The atmosphere of Ajax’s room was a little dour, even for Mirah’s tastes. Ajax had moved a chair to sit just by the doorway dividing his bedroom from the lounge room, his slumped form relaxing in the plush chair. In his hand he held a beer, resting it on his thigh gently between sips of the alcoholic beverage.

Mirah was careful around alcohol, having learnt from her first true experience with the liquid with Ajax a month ago. Now, she kept herself restrained to strictly non-alcoholic beverages, not only because of the slight embarrassment of how much more open she’d been after a few drinks, but also because of the lack of control.

“Why’d you say that to Aaliyah, Mirah?” Ajax asked, making Mirah almost bristle. The wording wasn’t perfect, but if it was coming from Ajax then it wasn’t meant to be a jab. Mirah shifted restlessly on Ajax’s comfortable couch, a place she’d found herself more and more often in the past month.

“She is one.” She responded softly, unsure in her subtle ways. Ajax sighed. He’d always been slightly frustrated by Mirah’s strangely closed off answers, and today was not an exception to the rule.

“I know that, but she was…” Ajax grimaced, then taking a sip from the bottle, “I don’t know. She was getting closer to us, slowly.”

“I don’t trust her.” Mirah said and Ajax rolled his eyes.

“As you’ve said. Multiple times.” The light sarcasm was something that Mirah had to learn to both recognise and not take offense to, after she had actually brought up that she didn’t understand what that tone meant one day.

“She needs to know that I know.” Mirah added succinctly and Ajax sighed, about to add his own piece to the conversation when a groan sounded from the bedroom making him tense up, ready to rush into the room and help Walter with whatever he needed.

Luckily, Ajax was able to react quickly when the retching noises from the room began. Ajax went racing into the room, collecting a bucket nearby as he disappeared into the room. With a sound of something that Mirah was far too well acquainted with, the massive man mumbled some words to the likely semi-conscious Walter within the room, returning out into the living room and walking by Mirah towards the bathroom with a grimace on his face.

A few seconds later, after Ajax had cleaned out the bucket and thoroughly washed his hands of the unfortunate splatter, he returned to his spot next to the doorway, grabbing his beer from the table and taking a long swig as a reward.

“Yeah look.” Ajax said after a long moment of contemplation, “I’m not going to pretend I understand the whole thing between you two. I just think we need to actually build a team here, and so far I’ve only got you onboard. I said some dumb shit to Walter, but I think I can get him onboard too, it’s just Aaliyah I worry about.” With another swig of the beer, he let himself relax and fall into silence. Mirah gave the man a once over, looking at his terribly bruised and battered skin. He hadn’t sustained any severe singular injuries from Baxter, but the sheer volume of injuries that covered Ajax made Mirah cringe just looking at them.

“Aaliyah is hard to be around.” Mirah interjected, though even she wasn’t entirely sure if it was a justification or an excuse for her own combative behaviour around the other woman on the team.

“Yeah.” Ajax said softly, peeking into his bedroom to check on Walter, “But we’ve still got a lot of this training stuff to go, and we’ve barely talked as a group. No one is comparing notes on training or even talking about the world in general with each other. We’re all doing this in the dark.”

“We’re talking about training.” Mirah disagreed lightly, but Ajax’s thick eyebrow raised judgingly.

“And we’re both having a hard time in training and are barely making any progress at all.” He threw his hands wide, which Ajax instantly regretted but committed to regardless, “Walter can control his fire now, and Aaliyah can do that weird light blue and red thing on her skin. I didn’t think Aaliyah had made any progress at all; she certainly didn’t tell us about it.”

He made a good point, Mirah had to admit. From a pure practicality point of view, they were being stupid and insular, and it was actively going to hurt more the longer they stayed that way. There were things they really did need to address as a group that they’ve barely scratched upon, including the whole mystery of who their backer was and how to find that out.

“Then we need to include her. Walter too.” Mirah agreed, though she provided no methodology to do so. Ajax just sighed perplexedly, though he was glad that she now agreed that it was the best course of action—albeit with no idea how to actually corral the other woman into actually wanting to be a part of their group at all.

Ajax and Mirah enjoyed their comfortable silence for a while, Ajax only having to rush in to help Walter a few times in that time. It wasn’t late in the day, only being just past midday, but even Mirah was exhausted and she’d only stood still for her entire time in the Arena. Ajax was almost dead to the world, running a hand over his tired expression ever few minutes to keep himself alert at all.

“Are you going to sleep?” Mirah said suddenly, giving the large man a jolt from whatever tired fugue he’d found himself in.

“Ah, probably in a bit. I’ll go sleep in the bed and hope I hear Walter retching before I end up covered in vomit.” There was a moment of unnatural silence before Ajax turned to Mirah and saw her perturbed expression. Ajax quirked an eyebrow at the girl, “Well, I’m not gay, and from Walter’s taste in comics and videogames, I’m pretty sure that he’s not gay either. I think it’ll be fine.”

“Gay?” Mirah said, doing yet another doubletake, the scrunched expression deepening further, “When a man is interested in other men?” Her confusion confused Ajax who could already feel the headache of the conversation settling in and chose to pre-emptively attack it with a sip of his beer.

“Yeah, that’s what gay means.” He replied tentatively, “Was that not what you were thinking about?” Mirah’s confusion lessened on her face, shaking her head in the negative.

“Why sleep together?” She asked, her voice returning to the stony neutrality she reverted to when she was uncomfortable or defensive. Ajax grimaced, trying to pick out what Mirah was uncomfortable with about it, but gave up and just answered resignedly.

“I don’t know, it’s my bed? Besides, I did sorta volunteer to take care of him for the next couple of days.” Mirah, rather than a look of understanding only looked even more uncomfortable than beforehand. However, just as Ajax was going to dig deeper, there was a knock at the door that broke the atmosphere. Both Mirah and Ajax turned to stare at the door questioningly, then back to each other.

There was another, far weaker knock on the Ajax’s door before the man steeled himself by downing the last of his drink and proceeded to hesitantly walked up to the door and looked through its installed peephole. Ajax recoiled, a look of surprise and light disbelief on his face before he opened the door quickly, looking out at whoever had appeared.

Mirah wasn’t able to see the person from this angle, only able to look at Ajax’s own reaction to get an idea of who it might be. Unconsciously, a tension built within Mirah and the slight whispers that she’d been training with for the past month started to seep into her mind, the mostly incomprehensible clamour only able to point out the next action of Ajax opening his mouth to speak one word.

“Julia?” Ajax said, the whispers in Mirah’s ear echoing the movements in his throat corresponding to the sounds just moments before they properly moved.

“U– uh, hello.” A meek and beautifully strange voice said from behind the doorway. “I just wanted to say–” She began, but Ajax the owner of the alien sounding voice off hastily.

“Wait, come on in before you go on.” the towering man moved to the side, opening a path into the room. There was a moment of hesitance, but soon after a… figure moved into the room. Mirah had expected a woman, possibly even a particularly beautiful one, but what she hadn’t expected was a literal purple blob. The blob, or Julia, noticed Mirah’s stunned stare and quickly readied herself to leave the room, but Ajax closed the door behind her, blocking off her escape from the intense green gaze.

“I, uh…” She began quickly, but took a quick breath of air and continued, “I don’t want to intrude or anything!” Ajax bustled past her bulky form in the entranceway, moving into the kitchen laid just to the left of the doorway, before the tiled entrance and kitchen converted to the carpeted lounge area where Mirah sat.

“Intrude?” Ajax said with an energised laugh, “Hardly. I’ve been wondering what happened to you! I haven’t seen you at breakfast for weeks.” While Julia sat on the tiled floor, her normal purple darkening with discomfort, but the large man seemed totally oblivious to it and opened his fridge with flair.

“What do you drink?” He said as he pulled a few bottle of assorted common brands of alcohol, though after a moment he sensed her discomfort, he considered her carefully and asked; “Wait, do you drink?” Somehow, despite missing the mark almost entirely, it put Julia at ease. Even if she did still feel the other woman’s stare burning through her strange pseudo skin.

“Just a beer, thank you.” She replied, and Ajax was all too happy to comply, pulling two beers from the fridge, one to replenish his own, and quickly gestured her into the living room and taking his seat next to the doorway of his room once again.

“Just take a seat on the couch, if you want.” Ajax said easily as he popped open the cap of his beer, the oddest thing that his axe would grant him power for. Julia didn’t take the couch, of course. Not only because of the woman that sat on it, looking at her with eyes that seemed to imply that Julia was going to try and attack her or something. Also, because a seat was just another surface when you are just a blob of sentient jelly.

“So, introductions!” Ajax said, totally breaking any possible atmosphere before it could form, “Mirah, this is Julia. She’s the one who was being picked on by the shithead and his crew. Julia, this is Mirah, one of the people in our little collection of undefined.”

“Nice to meet you, Mirah.” Julia said on reflex, the only thing that gets her through any social situation nowadays. The other girl nodded in response and, though her eyes were still wary, noticeably relaxed in her presence.

“So where have you been!” Ajax said excitedly, a stark contrast to how he’d been only minutes before, and even starker in comparison to his skin which was more dark bruise than it was his regular skin-tone.

“I, uh. My team has been helping me stay out of the cafeteria for a while. They’ve got special permission from Chef and my trainers to take the energy jelly out of the cafeteria too.” She looked at Ajax’s expression, which was a mix of relief and sadness. Maybe it was sadness because she had to hide herself away in her room, but she’d already been doing that so nothing much had really changed for her.

“I see. Well, I hope you haven’t had any run-ins with Baxter and his boot-lickers?” He said, and she did her best approximation of a nod in his direction, a surprisingly difficult gesture for a relatively formless blob.

“That’s what I’m here about…” Julia said tentatively, “I’m really sorry you got caught up in all that! I didn’t want anyone to get hurt over me–”

“This fight wasn’t about you.” The stony voice of Mirah rang out, slicing through Julia’s words brutally. Julia felt herself wilt under the shock of the derisive words from the other girl, her purple mass slowly pulling in on itself and going a darker colour.

“Mirah!” Ajax said harshly, his voice rising ever so slightly before turning back to Julia’s shrinking form, “What my tactless friend was trying to say was that once I’d gotten us involved, it became about the principle of it.” Ajax smiled apologetically at Julia, then throwing a disapproving glare at Mirah.

“Yes.” Mirah said afterwards, though there was a protracted silence after the simple word. After a few moments Mirah stood from her place on the couch and walked to the door of Ajax’s rooms, opening it quietly. As Mirah had walked by where Julia was sitting on the floor, she could see the scarred woman’s face contorting with a supreme discomfort, the scar across her cheek going from a light pink to white with tension.

“I’m going to go to bed. Good night.” The woman left before either Ajax or Julia could have said another word, closing the door behind her just as quietly, leaving the remaining two inhabitants to make awkward eye contact.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to–” Julia began, but Ajax waved a hand that stopped her apology, a powerful cringe written on his face.

“It’s really okay. Mirah’s like a stray cat. It’s impossibly difficult to get her to relax around new people, and exceptionally difficult to not make her uncomfortable even then.” The Greek giant sighed deeply, running a free hand through his long hair a few times, smoothing it into a more tamed state with his fingers while taking a long drink of the cheap beer.

“Oh…” Julia said nervously, though after a moment she chuckled to herself, “kinda like me then?” A grin quickly crawled onto Ajax’s face, the expression making Julia almost shiver with a secret delight.

“Well, I don’t know about that. You’re pretty good in comparison.” They shared a little laugh, each of their voices sounding like music to the other’s ears. Julia’s voice sounding like the carefully orchestrated tinkling of a thousand crystals, and the hum of Ajax’s deep voice made the semi-liquid state of Julia’s body literally vibrate.

“I know that this might be a little bit of a hard sell after… that whole fiasco.” Ajax began awkwardly, sipping on his beer again to fill the pause, “But if you get the chance to, I think Mirah needs a friend. Y’know, other than me.” He looked at her with a small plea in his eyes and Julia, despite the discomfort, found herself almost entirely unable to reject the man. The same man that had popped up in one too many of her dreams as of late.

“I’ll try?” She said lightly, popping the cap off her own beer bottle and extending a small tendril inside to drink the liquid, “She seemed really uncomfortable around me.”

“I know, but trust me, she’s a good person. She’s just hurt, and has the scars to show for it.” He drew a line across his own face where the other girl’s own scar had coursed through her skin roughly.

Julia was about to respond to the man, but there was a sudden groan from the other room, surprising her. In barely a second, Ajax burst into action and moments later, Julia got the treat of hearing someone vomit as she sipped from her beer.

Lovely.