Archive of Our Own

Crystal knew, in the second that her arm started swinging but right before it made contact with Sparrow’s face, that she was colossally fucking up. 

First of all, she was in on probation: after she stole Ever After High’s rose, Headmaster Grimm barely let her back in. No one could get in contact with her mom, so she ended up forging most of the signatures for registration— not that Milton knew that part, of course. But if they tried to call her mom about suspension, Crystal couldn’t see that going well. 

Second of all, Sparrow was Sparrow. Crystal knew better than this. Crystal knew better than falling for low-brow insults from stupid boys with stupid friend groups, and she knew better than to do so with boys that hold grudges. She saw the way they circled Raven like vultures— she was just the next victim, and she knew that. She knew that.

Third of all—

Her fist connected. 

There was another moment of stunned silence as Crystal registered the dull pain in her knuckles— the skin split on one of them, red rising to the surface— and the sharp crack of Sparrow’s bone in the suddenly-still air as everyone around them in the hall fell dead silent. A slow trail of blood started out of his nose, and he reached up and touched it, drawing his hand away to see it glisten on his fingers.

“Oh, you bitch,” he snarled, and lunged.

He tackled her to the floor, and when her back hit the ground, all the breath was knocked out of her. She wheezed as she threw her knee up and caught him in the stomach. He gasped and reared back, punching her in the face— she grabbed his hair and pulled his hair until he screamed— he got his hands around her throat— she scratched her nails down his cheek— 

It was maybe a minute, but the seconds of senseless violence felt more like electric nothing, either seconds or hours. She couldn’t quite feel her wounds as pain, but she registered them as hot pulsing underneath her skin, along with the adrenaline.

It took her a second after Sparrow let go of her neck for Crystal to register that someone was wrestling him off of her. It took her a few seconds after that to recognize that the person was Ashlynn’s boyfriend, and a few after that to remember his name. 

“Hunter,” she gasped.

And then someone else was pulling her up off the ground, pulling her down the hallway, and she struggled for a second until someone snapped, “For the love of Grimm, Crys,” and she stopped. The voice pinged some vague recognition in a part of her brain that was currently shut down. Then she was being pulled into an empty classroom, and she was turned around and— 

“Farrah,” Crystal breathed.

“You’re an idiot,” Farrah said, hands fluttering all over her face and down her arms. “Oh, I’d just wish this away, but then you’d wake up in the middle of the night in pain with no adrenaline to—” her voice faded into incoherent mumbling, but Crystal was just lit up with how happy she was to see her.

“You worry too much,” Crystal eventually got it, ordering her thoughts into something that approached normalcy. As she did so, though, the faint red-hot pulsing started creeping towards the surface, aches and pains breaking through. She winced.

“Worry too much,” Farrah muttered. “Just be glad that Headmaster Grimm wasn’t there, I can’t even imagine— I don’t think Sparrow’ll tattle, that’s not really his style— you could be expelled, Crys. Here—” Farrah was gone for a second, and then back with a first-aid kit. “They have to keep these in all the classrooms. Hold still.”

Crystal obligingly held still. “He said something,” she said eventually, worrying the split skin in her bottom lip with her tongue. Farrah was dabbing at the blood on her knuckles with something that stung quite a lot. “He said— he said some shit about me being just like my mom. Something stupid. Stupid of me to get so riled up over it.” 

Farrah was quiet. “Yeah,” she said eventually, “it was. But— but I get it. He has a way of wriggling under people’s skin. He does it all the time.” She put down whatever she was holding and picked up bandages that she started wrapping around her hands. “I just don’t want you getting hurt. I don’t like seeing you get hurt.”

“Hey,” Crystal said, leaning her head forward. Their foreheads bumped together, and she rested her head like that, eyes fluttering shut. The adrenaline fading from her body left her so tired. “I’m okay.”

“You’re okay,” Farrah murmured. “Yeah. You’re okay.”