Ajax is a bit of a mystery to Rembrandt.
Given, she’s only known the girl for three weeks, but that’s been enough time for her get a read on the rest of the Warriors, more or less. She’s always prided herself on her ability to read people, to step back and look between the lines. It’s part of the reason Cleon had taken such an interest in her, she thinks. That, and the fact that Ajax had apparently been pushing her to initiate her into the crew.
She’s not really sure how to feel about that either.
Again, Ajax is a mystery to her. She is, however, determined to change this fact. Here are the things she knows about Ajax:
1. She’s quick to anger, and tends to act without thinking.
2. She’s loyal to a fault
3. She’s insanely protective of her fellow warriors, especially their youngest recruit, Fox.
4. She does not know how to sit still
The last fact is probably the first thing she noticed about Ajax, when she first started living with the Warriors. Every time they have dinner, or sit down to hang out, every meeting they go to, ends with Ajax up and pacing the room. It annoys Cowgirl endlessly, and even the usually stoic Swan seems to get frustrated by it, but Rembrandt finds the repetitive sound of her footsteps on the carpet oddly soothing. Yet another thing about Ajax that makes her unsure.
Other than that first night over a month ago, when Ajax had first introduced her to Cleon and insisted they needed a tagger, Rembrandt has seen very little of the Warriors resident hothead. Since she moved in, she’s managed to spend one-on-one time with all of the Warriors at least once, with Cochise quickly becoming her favourite person to gossip with, but Ajax had made herself surprisingly scarce around their shared apartment.
Which was what made it all the more surprising when Ajax decided to seek her out.
She’d been in her room, lounging on her sloppily made bed and casually working on a sketch of Fox and Cochise that she’d started earlier that day when she’d noticed Ajax hovering in her doorway, looking uncharacteristically nervous.
“Hey,” she greeted in that rough tone of hers, which always made her seem angry, even when she wasn’t. “Mind if I come in?” She asked, and then didn’t bother to let her answer, striding into the room like she owned and tossing herself at the foot of her bed.
Rembrandt smiled amusedly, peering at her over the top of her sketch book. “Sure,” she answered dryly. “Make yourself at home.” Ajax grinned at her, kicking her shoes off onto her floor, almost challenging. Rembrandt shook her head, a little fondly.
“What are you drawing?” She leaned forward so she could peer down at the sketchbook on Rembrandt’s lap, looking at the half-finished scene of Fox and Cochise mid-card game with a barely concealed smile. “It looks good.” She praised, and Rembrandt knew not to take the praise lightly. Ajax, she knew, was not someone to give out compliments lightly. The thought made something warm pool on her chest.
“Thanks,” she replied, almost shyly. Her heart beat oddly, the way it always did when Ajax got close to her. She ignored it, though, putting the observation away to analyse later, probably with the help of Cochise and Cowgirl. “Do you want to see the others?” She offered hesitantly.
She was proud of her art, always had been, but that didn’t always mean she wanted to show it to people. For the most part, her art was personal. Portraits of loved ones, murals of dreams she wished would play out, sketches of the things that haunted her at night. The stuff she put on public display was previous, as all her art was, but her sketchbook was personal. In the past, she’d gone to great lengths to hide this little piece of vulnerability from anyone other than herself, but when she was around the Warriors she found she didn’t quite mind being vulnerable the way she used to.
Ajax gave her a searching look, and her heart beat quickened with anticipation. Finally, Ajax nodded, and Rembrandt shifted to the side, leaving enough space for Ajax to crawl into the space beside her. She did so without question, moving inelegantly over the bed and knocking off the dozen pillows Rembrandt kept as she went. She settled in quickly, sitting close enough that Rembrandt could feel the heat of her body where it pressed against her own.
She tilted her sketchbook to the side, flipping through the pages at a sedate pace and carefully watching Ajax’s face for her reaction. There was only a few sketches in her current book, all of which she’d done in the last three weeks of living with the Warriors. There was a drawing of Cochise and Cowgirl sitting together on a night out at the bar, one of Fox leaning against their beat up old couch as Swan braided her hair, a quick sketch of Cleon against the backdrop of Coney Island, Snow and Vermin sat outside on the fire escape. Ajax viewed them all with a soft look in her eyes, a smile curling at the edge of her lips. She brushed a thumb the one of Swan and Fox, her touch gentle and light.
She looked up at Rembrandt through her lashes, her thigh pressed against her leg, and Rembrandts breath caught in her throat. Beautiful, she thought, and suddenly she itched to hold a pencil in her hand.
“Can I draw you?” She blurted, before she could think better of it, and watched as Ajax blinked in confusion, subtly shifting away from her touch. She missed the warmth instantly, but Ajax gave her no time to ponder this slightly worrying development.
“Sure,” she agreed easily, easier than Rembrandt had thought she would. “Do I need to— do you want me to pose, or something?” She stumbled a little over her words, for a reason Rembrandt couldn’t quite place. It was a little endearing, she thought absently.
“No,” she told her gently, shifting away to get a better view. “No. Stay just how you are.” She said, firmer, and then her pencil was in her hand, and her only thought was getting this moment on paper before it ended. She focused solely on the gentle lines the feel of the paper under her hand, the gentle lines of Ajax’s face, the delicate curve of the smile that spread across her lips. She put her all into capturing every precious detail of the Warrior in front of her, the one who had given her this home, this family. She poured every feeling of gratitude, every gentle burst of warmth that she felt into the silky strands of Ajax’s hair that fell over shoulder in waves, the contentment of evenings spend gathered around the table with her sisters-in-arms into the pools of Ajax’s eyes.
Hours or minutes could have gone by as she lost herself in her work, Ajax sitting there throughout, still and silent as a mouse. When she finally looked up again Ajax was watching her with the same gentle look she usually reserved Fox and Cleon, and sometimes Swan when she wasn’t looking, and she couldn’t resist the smile that spread over her face at the sight of it.
“It’s beautiful.” Ajax told her without looking down. Rembrandt smiled, eyes refusing to stray from the woman in front of her.
“I know.”