D2 :: Nox Godsick :: WIP

[L△LIA]

^{black sheep
come home}

This part of the story is about how the Rockfall Exy team's reaction to Nox Godsick's return quickly turns from celebratory to disdainful. Whatever optimism she inspired was obviously misplaced. She barely survives the warm-up exercises, drenched with sweat by the time laps around the pop-up court are complete. The first round of stick-check drills has her on the ground and suddenly Laveau's knee is on her chest, pinning her to the shame of failure with a deafening roar that doesn't hesitate to demoralize further, screaming in her face until spittle drips from Nox's cheek. "DO BETTER!" Godsick spits blood into the grass and slams her racquet upwards into Hatchet's side with every ounce of muscle that hasn't yet abandoned her. The attack barely registers. "Weak."

Grabbing one of Hatchet's braids in each of her fists, Nox swiftly coils the plaits around her knuckles for better grip and slams their skulls together. "Say that again," Nox hisses, vision spinning so wildly that she nearly vomits. No one steps in because no one is stupid.

Laveau peers down, unshaken, her mouth twisted into something like pity. "Weak," she repeats with a dismissive tut to punctuate and flicks Nox's right hand off of her braid with a single finger, as if evicting a bug from her presence. The other hand drops away of its own accord. Pathetic.

Sprawled out useless in the grass long after Hatchet walks away, Nox wonders what she expected and why it wasn't exactly this. "You suck now, Godsick?" Someone heckles, continuing on their way without so much as offering a hand to help her up. Frustration blazes in her chest, more fiercely than the complaints of her muscles or the fresh ache in her head. Nostrils flaring as she bellows at the sky, she doesn't have any energy left to pull herself back to her feet, but forces herself through the motions anyhow. It's raw tenacity and nothing else that accomplishes the feat, her body running on fumes of memory for the days when she was actually good at this.

They're not wrong. She does suck now. She's supposed to be better than this, but all she's done for the past year is listen to the voices in her head that tell her that she isn't. That she always sucked. That it was a fluke that anyone ever thought otherwise.

Hatchet's voice in her ear causes her to jump, her skin prickling with adrenaline. "Again." Aluminum striker's racquet shoved back into her hands, there isn't so much as a pause to gather her wits before Laveau is swinging a heavyweight backliner's racquet at her, the thunk of laquered wood reverberating against hollow metal as Nox just barely manages to raise her defenses in time. Stumbling backwards more than a few steps, she loses a humiliating amount of ground, but manages to keep her footing. It's not enough to salvage her lost pride, but it's something.

More than one person stops to watch, placing bets on how much longer until Godsick storms off the field and never comes back. "There's no way she makes it through the whole practice." It's this and only this that stops Nox from giving up. She'd rather die than prove them right, but who knows? There's still time. She might.

"Again," Hatchet demands, silencing the pessimistic voices in her head, and Nox screams defiantly as their racquets collide.

"Again." The crack of sticks echoes down the field.

"Again."

<sup>lift you up every time
everyone pulls away from you



black sheep by metric.</sup>

[L△LIA]

^{i ain't gotta be the one
be the one just for you}

This part of the story is about... well, Nox isn't quite sure. Nothing, she supposes.

How she makes it through the entire practice is nothing short of miraculous. It's the kind of mystery that a person could devote a lifetime to studying and never manage to unravel the secret behind it all, but it's probably something to do with cockroaches. The earth could implode and at least one Godsick would bellycrawl out from the rubble, radioactive and mutated maybe, but alive against the odds while everything that was ever good or worthwhile in the world was lost to history.

Slumped on the sidelines, Nox's head is tucked between her knees as she swallows back a wave of nausea. The protein bar Hatchet shoved into her mouth earlier isn't sitting well with the way her calf muscles keep tightening into knots so dense that her legs tremble and give out, before suddenly cramping up all over again, like waves. It's a cycle of pull and release far beyond her control. She wraps her hands around the muscles in a useless attempt to hold them still, but the quaking doesn't care.

"Can you stand?" Hatchet casts a shadow long enough to fit Nox's huddled body within its borders.

There's no sense in lying about it. "No."

Hatchet huffs out a sigh of resignation before turning around and crouching down. "Get on." Reaching a hand over her shoulder, she pats her back. Nox shreds a blade of grass between her fingers and stares at what's being offered to her — the sweat-soaked shirt, the faint tan lines along the cut off sleeves, the scattered stains of green from tackling Nox to the ground too many times to keep count. This is humiliating. "...or don't. I don't care if you sleep here."

It's quiet for a few beats and then: "Bish got a gig at some kiddie camp out past Highland —" That's on the far side of the District, tucked up in the mountains where people with vacation homes go to hike or ski or whatever else. "— y'know, canoes and shit."

"Til when?" Hatchet doesn't turn around.

"August."

The quiet returns and settles in as Laveau wrestles with that math, contemplating the commitment of her own summer babysitting gig. "Good," she finally says, voice decisive, "one less distraction."

"You're not seriously gonna crash on my floor til he gets back, are you?"

"Anyone else gonna be around?" The phrasing is intentionally vague. Hatchet doesn't want details, which is fine by Nox because she isn't interested in giving any.

"Dunno." Even when their dad is around, he's not really there. "...wouldn't change nothin'."

"Okay then. I'm sure as shit not bringing you back to mine, so." So: they're each other's last resort. Neither of them can think of a better way. It is what it is. Banging her head against her kneecaps a few times, Nox tries to come to terms with Hatchet Laveau, with herself, with what she wants and what she wants to rebel against. Except, she doesn't know which thing is which and she doesn't have much confidence in her ability to figure it out. She'll probably get it wrong.

Rocking forward, Nox wordlessly loops her arms around Hatchet's neck. Even after hours of Exy practice, it's not a struggle for the aspiring bodybuilder to piggyback a runt like Godsick around. She could do this all day. Physically, that is. The mental toll requires significantly more effort, particularly as Nox's hands grow restless and begin picking at Hatchet's shirt or fidgeting with her braids.

"You're better than I remember," Nox comments offhand, purely for the sake of having something to say. Absently brushing the tail of a braid across Hatchet's cheekbone and down her nose, she proceeds to boop her chin with it several times, as if tapping out an unheard rhythm while starring off into the clouds. "I get why you're pissed that the team isn't on your level." There's an unspoken: I used to get pissed about that too, back in the days when Nox was the one cursing out fumbled passes and badly aimed rebounds with little to no tolerance for learning curves or off days.

"I'm fucking great," Hatchet asserts, unwilling to settle for anything less than what she deserves.

For a moment Nox contemplates ragging on her for it, but doesn't love the prospect of getting her ass dropped into the gutter. "Yeah," she admits, "you are." They leave it there, because anything more might verge into feelings territory and no one wants that. Hatchet's face is as deadpan as ever, but Nox knows that she's pleased in the same way that she sensed earlier, when they walked onto the practice field together as everyone gawked.

Like this, Nox is absolutely certain that acknowledging Hatchet's skill has earned her a free pass and she can't resist the impulse to waste it. Immediately. Abruptly, she mimics the sound of a vehicle squealing to a halt — "Skreeeeeeeeeeeeee!" — like when a truck full of white boots pulls up with sirens blazing, just because one of the neighbors was shooting at rats again. "Beep beep!"

"Stop. What are you —"

"You missed the turn."

"No, I di—" She totally did. Nox snickers and pats the top of Hatchet's head in the most patronizing way that she can manage; she'll take her petty payback wherever she can get it. "Can you not just say so like a normal person? So dumb."

"Not as fun," Nox quips and promptly twists at Hatchet's ear lobe, pretending that she's switching on a turn signal. "Tick-uh-tick-uh-tick-uh," the signal says. "Vroom vroom, Hatchy."

"I told you not to call me that."

"What?" Nox genuinely does not remember because she wasn't actually awake yet — it was five in the morning — which is why she dared to talk absolute nonsense in the first place. "When?"

"Ugh." Not only is this not a hill worth dying on, acknowledging that there's a hill at all probably isn't worth Hatchet's breath. "Nevermind."

"So I can call you that," Nox provokes, thoroughly entertained by a noticeable twitch of Hatchet's right eye as she doubles down on pretending not to care about things. Caring isn't cool. Laveau is, objectively, pretty cool. That really ups the leeway for what Nox figures she can get away with.

"No."

At this point she settles in to her antics, comfortable, knowing that getting a pass on something once means that she can do it again. It's Hatchet's fault for letting it slide and if Hatchet doesn't realize that mistake now, then there will be no correcting it later. "But it makes you sound cute, like a baby bird or something. Hatchy. Hatch-hatch? Nah. Hatchy."

"Don't test me, Godsick." There's an edge of ferocity in Hatchet's voice that, rather than being intimidating, just tips Nox off that she's getting to her. It stains her tone so that it's sugar in Nox's ears.

"As if you'd pass."

It takes an embarrassing amount of effort for Hatchet to resist the bait. The implication that she might fail any type of test that Godsick could come up with is just offensive, but arguing about that might imply that she would want to pass. That would be worse. Or something. Honestly, she lost track of what Nox was on about once the random sound effects started. "I miss when you didn't talk."

"Nah. You don't."

^{what type of x covered by moon sua and jooe.}

[L△LIA]

^{the days and nights pile up in layers
i keep walking on them}

This part of the story is about Hatchet trying to elbow an empty mattress awake. The time comes for another five a.m. wake up call and she rolls over to smack Nox in the side, drowsily punching a rumpled sheet for a minute and a half before realizing that a groan of complaint isn't coming. Godsick is gone.

Fuck.

Fuuuuuck.

They were just starting to get somewhere. Hatchet can't have lost her this easily. Searching random gutters and park benches is absolutely not how she wants to start her morning. She's too tired for this shit. Too much of her practically non-existent patience has already been burned through over the course of the past week and a half, borrowed from her future self as if taking out some kind of emotional stability loan to prevent a murderous rampage wherein she vents her frustrations with a shiv to every throat that has threatened her master plans for the future.

She should have seen this coming. That's the part that's really getting under her skin. At one point or another, everyone in Rockfall has stepped over a Godsick passed out on the sidewalk or slumped into a corner at a party or wherever else. They meander around in search of ways and places to lose themselves. This is what they do.

Why didn't she leash Godsick to a radiator?

This was preventable.

That's on her.

Raking frustrated claws through her hair, Hatchet seethes into her knees, digging her heels against the flooring hard enough that one of the boards splinters into her heel. Little huffs of rage hiss out from between her teeth. It's time to collar this mutt. "What's with you?" Nox asks through a yawn, wandering back into the room and sitting herself down between Hatchet's knees to finish toweling her hair dry. She had been too exhausted to wash up after practice yesterday, passing out as soon as Hatchet had dumped her onto the mattress.

Freshly showered, dressed, and ready to go, Nox nudges her head backwards into Hatchet's skull like a cat demanding pets. "I can't braid," she shamelessly lies, lounging her back against one of Hatchet's shins until Laveau finally raises her face enough for their eyes to meet. Every hint of emotion has been consciously erased from her expression as the truth of the situation dawns on her. The bathroom. She was just in the bathroom. Hatchet was freaking out over nothing, like an idiot, because it would have somehow been stupider not to jump to a worst case scenario. Embarrassing.

Nox seizes the opportunity to nuzzle her forehead against the side of Laveau's jaw, doubling down on being ridiculous in her demands for attention. Something is different and it's not just a matter of Nox having shaken off the worst of her depression spiral, but Hatchet doesn't know her well enough to pinpoint exactly what's happening here. She has passed by her in the school halls often enough to know that Godsick always seems to have one of her friends in a headlock or her arm around some girl — although never, for some reason, her actual girlfriend — or she'll be sprawled out across someone's lap in the lunchroom, as if trying to con them into feeding her grapes. That's just how she is. Touchy. Constantly flirting. She's a notorious fuckboy; everyone in Rockfall knows that. Maybe she has always been this shamelessly needy with everyone and Hatchet never cared enough to notice. Or maybe —

Maybe Godsick has collared herself. Hatchet reaches up to coil a lock of cropped grey hair around her finger as she considers this. She doesn't trust it. It's too easy. Nox grins like a child who just won a giant teddy bear at the carnival, eyelids flickering closed when a second hand reaches up to run its fingernails across her scalp. Hatchet studies the way her eyelids shiver with the touch, notes the way her lips part slightly to attempt to mask how she gasps softly each time the skin is grazed in a particularly gentle way. She's practically purring.

Freshman year, Nox took her turn braiding Hatchet's hair in preparation for more than one scrimmage, the whole team wearing orange and black elastics with matching war paint smeared across their cheeks. Nox talked shit on her game the whole time, just to rile her up. Can't braid? What a useless thing to lie about. "It's just one piece over the other, Godsick. Even you could figure it out."

"Don't wanna," she mutters as Hatchet's thumb smooths the baby hairs at her temple. Her own hands are clutched to her chest, picking at the neck of her tattered t-shirt. The knuckles flex white when Hatchet loops her thumb around a second time — far more slowly — in a gratuitously soft brush of the skin, purely for the sake of seeing what happens. Afterwards Nox holds her breath for at least ten seconds, as if scared to move for fear of spooking Hatchet's hands away. Laveau's mouth curls into itself as she flicks her thumb out once more and Godsick plays dead again, as if on command.

Interesting.

"You know you're benched today, right?"

"No I'm not." It comes out in a furious rush, as if it's all one word. The rest of her might be putty in Hatchet's hands, but Nox's voice is barbed with bullheaded refusal. This isn't a particularly surprising response. Godsick was known for constantly pushing herself beyond the limits of her own body and obviously that hasn't changed, be it on or off the court. It had seemed obvious enough that if someone could simply give her the shove that she needed to get back into the game, then she'd fight like hell to keep herself there. Anyone who'd ever seen her play could see that coming. Still. It's surreal to witness her greed switch on in real time.

Laveau reaches around to grip her chin in one hand, yanking her head back until their eyes meet. "You blew your legs out yesterday, sweetheart." Jaw muscles flex defiantly under Hatchet's fingers, but not because of the pet name. Also interesting. One of her feet is suddenly tapping at the floor, as if testing her leg. "You're benched." Sneaking one finger down her neck, Hatchet presses into Nox's pulse point until she can feel the slow drum of blood beneath the skin. "I need you —" The rhythm skips several beats, despite the way her raging eyes look as though they're attempting to bore yet more holes into the plaster ceiling. "— not to fuck yourself up again." And promptly returns to its normal pace.

"I'm fine," she hisses out between grit teeth.

Softening her hold on Nox's chin, Hatchet releases her and refocuses on the half-finished braid still gripped in her other hand. She intentionally sweeps her fingers through the unbound strands several times more than necessary and Godsick's tense muscles immediately relax against her. "You're off the field until tomorrow. Be good," she frames the threat as a casual joke, "or you can learn to braid your own hair." Before Nox can fight back, she carves one knowing nail down the center part, as if to straighten it out. It's a perfect line already and, soon, Godsick will match it.

<sup>the incomprehensible meaning
the secretive rules of this place



$un palace (stroop effect) by billlie.</sup>

[L△LIA]

^{eyes on me
i'll show you what i'm made of}

This part of the story is about trying to figure out if Godsick is actually Wick's girlfriend or if Nox is just another lab rat. That would explain everything, Hatchet thinks.

Following the success of her threat to revoke Nox's braiding privileges — now a morning ritual — Hatchet begins testing other means of maintaining control. Her initial assumption that a flash of skin might win any war between them proves to be... wrong, just entirely wrong. Whatever wiles Hatchet possesses are useless here. Even now that she's out of her emotional coma, Nox doesn't have a glance to spare for the girl brazenly changing in and out of practice clothes in front of her. Sometimes this feels intentional, as if Godsick refrains from ogling her due to some kind of gentlemanly honor code, but other times it's all too obviously a matter of disinterest — pride wounding levels of disinterest for someone who considers her looks to be a strength secondary only to her actual muscles. Hatchet starts to take it personally. She's heard every rumor, even when she didn't want to; she should be at the very top of Godsick's bucket list and yet...

Every time Hatchet thinks she's completely lost the plot, Nox will seize a seemingly random opportunity to push the physical boundaries between them. It quickly escalates from hair braiding to suddenly resting her head on Hatchet's leg while studying playbooks or plopping down in the grass to sit back-to-back during breaks between practice drills, the sweat on their shoulders sticking in the summer heat. Each time Hatchet doesn't shove her away is taken as an invitation to make a habit of sharing space. It's as intentional as it is baffling.

Hatchet would have gone completely berserk within the first week if the antics weren't such an obvious motivator on the field. No matter how hard Nox gets bodychecked to the ground, all it takes to will herself back to her feet is a fleeting touch to the shoulder or Hatchet picking a piece of grass from her hair while talking trash. Godsick obstinately bats away any other hand that offers to pull her up from a moment of failure, but completely loses her composure when Hatchet kneels down to take care of her untied shoe lace one day. For the next hour it's as if she's speaking in tongues, unable to respond without muddling her words into senseless babble.

Finally it's all too much. Nox Godsick makes less and less sense by the day and Hatchet has already wasted too much brain space on the whole situation; she has her own life to keep in order. Besides, it's... weird. If Hatchet were Salem — instead of whatever dysfunctional stand-in she's growing concerned about becoming — then she wouldn't put up with being ghosted for weeks without a single word of explanation. It just doesn't add up that Nox could nearly die, crawl back out from her hellpit of depression, be living with someone new, and rejoin the Exy team all without her girlfriend noticing or even, seemingly, caring.

Things only make less sense when Hatchet shows up at Salem Wick's house — as in: an actual standalone house with a yard and everything — an old world holdout tucked into the all-consuming highrise shadows of Monsterblock. It's crumbling at every visible edge, but the front porch alone makes it look like some type of fairytale gingerbread cottage from a children's book and Hatchet can't wrap her head around it no matter how long she stares, jaw dropped fully open as she takes in the rotting wood curlycues and flaking paint in at least seven different colors. There's blue fading in the eaves, sun-bleached lavender on the railing, and deep red in the carved details. It's a trash pile, to be sure, but it's, like, a luxury trash pile. The only houses in Rockfall belong to the rich transfer kids, but all of those are over in Granite Vista, the new build part of town. This is an anomaly well outside of that gated community.

Knowing that this is where Wick lives makes Hatchet's guts twist. If she were Nox then she wouldn't want Wick to see where she lives either... let alone her own home. Just seeing this much is enough of an explanation that she almost walks away and leaves it all alone. Except she can't. There's a fucking porch swing. Little bunny-eared pansies line the cracked sidewalk going up to the door. The windows are bordered with squares of colored glass that glitter in the sunlight. Hatchet marches up to the — holy shit — welcome mat and bangs a fist against the door with enough force that the porch rattles.

The woman who answers the door is the most unbelievably gorgeous person that Hatchet has ever seen. She looks the way that this house must have, once upon a time, back when it was new and perfect: entirely fictional. "Hello, sweetie." No one has ever called Hatchet sweet in her life. The world is upside-down here. "Can I help you?" It's a trick question somehow. All of this is a trick somehow. Hatchet's heart pounds so wildly in her chest that she nearly turns and makes a run for it.

"Wick around?" She asks gruffly without realizing her mistake, too fixated on hiding her clenched fists in her pockets as she catches a glimpse of faded wallpaper and soft, layered rugs inside. There are dusty crystals dangling from the entry's light fixture; some are obviously missing, broken or lost to time, but the ones that are left fling prismatic rainbow light across the hallway walls.

"Salem?" The woman attempts to clarify, her voice excruciatingly kind. "You don't look Arcadia's age." Hatchet can only nod to confirm, her voice gone as the door swings fully open to welcome her inside. "End of the hall, on the right."

Even the floorboards creak beautifully as Hatchet goes where she's told. Salem's bedroom has a bay window with lace curtains. She's curled up with a book, reading on the built-in window seat; it's piled with such a shameless excess of pillows and quilts that they spill onto the floor and blend into more rugs until the whole room looks something like a nest. Everything, all around, is soft. A breeze through the open windows carries in the scent of yet more flowers. There must be a garden out back. "What kind of lowlife princess are you?"

The words are out before Hatchet can snatch them back. Salem looks up, blinks at the unexpected sight of Hatchet Laveau standing at her bedroom door, and laughs at the question. The sound is gritty in her throat, as if to compensate for the lack of filth anywhere else, and she does not answer it. "Something wrong?" There's no other reason for Hatchet to be at her house. While there's an unexpected bit of crossover in their social circles — with Hatchet crashing a/v club to chat with Sevyn, more and more often, throughout this last school year — there hasn't been much reason for her to interact with Salem individually, let alone to show up here like this.

"Godsick's back on the Exy team. I'm here to make sure it stays that way."

At the mention of Nox's name, Salem sets the book aside and fixes her gaze on Hatchet's chin. She hardly blinks and there's a faint back-and-forth twitching of her eyes, as if she's sorting through thoughts in her head like glancing through paperwork files. "That does not explain why you are here."

"Don't waste my time playing dumb. Everyone knows she quit because of you."

"Did she?" Salem's voice is wry and condescending. Standing in this house makes Hatchet feel bad enough, the last thing she needs is to have her head messed with on multiple levels. Facts are facts. Godsick throwing her life away for Wick isn't exactly a secret.

"Sure as shit wasn't because of her combat scout skills."

That gets Salem giggling. The sound is a skittering series of squeaks cluttered with missing sections, as she stitches herself soundless. "She is terrible," the other girl agrees, as if Hatchet just wandered into the middle of an inside joke, "I told her that it was embarrassing for me and she should quit."

"...what?"

"Nox only listens when she wants to."

There's a huff of a sigh as Hatchet crosses her arms and leans against the door frame, openly skeptical. "I don't actually care. I just need a striker and she's —"

"Good?" Salem helpfully fills in the blank, fidgeting with the corner of a frayed quilt.

"Great," Hatchet corrects, resentment in her voice at... Godsick being sold short? The year she spent wasting her talent because of this girl? Hatchet finding herself in a situation where self-reliance isn't an option and her own skills, no matter how impressive, aren't enough? The way Hatchet would slit actual throats for what Nox was willing to throw away?

Despite the harshness of the tone, Salem grins brightly, her eyes flicking across the whole of Hatchet's face for the most fleeting of moments. She looks as pleased as if the compliment were for herself. "Great," she echoes with twice Hatchet's insistence. Shoulders straightened, head held higher, hands smoothing out one fold after another from her nest — the pride is obvious.

Eyes narrow, distrustful of the way every answer is what Hatchet wants to hear. Supposedly Salem Wick doesn't really know how to lie and wouldn't bother even if she could, but it's also plenty obvious that she's not a simple-minded idiot. There's more to all of this. "Don't bullshit me, Wick. Godsick ruined her life for you. So," Hatchet hisses, "maybe it's time you return the favor."

^{the magic!an by moon sua (feat. siyoon and sheon)}

[L△LIA]

^{cut off all your worries and burn it all up
the moment i saw you
my heart skip a beat}

This part of the story is about how Nox Godsick is not a lab rat. What a stupid thing to think. It's almost like some people see a relationship that they don't understand and decide that not being able to wrap their own, totally ignorant, head around it means that there must be something wrong. It could never be the other way around... oh, wait. Unless...

Could —

Could it really be possible that Hatchet Laveau is the asshole? That the entirety of Rockfall is the asshole?

No wayyyyy.

Salem Wick shows up at Exy practice the next day, sitting on the front railing of the bleachers with her legs kicking at the air each time Nox does, well, anything really. Scores a goal? Kick. Misses a rebound? Kick. Runs a lap around the pop-up court? Kick. Falls on her face? Kick... and a giggle, the sound of it sizzling in the sun. Whether it's a moment of triumph or failure, Godsick springs back faster than ever, so wound up with energy that she stays on her feet for every break, bouncing around on her toes and shaking her arms out again and again.

After bodycheck drills Hatchet realizes that there's more than one fresh bruise along her side, where Nox's elbows dug deep. It might actually hurt later. "Weak," she lies and Nox just scoffs, too used to the endless disparaging commentary by now.

"Say that again," she dares on cue, her voice venomless as she punches Laveau's arm. The corner of her mouth is already hooked upward, reasonably confident that today her aim compensated for the brute strength discrepancy between them. It felt different. It felt a little bit more like the way her body used to move, back when she was good at this and knew how to take advantage of being small enough to slam her knuckles between the most vulnerable cracks of someone's protective padding. Cheap shots have always been her specialty.

"You can do better," Hatchet scoffs dismissively and starts walking away, the way she always does. The two of them swap the same insults like this every day, but bit by bit the tone is shifting. Do better suddenly sounds suspiciously complimentary.

"So can you!" Nox taunts, trotting off towards the bleachers without realizing that Hatchet has turned back around because this part is new. Laveau rolls her shoulders and cracks her neck from side to side, suddenly agitated. The pushback is... earned, but yesterday's self-consciousness lingers and the combination nags at her. She knows she can do better. It's something she has always known, acutely, every moment of her life. She doesn't need anyone else echoing the kinds of thoughts that she already works this hard, and yet this unsuccessfully, to purge in favor of actually achieving better.

Grabbing onto the bleacher railing, Nox does a pull-up, resting her chin on a crossbar for a few seconds as she looks up at Salem — "Hi." — before dropping back to the ground with a dramatic clunk. She repeats this sequence like an overzealous habit, her mouth twitching in and out of a grin and then back again. Whether she's worked up with excitement or nerves, she can't quite decide. Both? Can it be both? It feels like both.

"Hi." Salem kicks the air, but doesn't turn her face to look at Nox. Instead it's turned upwards, a trickle of sweat rolling down her neck as she bakes in the sun. Silence stretches out between them, warm and comfortable. "I thought your dad must be back."

"Not yet."

They fill in the blanks automatically, knowing each other's patterns without need for explanation. When Nox isn't around, there's a reason. Salem doesn't need to know what the reason is in order to understand that it's important. If it weren't important then Nox would have been at the lake, aiming the cannonball of her body at flocks of ducks until the sun fell from the sky.

"This is good," waving a hand around at the field, Salem obviously has no idea what she's supposed to point at — sportsball stuff, ooooo ahhhhh — and so she just points at everything. "You. Playing again."

"I dunno..." Is it? Nox stares at Salem's dangling feet, desperate to reach out and pluck at the laces of her shoes until they unravel into a tangle. Then she would have an excuse to pick the knots out and tie them up nicely again. Only, she would make sure not to do it neatly the first time or even the second time, that way she could pull them loose all over again, a dozen times maybe, until they were tied up perfectly. She thinks she could get away with getting it all wrong for twenty minutes before being called out for fumbling things on purpose. Resisting the impulse to do impossible things, she does another pull-up. "S'only for the summer."

Salem grins knowingly at the sky. "Is not."

"Is so."

"But I like it."

Chewing at her lip, Nox holds her breath to try to calm the way her heart skips a beat. "Yeah?" Still clinging to the railing's crossbar, she uses the leverage to start walking her feet up a vertical support beam, like a spider crawling up a wall. "What if I don't like it?" Flinging her arms up, she grabs onto the very top of the railing and hangs there, body twisting around awkwardly with no real sense of where to go.

"Then you would be a liar. I hate when you lie to me. Only lie to other people."

"I don't lie to you," Nox mutters, offended. Embarrassed. Uncertain. She really doesn't... not unless she's lying to herself about something, but that's different. Those lies are things she's trying to force into truths. If she believes them well enough then they won't be lies anymore. "Wanna cut practice and go to the lake?"

"No. I want to watch you hit Hatchet with a stick again." Nox's laugh is guttural, a booming HA! HA! that never ceases to send Salem into a sputter of breathy giggles. The two of them sound like a baseball bat swinging at puffs of black glitter.

"Shut your face." Nox's toes scramble at the side of the bleachers, seeking a ledge as her arms begin to ache. Finding the edge of a board, she manages to keep her balance while turning around to hook her arms backwards over the railing, leaning outward as if she's the masthead of a ship. "You don't."

"I do." The emphatic response is genuine. Nox can only comply.

"Okay-okay!" Swinging her hands forward to clap in overconfident acceptance of her new task, Nox remembers too late that her arms were load bearing and promptly goes careening into the ground. Rolling over with a groan, she stays sprawled out in the grass and stares up at Salem from below. She always looks pretty in the sunshine. Today her hair is tangled enough from the breeze that it would take so much longer than twenty minutes for Nox to unravel all of the knots by hand. Each strand would feel warm between her fingers. She believes this with absolute certainty. Banging her head against the ground one time, she immediately shakes the thought loose before it can grow roots and consume her, and then follows up with a second thump after the notion is gone, just so it knows not to come back. "I like you more than Exy."

"You can like both," Salem replies. "I like things that aren't you all the time."

There's a childish whine from the ground: "Only like me."

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"That is not how people work. I know because I am good at liking things too much. If I can like more things than just you, then you can like more things than just me." The words are logical to the point that Nox can't argue with it, but that doesn't change that she wants to argue. The world would be easier to deal with if she could edit everything else out until there was nothing left except for lazy moments like this, inventing excuses to bicker just so she can listen to the sound of Salem's voice, as if things like this are the most of her worries and real problems don't exist. "I like when you play Exy."

Grumbling, Nox shreds a fistful of grass and throws it at her girlfriend. "Exy makes me mean." The little cloud of green scatters harmlessly through the air as Salem kicks at the flecks.

"You being mean is why we became friends," she counters, as matter-of-fact as ever. Children were hospitalized in the name of their friendship. No one had ever loved Salem in a way that was willing to break bones to prove it; they had only hated her in a way that was willing to break bones to prove it. That was when Salem realized that proving hatred and proving love can be exactly the same thing, it just depends on who's telling the story.

"You're not supposed to like that about me."

"So? I hate supposed to. Nice people suck too, they just lie about it. Everyone sucks almost all of the time. The only time I like people is when you play Exy."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. I can sit here," Salem pats the railing with both hands, "with all of Rockfall behind me and not hate anyone for hours at a time."

"But you love hating people."

"Factual." There's something wistful about the way she says it, a genuine fondness for loathing. It's one of her favorite hobbies. If she could grow up to be anything she wanted, anything at all, then she would choose to be a professional hater. "But when you play Exy, everyone likes you and so I stop hating them. Usually people make no sense. They only want to think their thoughts and never mine. My thoughts are always wrong and they tell me all about how I am not supposed to think them. Except... except..."

Fumbling for words, Salem waves her hands through the air next to her ears, patting them briefly before waving them around again, attempting to mime the raucous noise of a game day crowd. Too much varied noise is another thing that Salem hates and so these motions are a familiar sight. Nox cups her hands around her mouth and makes helpful whisper-yelling sounds, like a stadium going wild, to demonstrate that she understands.

"Yes. That," Salem points at Nox quickly before turning the gesture into a thumbs up and then resumes waving her hands around her own head again, "but me. Their noise is me. My noise. It is the noise in my head when you are being awesome and then, usually, I get annoyed because somehow no one else notices that you are being awesome, so I want to yell and throw things about it. Which is, basically, all of the time. Except for Exy. Then everyone yells your name and cheers for you to do well and throws things if someone tries to hurt you and it is the only time that people make any sense to me. It is the only time that they think my thoughts. I sit here and there are a thousand of me, all feeling my feelings, but everywhere and all at once. They yell as loud as I want to and no one tries to say anything about being wrong for it, they just chant: Nox! Nox! Nox! Nox!"

The way that Nox Godsick adores Salem Wick is so much bigger than anyone will ever understand and that includes Nox herself. There is nothing better in life than this feeling and this particular way of being cared about. It's shameless. Nothing else about Nox's life can be called that.

"Godsick!" Suddenly Hatchet is leering over her, crouched above her head so that she can physically interfere with the all too obvious way that Nox was just gawking at her girlfriend — heart in a million pieces and every piece whole. "Break ended ten minutes ago."

In this moment Nox does not remember how to talk or, probably, that she even has a mouth at all. It's not the first time that Salem has stunned her into incoherence. In fact, it's often something of a game between them. Just because Salem despises physical contact does not mean that she never touches Nox or that Nox never touches her, only that their way is different than what people expect. Salem patters her hands against the railing she's seated on, amused by Hatchet's inability to fully realize what's happening right in front of her face. People are so dumb. "My bad," Salem sniggers, deciding that if she's going to be treated like a problem, then she might as well become one. "I was just telling Nox about how you said I should ruin my life for her."

Just because Nox can't speak, that doesn't mean she can't punch... and Hatchet's gut is right there. The force of the unexpected uppercut jab combined with Salem's blunt statement is enough to knock Hatchet onto her back, blinking up at the sky with stars in her eyes. "The fuck, Laveau?!" Throat raw from too many intense and conflicting emotions, Nox finds this particular handful of words as she digs a knee into Hatchet's chest, but she can't follow them up with anything except a thumb pressed so hard into the tender underside of her frenemy's jaw that she thinks she can feel the rippled roof of Hatchet's mouth through skin and tongue and rage.

"I thought it was funny," Salem says with a shrug and Nox's grip releases. "I like jokes."

"Asshole," Nox hisses, shoving herself off the girl beneath her.

There is no regret on Hatchet's face as she pulls herself up into a sitting position, lounging back onto one arm while nonchalantly brushing grass off of herself with the other hand. "I didn't think you'd tell her that," she admits candidly, apparently more amused by the situation than shaken.

"I tell Nox everything."

"That makes one of you."

Suddenly it's Nox laughing, a deliriously soft noise that sounds borrowed from her girlfriend. It's nothing like her usual loud drum of delight. "Hey, Hatchy," Nox rolls her head to shoot a mocking look at Laveau, reveling in the twitch of annoyance over the nickname, "I'm supposed to be the stupid one. You're making yourself look bad."

"Don't call me that."

"Nah, I get to call you anything I wanna right now." Hatchy finally bites her tongue, a day too late. "You should know... just because there's stuff I haven't told Salem yet, that doesn't mean I wasn't gonna." Laveau's eyebrows raise in response and she flicks her glance back and forth between the pair, suddenly realizing that maybe they're right — she doesn't know half of what she thinks she does about them. "I mean, just the number of times you've flashed your tits at me is a story worth telling." That's enough to set Salem off again, gleefully cackling like a crow on her perch as Hatchet's cheeks actually have the decency to tinge pink, despite obvious effort to maintain an emotionless facade. "What was that about anyhow?"

Fine. Whatever. Guess this conversation is happening. "You're Nox Godsick," Hatchet explains, completely exasperated as she waves a hand around in Nox's general direction. All of this seems too obvious to be worth spelling out. "I thought the sight of boobs would shock you back to your senses, like those —" Hatchet curls her fingers into her palms and rubs her hands together, realizing too late that she doesn't actually know the word for the machine she's trying to explain.

Nox is already warmed up and ready for this game of charades: "Knuckle sandwich. Frostbite. Bike jacking. Gotta pee and there's no bathroom. Busting one sword into two swords. The saddest punching in the world, like, National Day of Mourning for how sad this punching is —" Hatchet's hackles rise with every ridiculous guess and it shows on her face. "— You're in love with me. No. You're sad. From the punching? Hatred. Murder. Nope, that still looks like murder. More murder."

"Yeah," Salem chimes in, "that one is definitely murder."

Consumed with frustration, Hatchet rubs her balled up hands together one more time before ramming them against Nox's chest so hard that Godsick bobbles backwards like a children's toy. Shoving Nox around takes the murderous edge off of Hatchet's face and suddenly it all clicks into place: "Oh!" Nox exclaims and then she's rubbing her own balled up hands together, taking a turn punching them into Hatchet's chest with a dramatic jolt. "Yeah-yeah! I gotchu! The tchzz tchzz thingies!"

"...tchzz tchzz?" Hatchet echoes, as floored by the level of nonsense that this has escalated to as she is disgruntled that Nox's fondness for absurd sound effects is how they've managed to reach a point of mutual understanding.

Neither Nox nor Hatchet actually knows the word defibrillator and Salem isn't in the mood to teach them. This is way more entertaining. "Tchzz tchzz," Salem joins in, because it sounds like a fun noise to make. It is. "Tchzz."

Furrowing her brow, Nox intently focuses both of her braincells on searching for the term that Hatchet needs. It's riiiiiiiiight on the edge of her memory, dancing around just out of reach, and everyone goes quiet with anticipation. They've come this far; it's time to respect the process. When the ah-ha! moment comes — Nox clapping her hands together so suddenly and so loudly that Salem flinches — she reaches over to rap her knuckles against Hatchet's chest with the world's cockiest grin on her face: "Tiddie paddles." Nailed it.

"Yes!" Hatchet bursts out, so relieved to be done with charades that she doesn't think to pause and regret where they've ended up. "Tiddie paddles!"

"Tchzz tchzz," Nox sounds off once more, pointing a smug finger gun at Hatchet while giving her an upwards head nod. You're welcome.

"I can see why you thought that would work," Salem drags her own girlfriend while squinting at a particularly fluffy cloud overhead. "It was a reasonable hypothesis."

"Thank you!" Laveau breathlessly exclaims, throwing her hands up in the air over finally having it confirmed that she is not the one who has been out of her mind — despite the ways she's beginning to feel like it — before collapsing backwards into the grass.

Pulling a chestnut out from her pocket, Salem lobs it down to Nox, who catches it without hesitation. For a reason that baffles Hatchet, this seems to be a normal thing between them. "I'm okay," Nox immediately murmurs in response to an unspoken question. "Just..." Turning the chestnut over in her hands a few times before tapping it against her temple, she tosses it back up to Salem. "...playin' hooky."

Salem hums with a sound of understanding, as if she instantly knows everything that has happened since they last saw each other. At the very least, she obviously knows enough.

Eyes fixed on the way that Salem doesn't tuck the chestnut back into her pocket, thumb burnishing circle after circle around the divot, Nox wastes no time and immediately picks up where the previous conversation left off. "Don't get me wrong," she says, flopping backwards into the grass beside Hatchet before smacking her hand against Laveau's side in a way that clearly intends to provoke, "they're great."

"What?"

"Your boobs."

Wick is giggling again and Hatchet heaves the world's largest sigh, finding herself on the edge of madness. Her life is colored in shades of regret. "Shut up."

"No, really!" There's something absurdly genuine about Nox's tone, as if she is legitimately attempting to reassure Laveau, concerned that she might have caused Hatchet to feel self-conscious with her previous non-responsiveness. Obviously it was rude of Nox not to acknowledge such a rare privilege. It's as irritating as it is... not entirely off the mark, which is the primary reason that it's irritating to begin with. That only makes it worse. "Top tier."

"I can't stand you." Hatchet's scowl could raze cities, but her cheeks no longer burn.

"Nah," Nox knows as many ways to get under someone's skin as she does ways of staying there, "you like me." If Hatchet actually hated her then she wouldn't still be here. There's frustration, sure, but not revulsion. Hostility is a hobby to someone like Hatchet Laveau and it's not evidence of hatred any more than their daily insults or petty fisticuffs on the field. They're Rockfall kids; fighting is fellowship.

"I really don't," she doubles down on the lie, probably because she still believes it.

"You don't like that you like me," Nox teases. "That's not the same thing."

"You're an asshole." Yes. Yes, she is. Aren't they all?

"Back at ya."

<sup>i don't even know myself
it's just instinct
because we're reacting to each other
my, my, my heart skip a beat



my heart skip a beat by purple kiss.</sup>

[L△LIA]

^{my heart is racing then stopping
i feel like dying
the more it happens, the more i think of you}

This part of the story is about the first time that Salem Wick ruined her life for Nox Godsick.

They were in second grade and Salem had already spent the first two months of the school year shoved inside lockers, having loogies hocked into her lunches, and being physically thrown away into the dumpster. The bullying had escalated to a point where her mother finally did the unthinkable and pleaded with Salem's estranged father to help move them out of Rockfall. (After all, children were being hospitalized.) This was no small request. Rockfall is about as perfect a place as one can find in District Two for the wealthy and well-known to hide their secret second families and the Wicks have always been just that: an old affair best kept quiet.

Even at that young age Salem's test scores made her an ideal transfer candidate, enough so that Lower Highland Montessori was happy to offer a full scholarship. She was set to skip multiple grade levels, replacing Rockfall's social challenges with far more appropriate academic challenges. An individually customized curriculum was already being drawn up to nurture her unique talents.

The only problem was: suddenly Salem did not want to transfer schools. She did not want to be moved out of the second grade. She did not want to leave Rockfall.

Sure, she had spent the past couple of months crying herself to sleep nearly every night and asking her mother an endless series of heartbreaking questions in her attempts to understand why everyone hated her. And, yes, Rockfall Public was generally a filthy place full of terrible smells and bad textures that made her mildly-to-moderately miserable on a daily basis, but —

Salem Wick had just made her very first friend.

Science had been her favorite thing, a type of magic far preferable to fairy tales, but it turns out that science wasn't even half as cool as Nox Godsick. Science never broke anyone's hand because they pushed Salem out of the lunch line and it definitely didn't tackle kids to the ground and force them to eat the rocks that they threw at her on the playground. Science also did not go around opening doors so that Salem wouldn't have to touch the handles. Science did like mice, but it never helped her to catch them in old mayonnaise jars with holes poked into the lids so that Salem could have some cute little furry friends of her very own. It did not steal cheese to shove though the holes to feed the mice. It certainly did not swear that it knew how to translate squeaking into English or cutely wrinkle the whiskered dimples of its cheeks in mimicry of Salem's new pets or ooooo and ahhhh over their new terrarium — actually agreeing that it was as awesome as Salem felt it was.

When Salem was told that she would be transferring schools, her screams rattled the entire house. Wallpaper was clawed off the walls, leaving behind little smears of blood across the plaster as her fingernails snapped and split with the force of the rampage. Tables and bookcases were overturned, chairs were thrown, and more than one window was smashed to shards before the tantrum was finally appeased.

Sweet little Salem Wick would be staying in Rockfall. Or fucking else.

^{my heart skip a beat by purple kiss.}

[L△LIA]

^{don't stop me
it won't work anyway
you'll have to accept it, calmly}

This part of the story is about the second time that Salem Wick ruined her life for Nox Godsick.

It was junior year and Nox became so hyper-focused on being part of the Exy team again that she forgot about academics entirely. This was not a problem during her first semester, when the school was content to falsify her grades enough to maintain eligibility in exchange for victories in Rockfall's name. The problem was the off season, when no one cared how badly she failed her classes. Well, no one except for Salem.

By the time they realized that Nox would need to repeat her junior year, there was just barely enough time for Salem to tank her own grades hard enough to match. If she refused to turn in any more assignments, got a zero on every test, and skipped enough classes to ensure that her teachers couldn't foil her failure with participation points, then everything would work out just fine. Nox and Salem would repeat the year together.

This was, obviously, concerning for all of the people watching one of the very few star students of Rockfall destroy her flawless academic transcripts in the name of... Nox fucking Godsick. Urgh.

What an absolute waste.

^{my heart skip a beat by purple kiss.}

[L△LIA]

^{ding dong
i'm here
hello, baby}

This part of the story is about the third time that Salem Wick ruins her life for Nox Godsick. It hasn't happened yet, but — whatever it is — she has already decided not to regret it.

It's worth it.

Nox is always worth it.

^{my heart skip a beat by purple kiss.}

[L△LIA]

^{what do you say,
what if i ruled the world?}

It is the undeniable definition of a perfect summer day and you are a horrible goose. The breeze is freshly baked, but laced with just the faintest hint of cool relief, as if everyone thought about ice cream trucks in the exact same moment and now it's up to you and you alone to chase the collective smile from their faces. Literally. Around and around the pop-up court they go, your human's (unapproved) new gang desperately trying to out-sprint your snapping jaw. Their ankles look tastier than any frozen treat and you are so close to drawing first blood in the hunt when the chorus of complaints rises up to foil your inevitable triumph:

"Call it off, Godsick!"

"Swear to god I'm gonna bash its skull in with the first racquet I get my hands on!"

"It's shitting everywhere! Shit over here! Shit over there! Every-fuckin'-where I step it's just: shit, shit, shit!"

Their coach, however, looks deeply pleased with this turn of events. "Keep it up, everybody!" The ever-so-relaxed clapping of someone not being chased by a goose echoes across the field from the safety of the sidelines. This is by far the most motivated the team has been in ages — the speed of these warm-up laps could break track team records. Outstanding!

Finally, your human's vicious new pet jolts to a halt and whirls around on you so suddenly that you have to throw your wings out wide in order to stop in time for the showdown. "AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Hatchet bellows in your face, a ferocious foe if you've ever encountered one. You screech back at her with equal madness flaring in your eyes. She does not flinch! You must admit to being impressed... but by no means has your bloodlust been appeased and so the two of you continue caterwauling back and forth and back and forth and —

The brash thrum of Nox's laughter causes the both of you to turn and gawk with complete and utter disbelief. Is she not taking this warfare seriously?! How dare she! Both of you seethe as she casually slouches against the plexiglass wall to observe, but no one backs down. In matched time, you both resume squawking — "AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" — because neither of you are willing to bear the humiliation of her witnessing your surrender. This is no petty skirmish; there can only be one alpha.

It is in this moment that you realize that a prophesied day of legend has finally arrived: Your one true rival has been revealed unto the world. Oh, ho!

The earth itself quakes.

^{intro: crown by purple kiss.}

[L△LIA]

^{burning me down
like fire}

This part of the story happens after Nox has her first kiss with some girl that isn't Salem Wick. Nox doesn't know her name, only that she must be from Lower Highland or wherever the visiting team is from because they met at a... she wants to say... football game? Whatever the sport is doesn't matter — it isn't one of the good ones. She was there to loiter, scam a chili dog off someone, and cackle at Lucifer causing mayhem. But this girl —

Shit.

This girl took one glance at Nox and suddenly couldn't seem to look at anything else. No one had ever looked at a Godsick with such a desperate smile and it fried Nox's brain instantly. Nox had been starting to think that she was the only person in the world who knew how to want someone to a point of absolute stupidity, but suddenly she was being challenged for the title and it felt obscenely good. The girl was cute as hell — the kind of generically attractive that was thrilling in the moment, but utterly forgettable as soon as she was out of sight — and she latched onto Nox and wouldn't let go. At least not until her scandalized parents spotted them sucking face beneath the bleachers and physically hauled her off to, one can only assume, never step foot in Rockfall again.

That's when Nox panics. Not because the nameless girl was super mega grounded for life and never to be seen again — Nox couldn't have cared less about that — but because once the high of being adored by a pretty girl, for absolutely no good or logical reason, dissipates... Nox realizes: she fucked up. Bad. She cheated on her girlfriend and for what?

In the moment it had felt amazing, but that feeling hadn't stayed. It wasn't the type of memory that she wanted to lay around and replay in her mind, over and over, until every detail was seared into perfect recall. It wasn't anything worth caring about. It was meaningless. It was nothing.

Trudging around Cadmium Park for an hour, she tries and fails to come up with any idea of what to do to make things right. The only thing she accomplishes is being very late to the party that Salem and their friends are expecting her at. When she finally arrives it feels like walking into a trap. Apparently Noe had witnessed everything and decided to do what any good friend should: immediately tell Salem the truth, without hesitation, because the truth is what Salem deserves, even if it sucks to hear.

Nox and Noe are also friends and have been for, basically, always. They're both Monsterblock kids and their apartments line up with one another, just with nine floors between them — Nox on two and Noe on twelve. They grew up having late night conversations on a pair of tin cans strung between their bedroom windows and dropping water balloons off of the high-rise roof together. Until this moment, Nox had thought it would be impossible for anything to come between them. Suddenly she wasn't so sure, because she wasn't sure of anything at all, be it Noe or Salem or herself or whatever else.

"...are you okay?" Noe asks Salem, after describing — in excruciating detail — the way that Nox's tongue had been shoved down some other girl's throat, the way that Nox's fingers had been tangled in some other girl's hair, the way that other girl had been sitting on Nox's lap and whispering into her ear and playing with the beer tab that Nox was wearing on a tarnished chain as a necklace. Nox overhears it all.

"Yes," Salem replies, utterly unbothered by the story.

This is not the response that anyone had expected. Openly skeptical, Noe tries — unsuccessfully — to shift herself to an angle that might allow her to meet Salem's ever-evasive eyes before doubling down on the investigation: "Y'sure?"

Tilting her head to turn her gaze to the ceiling, Salem's eyes scan back and forth as she searches her own mind for clues about the social cue that she must have missed. Noe's tone of voice was clearly indicative of Salem having responded in an unexpected way. Now they were both confused. "Should I not be okay?"

"I meannn," heaving a burdened sigh, Noe's face falls into a deep frown as she runs a hand through her hair, little clumps of the greasy strands dropping back into her eyes immediately afterwards. "I dunno. I just thought y'should know about Nox cheating on you. How you feel about it is a you-question."

"How do people usually feel?" Pulling a small black leather notebook out from her pocket, Salem begins dutifully jotting down notes on the conversation for future reference. To her knowledge, INFIDELITY is not a topic that has been relevant to her life experiences until today. All of this new information is bound to be fascinating.

Already familiar with Salem's habit of keeping records detailing her observations on life and the puzzling convolutions of social constructs, Noe doesn't balk and answers simply: "Bad. Sad. Mad." While she may not glean much from it now, in a few years this particular conversation will help Salem to understand why some people look at her mother the way that they do. Like she's a "bad" woman, no matter how kind she is towards other people.

Pausing her notations, Salem considers the emotions one by one. "I do not feel any of those about this." None of them offer her clarity. Still, she commits the recommendations to paper, just in case. "Why would I feel those things?"

Another simple answer: "Jealousy."

"Oh." Salem's voice turns assertive. She has never been more sure of not feeling an emotion as she is in this moment. "I am certain that I am not jealous."

Both of Noe's eyebrows shoot up at the decisive response. "Nah?"

"If I set my face on fire," Salem postulates without any intention of absurdity, "would you be jealous?"

"Ha. What." Obviously it's a ridiculous premise. The idea of Noe wanting to set her face on fire just because someone else thought it was a fun thing to do is actual insanity. That's not a thing that she can fathom anyone wanting to do for any reason. Stupid. "Uh-uh. Why would I be jealous of that?"

Salem giggles like she just told a really funny joke because, from her point of view, that's exactly what she did. Just because other people don't understand the parallels doesn't mean that the irony of it all isn't amusing. So many of Salem's conversations with people feel like this one: neurotypical nonsense being described to Salem as objective truth. She's not weird for not understanding them; they're weird for not understanding her. Salem's world is hewn from straightforward logic. Other people's worlds are irrational, contradicting tangles of emotional turmoil that they cannot articulate clearly and — bafflingly — they insist that their inability to comprehend or neatly communicate their own feelings must be evidence of complexity and, therefore, proof of their emotional superiority. Stupid. "That is what I theorize kissing would feel like."

"Holy fuuuck. Are you, like, really sure you're okay, Salem?" She is fine. But it would be nice if more people believed her when she tells them things, rather than immediately calling the validity of her personal experiences or sanity into question. "Why would y'think that's what kissing feels like? It doesn't," Noe nods her head in the notebook's direction, indicating an opinion that this is important — objective — information for Salem to take note of, "just so y'know."

Instead of writing down notations on a majority perspective that she has already been informed of by numerous people, Salem clarifies, for the sake of Noe's understanding: "It is what people touching me usually feels like." Touch is something like all of the worst textures and sensations — hot, velvet, sweat, bad squish, rubber, uneven, itch, static — at once. Multiplied. "Have I not told you that before?"

"Shit. No. You have not told me that before. I know y'hate when people touch you but —" But she thought it wasn't that serious. She thought it was just a funny quirk. She thought it was something like when a person fibs that they're allergic to a food that they're just picky about not wanting to eat. "— damn, that's fucked. That blows."

"Yes. It does blow." Primarily because people regularly insist on touching her, no matter how clearly she communicates her requests for her personal space to be respected. Some people want to "fix" her, but most people simply don't believe her, because her experience is not their experience and so she must be a liar.

"But, like," despite this revelation, Noe can't stop herself from grappling with Salem's unfathomable lack of emotional response to Nox's cheating, "you aren't jealous that Nox kissed somebody that wasn't you?" Cheating is bad. That's just a fact that everybody knows.

Salem, once again, earnestly contemplates the appeal of setting her face on fire. Even if it were Nox, who possesses a special ability for turning the worst moments of Salem's life into a good time, burning alive does not sound like fun. "Why would I be jealous of something that I do not want to do?"

"Shouldn't she just," Noe sighs, already feeling worn out from attempting to explain the kinds of too-obvious things that people are supposed to understand without being told, "I dunno, not do girlfriend stuff with people who aren't you?"



"Kissing is not girlfriend stuff," Salem explains patiently, all too used to being asked to describe the logic of her responses in excruciating detail because this is something that she does every day of her life. She always has. She always will. It is rare that she is allowed to feel something without being questioned about it. She lives within a constant stream of demands to justify herself to the world. "As girlfriend, I am certain I know that one."

"So..." Finally getting to the heart of it all, Noe stumbles onto the type of trick question that just might force Salem to answer in a way that aligns with majority expectation. "You don't feel sad that Nox is kissing someone else because she can't kiss you?"

Salem falters with uncertainty. She knows far better than anyone else just how much Nox wishes that the girl under the bleachers had been Salem and that part of the situation does hurt. Not because of jealousy. Not because of the kissing. Just... Salem likes who she is and doesn't want to change — she hates change — but she wishes that she didn't burn with anxiety over the mere thought of people touching her, let alone the actuality. Of course she wishes that. She wishes that she could kiss Nox, not because of the kissing itself, but because it would make Nox happy and Nox being happy is one of Salem's favorite things. When something happens that makes Nox happy, it feels as good as when something happens that makes herself happy. Sometimes better. Salem is pretty sure that being able to kiss Nox would feel like having a superpower, if only the reality of it weren't certain torture. That... that... yes, if she spends too much time thinking about Nox kissing someone else because she can't kiss Salem, then she starts to feel bad. Sad. Mad. Jealous, in her own way. But not because of Nox. "I am used to not being what people want me to be."

"You're who I want you to be," Nox interjects hoarsely from the doorway, clenched fingers digging their nails into her palms.

"Nox is here!" Salem announces happily to Noe, whose already fraught expression immediately blanches. The energy that drains from her paling face is shamelessly absorbed by Salem. Radiant in the dim light, she bounds over to her fuck up girlfriend and leans against the wall beside the doorway that Nox has been lurking in. "You are who I want you to be too."

Nox slowly bangs her head against the doorframe. Once. Twice. A third time. "No, I'm pretty sure I suck," she whispers, staring at the floor as if wishing it were a pit that she could throw herself into.

Salem considers this statement. It is important to take everything that Nox says seriously. Nox puts so much effort into making sure that she says what she means and that she means what she says — because this is the language that Salem understands — and so if she is speaking badly about herself then it must be for a reason. A real one; not something dumb like what Noe was on about. "It does suck that you got here late. I was bored without you. I hate being bored."

Wrestling with her confusion over expectations versus reality, Nox tries to banish her useless guilt. Dwelling on things that Salem couldn't care less about is pointless. The nameless girl is meaningless and forgettable to both of them and Salem is right: the worst part of the whole thing really is the waste of an hour that could have been spent together. That was stupid. Nox shouldn't have done that. Noe shouldn't have been the one having this conversation with Nox's girlfriend. "I'm sorry. I'll do better."

"Okay." Salem taps the toe of her shoe on the part of the floor that Nox won't stop staring at until she finally looks up, despite Salem lacking any intention of making eye contact. She just wants to see the rest of her face. Nox has a nice face. Faces being difficult to look at doesn't change that. "I have a roll of candy that makes soda bottles explode. Want to play with it?"

Nox cracks a smile and decides to commit to it. "Sounds fun." There's a pause as she glances over to Noe, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot, obviously wondering whether or not she's on today's fuck up list now too. "Hey, Noe, wanna come?"

The awkward shifting stops. "Definitely."

^{falling by prowdmon + las.}