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AJ walked through the door to the theatre, the extravagant space around her clashing with her weathered and well-loved clothes. Despite her stark appearance, the hall nonetheless felt like home. Theatre was one thing she always came back to, it provided an escape into a different world, one where problems were either solvable with some silly hijinks, or dramatic enough that they at least made a great story.
“Do you think we’re safe here? Osteon looked pretty mad.” The sound of Drift’s voice shocked AJ out of her thoughts as the woman sidled up beside her. The two had just returned from an adventure in the human crypt with Osteon, one that had unearthed a strange artifact that the head of security had wanted to confiscate for his ‘research.’ AJ had immediately scoffed at the notion, taking the artifact and flying away through Flick.
She and Drift had agreed to hide out in the theatre, either of their rooms would be too suspicious, and in all honesty, AJ wanted to hang out here anyways, she enjoyed bringing Drift here, and they’d had a good conversation the other day that mended a lot of the bad feelings between them, and things felt closer to how they’d been before she’d taken a vacation in the dirt and a ghost from her past had reappeared.
“We’re fine, we just need to lay low for a little bit.” AJ said, Drift’s worry about getting caught was endearing, and it brought a smile to AJ’s face. “Trust me open book, I’m an expert at stealing stupid shit, be ready to run, just in case.”
“Do you have it?”
AJ pulled out the artifact, it was a small translucent crystal the size of a finger, it didn’t seem like anything important, but when they’d found it, Osteon had called it an incredible discovery. “Not much to look at, I’m afraid.” AJ said, tossing the crystal in her hand absentmindedly.
“Yeah, what is it supposed to be? I don’t even know why you stole it.” Drift said with a shrug, her eyes wandering around the elegant space as they stepped further in, never straying far from the doors they entered through.
“I only stole it because Optimus or whatever thinks it’s worth something.” AJ responded, continuing to toss the crystal. Drift watched the crystal as it went up and down, clearly waiting for it to do something, but the crystal laid dormant. “Some things I steal for the thrill of the chase.”
“You and your adrenaline. I don’t get it.”
“Don’t you? I saw you today, you love the rush, open book. You clearly haven’t broken the law much before coming to the academy, but I see how much you enjoy it, and the chase is always the best part.” AJ had been watching her, Drift had enjoyed running from Osteon almost as much as AJ did, which was saying something. It reminded AJ of someone she wanted to forget.
“I do love it, I hate that I love it, but I do.” Drift conceded, mock frustration filling her voice. Their back-and-forth quipping was one of the few things she looked forward to in her days at the academy.
“I think this is a sign we need to steal more, Drift.”
“Are we going to? Or are you just gonna keep stealing from me?” Drift countered, and she wasn’t wrong. AJ had stolen a lot from Drift, but she only did it to get on Drift’s nerves, or if she really liked one of Drift’s shirts.
“I’ve already stolen your heart; do I need anything more?” AJ said, placing her hand on her chest in a dramatic motion. It was obvious bait, both women knew how much they deflected away from the way they felt about each other. It wasn’t a secret, but it wasn’t something they talked about.
“You stole my ET poster again.” Drift countered, deflecting away from the loaded quip.
“That was Flick, I swear!” AJ said defensively, whatever dramatic effort she had planned thrown out the window at the petty accusation. Flick chirped in disagreement, landing on one of the seats next to them.
“Right.” Drift said, crossing her arms, not believing AJ in the slightest.
“Flick!” AJ couldn’t believe her familiar was throwing her under the bus. “You’re supposed to be on my side!”
Drift didn’t let up her teasing at all. “I think Flick is her own bird actually.”
AJ pulled out her knockback stick from her pocket, brandishing it at Drift. “Don’t make me send Flick after you.” She was losing, but bringing out the knockback stick was usually enough to make Drift ease off her.
“No! Please don’t!” Drift pleaded, and AJ put away the stick, chuckling at Drift’s immediate switch up. “You’re lucky I like you.”
“If you like me so much, maybe we should get caught, they’ll put us in the same cell.”
“Oh, you’d like that wouldn’t you.”
“Don’t tell me you wouldn’t” AJ said, Drift looked away, not humoring AJ with an answer. Her silence spoke for her however, and it only made AJ bolder. “Am I corrupting you, open book?”
As AJ walked closer to the stage of the theatre, a warmth blossomed in her pocket, the one that held the crystal. In the blink of an eye, AJ’s surroundings had changed. She was in a theatre, but the purple and gold livery of the academy was gone, replaced with something all too familiar. The constant pain she’d felt since her magic had awakened was suddenly gone, her bones feeling settled in place for the first time in months. It scared her almost as much as the implications of everything around her, the implications of being back here. The cherry on top was the woman that stood beside her. Drift was gone, replaced by a face AJ had said she never wanted to see again.
“I’d like to think I’m making you better.” Ghostie said, continuing the conversation as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Whatever this was seemingly only affected AJ. She looked exactly like she had when she was still with her family, before AJ had left. She was all prissy and put together, and it threatened to bring everything AJ had tried so hard to push down bubbling back up. It was impossible, but it was like AJ was living a memory, and through some weird magic it all felt too real.
“Ooh, good luck with that one.” AJ replied, finding herself talking without meaning to. The words tumbled out of her like a script she knew by heart and yet couldn’t recite. The memory was a tape playing itself out, and AJ was trapped in her own body, seeing everything, saying everything, feeling everything. It was torturous.
“It’s been tough, but I’m starting to get to you.” Ghostie responded teasingly, a flirty undertone AJ hadn’t heard in so long laced into the words. Despite what her brain wanted to think, she couldn’t fight a strange sense of fondness at the woman standing in front of her.
“You’d be a lot more convincing if you weren’t breaking the rules when you said it.” AJ said, earning a playful shove in response.
The pair walked further into the theatre and, despite all of AJ’s reservations about the memory itself and the company it brought, her surroundings brought a real smile to her face. The moment she’d walked into this theatre for the first time, she’d vowed to see a performance in this theatre. It hurt to think she’d never have the chance to see one.
“I can’t believe you’re so into Shakespeare that you asked me to sneak you in here.” Ghostie said, equally as impressed by her surroundings as AJ.
“You’re the one who introduced me, blame yourself for it.” AJ stated. It was true, Shakespeare’s plays were one of a small number of collections that Ghostie’s parents considered ‘worthy’ of nobles of their standing, and the only one Ghostie actually liked. Ghostie had been letting AJ borrow her copies since she’d nosily insisted on reading some one time.
“I’m not blaming anyone; I think it’s really cute.” Ghostie said. It was getting harder to separate the AJ’s feelings about Ghostie between AJ of the past and AJ of the present, and it left AJ in a stupor trying to follow the tangle of emotions that knotted within her.
“Is that why you’re letting me in here? Just because I’m cute?” AJ said, cocking her head to the side coyly. It was a weird feeling, she had some control over the more minute aspects of her body, but the wider strokes were set.
“Yeah, you got it. I’m putting my whole reputation at risk just for a cute girl.” Ghostie teased.
“Glad to know I’m just that special.”
Ghostie rolled her eyes, smiling through her feigned annoyance. “You’re trouble, you know that AJ?”
AJ slid her arm around Ghostie’s waist. “You love me though.”
Those words. They were easy back then, flowing out of her like water. Love back then wasn’t a weakness, wasn’t something that had to be stuffed down and ignored. Hearing it said so freely nurtured the bittersweet longing that had been growing within AJ, she hadn’t let herself admit how much she missed Ghostie, missed what they had. AJ tried to ignore the feeling. She had to stay strong, stay angry. It was the only way to move on.
“Unfortunately.” Ghostie said, fondness seeping into her sarcastic tone. AJ unthreaded her arm from around Ghostie and made to hop up on the stage, and she recognized exactly what memory the artifact had chosen.
“What are you doing?” You’re going to get us caught!” Ghostie’s voice was panicked, the way she’d always get when AJ broke some bullshit rule.
“Don’t worry Ghostie, it’ll be fine, you said no one’s around.” AJ said, trying to reassure her. Ghostie tried to contest, but AJ knew how easy it was to get Ghostie to fold. “Did you really think you’d bring me to a fancy ass theatre like this and I wouldn’t want to be on stage? Perform a little?” AJ continued. From the dramatic sigh she got in response, AJ’s game was having exactly the desired effect. “Come on, just a little fun.”
“You do whatever you want AJ.” Ghostie said noncommittally. AJ scoffed. She knew what was next, there was one thing that always made Ghostie drop everything to join her. She began to recite a section of one of their shared favourite plays.
“If I profane with my unworthiest hand; This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:” AJ spoke, beginning Romeo’s line from the play. Romeo and Juliet might be popular, but AJ didn’t care, she loved it. Following the script, AJ took Ghostie’s hand in hers, who reluctantly allowed herself to be pulled onstage. “My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand; to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.” AJ knew this script by heart, and even though the memory said the words for her, she still felt herself following along in her head.
Despite her initial hesitance, Ghostie began to recite Juliet’s lines in turn. “Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, which mannerly devotion shows in this.” Ghostie placed her palm on AJ’s, their hands clicking together like puzzle pieces, it felt amazing, and that hurt more than any of the decay from AJ’s magic. Ghostie’s eyes met hers as she continued, lighting sparks within AJ she’d thought had fizzled out. “For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.”
“Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?” AJ was getting into it now, and the urge to let those sparks relight the fire they’d lost started to become irresistible.
“Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.”
“O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do; They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.” AJ said as Ghostie’s eyes flicked down to AJ’s lips briefly, and AJ couldn’t say her gaze wasn’t doing the same, though neither of them wanted to break eye contact for longer than a moment.
“Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.”
“Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.” AJ closed the distance, meeting their lips in a dramatic dance that stopped any fight that AJ had left in her. The kiss was short but passionate, filled with everything AJ had lost when she’d walked away. It felt cathartic and wrong at the same time, Ghostie’s lips tasting of everything she’d missed and everything she hadn’t. As they broke apart, their faces an inch from each other, AJ found it hard to focus on her script, overwhelmed by everything that kiss had stirred. “Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged.”
“Then have my lips the sin that they have took.” Ghostie responded, still perfectly in step with the play’s script.
“Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again.” AJ said, and Ghostie obliged, crashing their lips together in a second kiss that was just as passionate but much less tumultuous for AJ, and any wall that hadn’t been pulverized by the last kiss was scattered to atoms, leaving AJ feeling terrifyingly vulnerable.
“You kiss by th' book.” Ghostie finished after they parted, ending their rehearsed back and forth. AJ turned and bowed to a non-existent audience.
“Was that just an excuse to kiss me?” Ghostie asked, exiting the flowery Shakespearian speech.
“It worked, didn’t it?” AJ replied slyly, returning her focus to Ghostie and looping her arm around the girl’s waist. AJ led her to the edge of the stage and guided her to sit, their legs hanging off the edge.
“You don’t have to trick me into kissing you, AJ, you can just ask.” Ghostie said matter-of-factly, letting her head rest on AJ’s shoulder.
“But where’s the fun in that?”
“You’re so annoying.” Ghostie said pointedly, a phrase that always meant AJ was winning.
AJ leaned her head against Ghostie’s, staring out into the countless empty seats that watched them. “I try my best.”
They sat on the stage in a comfortable silence. The longer this memory went on, AJ became more aware of the hole left in her heart when she’d pushed love like this out of her life.
“I wish it didn’t have to be like this.” Ghostie said, breaking the silence. AJ knew this conversation well; they’d had it a hundred times over the course of their relationship. “I want to be able to love you without being terrified of the consequences.”
“I don’t think it has to be this way, at least not forever. You’ll find a way.”
“What would that be though? I can’t think of a world where my parents would ever approve of me loving a woman, especially someone with no family name.”
“Which one do you think they’d have a bigger problem with?” AJ raised, she would always try to take the conversation in a new direction every time, she knew that talking in circles about their situation never helped.
“Huh? Why are you asking?” Ghostie questioned, clearly confused by the direction AJ had led the conversation.
“I’m allowed to be curious.”
Ghostie let out a sigh before giving her answer. “I’m not sure, I think it’s just the fact that it’s someone who they didn’t pick.”
AJ raised her head from where it was. “I swear Ghostie, if you break up with me because your parents make you an arrangement with a man…”
Ghostie’s reaction was immediate, she looked at AJ, shock telegraphed on her face. “That’s… ew. That’s why I’m at the academy, why I’m trying so hard to be a knight. If I graduate, then my parents won’t try to arrange me with anyone.”
AJ played with Ghostie’s hand as it sat on the edge of the stage, lacing their fingers in and out. “That won’t change anything for us though, not really, you’ll still have to hide me, hide us.” She stared at their hands as she spoke, trying her best to avoid looking into Ghostie’s eyes. It hurt, hearing herself talk about something she knew in the present was broken and gone.
“I know, but it’s the best option I can see. You haven’t met my father, I couldn’t run away even if I wanted to, not for long.”
“I know, I know.” As always, their conversation had done nothing to solve the issue they both complained about. Ghostie always seemed to act like it was a problem to which there was no solution, and it reminded AJ of why she had ended up leaving. Past her wasn’t to that point however, and was still trying to save a sinking ship. “Hey, at least we’re here, and at least we’re together, right?”
“Right.” Ghostie affirmed. The pair let the silence return, but it was less comfortable than before. They sat at the edge of the stage, trying not to let the inevitability of their situation dampen their happiness, their love.
The tranquility of the theatre was interrupted by the sound of voices on the other side of the hall, the door they’d first entered through slamming open. The pair shot to their feet, used to moving fast to avoid being caught. AJ grabbed Ghostie’s hand, pulling her towards the backstage exit to avoid the guards that threatened to unveil their careful secret.
As AJ ran through the extravagant hallways, she found herself laughing. The adrenaline of almost getting caught in their secret was exhilarating. Ghostie would always argue that she never understood why AJ loved it, but staring at Ghostie in that moment, as they were running, the girl was having fun. Despite how much she hated breaking the rules, she always enjoyed it whenever AJ pushed her to let go. AJ was so caught up in watching Ghostie, she didn’t notice the servant pushing a cart across the hallway right in front of her.
AJ slammed into the cart, sending platters flying and AJ to the soft carpet of the hallway. As she stood herself back up, she was hurting a little, the cart wasn’t exactly soft, but it wasn’t anything she didn’t feel in her daily life. She’d picked herself off the floor and was about ready to keep running when Ghostie finally caught up, a terrified look on her face.
“Aimee, are you okay? Are you hurt at all? That was a big fall.” AJ opened her mouth to respond but stopped as Ghostie’s voice changed.
“AJ? Talk to me AJ, are you okay?” Drift’s voice pleaded through Ghostie’s mouth, and before she could process whatever the fuck that was, the warmth in her pocket cooled, and she found herself standing back in the academy’s theatre with Drift standing in front of her, her hands on AJ’s shoulders. Around her, the livery had returned to the colours of the academy, and the constant ache she’d been freed from over the last few minutes came crashing back like a waterfall. Drift moved her hand to cup AJ’s face, and despite AJ’s attempt to hide her pain, its sudden onset sent a grimace to her face that Drift didn’t fail to notice. Drift looked as worried as she’d been when she’d found AJ by the pub with bloody hands after her extended dirt nap.
“I’m fine, Ghostie, let’s go.” AJ said without thinking, her mind still muddled from the all-too-real memories that were left floating around in her head. The moment she spoke, she froze, realizing the gravity of what she had just said, how badly she had just fucked up.
The moment AJ spoke, Drift’s hand recoiled as fast as lightning, leaving a gaping void where it had been on AJ’s face. AJ didn’t meet Drift’s eyes, she didn’t need to see Drift’s eyes to see the disappointment, the hurt, the anger that Drift was feeling, and it was to a level AJ had never drawn out of her.
“Ghostie? Really AJ?” Drift said shakily, taking a step back. Drift had been so worried about AJ just seconds before, but AJ had just ruined it all with one name, one mix-up.
“No! Shit. I-“
“What’s going on with you? You were… Out of it. I was so worried about you, and then you come back and immediately call me Ghostie?” Drift was clearly spiraling, they’d made up a little the day before, but AJ clearly hadn’t abated any of Drift’s fears about Ghostie.
“Let me talk, please.” AJ said softly, trying with everything she had to prove Drift’s fears wrong. Drift didn’t say a word in response. She was giving AJ a chance to explain herself, but her stiff body language and growing distance from AJ spoke volumes to just how precariously AJ was standing on the cliff that had formed within their relationship.
“I don’t entirely know what happened, but something to do with the artifact we found, when we stepped into this theatre, it… triggered something. A memory, and I was trapped in that memory reliving it.”
“What was the memory?” Drift questioned, her words as short as her patience.
“It was a memory of Ghostie and I… back home.” AJ said, trying to find a way to explain it without making it sound as horrible as it felt. “From before we… before we broke up. It was a lot, it triggered a lot.”
The memory had screwed with AJ, and she started rambling, attempting to clarify what she meant, but not getting the words right. “You know I’ve called you Flick before, and I’ve called Flick your name multiple times. The memory was so real, I still don’t understand how or why. I was just coming out of it and I was still… delirious from that. It all felt so real Drift I… I don’t know.”
She’d fucked it up, Drift’s face said it all. If she was on the edge of the cliff before, she’d just leapt from it. “Did you feel the love you felt for Ghostie? Do you still feel it? Because I’m not convinced you’re as over her as you say you are.” Drift’s response was as pointed and dangerous as the fancy knife she loved to show off.
“I promise you that anything I felt for Ghostie is long gone. I’ve told you I’m yours, and that hasn’t changed.”
“Then maybe you’re lying to yourself, AJ. You already lie to everyone else in your life.” Drift stated. Her words stung, and she knew it. It hurt her to say too, but she was too angry, too bitter to care.
“Drift-“ AJ began, trying to reach out to Drift, to do something to fix what she’d done, but it was too late. Drift had already turned around and was walking out of the theatre.
“See you later AJ.” Drift said shakily, tears pooling at the corners of her eyes, and there was a finality to her words that terrified AJ more than any omen of death.
AJ was left standing alone in the theatre; the grandness of the space suddenly making her feel small. The theatre was a place she’d called a haven just minutes ago, but after this it just felt cursed.