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“It’s weird,” Leo dismisses, and April can feel her composure starting to crack.
Leo’s habit of tucking his feelings away has started to rear its ugly head tonight, teeth gnashing in her face in a way she knows will soon lead to a bloody bite. He doesn’t like being pushed, and April gets it, in a way.
But he had brought it up.
“It’s not,” she assures, despite having almost next to nothing to draw on about what her friend is talking about. “And if it is, that’s okay. We’re weird.”
Her hand circles the room, pointing out herself, Karai, and Shinigami in the little circle they’ve formed, bringing his eyes to all three of the non-humans with him. She’s a bit upset that he would even insinuate that something was too weird for them, but girl night is for talking out personal issues in a safe space stuffed with cutesy stuffed animals and face masks. Even when said person is being annoyingly cagey and technically was not a girl.
Could you blame her for inviting him, though? Leo was a total gossip bug - she knew she’d get a better reaction out of him than Karai, at least.
Karai doesn’t look up from April’s other hand, continuing to apply press-on nails with deadly accuracy (which April hates to admit she’ll probably rip off less than a day from now, for practicality), but she nods regardless. “C’mon, Leo, it’s your turn. Fess up.”
Leo opens his mouth, but April’s hopes die before they have a chance to rise. “It’s just… kinda personal, I guess.”
“Shini showed us her cosmic vagina,” April deadpans.
Shinigami looks up from where she’s pasting cut-outs of Ryan Reynolds’ face over Britney Spears’ body and grins. “You’re welcome, by the way.” At the chorus of thanks that follows, she smiles and goes back to her project.
Backed into a corner by reason and logic, Leo huffs. April knows he could lash out if he wants to, sink his jaws into everyone in the room through harsh words and run away like always, but his mouth stays clamped shut and his posture, while nervous, is unguarded. He wants to be vulnerable.
That’s a step. She just needs to show him the floor won’t fall out from under him after the next.
“Girls’ night is for personal, Leo,” she goads, tapping his ankle with her socked foot. She can’t move much while Karai is working on her nails, not without losing a hand, but she can provide this much, at least. “C’mon, we won’t judge.”
Leo’s face crumbles before he can catch it. “That’s - that’s the point. It’s a girls night.”
April’s last thread of patience is about to snap. Karai seems to agree, because she levels him with a stare so deadly April’s worried she’s going to have to get remains out of her carpet. “Are you really upset about your masculinity being threatened?” Karai snaps.
As Leo splutters, April frowns. He doesn’t seem like the type, but he is a teenage boy. Maybe his brothers said something…?
“No! Maybe? I don’t know!” He clutches the closest stuffed animal to his chest - a fluffy pink unicorn she got when she was ten. He certainly isn’t exuding much “toxic masculinity,” right now. “I just - ugh - it’s hard to explain.”
“I doubt it,” Shini calls from April’s bed, still fussing with the magazine. “Just explain it, Leonardo, we are getting bored.”
“What about it being a girls night bothers you?” April asks, hoping to guide him back on track and offer some more helpful advice. “If it’s not your masculinity -”
“It might be!” he interrupts, more shrill than she’s heard since before the invasion. “I - I don’t know, I just feel… weird being included under girls’ night, because I’m… a guy. It should be just girls, or something.”
Karai lets go of April’s hand to whirl on Leo. “Do you want us to call it something else, then? If it’s that weird -”
“No, I want it to be girls’ night!” April can feel the confusion and fear rolling off of him in waves, but she feels powerless to help. Without knowing what’s wrong, she feels she’ll unknowingly say something wrong and cause him to further retreat into his shell. No pun intended.
Shini however, seems to know exactly what’s happening. Though she’s not telling anyone if her cheshire grin says anything. “So you want it to be a girls’ night, with only girls, and you want to be included?”
Leo brightens at the notion of someone, finally , understanding what he’s talking about. “Yes! Thank you Shini, I -”
Leo’s face drops again, immediately hiding behind the stuffed animal. April doesn’t get why until she thinks a little harder and realizes three things simultaneously: there’s no way for someone to be included in a girls-only event without being a girl and Leo’s smart enough to know that, the strange renaissance artist phase Leo recently went through was heavily focused on women, and the trans-related searches on the laptop she occasionally lent Leo were not random.
Karai must come to a similar conclusion, because even her iron-strong uncaring mask can’t hold up to her shock. “Did - did you just…?”
Leo’s head is buried deep into the stuffed animal. “I didn’t mean to do it like that . I - I didn’t mean to at all.”
“Leo…” Any frustration April felt before is immediately swamped by sympathy, and she takes advantage of Karai’s slack grip to crawl her way over to Leo, throwing her arms around her friend. She rocks slowly, bringing Leo with her - it’s something her mom used to do, and maybe it’ll help soothe the tsunami of fear and regret and shame rolling around the room. “I’m sorry that we pushed you.”
“I wanted you to.” Leo’s voice is small. “I wanted to… I was too scared to bring it up.” The patch of fur April brushes against on the stuffed animal is wet, and she brings Leo tighter into her arms.
Shini and Karai both close in, too, but they keep a respectful distance to avoid overwhelming their friend.
“Don’t you feel free, though?” Shini coos. Leo looks up at her, and she flashes one of her rare genuine smiles. “You were ready, deep down.”
Leo looks back at the stuffed animal, looking very much like suffocating in its fur is the best idea in the world, and Karai reaches out to grab Leo’s chin. “Hey. Blue. We support you, everyone in this room, if that wasn’t clear enough for some reason. We love you. Or whatever.”
Leo snorts. The wet, pathetic thing that comes before a sob. “Thank you.”
“Do you want to reintroduce yourself?” April suggests after a minute, moving back to give Leo some room to recollect. Tears are staining the front of her shirt, but she doesn’t mind. Leo's watery smile is worth it.
It’s another few minutes before the sniffles die down and Leo nods - slowly, hesitantly - but the three of them would give Leo all the time in the world.
“My name is Leo.” Leo starts, fingers playing with the unicorn’s ears. “Or - or… Lee, or just L.”
Lee looks up at them shyly, and they smile back. “Lee suits you,” April grins.
L chokes. “Thanks.”
Even just by sharing a new name, Leo already looks so much more comfortable. It’s a wonder April has never noticed it before - but sometimes you have to see how things should be to see how they were wrong. She resist the urge to grab Lee by the shoulders and squeeze.
“What pronouns do you use, love?” Shini tangles her fingers in Leo’s mask tails as she asks, a look in her eye that makes it obvious she’s planning a way to style them into something almost obnoxiously pretty. April thinks L will love it.
Leo swallows thickly. “Uh, I… she/her?”
She winces, like she’s expecting to be laughed at, or scolded, or maybe even thrown out. April’s chest burns at the idea of someone treating Lee - treating her friend so cruelly, and it takes everything she has to keep herself calm so Leo won’t read into it.
Karai grabs her hand first. “Thank you for telling us, Lee.”
Leo smiles. It’s watery, and she looks like she’s about to start sobbing, but it’s one of the most genuine smiles April’s seen from her in a while.
“Alright,” April claps, “girls’ night act two!”
“You’re such a fucking nerd O’Neil,” Karai teases, and just like that things are back on track.