D2 :: Nox Godsick :: WIP

[L△LIA]

^{your frienemy or team
i can be anything
look carefully}

It is a beautiful day in a mediocre park and you are a horrible goose. Bored of chasing children off the merry-go-round and being the terror from below that bites unsuspecting ankles dangling from the swing set, you wander back to your human. Hours have passed since she sat down by the murky excuse for a pond — even you wouldn't deign to swim in that filth — and, still, she hasn't so much as glanced up from the little black notebook in her claws. You hate it. Tormenting people is only half as fun without her smirk of approval to keep you creatively motivated.

Waddling up behind her, you eye the stack of matching notebooks sitting in the grass beside her, given to her by her human, the one that she all too often neglects you for. ("Because I am not easy to know," Salem stammered, blushing and nervous in a way that Nox had never seen before. The notebooks are a strange kind of diary, describing life as she struggles to understand it, with all of her earnest confusion and petty judgements written out raw and unapologetic. Nox's name is everywhere, a thousand times more prominent than she could have dared to hope. "But I like when you know me.") At this rate Nox will never look at you again and how are you to survive without attention? At least you can weaponize her dismissiveness to your advantage. If she won't look up then she won't notice you biting down on one of the notebooks, dragging it away for the death sentence it deserves.

You chew at the cover until it becomes tattered gloop in your beak, hunks of reconstituted, low quality leather lodging themselves in your throat as smaller flecks pepper themselves between your feathers like blood of the conquered. A page titled SMALL TALK is torn away with the casing. (IMPORTANT: Despite its phrasing, "How are you?" is not a request for personal information. Do not respond with a genuine answer. No one actually wants to know how you are and they will be offended if you tell them. Only say: "Good." Alternative responses will inflict social discomfort and then you will be required to apologize for not understanding that the question was not a question. Also never tell them how it is rude to ask questions that are not questions, even though you are right and they are wrong. They will not acknowledge their error. You will be told that you are the rude one. This is called GASLIGHTING, but only when it happens to people who are not you. Do not ask why. No one will ever explain why. EXCEPTION: If Nox asks how you are, then it is okay to answer honestly. Unlike other people, she wants to know. She says that she likes that you are rude and offensive because she is too. Being rude together is called FRIENDSHIP. Friendship has different rules for different people, but Nox's rules are —) The paper is thin and quickly turns to mush as you gnaw at it, regurgitating the pulp into the pond because that is what trash pits like this one are for.

"LUCI!" Your human is screaming at you. She has never done this before. Angry. She is so very angry. Usually she laughs when you destroy property, sometimes she even applauds. You like when she applauds because it's what you deserve. You squawk to correct her obvious error, reminding her that this is why she likes you. This (and the food game) is why the two of you are friends. Infuriatingly, she does not acknowledge her wrong-doing, ripping the remnants of the notebook from your teeth and swatting you with it. It stings. You bite her back.

After your fight... she cries. It is a pathetic display of weakness, but at least she seems to understand that, because she does not dare to look at you while it happens. This way of not looking at you is different from the other kind of not looking at you that she was doing earlier. You recognize defeat when you see it. Dejected, she stares at the pile of soggy, shredded paper that she waded into the toxic pond filth to retrieve, cursing and cursing and cursing in her futile attempts to piece them back together. As if your handiwork could so easily be undone.

^{flipp!ing a coin by billlie.}

[L△LIA]

(Note to self: Rewrite this? Leo is constantly feeding her by this point. Nox is not actually gonna be this emo over food after a year and a half of Leo in her life. The other living situation stuff is probably still valid though; Can probably flesh that out more with additional Bish posts if it starts to feel like it's not enough. Actually, it might be good to rework the food feelings into a post about Leo cleaning out the Godsick fridge and stocking it with diner leftovers...

Note to self #2: Also. Rockfall has a meal plan that students can buy into with tessera, exchanging basic rations for lunches. Nox definitely does that. So she eats, she just doesn't eat well or consistently. She could also get breakfast from the school, but she can't wake up on time or keep herself organized enough to get herself there. So she settles for eating garbage/risking going hungry because the adhd said: "— but sleeping in will feel good right now.")

^{the bright smile and scars
it's me}

This part of the story is about Nox moving into the basement of a parking garage with four of her friends after they made a runaway pact together. In most ways the parking garage is much, much nicer than the apartment where she lived before, but she doesn't say those thoughts aloud or people start to frown. Unlike some of the others, Nox does not complain about bathing in cold water or the way the pipes screech from time to time throughout the day. The laundry bag of clothing that her brother packed for her is large enough to curl most of her body onto and there are spare blankets to cushion her legs. As it turns out, this sleeping arrangement is significantly more comfortable than the spring mattress that she used to crash on, with old socks wrapped around the spikes of rusted metal that poked through the worn covering. She should have tried sleeping on Bish's laundry pile years ago.

Dishes are washed regularly and stored in a clean cardboard box rather than piled up dirty on the floor and left to mold. There is a cupboard full of tinned food (for emergencies; "No, seriously, Nox. For emergencies. Eat some fresh vegetables for once." She tried her best not to cry over the salad — an actual fucking salad — that she was handed until she was alone, but her nose was red and dripping and everyone definitely noticed) and none of it is expired. Zim makes everyone peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast, every single morning, and the bread is always soft and fresh. The heels of the loaves are set aside for Luci, so he only demands Nox's sandwiches sometimes. If she comes back late at night, she doesn't need to worry about stepping in puddles of vomit because no one here drinks themselves to sleep the way her father does (...except for her, but she doesn't come here on nights like that; instead she passes out at the house where the party happened or sleeps on a park bench or slumps down in an alleyway where the sick oozes into the gutter without guilt). Someone is painting a mural on the cement walls. Little strings of colored lights criss-cross the ceiling, like every day is visiting Salem's house for Ratmas. Even the guns are pink and cheerful here.

Instead of lying to people about where she lives because she doesn't want to admit the truth, now Nox lies to people about where she lives because she doesn't want to risk losing the first place that has ever felt like home.

^{flipp!ing a coin by billlie.}

[L△LIA]

^{let's put it back, put it back, put it back
when the rising moonlight fills my eyes: lie, lie}

This part of the story is about how Nox misses her brother, wishing he hadn't dropped out of school so that she could see him without having to visit streets she'd rather never walk down again. She wants to pack him a laundry bag so that he can run away too, but they shared the one. That's not the real reason he's stuck in that place, but it's a nice lie and pretending that a laundry bag is all Bish needs to be free is something that Nox has grown fond of telling herself.

^{m◐◑n palace by billlie.}

[L△LIA]

^{"is she dead-dead?"
nothing is known
"can we talk-talk?"
not anymore}

This part of the story is about the thirty-seven days that Nox went without anyone touching her — not a hug, not a high-five, not a brush of elbows as she passed a stranger on the street. It was the middle of the summer before junior year... the summer before her first junior year, that is, not her current one.

Bish had gotten a gig doing janitorial for some kind of sleepaway camp out on the far edge of the District. Solid pay, room and board. It would be enough to keep him in school for another semester (the rest of his senior year, they'd thought, but that was before the break-in that winter, when the coffee can they stashed the rent in got jacked by some methhead that no one was willing to snitch on because, in this neighborhood, people prefer the druggies to the Godsicks). Their dad was missing in action, off on another bender. It wasn't record breaking, not yet, but it was shaping up to be a real contender.

Long story short: Nox spent day after shameless day with Salem and when she got home, no one was there to ruffle her hair. It was the best summer ever, until it wasn't.

The feel of the relentless sunshine on her face was almost like being kissed, a warmth that left her tender and content, while the dusty breeze off the old quarry played with her hair, twisting it into knots and picking it apart over and over again. When she stripped down to her underwear and leapt off the rope swing into the lake — Salem screaming with laughter any time Nox managed a cannonball with a splash radius wide enough to spook the ducks into flight — the water held her under so tightly that, more than once, she thought she might not mind drowning. That, probably, should have been enough for Nox to realize that she wasn't okay. It wasn't.

Somewhere around the halfway mark sleep decided it wanted little to nothing to do with her. Rest came in fits and starts, coaxed along by more than a few shots of shoplifted vodka. Each time morning came, bright and hideous through the broken blinds, it felt progressively more and more impossible to separate her body from the mattress. Resorting to an old childhood habit, Nox began listing reasons to convince her unwilling body into cooperation. Nearly all of the reasons were people: Bish, their father, Axel, Noe, Astraea, Zim, Wilder... except those were people that she hadn't seen in recent days. Like this, the mantra narrowed down to one word and one word only: Salem. Salem. Salem. S—

It was the thirty-fifth day (or so she guesstimates, but she can't really be sure) when the simple act of waking went from hours of effort to unmanageable. There was a void and it was wider than the lake, deeper than the quarry. Melting into the world's worst mattress, she slipped right through. She fell and she fell and she kept on falling because no one was there to catch her.

On the thirty-seventh day the knocking began, unanswered, first in the afternoon and then again, later in the evening. Come the thirty-eighth day the knocking sounded every hour on the hour, until finally the rusted lock surrendered to the strength of its unrelenting opponent. "...Godsick?" It definitely wasn't Salem. It also wasn't Bish or their father, not Axel or Noe, Astraea or Zim. For a bleary moment she thought it might be Wilder, but the cadence was all wrong.

Who, in the actual fuck, was in her apartment?

"Fuuuuuuuuuck, Godsick." The obscure familiarity of the voice was advanced levels of difficult to place and Nox just... couldn't make herself care enough to bother. "You're not dead, are you?" The floorboards groaned as the intruder crouched down beside her, holding a finger beneath her nose to check for signs of life in a gesture that had become all too frequent in recent years. A hand slapped at her cheeks, aggravated enough by the situation to border on unkind, before forcibly prying at Nox's eyelids to inspect just how far her eyes had rolled into the back of her head. They were all whites. "Seriously. I need you not to be dead."

The words I need you cracked Nox's lips apart, just enough for the barest drabble of sound to eek out. It was pure instinct, her body unable to resist attempting some type of smooth retort — except for the part where she lacked the physical energy to coherently operate her vocal cords, much less her jaw.

Or maybe it was the feeling of someone's hands on her face that brought her back from the edge of oblivion, gruesome callouses scratching at her skin no matter how gently the sweat-soaked hair was tucked behind Nox's ears. "I want you —" Another eek of reflexive sound. "— to know that if you weren't my actual last resort, I'd put you out of your misery myself. This should not be my problem. Fucking Garcia and her fucking broken leg. A week before preseason..." The muttering devolves into an incoherent stream of irate nonsense and Nox sleeps, truly sleeps, for the first time since —

She doesn't know. Since the last time.

Maybe this will be the last time.

She doesn't know.

<sup>"it's alright"
no, i'm not okay
"you'll be fine"
you know i'm not



ring x ring by billlie.</sup>

[L△LIA]

^{second hand turns a big circle
set rules of stars
lights dyed in line with each other}

This part of the story is about how Nox Godsick earned her varsity jacket.

Unlike other schools, it's not entirely uncommon for Rockfall Public freshmen to claw their way onto the varsity teams. Maybe it's something in the water, to do with the curious phenomenon of being flammable. More likely it's basic survival of the fittest and how — around here — the smaller someone is, the weaker someone is, the quicker they have to figure their shit out. Or else.

Nox always left blood on the Exy court. Hers. Other people's. She put the strike in striker and while the upperclassmen openly resented her for staking claim to an elite spot on an already small team, there wasn't anyone amongst them who could outscore her. They were league champions that year. The next... Nox quit.

Inexplicably, she joined the improvised weapons team — better known, mockingly, as combat scouts — barely making second string and, even then, there were unsettlingly detailed rumors about exactly how she'd secured that spot. No one could talk her off the kamikaze course of her choices. She was deaf to the coaches lecturing her about how she obviously had what it takes to go pro someday; couldn't care less about the pleas of her former teammates, who had grown fond of trophies despite never being particularly fond of her.

More than one person begged Salem Wick to talk some sense into Nox, only to realize that she must be the reason that her girlfriend had walked out on Exy to begin with. A conflict of schedules. Too many hours spent apart. When debating between possible futures, Nox would choose Salem every time. Not herself. Never herself.

^{m◐◑n palace by billlie.}

[L△LIA]

^{after feeling the trembling stop for a moment
you saw me
in a world full of lies
cover me up}

This part of the story might have been a hallucination. Nox will never know for sure. When she mulls over the scattered memories — bleary little fragments of nonsense that warp and bend into different meanings depending on the emotions she chooses to frame them with in present day — none of it feels like reality. The effort it took to save her doesn't logic.

But if none of that was real, then that means she's dead.

She's not dead. Probably.

...probably.

There was no more knocking. Instead there was a hot pink sleeping bag, rolled out on the floor alongside Nox's tragedy of a mattress. Later, when asked about it, Hatchet would shamelessly rake her eyes up and down Nox's body — assessing the weak points of her stance, maybe, or counting scars like scrying into the recorded history of her mistakes before noting how the black of her roots had grown out too far — and she replied: "What? I camp. Don't make it fucking weird, Godsick." Hatchet Laveau had always been someone who had notoriously little tolerance for her time being wasted and would abruptly walk out on worthless conversations rather than squander her breath. This was the main thing that Nox remembered about her from their freshman year Exy practices — Hatchet not bothering to respond to her cheap digs or bullshit bragging, opting for sauntering away to focus on worthwhile things. Like herself.

It took a hell of a lot more than a sleeping bag to drag Nox back to the bare minimum standards for being a functional human being.

There's this particular memory that Nox has and, for the longest time, it was both the most believable and the least believable of them all. Maybe it still is. Hatchet must have been sitting with her back supported by the wall, Nox's limp body propped up between her legs for stability with her spine slumped against Hatchet's chest. There was a vicious fist in her hair, yanking her head backwards onto Hatchet's shoulder in order to open her throat enough to force water down. "Drink, Godsick," was repeatedly growled into her ear, like a threat, between room-shaking screeches of frustration over threats being utterly useless in this situation. "Isn't this —" Hatchet's exasperation became a physical thing, feral as it shoved the sharpened razor blades of its knuckles down her throat as a means of choking her, punishing her. Or maybe that was the water. "— supposed to be one of the few things you're good at?"

The flood of water spilled from Nox's mouth until they were both soaked through, clothing squelching audibly with even the smallest of movements. Until the floorboards warped beneath them. Until Nox dreamed she was drowning. Until Nox realized she wasn't dreaming, no, her head was just tilted too far back and the water was forcing its way down her nostrils, burning her alive from the inside out. Fuck... she was alive? Her body sputtered and coughed, like it was a separate creature from the rest of her.

The claws withdrew from Nox's sweat drenched hair, head carefully balanced against the wall behind them. Later, there would would be a permanent dark spot where the buildup in her greasy locks had rubbed off to stain the paint, but in the moment there was only the hand that moved to rest itself on her throat. Everything else in the world ceased to exist. Unfathomably gentle, Hatchet trailed her fingers up and down Nox's neck. It tickled, sweetly. When she pressed down, here and there, her touch felt like morse code for a lullaby. The warmth of Nox's blood circulating was suddenly tinged with gold, shimmering in the dark of her. Throat hitching in a flutter of nerves, she swallowed.

"Atta girl," Hatchet sighed against her ear, the tense knots of her frustrations unraveling so suddenly that Nox could physically feel the body cradling her relax, surrendering to its own exhaustion. They stayed like that for centuries. Arms and legs wrapped around Nox — fingers stroking her damp throat with increasingly lazy movements as tiny swallow after tiny swallow drained the flood waters away — the sun rose and set again. Nox's head lolled, pressing her face into her keeper's neck. Keening.

Being resuscitated, even just this much, made her body that much more aware of its aching and the hurt that it had put such effort into denying. Her bones were sore and famished. Her lungs lacked confidence in their ability to bear the weight of her own ribs. Her jaw must have been wired shut because she could feel where the holes had been drilled for wire to pass through and it didn't move and it didn't move and it didn't move, even when she begged it to.

"Shhhhh," Hatchet soothed, tucking Nox's head beneath her chin, "I can't stand the sound of crying."

<sup>i still miss my young lost heart



cursor by purple kiss.</sup>

[L△LIA]

^{emptying my feelings in a dark night
look at me}

This part of th—

"WAKE UUUUUUUUUUP." There's an audible crack as the sound of a slap echoes throughout the room. Ten thousand pinpricks stab Nox's cheek, perfectly synchronized. Then her jaw is in a vice grip, wrenching her skull back and forth until Nox snarls: lip curling, nostrils flared, eyelids cracking open just so they can narrow at the abuse. Everything goes still. "Finally," Hatchet groans, her voice miserable with relief. "I can't feel my leg. Move."

They had slept like that, Nox nestled into Hatchet's body like a blanket.

All Nox can do is slump forward until she tips and sprawls, her cheek married to the dirty floorboards as she stares blankly ahead. But her eyes are open and that's something. Even her breathing has steadied, no longer an erratic hiss of mismatched wheezes. Hatchet thwacks at her own leg with the same brutality she handles Nox with, fist pummeling the numb muscles until they give in to her demands. "You need to eat," she declares with a voice that knows full well that Nox loathes the proposition, long before Nox can muster the willpower to grumble a laughably futile refusal. "Oh, yeah? That's the battle you wanna pick?" No. Yes. Maybe? "After that: we bathe." The grumble becomes a moan, writhing across the floor like a drunken snake that flopped out from her mouth and really thought it was going somewhere. "I'm disgusting," Hatchet sounds genuinely repulsed, "and you..." Crouching down, she tilts her head to better leer into Nox's vacant eyes. Then she makes a series of retching sounds graphic enough to trigger Nox's gag reflex, if only it hadn't been so many days since putting any food into her body.

There is only emptiness... until Hatchet's fingers are in her mouth, forcibly prying her jaw open and pinning her tongue back to drizzle room temperature instant ramen broth down Nox's throat. "That —" Biting earns Nox a punishing yank on her hair, numerous strands remaining in Hatchet's hand even after she releases her grip. "— is not yours to fuck up." Nox flinches so severely at the well-aimed reprimand that Hatchet averts her gaze to the ceiling for a moment, clenching and unclenching her jaw in unwanted pity. "Eat a noodle and you can have a treat."

After Nox spits it out for a second time, the noodle slowly oozing out from the crack between her lips until it's dangling off the side of her expressionless face, Hatchet resigns herself to sitting behind Nox once again. With one arm wrapped around to hold a hand over her ward's mouth, fingers gripping her lips shut so tightly that even the most optimistic of foods couldn't hope to escape, Hatchet's other hand flips through the pages of a ridiculously massive leather-bound book. Ephialtes of the Damned.

The rustling pages make for a calming sound to focus on and eventually Nox's unwilling jaw creaks with the smallest of movements. "Ready action?" Hatchet mutters to herself as if offended, looking up from the handwritten pages of her book to scowl at the laundry pile across from them, throwing Molotovs with her mind. More than once she has broken out into abrupt, incoherent tirades involving a lot of words that, frankly, Nox wouldn't know what to do with even if her mind were in tiptop shape. "What in the nine circles of Hell is a ready action? Are there actions that aren't ready? Unready action just sounds stupid... do you think Sevyn would notice if I tore this section out?" Leaning forward to rest her chin on Nox's shoulder, Hatchet peers at her unresponsive face for a long moment before wobbling Nox's head around in an act of mock-ventrilliquism: "Not if you roll for stealth first, Hatchet."

It takes an hour, or maybe two, of agonizingly slow chewing for the noodle to dissolve in Nox's mouth. Afterwards, she feels glutted to the point that she wonders if her stomach might burst. "It's bath time, baby," Hatchet mandates, the activity perfectly timed for maximum misery, and Nox's eyes flick to attention. Alert and full of dread.

<sup>i can't be consoled
look at me



cursor by purple kiss.</sup>

[L△LIA]

^{never seen myself before
never felt so all alone}

This part of the story is about mess; the kind that can be cleaned and the kind that cannot.

Thankfully the Godsick's tub is only — give or take — two thirds the length of a standard tub. Even still, Hatchet fills the water to no more than six or so inches, distrustful of the way Nox's knees keep giving out, causing the rest of her body to slide down in sudden jolts. There will be no drowning today.

Sneering at the water, a shade beyond grey and swirling with runoff of more than one color, Hatchet takes Nox by the chin and turns her face until they're staring each other down. Neither flinches from the severity of the eye contact. "Keep your head above water, Godsick. I am not getting in there with you." There's a small flicker as Nox's eyebrows knit themselves together and she glances down, as if observing the filth melting off her skin as an outsider to her own body. Did the sewage back up the drain again or is this really all from her? She knows the answer.

Eyes falling shut, Nox manages a nod of compliance, small and bobbling with something deeper than shame. Her resignation into obedience is rewarded with fingers passing through her hair, picking knots apart as Hatchet pours a mixing bowl of warm water over her head. The water streams down her face, different from yesterday's deluge. This is a fractal river, branching off the tributaries of her sunken eyes before the rivulets course past nostrils and waterfall over lips. It doesn't feel anything like rain. She doesn't know what to compare it to; the feeling is new.

Hatchet's fingers are steady and meticulous as she untangles the chaos of Nox's hair. Again and again her hands slide through the strands, searching out every last snarl. The tugging hurts more than expected, Nox's nose wrinkling with one grimace after another. The little sparks of pain don't feel like much compared to her recent troubles and, suddenly, the noticing becomes a marvel. The twinge of a single strand of hair pulled too sharply shouldn't even register and yet, more than once, a percussive ah of complaint creaks from her throat. "I know. It hurts." Unseen, one corner of Hatchet's mouth hooks up just enough to crease her cheek, as if carving out a secondary sideways smirk. "Deal with it."

Impetuous, Nox finds her voice: "I am." The attempt at speaking sounds like wreckage, gruesome to the point of being incomprehensible.

Apparently Hatchet speaks wreckage. "Are you?" She doesn't care enough about Nox Godsick to lie to her, making no secret of the skepticism in her tone. Nox's naked shoulders slump, unable to hide from the truth when she's been laid out this bare.

Oil slicked grit spirals down the drain as Hatchet empties and refills the tub water before reaching in to scrub at Nox's skin with a ratty washcloth. Despite her summer tan, Nox flushes bright red and raw from Hatchet's scouring. The cloth might as well be made from steel wool with the way she handles it, but afterwards Nox feels put back together somehow. Soap bubbles pool in her collar bones and build a dreamscape across the surface of the water, a topography of rainbow tinged mountains that cling to her waist and climb up her sides.

When the shampoo is massaged into her scalp, Nox dies an excruciating death over the whimper that sneaks out her throat before she can bite it back, burying her face in her knees to muffle the sound when it wells up a second time. Hatchet doesn't acknowledge the vulnerable outburst, despite the impossibility of having missed it, her fingernails continuing their little circles of bliss — as if nothing happened — until all of the grease and buildup has been loosened and rinsed away. Once her hair is smooth and unsoiled, Hatchet's hand slow-patting the crown of Nox's head in a way that's probably intended to be patronizing but that mostly just feels relaxing, she catches herself wishing for the pipes to burst and paint her with grime, so she might have an excuse to be washed clean again.

The intrusive thought nags at Nox, even after Hatchet hoists her from the tub to towel her off before hauling her out of the bathroom the same way she was brought in: bridal carried by a battleaxe of a girl that — if given a reason — would kill Nox without hesitation, but who won't leave her for dead.

<sup>i'm full of cracks
piling up and left unchanged



cursor by purple kiss.</sup>

[L△LIA]

^{is it because of the heat?
getting me annoyed, oh, my}

This part of the story is about Hatchet Laveau walking into Nox Godsick's bedroom, deadass naked. Toweling off her freshly showered hair, she flips it over one shoulder and casually stares down at the near-lifeless girl sprawled out on her sleeping bag: unresponsive as ever. "Nothing? Seriously?" Giving Nox a petulant scowl — annoyed at herself for feeling... kind of insulted by someone whose opinion she doesn't even give a shit about — she huffs and finally rolls her eyes. "Whatever. It was worth a shot."

No more treats for Godsick.

<sup>i'll let my guard down once
oh, my



heart burn by sunmi.</sup>

[L△LIA]

^{round and round
it was almost over for me this way}

This part of the story is about Plan B... which is a plan that Hatchet hadn't actually bothered to come up with yet, because she had been pretty fucking confident that the sight of her naked would be more than enough to shock Nox back to her senses. Pulling on a pair of cutoff sweatpants and her thinking sports bra, she paces the room while doing tricep curls with a milk jug full of water.

After a few restless minutes, Hatchet sits down beside Nox's head and switches the water jug to her other hand for her next set of reps. "Where's your brother?" Her voice is cautious, not tentative. Around Rockfall it's always dangerous to ask about absence and it only takes one mistake for someone to learn not to ask questions that they don't actually want to know the answers to. There's just no way around it this time. Nox stares blankly at the ceiling, her mouth creaking open slowly before pressing itself shut again. "Blink once for alive, twice for dead."

Once.

Okay, so Bish is gone, but not, like, gone-gone. Good. Hatchet won't have to babysit forever. "You want Wick here?"

"No." Nox's voice is made of splinters and she nearly chokes on them in her emphatic rush to force the word from her throat. The last thing she wants is for Salem to see her like this: at her absolute worst. That would only hurt them both. Nox, barely human, and Salem, tauntingly close and yet unbearably far away, spiraling over her own inability to help with the situation. Panicking. Devolving until Hatchet found herself with a second, far more violent, breakdown to deal with. Nox powers down; Salem rampages.

Now this... this is something that Hatchet can use. "Okay. Then here's how this is going to go: You're going to start putting some effort in. You're going to sit up. You're going to eat. You're going to get your shit together or I'll have Wick here within the hour. Deal?" It's an ultimatum, not a choice. Nox is very still. "I want to hear you say it, Godsick. Do. We. Have. A. Deal?"

Fuck.

"Deal," she rasps, voice openly laced with contempt over having her last shred of pride held to her own throat like a knife.

Ten minutes later Hatchet is hauling Nox up into a seated position, manually crossing her legs for her so that they're sitting knees-to-knees. Nox tries not to stare, but her eyes keep drifting down to where skin touches skin. That's the place where intrusive thoughts are born. Hatchet's knees are rough from years of Exy and competitive combat. She treats her body like a blunt force weapon and it shows in all of the places where the flesh has been scraped away too many times, diving across mats and grass until her skin toughened up into calloused armor. Most girls are soft. Laveau is barbarian barbie.

"Open up," Hatchet commands, a paper bowl of instant ramen held up between them. Noodles dangle from the disposable chopsticks in her hand and Nox wants to tell her where she can shove them, but the savory scent of the broth hits her nose and suddenly her stomach growls. Loudly. It's the sound of betrayal. Hatchet smirks and wiggles the noodles around as if puppeteering a sexy dance. "Eat me," she moans in a scandalously exaggerated tone, lolling her head back slightly and biting her lip. Nox just gawks, her stony face twisting itself into an incredulous expression. This, unfortunately, is an encouraging reaction. A sign of progress. Hatchet stares deep into Nox's eyes, dropping her husky voice into a spine-shivering timbre: "Eat m—"

Nox swings her head forward to chomp down on the noodles. Anything to make it stop.

<sup>wake me up, wake me up
you woke me up by shaking me



ring ma bell (what a wonderful world) by billlie.</sup>

[L△LIA]

^{lie after lie
i'm getting bitten by your trembling eyes}

It is a sweltering summer day — hot enough to boil the blood of your enemies that has been spilt like torrents of rain upon the pavement this harrowed morn — and you are a horrible goose. A horrible goose in a horrible mood. More than one peasant has been forced to pay the price for your...

Hold up. Let's be very clear about this.

You are not worried. You are not concerned. That would be madness. You are a goose. You cause the worry and the concern. You do not keep these terrible things for yourself. Inflict! That's your motto. Surely you're just hangry. Yes. That must be the thing.

It has been many moons since you have been entertained with the food game and its many wondrous ceremonial customs. You decide that you shall feast upon Nox's fingers, a delightfully crunchy snack worthy of anticipation, the next time she dares to show her face.... her cowardly face that will soon be slashed and bitten for the betrayal of this ill-conceived abandonment plot. She is meant to be your loyal subject, to deliver unto you a wealth of offerings in hopes of appeasing your murderous impulses, lest they be turned upon her! As they shall be! Devastation shall reign!

Obviously you are feeling very normal about her absence.

Rage-screeching at the next person foolish enough to trespass upon your streets, the squawking is cut short by the devil herself. "Luci," she whispers hoarsely and you hiss before snapping your toothy beak, beyond irritated. Does she have nothing else to say for herself?! After the lonesome torment you have endured these many days past?! The human she is using as a crutch untangles the knots of their codependent arms and lowers Nox to the ground so that you might better the angle of your biting. Perhaps this new face might be a fitting replacement for your servant needs.

A paper bowl of stale noodles is laid out upon the sidewalk, crunchy around the edges and savory mush within. A rare delicacy. Your feathers bristle as you march back and forth, contemplating your acceptance strategy. She hopes to placate you and you... must admit to being somewhat amused by this turn of events. It is not entirely unsatisfactory. "Great," the sentient crutch deadpans, not sharing your well-masked mirth. "We fed a goose. Now we walk. Left foot, right foot, Godsick." On second thought, perhaps you prefer the devil you know. You could not abide being addressed with such a tone.

Throwing yourself upon the offering, you devour the noodles and the paper bowl itself with equal voracity. It pairs nicely with the peasant blood you wet your beak with earlier — full bodied, with notes of umami and the wretched aftertaste of class inequality. A favorite. With her many teeth, your human smiles at the sight of your joyful feasting. As she should. Your joy is her joy. It is good for her to remember this.

Perhaps, you think, it is not such a bad day as you first thought. A walk sounds diverting indeed. You shall accompany them, a benevolent beast, so as to ensure that they do not fall into any pits or become cannibalized by rabid children. Such punishments should be yours and yours alone to inflict as you see fit.

^{flipp!ing a coin by billlie.}

[L△LIA]

^{one by one small cracks begin to appear
when i focus on the increasing question marks
oh, who's the joker?
nah nah, don't trick me baby}

This part of the story might best be titled: The Curious Case Of Nox Godsick Finding Her Mind By Losing It.

It's Hatchet's knees. She can't stop thinking about them, even after all of the ramen has been swallowed down and Hatchet shifts positions so they're no longer touching each other. There are little scuffs on Nox's skin where Laveau's callouses leave behind evidence of the way they could flay Nox to rags with even the slightest flex of force. Nox finds herself disinterested in the ceiling or the floor or any of the other places she has turned her face to when disassociating from her body these past however many days. Instead she fixes her eyes on the frayed edge of Hatchet's oversized cutoffs, scouring the shadowed skin for new details to memorize. A particularly deep crease, maybe, or the permanent patches of discoloration from hitting the ground ten hundred too many times.

Hatchet notices the shift in fixation, but doesn't seem to think much of it. It's hardly noteworthy in comparison to... anything else. To her, at least.

To Nox, her inability to resist this new habit consumes her every thought for hours at a time. Having emptied her mind so thoroughly, there isn't much else left to compete for her attention. The more she's forcibly pulled out of her numbed incoherence, the more the contempt for her own bedroom returns — the filth between the floorboards, the sick splatters on her threadbare sheets, the ash-blackened cobwebs and piss stains embedded in the cracked ceiling, courtesy of Bish's smoking and the doberman that lives upstairs that's only taken out for half as many walks as it needs. All of those things tug her backwards into the waiting tide of the void and so she focuses on the knees instead.

From time to time Hatchet will look up from the handwritten tome of rules for her friend's tabletop role playing game that she whiles away the hours with. Sometimes it's to rant about how unnecessarily complicated it all is, like how there's really no need for two dozen subrace variants of spectra. More and more often it's to pry at Nox with whatever random questions cross her mind, in a transparent attempt to sort out just how many words she can con Nox into responding with. The record is four when Nox finally turns the tables to initiate conversation.

By this point Nox can sit without much concern for flopping into a puddle of absolute despondency and so she begins testing her own limits. Arms locked behind her for support, she kicks one leg out. Like this her leg is side-by-side with Hatchet's, a mere half an inch apart. It has been two hours since lunch and that means it has been two hours of alternating between thinking about knees and thinking about how her mind feels so much clearer when the knees are touching her. Lurching her foot from side to side in a kind of anxious fidget, there's a little flash in her brain each time her toes thwack into Hatchet's toes, each time her knee rolls enough to bump into Hatchet's knee.

Hatchet glances up — as one does when they're being repeatedly knocked into by another person — eyebrow raised sharp enough to cut. But she doesn't shift her leg away. Whatever is happening... it's a development and apparently she's more curious than she is annoyed. "You," Nox mutters and pauses. The ensuing silence stretches out so long that they both nearly give up on the expectation that it's going somewhere, but eventually the rest of the words come, in record breaking numbers: "...don't have to stay." Her voice is all sharp edges, as if trapped in a constant state of breaking against itself. Usually this makes her feel like a badass, like hers is the kind of voice that eats razor blades and gravel for breakfast, but she's pretty sure that's not what Hatchet hears right now. Suddenly the squeaks and cracks lacing each word make her self-conscious. Literally everything about her is so unstable. Exactly how strange and mortifying this whole situation has been finally sinks in.

"Don't start that shit with me, Godsick." Hatchet's eyes are narrow, her jaw tight. Every edge of her hardens. She has no patience to spare for this.

"I'm not —"

"Stop." Closing the cover of her book with a thunk, she shifts so that they're face to face and places a too-firm hand on each of Nox's shoulders, thumbs and fingers digging in insistently enough to verge on painful. "I get your whole... deal. It's nothing I haven't seen before." This is important. She needs Nox to actually hear this — it's not a conversation that she will be repeating. "You're not special." Her voice is aggressively objective, facts and nothing else.

There isn't anything to be argued with. "I know," Nox replies, after Hatchet has stared her down for long enough to make it clear that she's waiting for Nox to confirm that she is processing this, that she truly understands what is being said to her. It's not hurtful. It's not anything that requires emotional acceptance. This Is Rockfall. Nothing and no one is special here; it's not personal.

"I hate charity." There is very real contempt in her voice as she spits out the c-word and Nox's mouth twists with the smallest hint of a wry grin. The hatred is mutual. "I am not here out of the kindness of my heart or some bullshit like that. I showed up at your door because I needed something and when I saw how messed up you were... I knew it was an opportunity." Relief washes over Nox. She can cope with being taken advantage of or blackmailed or whatever Hatchet's master plan is, but there's no way that she could have handled being pitied for all of this — not by someone who's supposed to be on her level, someone whose life is probably just a different variant of rockbottom. "You owe me now and I'm not going anywhere until I collect."

Faintly bobbing her head, Nox is trapped in perpetual motion for a while. Nodding and nodding. Hatchet Laveau wouldn't be anyone's first choice loanshark, but here they are, Nox's life signed away in blood on the debt promissory. At least her kidneys are probably already fucked, so she doesn't have to worry about an organ theft angle. "Can't believe I'm your best option."

"Yeah." The hard truth of it colors Hatchet's voice in shades of grey, completely unamused. She hasn't exactly come to terms with her own problems yet, apparently. "Neither can I."

"Must be bad." Understatement.

Hatchet just keeps staring into Nox's eyes, as if searching for some kind of confirmation that she's not wasting her time. That the payoff is coming. Nox doesn't have to ask whether or not she can see any hint of what she's looking for in there. It's obvious: she can't find it and she can't find it and she can't find it. Flexing her jaw, a ripple of stubborn resolve convulses across Hatchet's expression. She already decided how all of this was going to go, days ago, and so that's that. "Not once you get your shit together." There's no turning back now.

Something in Nox cracks, not to be confused with crumbling. This isn't a feeling of falling apart. It's more like... resenting the opportunity that demolition provides. "Bold of you to think I will." Laveau had better not be trying to gentrify her. The sewer geese would rise up with protest signs — KEEP GODSICK SHITTY — and Rockfall would become a war zone.

Hatchet goes Nox levels of silent.

^{mcguffins ~ who's the joker by billlie.}

[L△LIA]

^{i'm not the type to have patience
when i curse, in my mind i smile
a style that doesn't know fear}

This part of the story is about the lengths that Hatchet Laveau is willing to go to in order to get the fuck out of Rockfall. Those lengths include, but are not limited to: assault, sabotage, blackmail, and showing Nox Godsick her tits.

It started her freshman year, when she poured a beaker of highly corrosive acid on Leo Wordriff's hand during a science lab that they were partnered up for. An accident, she swears — they were good friends! Had been since fifth grade. Everyone knew that. It was pure coincidence that Exy tryouts were that week and that Leo and Hatchet were in a head-to-head competition for the same second string backliner position, with Wordriff being the all too obvious favorite to snag the spot. Having an aunt for a coach makes people paranoid about bias, you see.

Hatchet is people.

Even setting aside the alleged attack, nothing was easy after making the team. Weekly, the coaches had to sit Laveau down for serious discussions about not just the ways in which her actions were constantly risking the safety of her teammates, but the ways in which she was constantly risking her own neck. The reckless body slamming and head butting might not technically be against their league rules, but it was becoming a problem anyhow. "Winning isn't everything," someone dared to tell her and Hatchet could only cackle hysterically at the idiocy, unable to get herself under control. Things got to the point that the school nurse was called in to assess the outburst. Still she laughed and laughed until her stomach felt like the pits of hell. She laughed until she couldn't open her eyes for the burn of tears. She laughed until she passed out from exhaustion.

What a joke. Winning is the only thing that matters to someone who firmly believes that their singular hope in life is to be scouted as a professional athlete. That's the only way that anyone ever seems to get out of Rockfall and so Hatchet Laveau would risk anything from juvie to permanent brain injury in order to make that happen for herself. She is the myth. She is the urban legend. She'll get out or she'll die trying.

When Nox Godsick quits the team after bringing championship victory to Rockfall, Hatchet nearly hunts her for bloodsport. The only thing that stops her is Wordriff being shunted into the vacated position, neatly ensuring Hatchet as a sure thing for varsity backliner the following year. Still. She carries a shiv up one sleeve for a month, lurking in the various dark corners surrounding the Godsick's apartment complex and debating the best course of action. Wordriff had been slacking after being relegated to the practice team; she was hardly a threat to Hatchet anymore, so long as favoritism didn't come into play. Godsick on the other hand...

Rockfall couldn't win without her, apparently. They went from champions to being ranked last in the league and Hatchet regretted not seizing the many opportunities she'd had to twist that shiv into Nox's gut until Hatchet got what she wanted: a return to victory.

New blood transferred in mid-season, just in time to prevent Hatchet from grabbing the nearest box cutter and getting shit in order herself. The Garcia twins weren't the best strikers in Rockfall history, but their skills were enough to give the team some chance of a comeback. If they put the work in then everything would be back on track for the next year, when it would really matter. That's when the scouts would start dropping by games with their eyes on Hatchet, deciding whether or not she would be one to watch the year after and she had to be.

The problem with playing defense is that, no matter how good Hatchet was, no one would give a shit if Rockfall didn't get any goddamn points on the goddamn board.

It was fine. Everything was fine. Next year would be better. Next year would be —

The parents of the Garcia twins divorced and when their mother left town, one of the twins went with her. Hatchet dreamt in red after hearing the news. Then... then... Ramona Garcia broke her goddamnmotherfuckingshitshitbitchass%*@&fuck!###—

Her leg.

The only decent striker left on the team broke her leg doing keg stands off a balcony railing and Hatchet's entire life flashed before her eyes.

She had combat team still, sure. She was good with a battleaxe, borderline great even, but she wasn't sure she was good enough to go pro the same way she was absolutely confident that she could make the District Two national Exy team after graduation. Combat team was her backup. Combat team didn't pay as well. Even if she ranked well enough to be recruited for her combat skills, it might not be enough to get her out of Rockfall. Then everything would be pointless. She would rot away here like everyone else.

These were the thoughts going through Hatchet's mind when she convinced her friend Sevyn to hack into Shear Hill Military Academy's records, so that they could cause enough damage that Francesca Garcia's transfer request would be denied. It didn't work, but not for lack of trying. Hatchet jumped her on the street later that week and tried a blackmail angle, swearing bodily harm to the sister she had left behind. That was enough to motivate Francesca to withdraw from Shear Hill enrollment, but only so that the transfer paperwork could be sent elsewhere — somewhere far, far away from Hatchet Laveau.

These are the things that finally drove Hatchet to Godsick's apartment the summer before their junior year, pounding away at the door with one fist while she gripped her trustiest shank in the other. It's why walking in on a little breakdown wasn't enough to cause her to balk and why she'll do whatever it takes to rehabilitate Nox into a functional human being again. Preseason starts tomorrow. Nox isn't anything close to ready yet, but she will be. Better fucking believe: she will be.

<sup>i'm pretty psycho
i'll be crooked
i'll do it with style
oh, freaky psycho



pretty psycho by purple kiss.</sup>

[L△LIA]

^{oh, look at this
the fragments in my memories
what is it?}

This part of the story is about Nox Godsick being weak for the intricately constructed homoerotic rituals of touch and tenderness that piqued her interest in athletics to begin with. The first time she witnessed a chain of girls tucked one into the other, their fingers buried in the hair of the teammate sitting in front of them, everyone furiously braiding as if the game itself might be secondary... ever since then she knew two things with absolute certainty. One: she was gay. And two: her gay ass wanted in on whatever the heck that was.

"Up." When Hatchet Laveau prods her awake at five in the morning — several days after having mandated an activities schedule, approaching Nox's mental recovery the same way she drills her own body with ruthless expectation — Nox isn't particularly enthusiastic about complying. She assumes a fourth daily walk is being added to their ever-increasing routine and she is simply not interested in being alive before sunrise. Their excursions outside of the Godsick apartment started off short and awkward, the pair circling Monsterblock with Nox's arm slung over Hatchet's shoulders to help bear the weight as she relearned how to withstand the basic gravity of the earth. Each successive outing put more expectation on Nox: to carry her own weight, to endure an ever-increasing distance, to transform her trudging into baseline competence at walking and then into light jogging and again into an attempt at sprinting that left Nox feeling like her soul vacated her body in a way that must be the opposite of falling into the void that dropped her here. It floated upwards, like a bird following her around wherever she went. She named it 2cifer.

Nox grumbles and rolls over, attempting to escape the demand to wake. A fist grabs her by the neck of her shirt and physically hauls her into a sitting position, as if Nox's deadweight were effortlessly light in her hands. It is. Hatchet nearly laughs over it, until she realizes it probably means that Godsick has devolved in ways beyond her breakdown, that she has spent the past year wasting away on more than one level. Some of this weakness isn't mental — apparently it's time to add weight training to the schedule. "Nnnnnhhhhhhhhggggggggg," Nox whines, collapsing against Hatchet so that she's draped over one of her shoulders and can use her neck as a pillow. She realizes it's comfortable, more comfortable than her mattress, and starts petting a hand down Hatchet's face in an attempt to paw her eyelids shut. "Sleep now, Hatchy," she mumbles and settles for — kind of — holding a hand over the other girl's eyes, as if Hatchet simply doesn't understand that it's still dark out and this gesture might remedy that.

"Don't call me that," Hatchet exhales wearily, dwelling on her life choices for a long moment before forcibly removing the unwelcome hand from her face. Pushing Nox off of her and into a seated position before the sleep burrowing gets any further out of control, Hatchet has to remind herself not to be irritated. This nonsense is Godsick returning to a state of normalcy and normal-Nox might be an exasperating fuckboy pain in her ass, but normal-Nox can also function. This is what Hatchet wants. She glares at the hand that sneaks out to drowsily run its fingers across her knee cap — fucking weird — and repeats the words to herself like a mantra: this is what you want. "Turn around, Godsick."

Sides tucked between Hatchet's knees, the hands tugging at her hair finally give Nox reason enough to consent to consciousness. The moment Hatchet runs a fingernail down the center of her scalp, neatly parting the hair with a few precise flicks of her wrist, Nox shivers awake. Each vertebrae of her spine locks into place and goosebumps prickle up her neck and down her arms. "Stay still." She swallows. Hard. Obeys. Fixing her eyes on the pre-dawn shadows in front of her, she is suddenly half her size with her fingers hooked into a chainlink fence as her forehead pushes forward intently enough that the impression of the criss-crossed steel would linger for an hour, desperately trying to figure out what Exy was and what, exactly, did a kid have to do to become part of that team?

Hatchet's hands pick and twist at Nox's hair, yanking one bundle of strands over another with methodical ease. A pinkie finger circles the rim of her ear, efficiently gathering up everything within reach before making a dizzying second pass for any stragglers — Hatchet's touch wandering in its search as she sweeps the skin, again, again, again with the softest of strokes. A single hair that was out of place here. A single hair that broke free there. "Relax your neck," Laveau commands, "unless you want it to hurt later."

Nox drops her head forward obediently and the judgemental tone of Hatchet's ensuing silence is inescapable. It takes a few seconds for that unless to register as an actual choice, because of course masochism and defiance are the only things that Hatchet respects about Nox, even if she would never say it in so many words. Something stubborn and petty furrows her brow. "Tighter," she mutters in an attempt to compensate for the test that she didn't realize she was failing.

It's impossible not to hear the cheshire curl of Hatchet's smirk, but she leans forward over Nox's shoulder to guarantee that the smug expression is noticed anyhow, taking a good look at the girl who's finally waking up. Nox clenches her jaw, willing herself not to flush under the scrutiny. "Atta girl," her warden whispers into her ear, still numb from all of the touching, and the crumb of approval makes Nox burn. The feel of it might even be better than the fingernails shifting course to begin work on the second braid, but —

Eyes rolling into the back of her head... no, Nox takes that back. Only one thing has ever felt this good. Hatchet continues her weaving and Nox feels soft, like a lit-tle kit-ten.

<sup>i feel dazed for a while
the things that had caught my eyes might be nothing
was everyone this deceived by the world?



mcguffins ~ who's the joker by billlie.</sup>

[L△LIA]

^{don't say yes if you can't say no
victim of the system
say it isn't so}

This part of the story is about Nox staring down a practice field at six in the morning and the stunning mix of dread and delirium that sweeps over her. Her entire body becomes a pit. Her entire body becomes a swarm of butterflies being helplessly devoured by birds. Her entire body becomes one kind of wanting versus another and she doesn't know which team she's playing for anymore, she only knows that her heart is hammering at her ribs as if it's attempting a jailbreak.

"No." She doesn't know which part of her refuses, but it's definitely not her hands. Her hands are tangled into the chainlink fencing, clenching it like they'll throw a tantrum if Nox tries to take this away from them again. The knuckles are bright white. A trickle of sweat crawls down her neck. She furiously chews at her bottom lip and has to rest her forehead against the criss-crossed steel to steady herself. This does nothing to calm her heart.

"You don't get to say no."

It's true and she should say it.

There's a metallic rattle as Nox begins banging her head against the fence, gently at first and then a bit harder. Once upon a time this very practice field was practically Nox's entire life. Then, one day, she decided that she didn't care as much about it as she cared about other things — other things like the people that she didn't have time for when she was consumed by the feral joy of bashing the shit out of her opponents with a racquet and bellowing in their miserable faces while slaughtering their every hope and dream for victory. Exy was something that Nox did for herself... before she realized that she fucking hates herself and so maybe she'd be happier if she focused on someone else, if she focused on Salem.

"No," she repeats, more insistently this time, even as her hands tighten their grip.

Hatchet rips her from the fencing, whirling her around until she's backed against a post with an arm pressing into her throat so aggressively that she can't hardly breathe. Little garbles of sound choke from Nox's mouth and Hatchet watches with unflinching disinterest. The corners of her vision are beginning to spark and flash darkly when Laveau finally eases off enough for her to gasp her way back from the edge of blacking out. A hand reaches out to tease the patch of skin beneath Nox's chin with a quick swipe of calloused fingers. "Let's not be late."

Turning towards the gate, there is no part of Hatchet that entertains the possibility of not being followed, but that doesn't mean that Nox isn't contemplating making a run for it while her aggressor's back is turned. Hatchet may have signed up for Nox's bullshit, but Nox never signed up for Hatchet's. Fuck this. Godsick out.

Nox's feet start moving in the wrong direction, traitorously chasing after Hatchet's footsteps like a kicked dog accepting fault. Except... it's not really like that at all, is it? Her left foot says to her right; they're both on Team Hands. Nox hasn't been happier since she walked out on the only thing that she's ever been good at and, considering the way Hatchet found her last week, Nox obviously doesn't have her body's best interests at heart. In fact, one might even go so far as to say that Hatchet does. This psycho-stunt aside, she's been running Nox's life better than Nox probably ever has and —

And?

It's all bullshit. Nox isn't traumatized by Hatchet. She's traumatized by herself.

Nox Godsick has done far worse to far more (and far less deserving) people. It doesn't keep her up at night. What keeps her up at night is the wanting — everything she has ever been desperate for and unable to have. Nox wants to follow Hatchet onto that field, she wants to bodyslam someone so hard that she hears their bones scream, she wants to revel in a crowd chanting her name in a way that wants her back.

She wants to play Exy again, she just doesn't want to admit it.

Keeping pace with Laveau, side by side with their arms brushing every few steps, Nox chokes out the best defense she can come up with: "I got Improv in the fall." She should leave defense to the backliner.

Hatchet laughs. She really does enjoy a good joke. "Sounds like a September problem," she counters and Nox immediately internalizes the logic, seizing the excuse to procrastinate on her worries about maintaining time for Salem. She can have this now. She'll quit later, when the time to choose actually comes.

Every jaw drops upon seeing Nox Godsick walk onto the field. There's enough elbowing to warrant multiple penalty calls and no one bothers to pretend they aren't gawking, pointing openly. A couple of people even call out her name. Then, in a surreal twist of events, someone starts clapping. "Found us a striker," Hatchet drawls as they cross paths with the head coach, who has been stunned into perfect silence. There is nothing about Hatchet's expression or body language that indicates anything other than passive boredom, but she has accomplished what everyone else's efforts deemed to be impossible... and Nox can tell that she's pleased as shit with herself. Over her.

It's weird. Everything is fucking weird.

"Let's do this."

<sup>when you lie, i'll cover it up
when you hide, i'll cover it up
when you cry, i'll cover it up
when you come undone, i'll cover it up



lost kitten by metric.</sup>