Legally Black [COMPLETE]

6: wait for it

When the time came to return the favor for Phoenix, to step up when one of hers messed up, Yves did.

One of her own campaign volunteers (and she had volunteers, plural, for some reason) had taken to making meme posters skewering the competition to keep them going when going got tough. Some of them were funny (Keep calm and bougie on had a ring to it), but some of them were mean, and while she might not care what got shared in the campaign group chat, she did care what ended up blue tacked to the walls of her school with Yves Gates approved this message Sharpied across the bottom.

Sedona frowning beside her, Yves glared at the bowtie-wearing stick figure bearing an undercut standing in front of a couple of bathroom signs with the caption Make your choice. Yves saw the joke, what she didn't see was the humor.

"What's this mess?"

The volunteer in question, Geoff, a friend of a friend who was seconds from being de-friended, defended the poster that had his initials sketched in the corner. "Issa joke."

"It's not funny, it's ugly, and I'll be damned if y'all about to get me jumped in these streets because you don't know how to act. Take it down, burn it, and read a book. That's not even how being nonbinary works with ya whack ass." Yves didn't wait for Geoff to take his cue; she ripped the poster down herself. "And that better be the only one. Find them before I do. That's not a joke."

"You serious? See, it's not even like that."

Sedona made a 'cut it out' gesture that drew him up short. "Get them down or I'll go to the principal. That's it."

"Pssh, I don't need this mess."

Yves sent Sedona along to make sure that was taken care of and none of the signs were 'accidentally' overlooked. She poured her iced coffee over the sign in the nearest garbage can to make sure it was unrecognizable. Not in my school.

She'd just about convinced herself she had time to run back to the cafeteria to replace her drink when she spied a rainbow bowtie flickering down the hall. Phoenix Belmont was watching. Yves got the sense they'd been there a while.

"You saw that?"

Phoenix inclined their whiskered chin and shrugged. "It's whatever."

"It's not really. I'm sorry about it anyway." She was. Mixed as her feelings about Loren might be these days, she had no beef with Phoenix. Phoenix had come in hot with everything Loren wanted when Loren wanted it. That wasn't malice, that was luck.

Phoenix gave a nonchalant shoulder roll. Water of their back like a duck's. "It's cool."

"We cool?"

"Yeah." They smiled, crooked and bright. Yves smiled back. "Stay straight, Yves."

"Too late for straight, but I'll keep right. Later."

"Later."

Yves didn't skip her next class, but she was ten minutes late. She needed another cold, cold drink. Phoenix had a smile that could do that kind of thing. No wonder Loren had booked it.

They were going places, together, and Yves was a little envious.