leonardo l-word wordriff | d2 | fin

[aya]

Rockfall Ratmas delivers a stellar gift this year: a dark brown pleather sofa, one of the cushions missing, another clawed to shreds, the third one split and patched with layers of sticky duct tape that's clearly spent years melting under strangers' thigh sweat. It's the worst couch in the world.

"It's perfect," Hatchet declares.

They set about pulling the pleather from the couch frame. The back and sides are in much better condition than the cushions, which aren't entirely worthless themselves. Leo starts prying out the staples attaching the brown pleather at the bottom, but Hatchet has the more efficient idea of simply cutting the material free, as though slashing a painting out of its frame. Museum heist: Rockfall style.

The unofficial neighborhood holiday is both a vital part of the Rockfall ecosystem and a symptom of the Rockfall condition. On the first of April, when the winter eviction moratorium expires, the residents who owe too much back rent and all of their belongings are summarily dumped on the street. Those that managed to avoid eviction fill their homes with whatever used treasures they can carry, while the most precarious residents are left to start over from scratch.

Even so, there's not much moral quandary around picking over the Rockfall Ratmas refuse: the first big rain inevitably falls within the next week, and anything left outside will be completely ruined. Last year, when Leo had asked about the ethics of scavenging the belongings of their neighbors who'd just been made homeless, Hatchet only shrugged. "Take it up with their landlords," she'd said. "I didn't evict them."

Besides, anyone getting their shit dumped had all winter to stash anything they really wanted to keep. Larger items, like furniture, were obviously harder to move and store, but with luck this year's victims could replace the rest during next year's holiday.

This year is Leo's second Rockfall Ratmas. This year, instead of simply perusing the trashed treasures for anything that looks both salvageable and interesting, she and Hatchet are on a singular mission: Warrior. Princess. Armor.

(Okay, there was also that side-quest from Leo's dad to "keep an eye out for lamps that still have light bulbs in them, please," but after the tenth bulb they stopped bothering to put any more in Leo's backpack. Light bulbs are less exciting than armor. Get back to the armor.)

They spend the morning picking through the trash piles on the corner. Pausing every few feet to hold up oddly-shaped metal bowls or beaded legwarmers or hideous tasseled valences and ask each other "Pauldrons?" or "Vambraces?" or "Epaulettes?" they work their way from Leo's neighborhood towards Monster Block. Not only is this strategy the most practical, it's also optimal. ("The Cad has better loot," Hatchet had explained the night before, "so we want to make sure we get the good stuff first. But Monster Block has more evictions, so there's going to be more to pick from down there.")

When they spot the couch from two blocks away, Hatchet tugs at Leo's elbow. "Armor," she says, practically bouncing while pointing it out, "Armor. Armor. Armor." They take off in a light sprint, Leo dragged along by the arm, and immediately stake a claim to the revolting couch that absolutely no one is fighting them for.

"Should we be worried about bedbugs?" Leo asks.

"Shhhh," says Hatchet, which Leo takes to mean yes.

They stuff the pleather from the skinned sofa into Leo's backpack, excitedly discussing what they might be able to make with an entire couch worth of material. "The scraps from the cushions could be the strap skirt of course."

"Or vambraces," suggests Leo.

"Maybe both. Maybe armbands too."

"There's probably enough for your vest and a tunic."

"Definitely." Hatchet slings an arm around Leo's shoulder. "Can't let my traveling companion go into battle without armor."

[aya]

Leo does not return to the bench, but instead stomps into the locker room, ripping off her armor before the game officially ends. Left glove, right glove. She throws them to the ground; they smack into the tile with a satisfying thunk!, much louder than they seem like they ought to make. Neck guard next: to the ground. Arm guards: left arm, right arm. The metal clasps bungee around wildly on their elastics, a half-dozen little flails snapping against skin and plastic and tile. Black jersey, orange number 9, the shoulder pads beneath it — all into the same pile. Left shin guard, right shin guard. Left shoe, right shoe, both still tied.

Still trembling with rage, she rolls down her sock. "...should've fucking gutted him," she berates herself, gingerly removing the improvised weapon she would've done it with, "what the fuck, Leo..."

There isn't that much blood — a nick, really. The tip of the comb-turned-shank must've been driven into her ankle when the Shear Hill kid tripped her. She wipes the weapon off on the bottom of her tank top, scarlet smear and flecks of violet paint absorbing into the sweat. Grabs it by the teeth and jabs her arm forward, stabbing the air, twisting, imagining. It feels good in her head. She's not sure about in reality — but in reality isn't an option right now, so it doesn't actually matter. On the third worst night of Leo's life, she can fantasize about murdering whoever she wants if it makes her feel better. That seems fair.

Moving from the bench to the pile of her armor on the floor, Leo takes a few deep inhales to steady her breathing. She hiccups, and the sudden realization that she's been unconsciously rage-crying this entire time sets off a conscious round of sobs. It's not fucking fair. It's not fucking fair how upset she is. It wasn't necessary to make her feel this shitty.

Tucking her knees to her chest and clutching the handle of the shank like a lifeline, Leo curls into herself and sniffles, trying to get everything out of her system. The final buzzer sounds; she's got about ninety seconds before her teammates start filtering into the locker room. The last thing she needs is to get caught having a full-on meltdown after the absolutely humiliating game she just had. Always makes it worse.

She wads up her jersey, stuffs it in her mouth — disgusting — and screams at the top of her lungs for ten whole seconds. Then she rights herself, chugs like a gallon of water to get rid of the taste, and quietly starts picking up her gear.

The rest of the team files in to the locker room, spirits abysmal, but only a normal amount of abysmal and not whatever Leo's got going on. They grumble. They talk shit. They remove their gear without chucking it around the room. Someone sets Leo's helmet down on the bench behind her. The visor is halfway detached and there's a three-inch crack running down the side. Good thing the athletics department is the one thing at Rockfall Public that gets a budget.

"You okay, L-Word?" another teammate eventually asks. Haversmith maybe.

"I don't know."

There's a long pause, an awkward one, while Leo slowly remembers that most people just ask that to be polite. No one wants a real answer.

"Yeah," she amends, "I think so. I'm good."

The locker room slowly begins to empty again. Leo doesn't know how long she stands there, gear all packed, dressed for her shift at the diner, staring down the x-eyed cartoon pig scratched into the locker door. Turning the borrowed shiv over in her hands, she thinks about giving it some dead pig friends, but this time it won't make her feel any better. Instead she sits back on the bench, running her fingers over the twisted plastic, imagining Hatchet sitting on the school roof with a lighter to painstakingly fashion it, procrastinating on giving it back. She can't keep it. She needs to give it back.

Wiping at her face to ensure the last signs of tears are erased, Leo stands, shoulders her equipment bag, and stalks over to the far corner of the locker room.

Wordlessly, she holds out the shiv, offering the handle back to Hatchet Laveau. Leo watches her stare at the weapon, at the hand holding it, then follows her gaze to the thick scar that stretches across the back of her hand and wraps around to the palm between her thumb and forefinger. It's easier than watching Hatchet refuse to look her in the eye.

"They, um," starts Leo. She swallows, trying to cover the shake in her voice. "Shear Hill goes to the diner after games a lot. Obnoxious..." Leo can accurately guess the final score based on how rowdy they are. Tonight they might damn well burn the whole place down. "Usually I can deal, but they've never recognized me before. And, uh." She wants to curl up in a ball and die for even asking: "I need backup. I, uh," (need you) "Hah. Ha ha. Would you want to come with and spit in their food? You can have my tips, but they never leave any, so it won't be..." Worth it. It won't be worth it.

Leo fights the temptation to look up at Hatchet, afraid to read her expression — not willing to dedicate the next dozen nights to ruminating on what she might be thinking in this moment. She stares harder at the scar on her hand, acid tendrils reaching towards her wrist like ivy. She's not going to walk it back. She's going to let Hatchet be the one to tell her no. She'll stand here, shank in hand, heart in hand, as long as she needs to.

The locker room door swings open again. They both look up. "C'mon, Hatchet," complains a pair of their teammates, "the bus is leaving." No one wants to walk back to Rockfall after a game — the after-party would be over before you'd find it. "You coming too, L-Word?"

Leo shakes her head. "I've got work."

Their goalie throws an arm around Hatchet's shoulder, steering her towards the door. Leo watches her let it happen.

"Hatchet." She holds out the shiv, once again offering it back.

"Keep it," says Hatchet, finally meeting Leo's eyes as she's whisked away. Backup.

[aya]

The Shear Hill Vipers are unsettlingly well-behaved that night. The table-pounding is kept to a minimum. There's virtually no yelling. Straw wrappers and balled up napkins do not go flying across the establishment. Condiments are not poured anywhere besides on food and on plates.

When Leo looks their shithead striker in the eye, he looks away, hiding a fresh shiner. There are no whispers of Riff-Raff, not even as she walks away. Her backup stays safely tucked away in her apron pocket.

When they leave — well before close — there's even a tip on the table.

[aya]

As she got older and money got tighter, Leo's parents fell back into their old routine of running the diner together in the evenings. They were usually diligent about making sure there were enough leftovers on hand for her and Hatchet to have dinner, but tonight, after a mishap on the Stairway To Hell involving a tray of lasagna and some abandoned beer cans, the two are given a little bit of grocery money and left to fend for themselves.

"I know how to make instant ramen," Hatchet volunteers when discussion of making food arises. Leo eyes her friend skeptically, having automatically assumed that she'd be in charge of the cooking.

"Real food," clarifies Leo.

"That's real food."

"Just because it's technically edible doesn't mean it's food." Leo shakes her head sadly, putting on a show of looking disappointed in her friend's terrible culinary opinions. "It's okay, I'll cook. What do you want?"

"What do you know how to make?"

"Everything." That might not be entirely true, but she's confident she knows how to make anything Hatchet might think of. And she can make everything as long as she's got a recipe. There's a dozen of her grandpa's cookbooks in a box in the other room, so surely she's got one for everything.

Hatchet takes this as an opportunity to start quizzing her. "Do you know how to make.... burger?"

"Uh-huh."

"Pizza?"

"Uh-huh."

"Chicken?"

"Uh-huh."

"What kind?"

"Every kind."

"BLT?"

"The recipe is literally in the name. Do you not?"

Hatchet pokes her. "Stop acting like that's something everyone knows."

"That BLT stands for Bacon-Lettuce-Tomato?"

"Duh it does," Hatchet scoffs, rolling her eyes. "But that doesn't say how to make one."

Leo stares at Hatchet for a full ten seconds, waiting for her to laugh at getting Leo to fall for her joke. When it becomes clear that there's no punchline, she decides: "Okay. I'm teaching you how to make one."

She pulls a package of bacon out of the freezer and sets it on the counter to thaw. It came home from the diner, raw, because it technically passed its date — but it's bacon. It's fine.

The Corner Value Store has the saddest selection of fresh produce Leo has ever seen: Bags of shredded iceberg lettuce — pre-wilted, as Leo recalls her grandpa describing them — floppy shreds of grey-green crepe paper, pallid under the fluorescent lights of the refrigerator case, that can't even be generously described as confetti. Loose onions already sprouting. A box of shriveled potatoes abandoned on the back of a bottom shelf. A single radish. Pale pink plum tomatoes as hard as an exy ball.

"That's just offensive," she complains, tossing one in her hand. It's a rock. "Tomatoes are in season." Wrinkling her nose, Leo vetoes the whole selection. She hooks her arm through Hatchet's and leads her away from the refrigerator case.

"These vegetables are depressing — I'm not feeding you this," she explains. Hatchet doesn't protest; if she doesn't understand the problem, she doesn't admit to it. "Let's see what's at the V Fresh. It's a nice day for a walk and the bacon needs to thaw anyway."

The closest real grocery store is half a mile up Old Quarry Road, closer to Granite Vista than Leo's building. Though modestly-sized, its produce does seem to get restocked every few days, which means it clears the very low bar set by the Value Store, even if it doesn't always live up to its name — Very Fresh. It's a long way to carry a lot of groceries, but considering that the Wordriffs mostly subsist on diner leftovers, the occasional trip isn't so bad. Since it's situated between their house and Leo's cousin's, it's easy enough to stop in and pick up a couple supplemental things from time to time.

Besides, it is a nice evening for a walk. Sinking over the quarry ridge, the setting sun paints the flairs of clouds cadmium orange on their backdrop gradient of pink into purple into blue. Though a light breeze carries away the summer heat, the residual warmth radiating off of the asphalt banishes the evening chill. Even the faint whiff of cooking rubber and diesel fumes feels more comforting than suffocating as it drifts through the air.

"Can't believe your groceries aren't good enough unless they come from Lowest Highland," Hatchet teases as they round Packer's Corner, the intersection that bridges the gap between Leo's part of Rockfall and the more-affluent Granite Vista.

Leo rolls her eyes, trying not to take the bait. "Believe me, if there was anywhere in The Cad that sold tomatoes that weren't grown in a cave, we'd be there. Or lettuce that hadn't been processed with a paper shredder, for that matter."

"I'm just saying, the Corner Value Store had a solid selection of instant ramen."

Sticking out her tongue, Leo aims a sharp elbow at her friend. "It's a miracle you didn't have scurvy before you met me."

With the grace of a prodigy backliner, Hatchet throws up a forearm to expertly block the incoming assault. "There's green flecks in some of the seasoning packets," she counters. "That probably counts as a vegetable."

"Oh yeah? Which one?"

"...maybe onion?"

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Leo lets out an exaggerated sigh of exasperation. "Do you hear how concerning some of the things you say sound?" she asks. Hatchet just gives her a playful shove in response. "That's okay," Leo consoles herself, hopping over a puddle of suspiciously orange-tinted water in a pothole on the sidewalk. "Two whole vegetables tonight."

The blast of air conditioning from inside the V Fresh emphasizes the mugginess of the summer evening. Cooling the sweat on the back of her neck, it makes Leo shiver on entry, but at least it suggests the vegetables will be in better shape than the sad selection at the store by her house.

Most of the fresh bread at the entrance is sold out, but there are still a few decent loaves left. "Sourdough?" she asks, grabbing a round loaf with pinwheel scoring when Hatchet shrugs.

The produce is, as expected, significantly more compelling than any that's ever seen the inside of the the Corner Value Store. There are eight kinds of whole-head lettuce to choose from, nothing pre-shredded or pre-wilted, and everything more exciting than iceberg. Thrilled with the options, Leo excitedly brandishes a bouquet of violet romaine at Hatchet, who eyes it suspiciously. "I'm pretty sure that when lettuce turns purple, you shouldn't eat it," she says.

"Turns purple?" Leo gags. "This kind just grows like that. You've seen lettuce turn purple?"

"You've never seen mold?"

"Of course I've seen mold. Lots of mold. White and green and pink and blue molds. Furry ones and slimy ones and powdery ones."

Overhearing their conversation, an old man picking up broccoli nearby balks. He tut-tuts at the two girls, shooting them a disgusted look. Exchanging a glance and a mutual eye roll, they move on from the topic and the lettuce display, but not before Leo informs him, "It's rude to eavesdrop."

"Anyway, it's like normal lettuce," she insists again, "but being pretty makes it better."

The vibrant tomato display emphasizes her point. A rainbow of a dozen different varieties stretches from one end of the table to the next: from standard red in all shapes and sizes, to bright pink and orange beefsteaks, to tiger striped green-and-yellows, with a few columns of of purple romas and black plum tomatoes on the far end. A little box of cherry and grape tomatoes of all hues looks like a treasure chest filled with dazzling jewels.

"You wanna pick one?" Leo offers, bouncing on her heels at the incredible selection. This is what July tomatoes should look like.

"Cherry... Grape... Plum... Beef Steak..." Hatchet's skepticism grows as she reads the cultivar names off of the their signs. "Are you sure these are tomatoes?" she deadpans, picking up one of the hefty yellow ones.

"I promise that's not what steak looks like, if that's what you're asking." Seeing that Hatchet isn't appeased, Leo drops the snark and pokes her in the side. "Don't you trust me?"

"Definitely more than I trust these..." she makes air quotes for emphasis, "'tomatoes.'"

"I'll take it." Leo picks up two of the beefsteaks: one of the bright pink ones, one orange. "If you hate them, we'll get you some instant noodles."

When they leave, the sky is darker than expected: a dusky blue-grey at the horizon, rich midnight blue above them, and firmly nighttime in the east. Overhead, the moon is crescent, waning, and aligned with two planets bright enough to be visible through the orange glow of the sodium vapor street lamps that light their way home.

Hatchet debates what flavor of instant ramen she's going to get, taking every growl of Leo's stomach as agreement. The loudest rumbles are for barbecue shrimp flavor; Leo waits until Hatchet settles on them before reminding her that the noodles are a contingency plan, and one that she won't need for that matter.

"We'll see," says Hatchet.

Leo rolls her eyes. "Have I ever fed you anything that wasn't worth eating?"

Hatchet thinks for a long time. "There's a first time for everything."

"Not for that."

Whether or not Hatchet takes this as a challenge, she does come dangerously close to derailing dinner. Still intending to teach Hatchet how to make the BLTs, Leo tries to divide the cooking effort into beginner-friendly steps.

"Do you know how to make toast?"

"Yeah," Hatchet insists. "Of course I know how to make toast."

"Great. You're in charge of toast."

She intervenes when Hatchet tries to hack their loaf of sourdough apart with a cleaver, and takes over slicing the bread entirely when Hatchet's first two pieces come out rhomboid.

"No big deal," Leo says. "Want to toast them?"

"Sure. Where's your hot plate?"

"Hot plate?" Leo looks at Hatchet like she has two heads.

Hatchet looks at Leo like it's weird she hasn't seen someone with two heads before. "Duh. Where else would I toast them?"

"Oven? Stove? Toaster?"

Produce prep goes just as badly. Washing the lettuce seems impossible to get wrong — fortunately, Leo manages to stop Hatchet the second she starts reaching for the soap. After the correction, Hatchet does a decent job with the instructions to rinse the tomatoes, but Leo can't help hovering the whole time.

"Think you're up for cooking the bacon while I slice these? All you have to do is wait until it shrinks up, then you grab it with the tongs and flip it over."

To her credit, Hatchet gives it a shot. She monitors the pan diligently. All is well until the grease starts spitting, at which point she gives such a loud yelp of surprise that Leo nearly slices her thumb. Each subsequent pop is followed by another shriek, until Hatchet starts swatting at the pan with the tongs, yelling at the bacon as if to scare it into submission. This is funny for the thirty seconds it takes for Leo to finish slicing the tomatoes, but then it just seems dangerous.

Grabbing Hatchet by the shoulders, Leo scoots her away from the stove and places herself between the spitting bacon and the hissing twelve-year-old. "I got it from here," she says, taking the tongs. "Would you season the tomatoes? Sprinkle the slices with a little pinch of salt, then a quarter-turn of the pepper grinder."

When the sandwiches are finally assembled, they don't take long to admire the finished product. The purple lettuce and orange tomato slices do make the sandwich look prettier than normal, but it's hard to appreciate aesthetics with hunger on the line. It does taste good — undeniably much better than the sad cave tomatoes and lettuce confetti from the Corner Value Store would have. Even Hatchet, despite her skepticism, looks a little proud of their handiwork.

"Do you remember the recipe?" Leo asks.

Hatchet nods, swallowing a mouthful of sandwich. "Step 1," she recites, "ask Leo to make me a BLT."

[aya]

Nox Gobsmack is looking at her absolutely Godsicked. Wait. Waiiiit. Nox Godsick is looking at her absolutely gobsmacked.

"Godsmack!" Leo calls out. "Why so gobsick?"

"Hatchet Hatchet?" the substitute Drinko Captain tries to clarify. She gestures wildly at the backliner now heading over toward the game on account of hearing her name at party-volume several times. "Like... Laveau? Hatchet Laveau?"

Leo beams. Like there's another Hatchet. Like Hatchet would allow anyone else to be named Hatchet. Like Leo wouldn't have taken a penalty shot rather than admit to kissing any other Hatchet in the world.

"What?" Hatchet deadpans, sitting down on the arm of Nox's chair. "You thought my first kiss was you?"

She doesn't remember the last time they made eye contact at all, but Hatchet looks over at her and Leo can't look away. She shouldn't have to. She tries to stare harder. She tries to read Hatchet's expression. She's either too drunk for whatever's happening or she's not drunk enough. She doesn't know. She doesn't know anything.

"Hey," Leo says stupidly.

"Hey."

"Heyyyy," Nox interjects, waving her hands in front of both of their faces, breaking their staring contest. "Are we playing a game here or what?"

There's a swell of enthusiasm from the few remaining players, eager to return to getting fucked up.

Hatchet grabs a Drinko board too.

Godsick gives the Bingo cage a few enthusiastic spins and retrieves a number. "G — wait, I mean K-47."

Leo scans her board — no match.

"Dare," requests Hatchet.

The substitute Drinko Captain fumbles through the rolodex of dares for inspiration, quickly arriving at the section of orange index cards. Intimately familiar with her own color-coded organization system, Leo barks out a laugh before a dare is even issued: the dares she wrote on Rockfall colors are all Dumb Jock Shit.

"Okay, okay," Godsick announces. "Dare: Bench press the Drinko Captain."

Looking Nox up and down, Hatchet laughs. Their star striker is even scrawnier than she looks at first glance. "Too easy."

Shrugging off her varsity jacket, Hatchet cracks her neck and makes a show of stretching her arms. It isn't news that the backliner is buff, but Leo had successfully avoided noticing just how impressive her biceps have gotten until seeing her flex in her faded red cutoff tank top, fashioned out of a five-year-old Rockfall Rec League team t-shirt for the Cadmium Park Creatures, complete with the horrifying shadowmonster mascot hand-drawn in permanent marker.

Finally deciding that she's not drunk enough for this after all, Leo chugs the rest of her beer and capitalizes on the excuse of getting another. The drinko group counts off reps in the background at a volume that can be heard from across the room: ...Two! ...Three! ...Four! ...Five! ...Six! ...

Leo arrives back at her seat just in time to catch Hatchet's showboating. Dusting off her biceps and striking a variety of action-figure poses (complete with sound effects, courtesy of Nox) the backliner flexes again and the crowd of drunk jocks roars. She shoots off finger guns at everyone, Leo included. The moment Hatchet realizes this, it's as if someone dumped a beer on her head. Like a bucket of water hastily tossed on a campfire. The theatrics stop instantly. Leo studies her drinko board intently.

For her part, Substitute Drinko Captain Nox Godsick keeps the game moving. She settles back into her chair, calling out the next number: "I-17!"

"Dare," requests Hatchet.

"Dare," agrees Leo.

"Dare," chimes in a third voice, then a fourth and a fifth.

Another card is pulled from the Dumb Jock Shit category. "Crush an empty can without using your hands or feet," reads Nox, before ad-libbing a new stipulation: "Also do it a different way from everyone else."

Their goalie starts off strong, slamming their forehead down onto the can and smashing it against the table. The next player crushes one between her chin and shoulder. A third cops out and compacts it between his forearms, receiving a few boos for lack of style. Leo uses her knees. Hatchet goes last, situating her can in the crook of her elbow and flexing again, earning a few hoots and cheers as it crumples.

"B-1 — I mean, DR-1! Does anyone have Drrr-1?"

"Dare," says Hatchet. She's made to do wall sits for a minute while two of the other players accuse her of cheating.

"It's not possible to cheat at random numbers," Leo automatically cuts in with an eye roll, having diffused too many of these arguments over her years as de-facto Drinko Captain. Few demographics have a looser grasp on probability and statistics than drunk teenagers, and the best way to let a game get out of hand is to let the players start arguing about math. They're so bad at math.

Hatchet stares at her. Leo stares back.

"I wouldn't even know how to cheat," Nox interjects before calling time on Hatchet's wall sits and awarding her the square.

"At this!" someone heckles. It's no secret that Godsick is a by any means necessary sort of exy player — Leo has overheard her insist that, quote, "if you're not cheating, you're not trying" on more than one occasion and is starting to suspect that might be the other striker's semi-official motto.

"Exactly." Nox smirks, shooting finger guns into the crowd. She pulls another ball from the drinko cage and immediately cracks up. "Does anyone have O-69? Oh, 69, anyone?" There's a mixture of laughs and groans from the audience.

"Sixty-NINE!" Hatchet cups her hands around her mouth and shouts at exy match-volume. "Dare!"

"Dare: Beat all of the other players at arm wrestling."

Leo joins the roistering, yelling and applauding with the rest of the group as a table is cleared and the players start lining themselves up. Hatchet stretches again, tries to roll up her non-existent sleeves, then sits backwards on the chair and throws her elbow down on the table, waiting for a challenger.

When the first match starts, it takes all of three seconds for Hatchet to slam her opponent's hand onto the formica. The crowd goes wild. She pins her next opponent in two. And the next. And the next. And the next. Their goalie makes Hatchet work for victory, holding out for fifteen seconds before being overpowered.

Finally, Leo takes her seat at the table. She rolls up her sleeves to match, drunk enough that she grins when they stare each other down. She places her elbow down, sets up for the face off. Hatchet shifts in her seat, stretching out her arm for this final bout. For a moment, Leo forgets to feel like it's weird.

Hatchet leans forward. She puts her elbow on the table. She casts a glance at the hand being offered to her. She does a double-take between Leo's scar and Leo's smile. Then she reaches over to grab the penalty shot that's been poured out for her in the event she fails to complete her dare, throws it back, and stands up from the table.

Leo wishes she'd've been slugged in the gut instead; it feels just like that, only worse somehow. "Are you fucking kidding me?" she snarls, standing from the table.

"I'm thirsty."

The only thing that keeps Leo from storming off is the chorus of boos from the crowd, clearly disappointed by this anticlimactic ending to the impromptu arm wrestling tournament. Instead, she stands there, slack-jawed, reeling. Hatchet's eyes dart towards the door, and for a moment Leo expects her to bolt. Good game. Fun while it lasted.

"Hey Noe," Nox calls over to a girl with slicked back hair standing next to the cooler. She puts her hands up to receive a pass. "Beer me!"

A can goes flying towards Godsick, who catches it effortlessly and hands it to Hatchet. To Leo's shameless delight, the beer explodes when Hatchet opens it, drenching her. She laughs at the party foul twice as loud and with twice as much vitriol as anyone else.

When the crowd settles, Godsick resumes calling numbers. Nobody has N-41 or I-20 or K-56. Finally, there's a taker for O-70.

"Dare," says Hatchet.

This time, the dare is selected from the green section of the rolodex — the Anyone category. Leo tries to manifest Dare: Go stand in the trash can with every ounce of spite she can muster.

"Dare: Chug your drink."

Hatchet obliges, finishing the rest of her beer in three gulps. "Drinko," she casually declares when she finishes, then proceeds to read off her board. "DR-1," she says, "I-17, Free space, K-47, "O-70."

Leo's heart races. This is Rockfall, after all, meaning — "There's No Such Thing As A Free Space rules are in effect," the Drinko Captain reminds her. "In order to win, you must complete a final truth or dare, decided by the audience. If you don't complete it, you lose. Do you accept these terms?"

"Dare."

Immediately, Leo seizes on the opportunity. "Dare you to apologize."

She stares at Hatchet. Assertively. It's like watching an unstoppable force collide with an immovable object: Hatchet Laveau hates losing more than anything else in the world. Hatchet Laveau has never in her life — not once — said she's sorry. Leo swears she can see Hatchet's soul leave her body for a second. She stares back at Leo, vaguely frustrated but otherwise completely inscrutable. She opens her mouth, and Leo's heart thrums frantically against her ribs.

"I'll take the L." She throws back a penalty shot and walks away.

[aya]

No one quite knows what to do with any of that.

Captain Godsick glances back and forth between Hatchet, now sulking in a corner on the other side of the room, and Leo, now sulking behind her Drinko board. It's like watching a fifth grader trying to do calculus. There's no hope of arriving at a plausible answer, but Leo appreciates the effort anyway.

"Uhhh," Nox says at last, giving up on trying to puzzle it out. "Should we keep playing?"

There's some mixed enthusiasm from the rest of the drinko crew, and Leo finds herself shrugging along. Godsick calls out the next few numbers, eventually hitting one on Leo's board.

"Truth," she says, absently flicking the tab of her beer can.

"Truth," repeats the Drinko Captain. "What was that about?"

Leo doesn't even glance up before taking a shot. The next time one of her numbers appears, she tries a different tactic. "Dare."

"Dare: Do an interpretive dance about what that was about." This gets some chuckles out of the remaining players.

Leo takes another shot.

Across the room, Hatchet looks visibly deflated from her earlier revelry. This is not the Hatchet Laveau that poses victoriously after bench pressing the girl she's been making out with all night, or the Hatchet Laveau that crushes beer cans with her biceps, or that sweeps an impromptu arm wrestling tourney. She picks at her nails, stares at her shoes, fidgets with the cuffs of her jacket, glances at the door. This Hatchet reminds Leo of the sweater she accidentally put through the cursed dryer in the basement of her building: one sleeve shrunk four sizes, the other not shrunk but somehow a little melted, the collar torn and frayed, and the hem miraculously still soggy. This Hatchet looks like she's been left out in the rain in a cardboard box. This Hatchet looks almost as miserable as Leo feels, and for some reason that makes her feel worse instead of better.

"Anyone got K-50?"

Leo halfheartedly raises a hand. "Truth."

"Truth: Why are you still staring at Hatchet?"

She sighs, takes another penalty shot, and puts her head down on the table in front of her.

[aya]

"Is she okay?" someone asks.

"I think so." There's a tap on her shoulder, which Leo ignores. "Hey L-Word, you good?"

"Dunno," she mumbles reflexively, trying to burrow her head into her arms.

Her efforts are thwarted when someone blows directly into her ear. Leo startles upright, flailing an arm in the direction of the nuisance, failing to make contact with anything.

Nox Godsick's face is right in front of hers. She's still wearing the Drinko Captain's Cap, though it's been turned around backwards. "Hey buddy," she says, talking to Leo as though trying to lure a possum out of a mailbox with a piece of cheese. "We've got to clear out. Party's over."

Leo blinks. Processing. Trying to find a clock. It doesn't feel that much later, but surely it must be if the party is down to the last few stragglers that the host — was it Haversmith? — is trying to boot. Her head spins.

Nox tries the possum tactics for real: "You want some pancakes?"

This works spectacularly. Pancakes sound like the best possible thing in the world right now. Pancakes hit different between the hours of 1am and 4am — that's peak pancake power hour. Of course she wants some pancakes.

"Hell yeah," Leo says, standing abruptly. She wobbles; Godsick grabs her by the shoulder to steady her. "I'm good," she insists. "Leg'sssleep. 'S all." She smacks her thigh a few times for emphasis.

Still, Nox dutifully marches her to the door, out of the apartment, and lets Leo lean on her as they carefully descend the stairs. It's not until they reach ground level that Leo realizes there's someone on Godsick's other side. She leans forward and waves. "Heyyyy."

The girl on Nox's right waves back at Leo, slow blinking like a cat. "Heyyyy," she echoes.

Leo is less familiar with this part of Rockfall — she hasn't spent a ton of time in the area around Monster Block. Drunken sense of direction abysmal, she can't hazard a guess as to where they're going. The only hint is that the slope of the ground stays relatively level. "Am I making pancakes?" she asks. "That's up." Leo points skyward for emphasis.

"Nah," Godsick clarifies, unfazed by the utter incomprehensibility of Leo's question. "R-HOW is right around the corner."

"Noooooo," she laments, "their waffles aren't very nice :("

The Rockfall House of Waffles is a mediocre 24-hour breakfast joint beloved by students of Rockfall Public. It makes most of its money after midnight but before 7am since its target demographic is the heavily intoxicated. Present company included.

"That's why we're getting pancakes," the other striker explains patiently.

"But we can go to the diner and I can make pancakes! I will open it up! Look!" Leo fumbles with the carabiner on her belt loop. When she fails to unhook them for a fourth time, she gives up and just helicopters her keys around for emphasis. "Keyyyyys!"

Godsick actually considers this for a minute. "Okay, breaking and entering, I'm down — where's this at?"

"Just up the stairs." Leo points in the direction of Shear Hill — or at least where she thinks Shear Hill is.

"The stairs?"

Leo nods.

"Yeah, nah, hard pass on the Stairway To Hell right now, L-Word. Break your neck during the off-season. If Haversmith has to start again, Hatchet will kill us both." That sobers Leo up, if only just a bit.

As expected, the R-HOW is hopping when they arrive. A tired-looking host shows them to a booth. Nox and Leo sit on one side, opposite the third girl, who Leo vaguely recognizes from spectating some of their practices, but can't quite recall a name for.

They order a dozen pancakes, coffee, and some french fries.

"Waiiiit," says Leo, realization slowly dawning on her. She points across the table. "Wick, right? You're in my homeroom. Wordriff."

"Oh yeah, introductions." Nox smacks herself in the forehead. "L-Word, this is Salem. Salem, this is L-Word. She's on the exy team with me and Hatchet."

"I know," says Salem, then adds: "Hello."

"Hello," Leo echoes.

"Speaking of Hatchet..." Nox starts, shooting Salem a look.

Salem nods. "Hatchet is in my bed," she reports. "She was very drunk and... not Hatchet."

Leo's stomach twists. She crumples up her straw wrapper and flicks it against her water glass.

"What did you do?" Salem asks, and Leo slumps her head into her hand, trying very hard not to think about it.

"I did noooot!" Nox protests. Leo can feel the other striker gesturing at her.

"Are you sure it was not you? It is usually you."

"Not this time, I swear."

Leo raises a hand and looks back up. "Definitely not Godsick," she volunteers. "Definitely me."

Salem turns to her. "What did you do?"

"Yeah," Godsick echoes, "What did you do?"

She can only groan. Where to even start?

Their food arrives. Leo pleads the proverbial fifth by way of shoving half a pancake in her mouth immediately. "Fuhhhh," she swears through a mouth full of breakfast food. "Is ahually good." Anything to change the subject. "Actually good," she corrects after swallowing the bite, "so I know I'm drunk."

"Didn't figure that out when you couldn't get your keys off your belt loop?" asks Nox. Leo elbows her because she can't think of anything better to say. Nox elbows Leo back. Leo elbows Nox again. Nox elbows Leo again.

"It is always weird when Hatchet shows up at my house," Salem announces, getting the jocks back on topic. "But she was especially weird tonight."

"The weirdest," Nox agrees between bites. "Was it cause you were staring at each other a lot, L-Word?"

"Eye contact can be very uncomfortable," agrees Salem, looking over the fries and selecting whichever one must be the most optimal. Leo tries one too, then gets distracted thinking about the surface area to volume ratio for french fries and reaffirming that waffle fries are far superior to the basic fries that they've been served. She barely has a moment to shake her head no before Nox moves on to her next theory.

"Or cause you didn't stay to watch her bench press me?"

"She is very good at bench pressing people," Salem puts in.

Leo quirks an eyebrow. "Is she?"

"Yes."

"Hmm."

"So it was that," Nox decides.

Rolling her eyes, Leo can hardly dignify the theory with a response. "Of course it wasn't that."

"Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Then do we think it was you defending her honor against the people who thought she was cheating at Drinko? That was the most eye contact I've ever seen," observes Nox, "which — like we've said — can be very uncomfortable." Under her breath, she adds: "For everyone."

"Doubtful."

"I know!" Godsick smacks her forehead again, as though struck with the perfect explanation. "It's cause you didn't wanna arm wrestle her!"

Salem lights up. "Hatchet is very competitive."

Leo scowls, practically choking on her pancake to correct the record as quickly as possible. "She didn't want to arm wrestle me."

Frowning, Salem pulls out a notebook and flips through the pages until she gets to one titled Hatchet. "This contradicts my observations. Tell me more."

"Oh yeah! She arm wrestled everyone except for you!" At least Nox gets there on her own. "What was that about?"

"Probably a better question for Hatchet."

"C'moooon, L-Word," Nox complains, "quit holding out on us!"

"What makes you think I know?" she deflects. "You had your tongue down her throat half the night," she tells Godsick, before turning to Salem: "and she's in your bed right now. She hasn't looked me in the eye for basically all of high school. Why am I supposed to be the Hatchet expert here?"

Nox just pulls her into a headlock and gives her a noogie. "Cause you know," she says simply. Leo swats at Godsick's head, trying in vain to get free.

"Fine," she relents, "fine. I dared her to apologize. That's what I did."

"Hatchet does not apologize," remarks Salem, as Nox ruffles Leo's hair and releases her from the headlock.

Leo barks out a strained laugh. "I knowwwwww."

"Does she need to apologize for being a bad kisser or something?" Nox suggests.

"Is she a bad kisser?" Salem asks.

"No," Leo and Nox reply in unison. Nox chuckles so Leo chuckles, then Godsick gives her a fuckboy smirk and a fistbump. Leo watches Salem add a note to her Hatchet page: good kisser.

"What does she need to apologize for?"

Ugh. With a sigh, Leo holds up her right hand and traces the thick scar that stretches from the styloid process of her wrist all the way across the back and wraps around to her palm. It's not the real answer, but it's as close to the truth as Leo can get without getting into memoir-length explanations and dredging up emotions that she worked so hard to bury.

"Oh shit!" Nox exlaims, "That was you!"

Leo just nods.

"Thank you for getting personal protective equipment mandated in the chemistry labs," adds Salem.

"Lab safety is my middle name," quips Leo, shooting some finger guns.

"Cool scar," says Nox, grabbing Leo's hand for examination. Leo finishes the last few sips of her coffee with her left hand while Nox inspects the remnants of the acid burn. "Why is it raised here —" she traces the drip-line tendrils from where they end at Leo's wrist up to her knuckles "— but lower here?"

"Some of the subcutaneous tissue dissolved there," Leo explains with a shrug. "Doesn't really grow back I guess."

"Sub... cu..."

"Beneath the skin," Salem translates.

Leo nods. "Yeah. The bone showed and everything."

"Siiiiiiick."

"It did look really cool." Leo grins. "I've still got a picture. I took one at the hospital to —" She cuts herself off abruptly, smile faltering and face folding in on itself as she accidentally stumbles headlong into the sort of emotions that you only unlock when you're very drunk. She yanks her hand back from Nox so she can hide her face behind it, swallowing hard to try to staunch the feelings welling up in her throat. It doesn't work. She took a picture to show Hatchet, but Hatchet never showed up.

"Fuck," she mumbles. Then the flood starts. Her body trembles as ugly, heaving sobs rattle her ribs. A gentle arm wraps around her and so she buries her head in Nox Godsick's shoulder. She doesn't know how long she stays like that, crying and crying and crying, but Nox's sleeve is completely soaked by the time Leo composes herself enough to turn her head and whimper, "Why didn't she care about me?"

A muscle in Nox's neck tightens, but no one has an answer for her.

[L△LIA]

"Dare you to apologize," Hatchet hisses mockingly to herself, taking another swig from the 40 she grabbed before fleeing the party. A slurry of fevered laughter roils in her throat as she abruptly pauses in front of a convenience store window, dark and reflective in the night. Slapping a splayed palm against her chest for three beats, she glares at her mirrored self. "Me?!" Her arms spread wide as she flexes her chest outward, daring her otherworld echo to come at her if it's feeling brave enough to challenge her with fighting words like apologize.

Apologies are stupid. They don't change anything, especially not in Rockfall. A fuck up is a fuck up and saying sorry doesn't undo that. Besides, if Hatchet started apologizing then she wouldn't ever stop, because everything in and about Rockfall ought to be apologized for. It's only the people who haven't spent their entire lives here that don't seem to understand that. They can't.

"Penalty shot!" Hatchet berates herself, tapping the 40 against her reflection with a bit too much muscle. The window rattles with a sharp cry of glass on glass. Jolting with a flicker of surprise, she takes a step backward — raised beer bottle gripped like a weapon and her free hand instinctively twisted into a fist, also a weapon. "Fuck," she breathes, seeing through the haze of liquor for a moment. It's enough to realize that she's not in complete control right now.

She doesn't like what she sees; it's the perfect time to knock back her penalty shot. "You lose."

Hatchet Laveau doesn't deal with the l-word much better than she deals with the unrelenting expectation to apologize for herself. She keeps trying to bury it in her memory and focus on the wins, but she can't. Each time she thinks she's finally forgotten this feeling, it shows up again somewhere dumb that she obviously should have seen coming — like Drinko — to remind her about all of the times that she was supposed to beg forgiveness for not being good enough.

"Do you ever think about what your life would be like if Nox was just another asshole and it turned out she was using you this whole time?" Hatchet pop quizzes Salem after jimmying open the window that she knows Wick leaves unlocked for her girlfriend, immediately slipping on a pile of quilts as she tumbles into the house. She stays down, pulling one around her shoulders, and drunkenly burrows into a matching hand-stitched pillow within arm's reach.

"No."

"Me neither."

[aya]

"Hey buddy." Soothing fingers pet Leo's hair. "I know you're kinda going through it right now," whispers Nox Godsick, "but we gotta dine and dash."

Leo hiccups, but otherwise can't will her body to move.

"Okay, okay. Plan B."

Leo burrows into Nox's shoulder while the other striker fiddles with the last two pancakes. She's vaguely aware of Godsick pocketing one, then ripping the other into tiny pieces and blending it up in her coffee cup.

"It's gotta go on your shirt." Godsick dumps the gross, chunky slurry on Leo. "Sorry 'bout your tiddies." It's cold and wet, but at least it smells better than it looks. Nox hoists her out of the booth with one arm, grabs their jackets with her other, and loudly exclaims, "Oh no! Don't throw up in the restaurant! Let's get you outside!"

They make a hasty, awkward stumble for the exit, Nox dragging Leo, Salem two steps behind. Godsick kicks open the door, pulling Leo through, and then sticks out a heel to hold it open for Salem. The realization that Nox Godsick — a total demon on the exy court — Rockfall Public's notorious fuckboy gateway gay — is actually an absolute gentleman is funny enough to make Leo snort. She accidentally snots on Nox's shoulder, but if Godsick notices she doesn't seem to mind.

At the end of the block, Godsick sets Leo on the curb, says goodnight to Salem, then crouches down. "Hop on," she offers. Leo looks at the scrawny striker skeptically. It's less that she thinks she'll be hard to carry — she's only got an inch on Nox, if that — and more that she vividly remembers each and every exy practice in the last few months where Godsick completely ate shit. There were a lot. But standing up again sounds impossible, so when Nox insists, "I gotchu." Leo relents.

Faint awareness flicks in and out of the corrosive smog of despair. Apart from the smell of pancakes and coffee wafting off of Leo's shirt, she doesn't remember much of the piggyback ride back to Monster Block. A suspicious river of sludge flowing slowly down the gutter. A couple rats fighting over a dropped box of mozzarella sticks. The brim of the backwards Drinko Captain's Cap digging into her collarbone.

She doesn't know how Godsick gets her up the stairs to her apartment, but suddenly they're two stories up and veering down a hallway. Nox is completely winded when she stops to fish keys out of her pocket, but still doesn't set Leo down until they're inside, down the hall, and into a small room she can only assume is Nox's.

Nox plunks Leo down on a squishy pile right in the middle of the floor. "You can sleep here," she says, patting Leo's head. "Lemme get you some water."

There's a folded hoodie set out right next to her, so Leo swaps her gross coffee-pancake tee for the clean top, then leans back onto her pile of bedding. When she touches the worn nylon, she gasps audibly, recoiling as her skin crawls with recognition. Even drunk, even years later, even in the dark, there's no mistaking it. Nothing could've prepared Leo to reach out and find Hatchet's sleeping bag beneath her.

She hiccups again, holds her breath, squeezes her eyes shut, but nothing staunches the fresh, guttural sob that heaves out of her chest. Leo topples over, buries her face in the pillow behind her — Hatchet's pillow — and looses the sort of cry that would break ribs to escape if it needed to.

Nox returns at some point, setting some water next to Leo's head before quietly slipping into her bed. Leo takes a few shaky breaths, chugs the whole glass, and regains enough composure to wriggle into the sleeping bag.

She stares at the ceiling, sniffling occasionally, trying not to think of the emotional iron maiden she's laying in, unable to think about anything else. The booze and the coffee didn't cancel each other out; instead, Leo's wired brain focuses intently on every excruciating spiral of memory that the alcohol conjures up.

Every time Leo moves, the swish of the nylon sounds like the nine thousand million sleepovers before everything got so fucked up. It sounds like staying up too late, reading Leo's comics to each other by flashlight, sneaking into the kitchen to snag a few more of the cookies they'd made earlier that evening. It sounds like camping out at the cool old tree, a century of carvings stretching up its trunk like a full sleeve of stick-n-poke tattoos, beyond the hole in the fence that they definitely weren't supposed to go through. It sounds like heated debates about the contents of the single missing Warrior Princess comic, charts and graphs pulled out to support and refute every theory about the vitally important information that was clearly revealed in issue #102 and never brought back up again. It sounds like decorating the sleeping bag's hot pink shell with doodles of animals and stick figures and weapons and happy little breakfast foods. It sounds like losing the rec league championship to the Monster Block Monsters. It sounds like copying each other's algebra homework. It sounds like the quiet nights they got home too late, too tired to do or say anything. It sounds all wrong.

Even lying perfectly still, Leo can't escape how much it smells like Hatchet. How much it feels like her. How it feels like home in the worst way possible. Like home that isn't home anymore. Like a home that packed its things and moved away from Leo instead of the other way around. Nowhere in the world would be a more painful place to sleep right now — not the broken glass sludge river running through the gutter, not a bed of hot coals, not even her old room in their house in Shear Hill.

This must be what her grandpa felt on their afternoon promenades. Walking around the neighborhood that had left him behind even though neither of them actually went anywhere. Turning down streets that still have the same name and still traverse the same ground, but are otherwise unrecognizable. That refused to acknowledge their shared history. Is that why he loved wandering around with Leo, telling her about how things used to be? Is that why he stroked out and died when the Bowladrome was torn down? Shear Hill cleansed itself of its past, building by building and block by block, but someone has to remember. It didn't happen if no one remembers that it did. But as long as someone's still haunted by it, it's a ghost story — that's better than no story at all, right?

The room is starting to turn pre-dawn grey by the time Leo finally falls asleep, wondering if she'll be grieving into her ninties the same way that he did.

[L△LIA]

Leo is in her bed. It's not the first time, but it's definitely the worst time.

Seized with panic, Hatchet can only gawk with confusion. Cold sweat trickles down her neck as her eyes flick over a body that she'd know even in the dark, far too familiar to deny the illogical sight in this early morning light. Curled onto her side, the splotchy red of Leo's cheeks is nearly hidden by the tangles of hair that sprawl over her sleeping face, but the flushed skin peeking through is much too bright to miss. She always was an ugly crier. Hatchet went so far as to measure her cheeks once, to better tease her about just how much she swells up any time tears threaten to fall. She doesn't have to push the hair away to know that Leo has probably been sobbing for hours. Those chubby hamster cheeks have gone full puffer fish.

In the days before Hatchet melted the flesh off of her best friend's hand with acid, she wouldn't have been able to resist poking Leo's cheeks. So squishy. This would usually summon a whine of laughter, even if Leo was mid-cry, swatting at Hatchet to stop. To leave her alone. That only ever made Hatchet double down, insisting that she looked too cute to stop. Enough of this and sooner or later Leo would forget what she was crying about, occupied with wrestling for freedom from an unsympathetic assault of affection.

It would be a really bad idea to squish her cheeks now. That wouldn't do anything to prevent more crying.

Instead Hatchet pokes absently at her own cheek. This also does nothing to help with forgetting why Leo's upset right now. It does nothing at all.

[aya]

The stick cracks down across Leo's head suddenly. "Ow! Hatchet!" she yelps, breaking character to complain about the unexpected strike. "What was that for!"

"You'll need to keep your guard up if you hope to defeat me and claim the title of Amazon Queen," her friend advises dramatically, lowering her improvised weapon and circling Leo, the early spring breeze whipping her curtain-panel cloak around while she waits for her challenger to rub at the tender spot on her skull and reset for their duel.

"We should look for some pots when Rockfall Ratmas rolls around," complains Leo, still off-track. "That way Ilyich can make me a helm."

"You could also keep your guard up," Hatchet repeats, this time dropping the persona of Amazon Queen, "so we don't have to haul cookware around all day."

"Or you could stop hitting me on the head," Leo grumbles.

"But you leave it wide open! It's too good of a target." Sheathing her stick through the coil of shoelace knotted to her belt loop, Hatchet closes the distance between them; Leo presents the top of her head for inspection. Stray flecks of mud cling to her hair, the only indication that the implement even touched her. Picking out the biggest clumps then gently mussing up Leo's hair, Hatchet gives her assessment. "Looks fine." She pats Leo's face, equally patronizing and affectionate. "You're fine."

Appeased, Leo nods. "Okay. Let's go again."

After spending all winter cooped up inside, they wouldn't abandon the first warm Saturday in months for anything short of limb loss. In desperation, they've tried dueling in the hallways of Leo's building, but it always ends poorly: The loser inevitably whines about the unstable floor, or her neighbors come out to complain about the unruly thirteen-year-olds making a racket and scuffing the walls and being menaces to society, or someone (Hatchet) accidentally smashes a light bulb at the top of her Overhand Death Swing and throws the whole murder basement into darkness. The official start of spring is still a few weeks out, which makes these first glimpses of nicer weather all the more special.

Following weeks of heated debate, today they're kicking off their unofficial Larp Season with a re-enactment of one of Leo's favorite installments of the Xena comics, issue #37: The Quest. This was a compromise between their typical renditions of the Warrior Princess-centric issues — where Leo is typically relegated to playing side characters in addition to her usual sidekick status as Xena's traveling companion — and foregoing Xena entirely in favor of the Ninja Turtles series, which Hatchet can only bring herself to tolerate sometimes.

Today, Leo gets to be the hero and main character both since the titular Warrior Princess barely appears. Why? Oh, because she's dead. Instead, Leo must defend her body from thieves who want to take her head as a trophy, figure out how to resurrect her, and prevent the Queen of the Amazons from starting a war by claiming the title for herself in the meantime. Leo doesn't generally mind playing the villain of the week — the source material is only a starting point, anyway. Their adaptions inevitably deviate from the text in order to more quickly get to the good parts (hitting each other with sticks) or because some fun-sounding nonsense sends them off the rails and careening into chaos. That being said, sometimes it's nice to not have to die dramatically in the mud while Hatchet strikes a victory pose over her corpse. Especially since the ground is still completely saturated from newly-melted snowfall. Besides, she'd be lying if she said she didn't like getting to save the day occasionally.

Drawing their sticks, they resume their duel. "I won't let you start another war with the centaurs," Leo declares, ferociously beating her blade against Hatchet's. A resonant crack echoes off the old quarry walls. "If that means I must claim your crown, then so be it."

Hatchet cackles, swirling her cloak around with her off hand to compensate for the wind no longer cooperating. "If you want my crown, you must also take my head!" Lunging, she unleashes a flurry of full-force strikes; Leo is barely able to keep her at bay. Hatchet never holds back during their play combat and always fights to win, even when the plot requires her to lose. There are exactly two reliable ways for Leo to defeat her: hold out long enough that Hatchet gets tired, or bait her into breaking her weapon.

Both strategies involve a lot of shit talk.

"Gladly," Leo agrees. "Even though it's unsporting for me to fight such an obvious novice to the death, I must prevent war at all costs."

"I am no novice!" This is punctuated by a brutal swing, which Leo sidesteps. "I am Queen of the Amazons!"

"Yeah, but, like —" her counterattack targets the knot halfway up Hatchet's weapon "— you've been queen for what? A day?" Hatchet's reckless riposte aims for Leo's ankles; she hopscotches over the stick. "You sure fight like it anyway."

The spring mud gives Leo a lucky break: Hatchet's stick drives several inches into the squishy ground, which grabs hold and doesn't immediately let go. Leo gives the weapon a hearty stomp, snapping it neatly in half. She finishes the scene by pointing her own stick right at Hatchet's throat. "Your crown," she demands.

"Hey! That was a good stick," Hatchet grumbles. Still, she removes the circlet of copper wire and spare keys from her head, the scavenged traffic reflector jewel glistening construction orange in the sunlight, and coronates Leo.

"Queen of the Amazons, our next order of business is finding me another stick."

"The Amazon Queen does not take orders from someone she just defeated in single combat. You should be grateful I spared your life," Leo says, bending the wire coils to fit to her head. It even stays on when she stoops to pick up the remnants of Hatchet's stick. "Anyway, the King of Thieves can fight with two daggers. That seems like a better weapon choice for someone who's more concerned with stealth than combat strength."

Taking the stick halves back from Leo, Hatchet pulls up the hood of her curtain-panel cloak and gets into her new character. She takes a few sneaky, swaggering steps, then brings her limbs to a sudden awkward stop, as though puppeted on a string.

"Helloooo, Thief Prince," she says to herself, adding a ghostly reverberation to her voice. Then she frantically looks over her shoulders, replying, "Huh? Who's there?" What finally sold Hatchet on this issue was the reminder that — since the warrior princess's disembodied spirit takes partial control over the King of Thieves — she'd spend half the time possessing herself. "And it's the King of Thieves to you!"

Hatchet keeps monologuing while Leo cracks up.

"This is Xena. I'm —" "It can't be Xena, Xena's dead." "— dead. I need you to —" "Is this a possession situation?" "...Sure. Now, I —" "Why me though? I was just minding my own —"

Slapping herself across the face hard enough to leave a mark, Hatchet puts an end to her own chaotic back-and-forth. This sends Leo into stitches, who sits down on a nearby rock to gasp for breath between laughs. Looking pleased with herself, Hatchet gives her a moment to regain just enough composure to keep enjoying the masterpiece of a performance.

"Silence. Listen to me." She nods. "I need you to go steal my body back from the Amazons. I'd prefer to be reunited with it before the funeral pyre." She nods again. "Do we have a deal?" There's a long pause, interrupted only by Leo's giggling fit. "You may speak now." "What's in it for me?" "I won't punch you in the face again." "...Deal."

Hatchet staggers towards the rock where Leo sits, still in hysterics, then asks, "Did you want to do your monologue about deciding to stay and be the Amazon Queen? Or did you want to skip this one?" Leo nods — she's been working on it for a week — but it takes another full minute to compose herself. They skip the text-heavy sections as often as not. Development can be fun for the characters they care about, but they already know all of the exposition and lore and backstory from the comics; summarizing all of the things they've already read isn't nearly as fun as replaying the action.

Standing in front of the tipped over garbage can they chose to represent the warrior princess's casket, Leo starts her soliloquy.

"It's still so hard to come to terms with. But if you were ready to move on, I guess I need to find the strength to move on too. Maybe that's one last thing you can teach me. How to let go. I learned and saw and did so much as your traveling companion," she takes the copper crown off of her brow and holds it over her heart, "and I will always love you and carry you with me. And, uh —" Here she makes the fatal mistake of casting a glance at Hatchet, who is busy practicing her King of Thieves strut for her next scene. It's impressively ostentatious, comical enough that Leo has to suppress another chuckle as she says, "Hey! I'm baring my soul over here! Pay attention when I'm mourning you!"

Hatchet snaps to attention immediately, hiding her two stick halves under her cloak and nodding at Leo to continue. "Anyway... um... carrying you with me..." It takes the new Amazon Queen a moment to find her bearings. She clears her throat. "No matter where we went," she glances at Hatchet again out of the corner of her eye; this time the King of Thieves's focus is rapt. "I was always home with you. But perhaps I can find a home here, too, where I'm needed." Leo places the crown back on her brow, signifying her choice to stay and lead the Amazons.

"Now?"

Leo nods. "Yeah, I think that about covers it."

With a flourish, Hatchet draws the daggers from her cloak. Making a show of sneaking from the rock to the tree to a pile of tires, badly concealing herself behind each object, she creeps closer towards the trash can sarcophagus. Leo spends the whole scene quietly cracking up into her hand, but waits until she pops up from the other end of the garbage can before the Amazon Queen acknowledges the stealthy entrance.

"King of Thieves!" She draws her stick. "I thought you were more honorable than a common graverobber!"

"So... funny story about that," starts Hatchet, flipping her twin sticks around in her hands. The two face off, circling the trash can. "Xena wants me to steal this actually."

"Ha." Leo doesn't quite have incredulous laughter in her acting skill set yet, but that's not what's important. "Let me guess: that came to you in a dream? One where a rival warlord made you fabulously wealthy for presenting her head?"

"Not quite. It's more of a... possession situation."

"I've had enough of this," she growls, swinging her stick at Hatchet.

"I mean it!" The King of Thieves turns her head to show off the red weal from the earlier strike. "Do you think I'd punch myself in the face?"

"Wait, are you okay? I didn't realize you hit yourself that hard."

"I'm possessed by the warrior princess! Of course I'm not okay!" insists the King of Thieves, which Leo takes to mean yes.

Nodding, Leo resumes the interrogation. "Anything could've hit you in the face. Do you really expect me to buy that you're stealing the body of my beloved traveling companion just because you walked into a tree branch?"

"...yes?"

"Despicable." Leo dashes around the trash can, striking at the King of Thieves again. Hatchet blocks the blow with her off-hand dagger, and, in a genuinely impressive move for unchoreographed stick-combat, brings her other right up to Leo's throat. They hold like that for what feels like enough of an eternity, weapons and eyes locked on each other's, and then hold for another five seconds.

"It is you," Leo gasps at last. Hatchet nods solemnly. Slowly, they lower their weapons. "How...?"

Hatchet rattles the trash can with her foot to simulate a commotion elsewhere, Leo's cue to move the scene forward. There are obvious limitations to re-enacting a comic series with dozens and dozens of characters in any given issue, but they've worked around them well enough so far — there haven't been any logistical issues that have made involving anyone else seem worth it. "It's the former Amazon Queen," Leo segues. "She must be trying to overthrow me. It sounds like she has a lot of warriors with her."

"We should go." Removing the hood of her cloak, Hatchet drops the guise of the King of Thieves and takes Leo by the hand. The pair make a hasty jog across the park to the ramshackle gazebo that serves as their go-to tavern, village, castle, and any other structure that they need. Today, the weathered wood shelter is simultaneously a nearby inn and the astral plane where the warrior princess and her traveling companion reconcile. They don't even need to chase any pigeons away.

Standing to face each other hand in hand, just like in the issue, the two begin their big reunion.

"You let yourself be killed," says Leo. "You left me. Why?"

"I couldn't face up to the horrible things that I did in the past." There's never been any doubt that Hatchet's acting skills are head and shoulders above anything Leo has ever managed, a fact that's even clearer in the dramatic moments than it is in the comedic ones. Every muscle in her face — from the slight furrowing of her brow to the almost-imperceptible twitch of her lips — bows under the weight of the scene's sentiment. It's a masterpiece; Leo knows she's lucky to see the subtle spectacle of the performance up close, just for her.

"You're not a warlord anymore. You..." Her own delivery feels clumsy by contrast. The key to a good larp is to not overthink it, but suddenly Leo doesn't know how to do anything else. She's never cared about getting it wrong before, but every word out of her mouth is stiff and her hands are sweaty. "You've done a lot of good since then."

"I know that now. That's why I chose to come back." By contrast, Hatchet makes her believe everything that she delivers, effortlessly compensating for Leo's stilted lines. "You made me see that."

"I..." Leo's mind goes uselessly blank. The scene is supposed to continue with some more heartfelt sentiments, explanations of how the warrior princess's spirit needs to be reconnected with her body, and affirmations that Xena's destiny is to continue to fight for good. "I... uh..." It's a pivotal moment for the warrior princess — arguably the most crucial character development in the series up to that point, and arguably holds that title for another two dozen issues. It's just that all Leo can think about is the end of the scene. "Um..."

"Skip it?" Hatchet offers after Leo spends so long fumbling that she can feel her cheeks reddening.

With a nod, Leo tightens her grip on Hatchet's hands, making sure she stays put. This is obviously the most important part of the issue; they're skipping the words only.

Smiling just enough to betray her nerves and not enough to cover for them, Leo leans in and kisses Hatchet.

She doesn't know how long they stand there in the astral plane of the weather-beaten gazebo towards the back corner of Cadmium Park. She just knows that it's over too soon. And then surely they go back to the rest of the issue — the resurrection ritual, the final duel between the two amazon queens, an entire heist subplot — but Leo can't remember another thing that happened that day, or at any larp that follows until they contrive an excuse to do it again.

[aya]

The sun is just starting to threaten the horizon when Leo gets home. Exhaustion is the prevailing feeling; everything else — disorientation, disappointment, bone-deep ache — takes a back seat. Sweat trickles down the back of her neck, beads on her forehead. Even this early in the morning, the September heat is unyielding.

It'll be another day or two before anyone knows how bad it is, which is alright by Leo — she doesn't have an ounce of energy to spare for worrying about stuff anyway. Her hand, that is. Apparently that's how it goes with acid burns. Dr. Ames had explained very thoroughly — in way more detail than Leo wanted, honestly — how the sulfuric acid had denatured the cellular structural proteins, preserving the architecture of the dead tissue and preventing the dead cells' digestive enzymes from breaking them down properly. Coagulative necrosis, or something like that.

That was about as far as Leo was able to follow, but her aunt assured her that she'd be eager to explain it again later. Leo believes her — that had definitely been the most that she and Dr. Ames had ever talked before, and far and away the most engaged she's ever seen her aunt in conversation. She's still not exactly sure how she feels about words like "fascinating" and "interesting" and "very awesome" being used to describe the moderate-to-severe chemical burn on her hand, and for some reason didn't find "quite unlikely to lose any fingers, outside of infection anyway" to be particularly reassuring. Still being able to move her fingers is apparently promising, as is the fact that it really fucking hurts when she does, but Leo doesn't exactly find this comforting either. But at least if everything else about today has completely sucked, it does feel better to be intriguing and objectively very cool than having a shitty day and being boring on top of that.

The dead tissue will need to be debrided and the wound closely monitored for infection, Dr. Ames had said, so Leo would either need to be admitted or return daily until the status of the injury was clearer. "You are also welcome to stay with us if you'd prefer," her aunt had offered. "I can monitor your progress quite competently, and would be happy to do so." Leo just wanted to go home.

Their door is swollen into its frame with the summer heat. Leo's mom does the honors of shouldering their way into the apartment and wrestling the door closed behind them, while her dad immediately starts making a pot of coffee. "Jet fuel, please," requests her mom, who drew the short straw and is getting ready to head out and open the diner. Leo tries not to feel bad, but she knows that closing early yesterday is a big strain before factoring in the inevitable mountain of hospital bills, and unfortunately Rockfall General doesn't do friends and family discounts.

Leo is too tired to do anything but nod when her mom gives her a big hug and tells her to get some rest and that she'll be back after the lunch rush. She drops her backpack in the living room and trudges down the hall. Something feels off, but it's impossible to tell if she's disoriented from the pain, or from the fatigue, or from the drugs that haven't quite worn off. She stops in the bathroom to splash some cold water on her face, catching herself just before she soaks the bandages on her hand under the tap. She gives herself a weary grimace in the mirror. The shittiest day ever is over. She made it through. No problem.

When she nudges open her door, it only takes half a second to notice everything that's out of place. The airflow is wrong, making the whole hallway feel uncanny. In the summer months, a box fan lives permanently in her bedroom window to help cool her room. Since her window faces the shitty basement-access courtyard nestled between their building and the adjacent one, taking it out during the day so the window could be locked has never been a concern. It's been removed from the sill and set upright on the floor.

The world's slowest sinkhole forming in the pit of her stomach, Leo takes a hesitant step backwards, then tears back down the hall. "You guys haven't been in my room, have you?" she asks, catching herself on the door frame. Her parents exchange a quick quizzical glance, then both shake their heads.

Leo swallows. "You didn't do anything with Hatchet's stuff?"

"No. Why?"

Unable to bring herself to answer, she retreats to her bedroom. Sometimes the hot pink sleeping bag gets pushed into the storage nook under Leo's bed when they need the floor space, but it's not there either — just the thin foam pad they'd got some years ago so Hatchet didn't have to sleep directly on the floor, rolled up neatly and set on its end.

Leo tries to make sense of it, but the day's been too long; her brain can't manage. It's nothing good, right? Maybe she just felt weird sleeping here alone? Maybe she felt weird about needing to break in? Leo had been bugging her dad all summer to get another key made so she could have one, and he'd even said he would, but stuff just kept coming up. Stupid. She should've just done it herself.

Something tells Leo that wasn't it either, but every coherent thought is out of grasp. Logic and reason have been replaced with a loop of confusion and creeping tendrils of unease. She pulls the pad out from under her bed, shoves herself into the storage nook in its place, and cries for awhile. She doesn't want to be home anymore, actually.

[L△LIA]

It's late when Hatchet risks returning to her... well, it isn't her bedroom. She hasn't ever had one of those before, but the borrowed piece of Nox's floor is beginning to feel like it's hers and maybe that's not so different. She has no way of knowing. In any case, these days, it's the room where her bed is.

The shabby sleeping bag lays rumpled and unoccupied in the middle of the cramped space. Nothing is as she left it. An empty water glass sits nearby with a ghost of Leo's chapstick haunting the rim. Hatchet's neatly folded hoodie is nowhere to be seen and in its place is an agonizingly familiar t-shirt, wadded up with pancake and coffee slop splattered across an illustration of an old train car converted into a diner. She recognizes it even without reading the surrounding words: SHOTGUN BINGO DINER 34TH ANNUAL BINGO BONANZA. Hatchet has borrowed that shirt before, too many times to remember exactly what for. Sleeping in. Changing out of rain soaked clothes. Attending one of the many Bingo Bonanzas that followed after.

Slipcase covered in sniffle-snots, bits of eye crust, flecks of the same sludge as Leo's shirt, and enough tear stains to lighten the fabric with splotches of dried salt dust, Hatchet yanks the pillow out before she can spiral about it and marches into the bathroom to wash the soiled cover out in the sink. The bingo shirt is dunked into the water bath after, her thumbs working in circles to loosen the crusted muck enough that it finally rinses clean. It takes a long time. It takes twice as long as it needs to, because Hatchet can't stop spotting excuses to run it under the tap one more time; the folds of worn cotton slipping between her fingers feel oddly comforting.

It's not until she goes to turn off the light switch that she notices how the nail where Nox hangs her varsity jacket — right beside the nail where Hatchet hangs her own — is occupied, despite Godsick's absence. Nestled together like an alternate timeline, WORDRIFF is emblazoned across the jacket's back, side by side with LAVEAU.

Flipping the switch off, the dark isn't enough to hide away an image already burned into her memory. It crackles and spits at her like a dying campfire as she turns her back. Flexing her bravery, she climbs into a sleeping bag that only feels half her own tonight. The nylon makes the same swishing sounds as it always has, but it doesn't smell like her. Hatchet smells like bottom shelf bar soap, mercilessly practical. Hers is the scent of skin scrubbed with too much force. A little bit raw. A little bit hopeful that if she strips the outer layer of herself away just one more time then someone new might be discovered underneath.

In the wake of Leo's presence, the sleeping bag smells like a few too many beers and the gentle post-game lather of one of those scents that doesn't really make any kind of sense — Spring Rain, Fresh Cotton, Original Clean, Classic Silk. It's the type of bargain brand that most people take for granted, but that Hatchet can't help envying because it's the smell of options. It's the smell of someone who can afford to make small choices based on wanting. It's also punishingly familiar, married to a myriad of other scent-memories: fryer grease, vanilla extract, sweat soaked exy padding.

Hatchet's eyes clench shut and she just... breathes. In. Out. In. Out. Like this she begins to doze, glutted on stale bear claws and fresh popcorn despite not having had a bite to eat tonight. "One more," she murmurs, the sleeping bag rustling like brightly inked pages as she rolls onto her side. The ghost haunting the empty water glass doesn't respond. It's late; there's no reason for Hatchet to stay up. She should sleep. That's what sleeping bags are supposed to be for.

[aya]

Saturday morning at The Garage, Leo finds her cousin Ilyich welding a large metal frame.

"I just had the weirdest week ever."

"Hey cousin."

"Hey Il. Whatcha making?"

"Guillotine."

"You know I'm going to miss the shit out of you when you get executed for treason, right?"

"Yep. Thank you."

"Whatcha gonna do with it?"

"School play first."

"Uh-huh. That's what they all say. What's after that?"

"Watermelon slicer."

"A likely story."

"It's fully-functional."

"Of course it is. Wanna hear about my weird week?"

"Okay."

"It starts last Friday at the post-game party."

"At Haversmith's?"

"Yeah."

Ilyich clicks their tongue. "I knew I should've skipped the student council trivia night."

"Snooze fest?"

"Rager. But a very normal rager. Continue."

"You know Nox Godsick?"

"I know everyone."

"Right. So Godsick took over for me as Drinko Captain."

"I can see how that would get out of hand."

"Oh, no — honestly Nox kicked ass. Might let her take over for me full-time."

Ilyich looks from one corner of the garage ceiling to the other, tilting their head back and forth as though weighing this new information on a literal balance, before finally nodding and saying: "Okay."

"So I got to play. Anyway, I got a truth question — who was your first kiss? —"

Ilyich wheezes. "You know that —"

"— oh yeah. They'd been making out all night already. Godsick was absolutely gobsmacked."

"Godsick gobsmack," echoes Ilyich, tasting the phrase, "Godsick gobsmack. Satisfying."

"Right? Anyway, she shouts Hatchet's name like six times to clarify. Which gets Hatchet's attention. Obviously."

"Obviously."

"Hatchet joined the game."

"You played drinko with Hatchet?"

"Yeahhhhhhh."

"I no longer have any idea where this is going, but I am very excited to find out."

"Keep guessing anyway, that's more fun."

"Okay."

"So Hatchet gets a bunch of numbers right off the bat. Nothing too crazy. Bench press the Drinko Captain, crush an empty can without using your hands or feet, wall sits."

"Running through your Dumb Jock Shit category."

"Exactly. Then Nox gave her the arm wrestling one."

"Beat all of the other players at arm wrestling? Or arm wrestle the person next to you with a raw egg in your hands without breaking it? Or —"

"The first one."

"Did you...?"

"She clobbered everyone else. Took her penalty shot when it was my turn."

"Oof."

"Yeah. That sucked. Anyway, she got drinko on the next number."

"Full drinko, or —"

"— No Such Thing As A Free Space."

"What did you dare her to do?"

"Apologize."

Ilyich flips up their welding visor and stares wide-eyed at Leo for a full five seconds without saying anything. When she doesn't elaborate, they demand: "Leonardo. Say more words."

"She forfeit. 'Took the L,' actually — that's what she said."

"Oh my god."

"Yuuuup."

"That sounds like it would make for a weird week."

"We haven't even gotten to the weird shit, Il."

"Just so you know, I'm annoyed at you for waiting seven and a half days to tell me this."

"You'll get over it. I'd tell you sooner if you were easier to track down. Do fewer extracurriculars."

"No. Now tell me the weird shit."

"So Hatchet storms off — man, she looked really... weird."

"Weird how?"

"Uhhh... not Hatchet," suggests Leo, borrowing Salem's descriptor. "To use a scientific term: swagless."

"Okay. Yes, that sounds weird."

"So Godsick tries to keep the game going at that point, but obviously it's pretty hard to ignore that whole mess, so my next couple questions are trying to figure out what the fuck it was all about."

"How many penalty shots did you take?"

"Three."

"On top of..."

"A lot. Rough night."

"Rougher morning."

"You don't know the half of it."

"As we've established, I do not. Fill me in."

"I took a nap on my drinko board. Party was over when I woke up. No Hatchet, but Godsick took me for pancakes with Salem Wick."

"Salem's cool."

"Yeah. They both are, actually."

"Do your parents know you went to the R-HOW?"

"Do you think they'd be less mad if they found out it was a dine and dash situation?"

Ilyich considers this for a moment. "Potentially. Seems safer to avoid the subject."

"Yeah, no shit. Anyway, we get to the R-HOW. Salem says Hatchet's in her bed, very drunk and very weird."

"Fascinating."

"She and Nox start trying to figure out what's got Hatchet all fucked up."

"I'm surprised it isn't more obvious."

"Ehh. A lot of our shit isn't common knowledge."

"Fair enough. Continue."

"I let them know it's cause I dared her to apologize."

"That should absolutely be obvious."

"Yeah. But if anyone else gave that dare to Hatchet what do you think she would do?"

"'Sorry for fucking your mom'? No, that's more Wilder. 'Sorry for damaging your last two braincells' followed by concussing them? Only concussing them?"

Leo chortles. "Something like that. I think she might be physically incapable of saying the word sorry, but yeah, exactly."

"Okay. Continue."

"So they asked what she needed to apologize for."

"And?"

"You ever experience Drunk Emotions?"

Ilyich contemplates this. "Second-hand."

"Mostly I remember crying on Godsick's shoulder until there were actual water drops dripping from her sleeve. She had to carry me back to her place to sleep it off. Not my proudest moment."

"Crying is okay."

"That's true. It is."

"Is that what was weird?"

"Nope. We get to Godsick's and you know where she has me sleep? Three guesses."

"Her bed."

"Nope."

"Couch?"

"Ilyich. C'mon. The theme is Weirdest Week Ever."

"Chicken coop."

"Nope. Though I think one of her neighbors might have some hens."

"That's surprisingly common in Monster Block."

"How'd you know where Godsick lives?"

"I know everyone."

"I slept on her floor in Hatchet's sleeping bag."

"Ah."

"Yeah. Had to borrow a clean top too — when I got home I realized it was Hatchet's hoodie."

Ilyich nods thoughtfully. "You said week. This is still Saturday... morning?"

"Morning is generous. Morning-ish."

"Regardless. What was weird the rest of the week?"

"I'm getting to that. Saturday was mostly sleeping off the violent hangover."

"Sunday?"

"Work. I closed. Made a late-night batch of donut holes so they wouldn't be too stale for the morning. Those were for Nox and Salem. Y'know. Thanks for babysitting my drunk ass holes."

"As is tradition."

"Might've gone overboard on the quantity. There were still a lot left by practice. We were taking bets on how many Godsick could fit in her mouth."

"Verdict?"

"Eleven. Then she almost choked. Which was actually pretty funny. We tried using the rest for some practice drills — kinda — we were launching them at each other's mouths — but Coach Q didn't really appreciate it when some of the jelly ones exploded."

"I'd been wondering why she was ranting about sticky equipment."

"Yeah. My bad on that one. Lesson learned: exy rackets are for glazed donuts only."

"How were things with Hatchet?"

"Weird. So so so so weird. Weirder than ever. But like. Still in an avoiding-each-other way at that point."

"I assume that changed?"

"We had a game last night. Kinda hard to avoid each other on the court."

"Don't you stand on opposite sides?"

"Ehh. Kinda. Mostly but also not really. Do you want me to explain sports to you right now?"

"I do not."

"That's what I thought. Anyway, we have to pass a lot, which counts as avoiding each other as much as waving at someone down the hall counts as avoiding them."

"Metaphor understood. Thanks."

"Yeah. Anyway. I don't think I've ever seen Hatchet play that badly. Not even when she dislocated her knee and kept playing on it. The whole game was incredibly fucking weird. The final score was 11-14 — we lost. Usually the score is in the low single digits. 4-1 is a big win."

"Please translate for your poor nerd cousin."

"High scores means the offense is doing well and the defense is sucking absolute shit. Hatchet plays defense."

"You did well?"

"Nox carried us. I did okay. Dropped about every pass from Hatchet. Not entirely her fault, but a lot of it was. 70-30 maybe. Godsick must be able to read her mind or something — don't think she dropped anything, not even the absolute swill."

"So you're waving at each other down the hallway, but you're standing backwards and she's flipping off the person next to you instead."

"Not really. Don't try to extend my sports metaphors, they're not built for that."

"Okay."

"She got a couple good plays in at least — one really funny one. A Highland striker tried to come at her, sensing that she was off her game I guess. Do you remember that time at your bougie cousin's house when my dad confidently walked face-first into the sliding glass door?"

Ilyich giggles. "Did she give them a concussion too?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure. They sat out the rest of the game."

"I should be more concerned about head injuries in high school sports, but I think scrambling the brains of the bourgeoisie counts as praxis. Good for Hatchet."

"Yeah. Glad she got some kind of highlight. She got subbed out not too long after that. That basically never happens. Probably cause Coach Q likes returning home safely to her wife and kid at the end of every night."

"She does, that's true. Hard to blame her. We're delightful."

"You are. I guess she thought the prospect of losing to Highland was worth the risk yesterday."

"Oooh. Right. That explains the volume of her midnight cleaning spree. She hates losing to her side of the family."

"Oh yeah. We're going to have to run sooooo many laps on Monday."

"Shouldn't you jocks like that?"

"No. Everyone hates running laps. Anyone who says they like running in a circle should have their head examined."

"I apply that postulate to all athletic activities."

"Didn't Coach Q get you to play in the Rockfall Rec League before I moved here?"

"Yes. You're in the presence of the Granite Vista Gremlins' MVB. That's Most Valuable Benchwarmer."

"I hope they put that on your ribbon at the end of the season."

"They did."

"Speaking of benchwarming, here's where it gets weirder: not a single complaint about getting benched from Hatchet."

"Abnormal?"

"Any other game and she'd be hissing like a nest of possums jealously guarding a diner dumpster."

"Oh, yeah, how are the possums doing?"

"Multiplying. Vocal. But I think we've established a mutual respect. They recognize me as the bringer of delicious offerings of garbage."

"Are the babies still small?"

"They're like cat-sized."

"Large lads! I need to stop by and see them again soon."

"Yeah, you should definitely make the trip to visit the possums. Much more worthwhile than saving your favorite cousin from the boredom of Tuesday night close."

"I can do both. But the possums don't go to my school."

"Touché."

"I derailed your story again. What happened after Hatchet got benched?"

"Someone tried to give her shit about it. She just took it."

"Oh... Unsettling."

"Yeah that freaked everyone out. She left before the game was over."

"Is that allowed?"

"By the league rules? Yes. By the Hatchet Code? If you're not leaving in search of life-saving medical care, you will be soon."

"Sounds right."

"Get this though: I'm pretty sure she cut the lock off my locker to put my jacket and the shirt I left at Godsick's in it."

"Pretty sure?" Ilyich raises their eyebrows. "Supporting evidence?"

"Timing. And the shirt was washed. And the fact that she's the only one I know that's got access to Godsick's apartment and bolt cutters."

"Hatchet keeps bolt cutters at school?"

"Yup."

"Good to know."

"Godsick doesn't have any either, I asked."

"Have you given her hoodie back yet?"

"I've been putting it off. Talking to her sounds impossible, especially since it doesn't feel like I can leave it at 'here's your hoodie' this time. Plus it's really comfortable."

"She hasn't seen you wearing it, has she?"

"No way. Haven't taken it to school."

"I see."

"Yeah. I think that about catches you up. Nothing too weird since the game."

"That was delightful. Thanks for the updates. Oh, speaking of the game, Coach Mom wanted me to tell you that there's extra practice this afternoon. She said..." Ilyich pulls off one of their metalworking gloves and fishes a scrap of paper out of their leather apron. "Quote: If you see Leo or any of the other players please let them know that there will be extra passing drills on the exy court at 1pm Saturday. Apologize for the short notice. I should have thought of this before the end of last night's game but I was too distracted by how much they sucked shit."

"She did not say 'sucked shit' — give me that —"

"No." Ilyich crumples up the note with one hand, holding it as far away from Leo as possible, and points their welding torch at Leo menacingly with the other. "There's other stuff on here. Not for you."

"I'm gonna tell her you're misquoting her again."

"She's gonna tell you that you did suck shit."

"That's beside the point!"

"It's almost noon by the way, you better get going."

"Huh, alright. Guess I didn't have any plans today anyhow."

"Wait for me. I left the spec sheets for other props that the director requested backstage."

"You just want to see if Hatchet's still being weird."

"Also that. Can I tag along?"

"Yeah. I wouldn't deprive you of a front row seat to that shitshow. I know you love drama."

"This is why you're my favorite cousin."

"I know."

[aya]

[ co-authored by L△LIA ]

Leo makes it to the first-court line before she realizes that the only other player at today's quote-unquote "practice" is Hatchet Laveau, who's hurling the ball over and over and over again at an X of painter's tape on the wall, drilling herself like a machine stuck in a loop. This is definitely a trick. She wheels around and drops her racquet, shoes squeaking like a hellbat on the epoxied wood, and makes a break for the closing door. It's too late. She slams into the now-locked exit at top speed, the crunch of plastic armor on plexiglass echoing loudly in the enclosed court.

Pounding on the door with the flat of her curled fist, she shouts at her meddling cousin on the other side, who looks way too pleased with themself. "Ilyich! What the fuck!"

Making a heart with their hands, Ilyich smiles cheerfully before waving at Leo and vanishing down the corridor.

The rhythmic ka-thunk! ka-thunk! ka-thunk! of ball after ball hitting the side of the court quiets as Hatchet stops her practice drill to gawk. Leo growls at the locked door again, smacks it one more time, then abandons the futile endeavor of trying to get Ilyich to change their mind and let them out.

Hatchet doesn't move. She just keeps looking at Leo, expression unreadable beneath her helmet. Leo breathes a sigh so heavy it's unmistakable in the rise and fall of her shoulder pads from anywhere on the court. "Freshman year," she explains, equally exasperated with her cousin for tricking her as she is with herself for falling for what is — in hindsight — a clear and obvious ruse, "Ilyich threatened to lure me and you here under false pretenses and lock us in until we sorted our shit out."

This isn't particularly surprising information for anyone who knows Ilyich, but that doesn't mean that Hatchet knows what to do with it. "Oh." That's it. That's all she can say.

"Should've seen this coming," Leo admits, shaking her head. "That's on me." She takes a tentative step towards Hatchet, then another. "So... I guess we should talk."

If they weren't locked in then just the idea of talking might be enough to cause Hatchet to bolt, the same way she fled Haversmith's party when things got too real. To her credit she stays rooted in place despite standing a fighting chance against the door's latch. Instead it's only her head that moves, rolling back to stare into the overhead gymnasium lights. "...you want to?"

Of course Leo wants to. Talking with Hatchet is the only thing that she's wanted this entire time. They've spent the last two years not-talking, and if the past week is anything to go by, all that it's done is make them both miserable. Removing her helmet, she gives Hatchet a quizzical look. "Yeah," she says. "That okay?"

There's not much of a response. A small patch of Hatchet's unprotected throat is visible as she continues studying the ceiling. She swallows. Finally accepting that she can't avoid this forever, she turns her masked face back to Leo with a shrug that's probably intended to be nonchalant, but that mostly serves to emphasize how uncharacteristically awkward she's been lately.

It isn't a no. Leo doesn't know how much she'll be able to say before it becomes one. Every word counts. Quietly, objectively, she says: "You really hurt me."

"I know." Hatchet's acknowledgement is blunt. Just because it isn't intended as a weapon doesn't mean that it doesn't hit like one.

"Why?"

The pause that follows is thoughtful, rather than being another means of procrastination. It's the thinking silence of someone working through a problem with too many possible answers. "Which time?" She has never been the type of person to make excuses for herself and isn't about to start now.

"After." Leo doesn't clarify after what. They both know.

Sighing from how obvious the explanation is, Hatchet's unseen eye roll is practically audible. "'Cause I'm an asshole, Leo." Of all people, she should know this better than anyone.

Leo snorts. "Yeah. Obviously you're an asshole." Gun to her head, Leo might've even admitted that before Hatchet poured concentrated sulfuric acid on her hand during chem lab. Now there's no question. "That's why you abandoned me? Cause you're an asshole?"

The flicker of derisive laughter that follows causes Hatchet to sound like a hollow suit of armor until she reaches up to wrench her helmet off and prove otherwise. "Leo," Hatchet repeats as if trying to confirm that she's talking to the real deal and not a halfwit doppelganger. She wouldn't put it past Ilyich to have built some kind of mindless Leo automaton for shits, giggles, and social network manipulation. Not today. "I poured acid on you."

Yeah. Leo remembers. She was there. "So?"

Hatchet gawks. "So?" Taking a step forward, the struggle to reconcile such a ridiculous response with any type of logic twists her expression in too many directions at once. Disbelief makes a mockery of her face. "I poured acid on you." It should go without saying that most people wouldn't want Hatchet around after that; most people would consider it polite of her to see herself out.

The acid burn hurt, obviously. It took months to fully heal. Getting sidelined from exy and missing weeks of school right at the start of freshman year wasn't great either. Last year, Leo decided to stop torturing herself with hypotheticals, trying to separate the things that were shitty because she had acid poured on her hand from the things that were shitty because her best friend didn't care that she had acid poured on her hand. At that point, it didn't matter. It wasn't anyone's business that she might've been fine to go back to class the next week if it weren't for her subsequent depression spiral. She might've enthusiastically signed up for the exy practice squad as soon as she was cleared to, instead of waiting until the very end of the season — even if she couldn't do anything, at least she'd get to hang out with the team and cheer on her best friend. In terms of fucking Leo up, the acid barely ranks.

"So what?" Leo shrugs. "I'm over it. I don't care."

She should. Hatchet's face darkens as she stares Leo down with the kind of unflinching determination that she saves for her most brutal truth telling. "It wasn't an accident."

After the first week with no signs of her best friend, Leo had pretty much worked that out. By the end of week two, she'd just taken it as fact. She tilts her head from one side to the other, a mannerism for processing new information that she must've picked up from her cousin, then pulls off her gloves: left first, then right. "Yeah," she says, meeting Hatchet's forceful gaze, "I kind of figured." Confirmations of the truth are easy enough to reconcile. Closure is uncomplicated. "Okay."

Hatchet throws her hands up at the complete and utter nonsense coming out of Leo's mouth. The gesture flings her helmet across the court, where it rolls — unnoticed — into the opposing goal. Her voice is pure exasperation: "Why would that be okay?" Obviously that shouldn't be okay. Hatchet should not have to explain to Leo that the things she did aren't okay. This is so backwards.

Something about the way Hatchet can't seem to grasp the reason — so obvious that it should go without saying — digs a sharp fingernail into Leo's heart. She doesn't know where she fucked up, but it must've been somewhere if Hatchet reaches a fit of frustration before an answer as simple as the one Leo gives her. "Because we were friends, Hatchet."

The outburst takes a suspicious turn, Hatchet's jaw clenching shut as she flicks her gaze back and forth between Leo and... anywhere else. She busies herself with taking her own gloves off, pulling one finger loose at a time.

"Really?" Leo asks, incredulous. "Are you really trying to deny that we were friends right now?" Hatchet says nothing. "We weren't friends when I stepped on that broken bottle and you helped me home and dug the shards out with tweezers?" Silence. "We weren't friends all those days we crushed everyone doing chicken fights at the quarry lake? That makes sense. There must've been some other reason you gave Slate Stone a bloody nose when he whined that we should switch teams." They'd been unstoppable and inseparable that summer.

"And I guess we weren't friends when you ate too much cake on my birthday. I'm sure you'd've let anyone hold your hair back while you puked in the bushes." Yeah. If there's one thing everyone knows about Hatchet it's that she doesn't care who sees her vulnerable. "And when all of those crickets got into the house, you spent your whole Saturday helping me and my mom round them up for no particular reason, because we weren't friends then either." Leo's voice gets a little louder, a little more ragged with every example. She'll shove their whole friendship back in Hatchet's face — moment by moment — if she's so intent on pretending it didn't happen.

"You're going to tell me we weren't friends when you were sent home from school with the flu and I faked sick to leave with you? And then you actually gave me the flu? Okay. And I'm sure every time I cried over something awful my cousin's cousins said or when I didn't make the track team or I spilled grape juice all over my grandpa's sweater, you poked my face until I laughed because we weren't friends." She can feel her face turning red now as a knot ties itself around her sternum; Leo doesn't know what sort of feeling is building in her chest. Anger. Anguish. Disbelief. All of the above, all mixed together. Some feeling there isn't a word for yet, and definitely not a small one.

"Last year you didn't go right back to Rockfall after the Shear Hill game because you never cared about me because we were never friends. Is that right, Hatchet? Am I getting it?"

Gloves off, Hatchet quickly runs out of excuses not to engage. Her hands clench into fists and then loosen. Clench. Loosen. It takes her as much time to make up her mind as it does for the faint flush to fade from her cheeks after being called out about skipping the bus ride home from that Shear Hill game to beat the absolute shit out of... someone who just really deserved it. No reason.

She didn't know that Leo had figured that one out.

Hatchet sighs, tired of her own bullshit. "I wanted your shoes," she confesses. They were white. Real white. That's all she remembers because it's all that she needs to remember. Rockfall kids don't have white shoes; Rockfall kids have off-white shoes. Dirty, secondhand, worn out shoes. "I wanted your winter coat." Even before she saw it, she wanted it. What it looked like didn't even matter. The important thing is that she knew with absolute certainty that Leo had one. "I wanted your lunch. Your backpack. Your apartment." The list could go on for hours, days, years. And it did — for four years and then some. Even now Hatchet can't look at Leo without thinking about things she wants. "Your Ratmas tree. Your family. Your whole Cad life. Just... everything about you."

Brow furrowed and stomach twisting, Hatchet can't think of many things she hates more than saying all of this out loud, but apparently she just can't deal with being accused of things like decency or kindness. "And you?" God, it was too easy. "You just kept letting me have stuff. Anything I wanted." Shampoo. Hugs. A warm place to sleep. She still has all of the Xena Warrior Princess comic books from Leo's grandfather's collection and Leo knows it. "And what? All I had to do was pull some glass out of your foot and catch some crickets? I mean, yeah. Okay. You caught me. I gave some people with really punchable faces black eyes because you baked me birthday cookies and they didn't. Who wouldn't do that? Stop acting like it was a big deal for me to do any of that. It wasn't. Doing stuff for you was always easy."

She knew it. Leo never knew for sure what had happened after the Shear Hill game, but she knew that Hatchet did something. For her. No other reason. Imagining her jumping them makes Leo's heart swell, and a smile spreads itself across her face. She doesn't bother to suppress it. The tension in her chest slackens and Leo swallows a few hiccups of laughter. It's just so stupid. Hatchet's attempt to recast their history as some sort of sinister quid pro quo only emphasizes that they never were anything short of friends.

"Hatchet," she says finally, "what do you think friendship is?"

What a dumb question. Hatchet stares at Leo's grin like it's the most incomprehensible thing she has ever seen. She could have sworn that she poured the acid on her hand, not her brain. "It's —" Well, you know. Friendship is obviously... it's, like, when... "I mean. When two people are, like —" Obviously. "You know. Everybody knows." Okay, so, it's definitely not when one person scams another person for years and then assaults them with acid to sabotage their exy tryout. Hatchet is pretty fucking confident about that. "Shut up. Why do you need me to explain that to you? Are you five?"

Leo's smile turns into a smirk as Hatchet fumbles through the concept. That's what she thought. Ignoring the jab, she explains: "Because most people wouldn't do that for me, actually." Leo can count on one hand the number of people who would've ever done something like that. Hatchet. Ilyich, in their own way — come to think of it, that would probably look a lot like locking them in their exy court. As of this week, maybe Nox Godsick. End of list. "It would be a big deal if they did." Out of the whole exy team, no one else even noticed just how upset Leo had been that day. No matter how satisfying beating the shit out of the Shear Hill brats would've been for them personally, their other teammates were never going to condemn themselves to the long walk back to Rockfall on Leo's behalf.

"Maybe you do have dozens and dozens of people who'd pull glass out of your foot or stay up all night to save your stuff from a leak or beat people up for messing with you." She hopes someone's still been making Hatchet birthday cookies. "That's really lucky." Leo never had that many friends. Just a few good ones.

"And doing stuff for you was always easy for me too, you know. I liked sharing everything with you." Leo can't think of a single thing that would be better enjoyed alone. Not her food. Not her comics. Not digging for treasure on Rockfall Ratmas. "Making you happy makes me happy."

Hatchet stays so still it's almost concerning. Of course she doesn't have dozens of people who care about her happiness. She wasn't really aware that was a thing that, you know... people did.

Leo fidgets with the clips on her arm guards. "Anyway," she says, prying the left one off of her wrist and pointing it at Hatchet, "fuck you. You can decide that I'm not your friend anymore, but you don't get to decide that you're not mine." She scowls, unshackles her other wrist, and drops both of the vambraces to the ground. "I just wanted you there. That's it."

The unrelenting staring continues, as if making up for lost time. "If I had a do-over," the fuck you is well deserved, emphasizing exactly how undeserved everything else is, "I would do it again." The acid, the abandonment, tricking Leo into being her friend. "You know that's just how I am."

Yeah. Leo knows. She nods. There are a lot of reasons why she's always liked being a team with Hatchet. The fact that being in direct competition with her is terrifying might be the worst one — but it's also the least important. "Yeah. I know you." Taking a few steps closer towards Hatchet, she doesn't break eye contact. "I'll let Ilyich trap us together sooner next time." She extends a handshake to Hatchet as a truce offering.

The scar looks like a grotesque snake — malice-tailed with layer after layer of skin that just won't shed and too many eyes bubbled blind beneath the surface — as if it bit down on one of Leo's hand bones so hard that her body gave up hope of ever being rid of it, the flesh growing over the same way trees will eventually swallow up fences or bicycles or anything else invading their territory. The way twins eat each other in the womb. "What?" Hatchet gives the outstretched hand a look as caustic as the acid that maimed it, "you want a Shear Hill Slap?" At the end of every exy game all of the players from both teams line up and file past each other to say good game and slap hands before parting ways. How amicable this is varies wildly depending on the teams.

Obviously this is a test.

Hatchet sighs and rolls her eyes. She's had more than enough of this awkward shit. "Give me that." Snatching up Leo's hand in both of her own, she abruptly yanks her another step closer. Running her thumbs over the corrupt skin, she turns the palm up and then back over, attentively examining every bit of damage. Fingers trace down one drip line and then double back to follow the next path curling towards Leo's wrist. Little knots blister beneath the flesh where the damage was so bad that things probably had to be stitched back into place. Other areas are shallow rifts of absence, where nothing could be done. What was gone was gone. "I really fucked you up, huh?"

Leo laughs. This is what she wanted to hear two years ago. Sitting on the edge of her bed or up on the school roof or on the bleachers before one of Hatchet's games, showing her the bandages or the pale pink tissue poking its way out from under a blanket of dead skin or the picture she'd had taken with her acid-melted flesh parting to reveal tendon and bone underneath. She just wanted an acknowledgement that, yeah, Hatchet really fucked her up.

"No shit," she agrees. Catching Hatchet's eye and raising a dramatic eyebrow, she adds, "Nice of you to give me something to remember you by." Leo may not have read that first issue of the Xena comics for years — or any issue, for that matter — but she portrayed rival warlords, nemeses, and various dramatic figures from the titular warrior princess's past so many times during so many of their larps that all of the best lines are etched permanently into her memory.

She locks her hand around one of Hatchet's, holds it for a moment, and grins cheekily. "It was fun beating you at arm wrestling while it lasted. But," she gives the jibe a moment to sink in before twisting the proverbial knife, "apology accepted."

There's a groan of disgust as Hatchet winces over the words, immediately attempting to yank her hand free from Leo's grip. "No. Stop. I did not." Fully prepared for this response, Leo's hand is a stubborn vice that only tightens with the struggle. "Take that back." Hatchet's deadpan tone begins to splutter with annoyance as Leo shakes her head in refusal, clearly very pleased with herself. The wider Leo's smirk grows, the deeper Hatchet scowls and the louder she grumbles. This creates a feedback loop. Giving her hand a more insistent tug this time — which only causes Leo to latch on with both hands — Hatchet narrows her eyes threateningly, but can't quite mask the petty whine undercutting her voice: "Take it back, Leo."

Reveling in Hatchet's petulant refusal to let this parley be misconstrued as an apology, Leo shamelessly dangles revocation in front of her. "You want me to take it back?" They both know the answer is yes, just like they both know Leo more than deserves to torment her with this one small thing for a few minutes. "Fine," she solemnly relents, "it wasn't nice of you to give me something to remember you by." Hatchet's face journey sets off a round of mischievous laughter, until finally Leo doubles down. "I'm not un-accepting your apology."

It requires a comical amount of effort for Hatchet to continue appearing unbothered, the muscles of her face playing dead on command. "You accept nothing." The insistence sounds like a brute force attempt at hypnosis. It's the type of gaslighting that works on weak-willed opponents and people who know her reputation well enough not to challenge her for dominance, but Leo wasn't ever the kind of person to give up simply because she was told to. Hatchet was never her commander.

"Well," Leo counters, releasing one hand to keep tally on her fingers, "you acknowledged what you did..." That's one. "And why you did it..." Two. She stares Hatchet down, willing the involuntary twitch at the corner of her eye to spread into a full-blown face crack. Three: "You took responsibility for the consequences —" would not refuse responsibility for fucking Leo up is more like it "— and," four, "you told me what's gonna be different in the future." Nothing, of course, but it still counts. "Soooooooo technically —" Hatchet looks like she's putting all of her energy into holding herself back from punching Leo in the face, which only bolsters the smug satisfaction in Leo's smile, "— that's an apology. Which I choose to accept." She gives Hatchet's hand another squeeze. "Just like it's my choice to be friends with assholes. And to give them my lunch. Okay? It's fine. We're cool."

Hatchet's squirming over being wrongfully accused of apologizing — oh, the absolute blasphemy — takes a subtle turn as Leo lays out words like acknowledged and responsibility between them. Theirs is a history of Hatchet rigging Leo's so-called choices for personal gain, but not this one. She chooses Hatchet? Hatchet could die from the cringe. This is torture, right? Was this the real revenge plan all along? It's inspired. Leo squeezes her hand and Hatchet writhes uncomfortably, reflexively squeezing back as she fumbles around for a response that doesn't make her want to vomit. She gives her captured hand another halfhearted tug for freedom. "You really wanted to arm wrestle me this badly?"

Casual shrug contrasting against her ever-tightening grip on Hatchet's hand, Leo has the decency to move on to the joke rather than call further attention to Hatchet's obvious discomfort. "Just thought you ought to know my grip strength is still fine." She's not going to press her luck and embarrass Hatchet further about the kind-of sort-of apology, or about the way the backliner would clearly rather kick down the court door herself before hearing another word that borders on feelings. But Leo has a lot of lost time to make up for, and can't outright swear off teasing her. "For the next time you need a jar opened."

"Ah, yes, all of those jars that I've been needing your help to open," Hatchet counters with droll sarcasm, playfully punching their tangled hands towards Leo's chest. It's honestly a small miracle that Leo hasn't starved half to death without Hatchet around to open jars for her, but maybe her grip strength really has improved now that she hasn't been able to automatically pass every bottle over to Hatchet for assistance without so much as bothering to attempt the first twist for herself. "Don't know how I've survived without you."

"Me either," Leo agrees without a hint of irony. "I thought for sure you'd end up with scurvy or something."

Reverting to old jokes immediately sends them both off the rails, vulnerability exchanged for the kind of easy banter that used to make hours disappear like minutes: "If scurvy were real then there would be a Rockfall epidemic."

"Why do you think they use so much ketchup for Mystery Casserole Monday?"

"To hide the taste. Duh."

Leo cracks up. "It can be both," she insists.

"You have the most boring conspiracy theories."

"Uh-huh. I missed you too."

"Not as much as I missed grifting your lunches."

"Can't believe you've been eating Mystery Casserole this whole time to get out of talking to me."

"Right? My suffering is beyond compare."

Leo clicks her tongue. "I'd feel worse if it wasn't self-inflicted."

"I don't make the Mystery Casserole."

"All of Rockfall should be grateful for that. They don't know how much worse it could be."

"What are you talking about? I'd be great at the mystery part."

"Doubt it. Secret ingredient: instant ramen seasoning. Every single week."

"Are you really trying to act like that wouldn't be an improvement?"

"No way. Ramen seasoning would probably improve most of them. There's just not a lot of mystery there."

"Said like someone who doesn't appreciate the wide and varied selection of ramen flavors available at the Corner Value Store."

"You're right. It's wasted on me. I guess I shouldn't be arguing about instant ramen with the expert."

"Wait. Could you say that first part again? I don't think I heard you."

Rolling her eyes, Leo ignores the request. "I said I'm glad you've been doing okay."

Hatchet fumbles for a moment, but recovers quickly. "We were just talking about my suffering."

"Of course. No one's suffered more than you. Self-inflicted Mystery Casseroles, legendary drinko losses, whatever the hell was going on at our last game... clearly you've been going through it."

"I thought you said we were cool."

"We're cool. Do you not want to talk about your suffering then?"

"Not like that."

"Okay. Would you rather talk about my suffering?"

"What do you mean? You haven't been eating the Mystery Casserole."

"Well yeah. What's the point when I can't shit-talk it with you?"

"My shit-talking is unrivaled."

Leo considers this, unsure if she's willing to give Hatchet another win. "You've clearly never heard Ilyich rant about mushrooms."

"They're a bad texture!" comes an immediate interjection from the stands. Leo and Hatchet both look up, startled out of their banter by an audience that has been quietly enjoying the show up until this blatant cue for their input. "They taste like decay!" Ilyich insists, animated enough in their tirade that a few kernels of popcorn come spilling out of the bag in their hand. "They clearly do not want to be eaten!"

Leo cups her hands around her mouth and hollers at her cousin. "Good thing you've got popcorn then!"

"That doesn't look like enough to share," Hatchet mutters under her breath, eyes narrowed resentfully, eliciting a snort of laughter from Leo.

"It was necessary," Ilyich calls back. "This has been very entertaining."

"I'd've filled you in later!"

"You said I could tag along because — quote — you wouldn't deprive me of a front row seat to this shitshow. Because I love drama."

"That was when I thought this was supposed to be exy practice," Leo protests, her ears burning. She casts a sidelong glance at Hatchet, making sure that the revelation that they've definitely been talking about what a mess Hatchet's been this week didn't undo all of the progress they just made. To her relief, Leo doesn't catch anything more than an eyebrow raise. It's probably fine.

"I'm still surprised you fell for that!" Ilyich grins so big it's impossible to miss despite the plexiglass and distance between them. "You're very easy to trick!"

"Dunk on me for that some other time. Can you unlock the court doors now?"

"Did you work your shit out?"

They turn to face each other: Hatchet worrying at her lip, her head half-ducked when she suddenly looks over like she's nervous Leo's answer might still be no; Leo asking with the upward tilt of her head, we're good, right?, unused to taking the lead between the two of them; Hatchet raising her eyebrows to echo the question; Leo nodding slowly and decisively.

Hatchet tries to hide her half-smile, but she doesn't bite it back quick enough, so Leo matches it with a reassuring grin of her own. She expected that they'd be good; she didn't expect Hatchet to be so bashful about it. Or so obviously relieved. Leo's no longer sure what she thought was going on with Hatchet the last two years, but it's clear that every theory she had was wrong.

"We're good," she confirms, giving her cousin a thumbs up but still looking at Hatchet.

Ilyich isn't satisfied until they know this shit-working-out is mutual. "Hatchet?"

"Ye—" Hatchet's voice cracks slightly and she cuts herself off to hide it, glancing down at her feet while she gets her shit together. She nods wordlessly for a moment. "Leo and I are good," when she looks back up at Ilyich her face has been reset back to a safe neutral expression, "but we'll have a problem with you if you don't unlock the door soon."

"It sounds like I'm safer if I don't."

"If that's how you want this to go then you better start running, nerd. You're not very fast." Leo finally turns her attention back to her cousin to deliver the friendly threats. "Plus if Hatchet has to break the door down, you know Coach Q's gonna ground you."

Unable to dispute this logic, Ilyich looks visibly annoyed. "I'd get away with it if I could frame you," they grumble, getting up from the stands, "but Hatchet is her favorite." They make their way toward the court door and finally unlatch it, rolling their eyes and heaving a burdened sigh. "You're welcome."

"Thanks, Il," Leo says, meaning it.

"Glad that's over." Ilyich means it too. Under their breath, but still loud enough to make sure everyone can hear, they add, "You're both so stupid."

Leo opens her mouth to protest as Ilyich disappears down the hallway, but it's hard to disagree.

Crouched down on the far side of the court, Hatchet picks up her helmet, silently rotating it in her hands. Procrastinating. Not knowing what happens next. What she's supposed to do. She glances up just in time to catch a glimpse of Leo's head snapping around, clearly trying to figure out how Hatchet managed to disappear already. "Over here," she speaks up to soothe the panic, half a crooked smile gnawing at her mouth. Still uncertain, but finding more comfort in the feeling than in anything she thought she used to know, she gives a small wave with the helmet.

Gathering up their other pieces of discarded armor, Leo jogs to the far goal. "You are good, right?" she asks, offering Hatchet her gloves back. "I get it if you were just saying that to get the door unlocked." She hopes not, but she gets it.

A broken beat of laughter shambles in Hatchet's throat. She bites down on her lower lip, chewing away at the old urge to bury the truth in words that don't mean anything. Turning her face upwards, she looks at Leo with something like awe in her expression, like Leo just rewound time and suddenly Hatchet is fourteen again and finding her old body unfamiliar. Is she good? "I am now." Or, she thinks, she will be. Second chances are one of those things that she's heard of, but never really believed in, having never seen one with her own eyes. Like aliens. Or gold. Or giraffes.

Exhaling a breath she didn't know she was holding, Leo beams with relief. "Great," she says. "Glad to hear it." She means it.

"I'm gonna hit the showers." Standing back up, Hatchet takes the offered gloves in her free hand, absently tapping them against the edge of her helmet a few times. Halfway through her first step, she doubles back and swats Leo on the arm with the shed armor. "Missed you," she says softly, voice achingly casual, before turning away and walking off towards the locker room.

"I missed you too," Leo calls after her. "See you Monday."

Wheeling back around, Hatchet grins: wide and radiant. She takes a couple of steps backwards like this, before circling her attention back towards the door. Jumping up to smack her gloves against the top of the door frame as she exits the exy court, she won't remember the racquet laying forgotten on the floor until later, when she finds it neatly tucked away within her locker.