you look at me, AJ. Stop…stop running. Just stop.”
AJ put her hands up. Her hands were trembling. “You got me, Smart one. I'm standing still; are you happy? Happy I followed you out here, like a stray dog.” Where there might usually be a mocking cadence on any other night, there was a strained sincerity that made AJ wish her magic would speed up her pain and decay her right there and then. Turn her into a pile of bones in Magpie’s arms.
Maybe if Magpie put her back together, she’d feel whole for once.
“Why won’t-just let me in the fucking cage with you, AJ.” Magpie pleaded, “I’m right here.”
Please, please. AJ’s mind screamed what she could not say.
Please, please come in here with me. Maybe the dark wouldn’t be so cold if I wasn’t alone. Maybe the blood wouldn’t bite if you were there.
“You’re an idiot,” AJ whispered. She let her body and her shaking knees go slack against the mage, as small and ruined as her words. “A goddamn idiot.”
Magpie nodded. “I know, so are you.” The arm let up, and AJ partially wished it was still against her throat, because without it the world widened back out from the narrow tunnel that had only contained her and Magpie. “I’m still here though.” Their hands anchored themselves against AJ’s arms and kept her defeated body aloft against the wall.
AJ didn’t answer, didn’t bite, didn’t do a fucking thing.
“I’m taking you back to your dorm,” Magpie murmured gently, like she wasn’t the cause of the bloody mess AJ’s face was.
Magpie pulled her off the wall, and AJ let herself get hauled back down the hall. Step after step, toward a door that was not as tightly locked as it had been before.