"Hoka-hey! It's a good day to die!" ~ Tȟašúŋke Witkó aka Crazy Horse

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Tuesday - October 2nd   

As requested, I am at school bright and early, and really not looking forward to talking time at all. As I roll down to the end of the hall, I easily spot May sitting on the floor at the foot of her locker. Her usual black-clad legs stretched straight out under a loose black burnoose sweatshirt.

Unfortunately, her sinister sister is in situ as well, hovering slightly behind in the shadows looking all kinds of unhappy. While April is not exactly not glaring her hate at me, so I am not exactly not staring daggers back at her either. Regardless, it's pretty clear that the mutual loathing society is now in full effect this fine morning.

But none of that really bothers me quite as much as what May is wearing on her leg. For May is now sporting a long black leg brace from her knee to her ankle. Which while barely noticeable, as it almost matches her dark leggings, I am thinking is clearly not going to be good for her mobility.  

"Oh yay, he's here," April announces my arrival to May. "He doesn't look totally pissed off, but he's clearly not happy either." 

"Morning May, how's the leg today?" I easily ignore Someone's Sister's observations. I tentatively reach out, lightly touching May's shoulder to let her know I am with her.

"Little better, little worse." She shrugs. "Shin still hurts like a mother if I walk on it too long? But just standing or sitting it's only a little throbby? Thankfully no sharp shooting pains like yesterday's fun. But running around wily-nilly is going to be a little awkward, to say the least."

"Anything you need, don't hesitate to ask." I lean over her to inspect the brace.

Just at a glance, I can already tell that hobbling around the hallowed halls of Hell today is going to be tough for her. The leg brace is one of those space-age hard plastic walking-cast things. Designed to take the weight of the injured area by adding five pounds of plastic and foam protection.

"Okay May, the hallways clear enough for him to follow us in ...without looking any more creepy." April pushes off the wall past us and just marches straight into the bathroom without another word. Or oddly even the obligatory scathing glare stare of cheery death.  

"So on that note, can you help me up and into the bathroom please?" May holds her slender elfinine hand out to me. "The three of us need to have a little girl chat about some sister stuff."

"Awesome, girl chat." I sigh dryly.

Helping her up to standing and May sucks in a sharp breath. That tells me she is in a lot more pain than she has been letting on. So as always, I am compelled to be a super helper.

"May, can I please just carry you in? I think it will be so much easier on both of us that way." I insist as pleasantly as possible. 

"Oh sure, why the hell not." She sighs, clearly not thrilled with this idea.

So as gently as I can, I scoop her up into my arms and slowly stand to upright. While May's slender arms circle around my neck, I easily adjust her lightness to my chest protectively. I am reminded yet again, how light and winsome she is in my arms. So I back into the restroom door cautiously, like a groom carrying a new bride over the threshold. But taking care not to bounce her head off the door frame. Honestly, if it were left up to me, I would carry her around like this the entire day.

What awaits me on the other side of the door however, is not exactly what I expected at all. One look around May's secret spot, and suddenly it makes a lot more sense to me as to why someone would take refuge here and hide out in this opulent homage to waste management. Because this place more like a fancy hotel restroom, than the normal high school cesspool that the rest of the flock is forced to endure. With only three large roomy bathroom stalls, dominating one side of the spacious bathroom. Wall to wall marblesque tiles, and a wall-length glass mirror. As opposed to the standard scratchy stainless steel "San Fall Sux" fixtures I have become accustomed to. 

"Can you put me down on the baby changing station against the wall?" May taps my shoulder back towards the wall behind us.

"The baby changing station on the wall?" Which turns out to be a long shelf securely attached to the wall. "Okay, that's not weird at all."

"Yeah, apparently the government says they have to have at least one on campus for teen mothers? So of course, they threw it in here, just to be super special." May quirks a small smirk. "Truth be told, we don't really have any of those teen mother types here. But it does make an excellent lunch bench. Oh, and I've heard a very a popular place to make out spot with the Other chicks, but I digress."

I place May carefully down on the thick foldout station and back off to let her arrange herself to her liking. I see the April has stationed herself in front of the long wall mirror, inspecting the cutting edge of her ponytail. Will the vanity never end?  

"So here we are." May sighs and adjusts herself on the bench to comfortable. "Now before either one of you say anything, will you please...just not? Because I want you to both listen to what I have to say for a minute. Some of which each of you might have heard before, some you haven't. You think you can both do that for me, please?"

"Of course," I reply in rote.

"Okay May, have it your way." April quips from the mirror, where her sharper image is already rolling her eyes.

"So first off, I wanted to say that I'm sorry to you both, for whatever happened between you two yesterday. The whole thing was my fault, and I should have known better." May shakes her head sadly. "So for that, I am sorry to both of you."

"It wasn't your fault, May." I murmur not wanting to slow her roll.

"Yeah, actually it kinda was, but just not for the reasons you think." May frowns down at her hands. "I know you both well enough, that I should have known that something like that could happen? Especially, if I pushed you together under difficult circumstances. But that's the thing ...I know you both."  

"See Darren, the thing is, I don't tell your truths to April. And conversely, I don't tell April's truths to you either." May rocks her crown slowly.

"April, I don't tell you everything I know about Darren because he's a private person, and he asked me not to. He trusted me enough not to run around talking about him behind his back, even to you. Which I do my best not to." May's shades slide obliquely to where I am leaning against the wall. "So I only tell you both the truths that belong to me alone."

"Darren, you were right when you said that April is my sister and she should come first." She nods through the thought. "So whether or not you can understand this or not? April is the only family I have in the world that I truly love and trust. So you should know that there is a lot more to her than the façade she lets people see. There are a lot of things that you don't know about my sister that are unbelievably stellar. Without her I probably would have been lost a long time ago."

"Seriously." April breathes under her seethe.  

"Something else you probably already figured out about me is that I don't really deal well with personal problems. I tend to just not deal." May breathes in deeply and then launches into her truth.

"So back in the middle of my freshmen year just before the Christmas break, I heard some things about myself. Some really mean things actually? The sort of things that I was meant to 'overhear'." She actually air quotes for effect. "I don't really want to get into exactly what I heard or who said it? But suffice it to say none of it was very nice. Fact is that it really kind of hurt a lot, actually."    

"But that also opened my eyes as to what was really going on in this place. How high school wasn't really about learning stuff. That it was really all about surviving it with your soul still intact until you can get free." May frowns down thru her nightshades. "So right after New Years, I decided to take a vow of silence of sorts and stopped talking to people at school. I only spoke the bare minimum of what I had to say to make it through the day."

"At first, it was really hard to keep my mouth shut and not speak up in class or wherever. But then as time went by the silence became more bearable, then easier and easier." She shrugs off the vow of silence. "Then one day, around Spring I think? I turned invisible and just completely disappeared altogether."

"You see I don't hear all the whispers in the halls because I have the extra-special supersonic hearing?" She shakes her head slowly to negate that idea. "I hear everything that people say, because they forgot that I was even there anymore. Or they just don't care anymore, one way or another?"  

"So I spent the second half of freshman year lunch in here, and all of my sophomore year." May waves around obliquely at the opulent homage to waste management. "This is where I ate my lunch and listened to my music. Pretty much just hung out practicing my navigation by echolocation." May's taps her walking stick lightly on the floor and the sound spreads out and echoes back again. 

"So to me, this restroom was the best part of high school. The only place I could feel actually comfortable and safe at school was here in this room ...until this year. But this year things were going to be different because I was going to have my sister with me." May smiles obliquely in April direction and in return April smiles at herself in the mirror.

"Even stranger still, for the first time in ...well ever? I have a real 'not a friend' friend? So whether you realized it or not, having a real friend is weird for me. There was a time not so long ago that concept wouldn't have meant much of anything to me, but now it does."

"Yeah, stranger danger," April mutters under her breath.

"So I am asking you both, as a personal favor to me? To please stop the hating on each other, but especially not because of me, Because at this moment you're both pretty much all I have in my life that's worth anything." May blows her shorn bangs up, and if I didn't know any better I'd say she was drying almost tears from her eyes. "So please ...can't we all just get along?"

"Okay May, whatever you say." I agree. Because her tears will make me agree to almost anything short of suicide.

"Fine. And just for the record, I don't hate him as in 'hate hate'. It's just more of a general loathing of the irritant." The mirrored version rolls her eyes over at me.

"No offense Slapstick, but I just don't like you very much. Oh, and I do not trust you around my sister at all. But ...and as much as I hate to admit this?" April rolls her eyes up until they practically disappear into her skull. "You might have been almost right about a couple of things you said yesterday. It was supposably seriously stupid of me to come at you sideways and flip out on you after the fact. So I admit I could have handled that better ...or whatever."

"Pretty much the same on my end. And if I am being honest, you weren't the only one that had a flip-out moment." I grudgingly agree. "When I get angry, I don't really think about the damage that I am doing. Truth is, I really don't think much at all, as your sister can no doubt attest. But no excuses, I could have handled the whole thing a lot better as well."

"Thank you, both for that." May lets go of the long breath that she was holding.

"Okay May, now that storytime is over and we've all made nice-nice ...so now what?" April seems satisfied with the sharpness of her cut and pushes away from her best friend in the mirror.

"Maybe, you both could try to be nicer to each other and try to get along?" May winces up a pained smile at us. But neither April nor I jump on that crazy train as it leaves the station in complete silence.

"You know, or not? We could just go back to ignoring each other." April counters coldly.

"I'm definitely voting for ignoring." I actually cast my lot with April's Fool on that thought. "That seems to work fine most of the time, at least until it doesn't."

"Hear that May, we already found something to agree on?" April smirks. "So all peaced out girl scout and everything. So are we done now or what?"

"And god forbid, there's another problem in the future? Then what?" May counters evenly. "We do this again? Or maybe something even worse?"

"No." I cautiously suggest an emergency protocol. "If something similar were ever to happen again? We would put aside our differences until the problem is over. Then at the first available opportunity immediately go back to the ignoring thing. That would be my preference, anyway."

"Agreed. I think we can manage that much at least. But only on one condition." April smirks sharply, and I wait for her to stick the knife in my back and start twisting in hard.  

"Which is it?" May inquires for me.

"That outside, things remain exactly as they are now. The normal not nice." April intones coldly. "Look Slapstick, you want to play nice with my sister? Okay, fine with me, but just so you know that I am going to not play nice with you. Like I said, I don't trust you. Trust, it's not totally personal, but I don't trust anyone with my May."

What strikes me through this whole thing is how suddenly possessive April has been with "my May". Especially, when up to now it seemed as if she could care less about May. Other than the burden of suffering a super "special sister" holding her back like an anchor.

But then again, as I have already learned the hard way with one Grimm sister, appearances can be very deceiving with these girls. A certain kiss in the rain comes to mind. And something Guy Mikes once wrote in our love notes about it being "weird that growing up they were thick as thieves, but at school they act like they can't stand each other." Something which is clearly not the case, based on April's attitude?  

It suddenly hits me like winter water, that the sisterly slices these two play at is all just some strange Grimm girl game. That thing with May's watch is like some kind of game clock, or a secret signal of some sort to start slicing away? The opening the timepiece checking thing and the snap closings are all some sort of interplay of messages between the players. But instead of calling them out on their grim game of Slights 'n' Slices, I file this piece of the puzzle away for a later time and deal with the matter at hand.

"Okay, I can live with 'not nice' from you." I agree and riposte. "But one thing I cannot live with is the rumor mill saying anything bad about May because of me. Which they will if you start tearing in at me like you did yesterday."

"O'dude, please." April snorts. "Trust, I am highly aware of how the vines that run this place work. Which is precisely why I don't talk shit about anyone ever, not unless I am ending them."

"So if I ever decide to end you?" She flicks a sinister smile in my direction. "Trust, you'll be dead and done, way before you ever even hear a whisper about it coming."

"Good to know." I smile slices right back.

"Anyways, that's not exactly what I meant by 'not nice'." April's eyes narrow to cruel slits. "What I meant was that you should always expect that I am watching you, and just waiting for you to screw up. Then I will be on your ass the second I don't think that you are playing nice with my sister. Or you put her in danger because of your stupid boy bullshit, like you did with Butcher and them at Da Frost?"

"That's not exactly ignoring April, is it?" May scowls out.

"Like I said, it's an exception to the rule, not the rule." April turns sweetly dulcet. "I ignore him, just so long as he's not around you, and then I don't. So let's be honest here, shall we? I'm not the only one who's going to be running a conditionally ignoring program. Or did he forget to tell you that he stalked us walking to the bathroom yesterday?"

"No, he already told me that yesterday." May counters evenly for me.

"Precisely so." April seems satisfied in her justification of the exception. Truth be told, she is probably right, because I know I will be doing the exactly the same thing to her.

"So just to be clear." I eye the demoness in the mirror wearing April's face. "What I am hearing is that we ignore each other's general existence when May is not around? But when she's around we are both watching out in case there's another issue?"

"Close enough." The darkly mirrored demoness smirks.

"I can live with that so long as May doesn't mind the scrutiny." I shrug off the irrelevant. "What do you say, May?"

"I'm sorry but you both make it sound as if I don't have a determinative say in the freedom my own life. And that at least one of you is watching me all the time?" May scowls over her shades at both of us. "I got to be honest here, that is starting to piss me off a little bit." 

"No May, that's just simply not true. We aren't watching you, we are watching each other ...like backup?" April counters with something actually logical, and surprisingly we share a look of mutual agreement on the new regime.

"So no one is spying on you, because it's not like you don't know we are watching you. We are just more watching each other too? So no one is making decisions for you, or telling you that you can or cannot go somewhere, or with whom? All we are agreeing to do is like a..."  April pauses to nibble her lower lip while searching for the right words.

"A détente?" I add unhelpfully.

"Whatever that is." April's eyes narrow into mean slits, practically daring me to say something stupid.

"A formal cessation of hostilities that is not peace." I intone. "Kind of like taking a break from the battle to care for the wounded? Until the one side does something stupid to start the fight again."

"Yeah sure, that thing. Like not fighting for no reason other than just because, or whatever?" April's cunning eyes narrow at me waiting for my next move.

I am starting to get a sense that this vapid little airhead might not be quite as empty as I thought. That may be when I was watching, something truly monstrous moved into the empty space. Because a lot of what she is saying is making sense to me, which with my many issues is very disturbing to say the least.  

"Darren?" May tilts her head inquisitively. 

"I'm thinking that's about as good as we are gonna get, at this point." I hesitantly agree to this deal. "So I'm cool if you're cool, Maybe?"

"Okay fine, this détente it is then." May sighs.

"So if we're all good here, I got some other chick shit to take care of before homeroom." April picks up her designer bags and takes one last long look in the mirror. As if to stare farewell at her best friend and closest admirer. "So if you could get May to homeroom that would be just stellar of you."

"No worries. So if you can check the hallway and make sure that I am covered leaving the girl's bathroom, that would be so stellar of you too." I nod her over towards the door. "I already have enough troubles without having a creeper tag hung on me."

"Seriously." April snorts in agreement.  

As May steels herself to the hop down from her lunch bench to the floor on her injured leg, I instantly move up into her.

"Okay May, if you're ready to face the day, might I suggest we start with a piggyback ride? At least to the door outside of Orsir's?" I ask hopefully. 

"Oh yes, because that won't be a spectacle at all." May counters dryly.

"I don't know May, maybe you should listen to him this once?" Surprisingly April intercedes on my behalf. "It's still pretty early and the halls are still emptyish? So why not take a ride? Better than walking any more on that leg unnecessarily, right?"

"I think I might have liked it better when you two were getting along so swimmingly." May sighs sarcastically.

"Well if that's what you want? I mean I guess we can always pick up where we left off." April smirks a sneer back. "Ol' Slapstick here could magic you up another spiffy Benjamin Franklin Band-aide? Then we can start the fun all over again. Check it Slappy, there's even a brand new Band-aide machine right over there on the wall in the corner." 

"On second thought, I think I'll take what I can get." May sighs, slowly reaching out for my shoulder, before wrapping her arms around my neck, as I gently bolster her legs with my arms. "But we seriously need to have a long conversation about this piggyback fetish you got going on."

"No problemo, we can talk all about it at lunch." I let her hear the smile of victory in my voice.

"Okay, the hallways clear." April drones, holding open the door. 

So with that, I slip out into the semi-deserted hallway, and out of the raptor eyes of the flocking Falcons.

"Giddy up Brony boy." April snorts in passing, before heading off to make someone else's life a living nightmare.  

Passing past her, I almost miss the sinister smile that creeps across her feral face. And I know without a doubt that Someone's Sister is seriously up to something sinister again. As to what? I can only guess at, at least until the knife gets stuck squarely in my back from the shadows she plays in. Regardless, I have my own dark passenger to see to her first destination of the morning.