The roof, Saturday night

[nadiathesaint]

That's right, Nadia is back on the roof. With guitar and all.

Pirate radio be damned.

She's got her ticket
I think she gonna use it
I think she going to fly away
No one should try and stop her
Persuade her with their power
She says that her mind is made
Up

Why not leave why not
Go away
Too much hatred
Corruption and greed
Give your life
And invariably they leave you with
Nothing

Young girl ain't got no chances
No roots to keep her strong
She's shed all pretenses
That someday she'll belong
Some folks call her a runaway
A failure in the race
But she knows where her ticket takes her
She will find her place in the sun

Why not leave why not
Go away
Too much hatred
Corruption and greed
Give your life
And invariably they leave you with
Nothing

She's got her ticket
I think she gonna use it
I think she going to fly away
No one should try and stop her
Persuade her with their power
She says that her mind is made
Up

And she'll fly, fly, fly...

[ooc: second verse, same as the first.]

Comments

[cyclopeanmerc.livejournal.com]

"You're getting pretty good," Pip said from the stairway where he was strumming his own guitar.

[nadiathesaint]

dirty?

Nadia was quite pleased that the person coming out onto the roof wasn't Walter, Victor, or Pippi. As far as she knew, Pip had no reason to hate her.

"Thanks. You were right, practice every day."

[cyclopeanmerc.livejournal.com]

_{I'm the cannonically dirty one here}

"Yep. Gotta be like a religion. More than a religion. Religion's once every week. This has got to be every damn day. " He plinked a little mariachi-esque tune. "So, what brings you up to the roof o' emo?"

[nadiathesaint]

"A very weird week." Nadia answered, skipping over the religion thing. "You?"

[cyclopeanmerc.livejournal.com]

"Nothing, really. I just find that it's a good place to practice guitar so I don't annoy the hell out of everyone else with my playing. My main emo came at the beginning of the week and I'm mostly over it, assuming I don't run into Aeryn any time soon. What happened over the week?"

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia sighed. Veronica wasn't around, so there was no one to dump everything on, but she could at least tell Pip a little bit of it. She held up a finger with each item: "Turned my boss into an apple tree, accidentally kissed Walter, hid in my room for most of the week, participated in embarrassing the hell out of Blair, which, okay, was fun, but I felt bad about it afterward, found out Victor knows I kissed his boyfriend and now has claws, probably made Pippi made at me, and nearly choked to death this morning on a piece of fruit because Victor walked into a room."

[cyclopeanmerc.livejournal.com]

Pip's eye widened. "That's a hell of a week. What happened that you made Pippi angry?"

[nadiathesaint]

"I'm not sure. We were talking about Victor at lunch and I said something, and she suddenly had to go somewhere else." Nadia looked down at her guitar. "It was just really weird."

[cyclopeanmerc.livejournal.com]

"Well, she might have had to actually go somewhere else," Pip said. "What was it you said before she suddenly had to go somewhere else?"

[nadiathesaint]

"I don't remember, something about Victor's claws. I . . . it might have sounded pretty mean."

[cyclopeanmerc.livejournal.com]

"Ahhh," Pip said. "That'd do it. I know you weren't there but it was a pretty frakkin scary experience. So something that might have sounded mean might not have gone down well. I take you haven't spoken to Victor, Walter, or Pippi lately?"

[nadiathesaint]

"They were all there this morning when I choked. I don't . . . I wouldn't know what to say."

[cyclopeanmerc.livejournal.com]

Pip flinched. "Ouch." He walked up the stairs, still strumming the guitar. "So, this thing with Walter... I know the kiss was accidental... but do you still have feelings for him? Because that's what the issue is about, really. The kiss is just a symptom of it."

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia slumped slightly over her guitar. "I'm not trying to. I just . . . yeah. Yeah, I do." She let her head fall forward onto the edge of the guitar. "He's just. . . . I don't know."

[cyclopeanmerc.livejournal.com]

Pip walked up to Nadia and threw an arm around her. "Good. We've identified the problem and are being honest with ourselves. Steps 1 and 2 have been completed. Now, step 3. What can we do about it? You shouldn't feel guilty about the way you feel about him. That's something you can't change. I can't change the fact that I don't like American cheese, and you can't make yourself stop having feelings for Walter. Now, your actions, those you can control."

Pip reached into a pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. "Have you talked about this with Victor and Walter at all?"

[nadiathesaint]

American cheese? Pip was comparing Walter to american cheese?! There was something very wrong with that.

"Um, recently? . . . No. After the kiss, Walter and I kind of agreed to not talk about it."

[cyclopeanmerc.livejournal.com]

I'm tipsy and unable to come up with good analogies. Hush.

Pip pulled a cigarette out with his mouth, put the pack away, and pulled out his lighter. "Well, while I understand wanting to not talk about it, you might want to think about it," he said after lighting the cigaratte, taking a drag, and removing it from his mouth. "Because there's definite tension between the three of you and it's not just going to magically disappear. It might fade in time, but until then, things are going to be uncomfortable as hell."

[nadiathesaint]

"Can't I just keep avoiding them?" Nadia cringed, realizing she was almost whining. "I'm not good at this. Back home, when I liked someone, I just got together with them and it either went well or it didn't, and that was that."

[cyclopeanmerc.livejournal.com]

Pip eyed her. It's worth noting that only having one eye did not decrease the power of his glare. It merely made it more concentrated. "Well, considering that you guys go to school together, live in the same not particularly large building, and have many of the same friends, me for instance, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that no, you can't. You'd also have to dive behind the counter when either of them showed up at Empire Records and never go to Cafe Fina on certain days. I'm pretty sure it'd get kind of tiresome after a while."

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia cringed further. Now she was making Pip mad at her? What the hell was wrong with her, lately? "I'm sorry. I just . . . like I said, I'm not good at this!"

[cyclopeanmerc.livejournal.com]

Pip sighed. "Sorry, didn't mean to get all angry at you. No one's good at this sort of thing. It's easy for me to give you advice like this because I'm not actually involved. But I don't have the time or the energy to deal with you guys getting real quiet and excusing yourselves for the flimsy reasons every time one of the other people comes into the room." He took a drag on his cigarette. "I know that it's hard, but the right thing to do usually is."

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia put her head back down on her guitar. "I'm sorry. I'm not trying to put you in the middle of it or anything. I just . . . Victor . . . worries me. Walter and Pippi said he hurt Walter. I know they said it was an accident, and I believe that, I do, but I've known too many people who've gotten hurt, even accidentally, by their boyfriends, and it's not good. I . . . I'll talk to them, I will. I just . . . maybe I need some time."

[cyclopeanmerc.livejournal.com]

"Nadia, it's not going to get easier," Pip said. "It really isn't. The best thing you can do is to get over with as soon as you can." Another drag on his cigarette. "And, believe me, Walter is more than capable of taking care of himself, fight-wise. If either of them try to hurt the other, I'll clobber both of 'em."

[nadiathesaint]

He might not be able to take care of himself, fight-wise, if it was someone he cared about doing the hurting. . . . Nadia wiped at her face. Not because she was crying. She was just tired. Really.

"I can't . . . I don't . . . ." she didn't know what she couldn't and didn't. There weren't really any reason that she couldn't go talk to Victor and Walter . . . other than that she was terrified of it.

"What if they hate me?"

[cyclopeanmerc.livejournal.com]

Pip scritched the back of Nadia's head. "I know, I know. Believe me, I know. I spent the better part of Monday night wondering how many people here hated me because of my mercenary background. They won't hate you. And if they do, it's their loss and their fault for hating you for something you have no control over. But it's a moot point because they won't hate you."

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia kept her head down. She couldn't quite bring herself to look up at Pip. "I don't want anyone to be angry. I just . . . ." She sniffed slightly, and finally glanced up. "You were a mercenary?"

[cyclopeanmerc.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, that you knew? My father was a mercenary, my grandfather was a mercenary, his father's was and so was his father's father and so on. My dad died before I was born and my mom died when I was born, so my grandfather raised me. But because he's kind of a crap parent, I ended up mostly being raised by the mercenary company that my grandfather ran. Did a little mercenary work to earn enough money to pay for me to come here, actually.

... Is it a problem?"

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia studied Pip for a momen longer, then shook her head. "I'm here because I was given the option of coming here or going to jail. For more than 100 separate criminal acts. Sometimes that stuff is just something you have to do."

[cyclopeanmerc.livejournal.com]

Pip nodded. "Well, it doesn't mean that I'm proud about it." He stood up. "Anyway, you need to talk to Victor and Walter. You really do. And the sooner you do it, the better. Not just for you guys, but for all of us who know you." He nodded. "G'night Nadia. They won't hate you and we don't hate you."

[nadiathesaint]

"Buenas noches, Pip," Nadia watched him leave, then looked back out across the town.

He was right, and she even knew that. Didn't make it any easier to go talk to Walter and Victor . . . especially since, at this hour of night, they'd either be asleep or . . . preparing to be asleep.

She wrapped her hand around her St. Jude medallion and quietly wished there was some way of knowing what would happen next, so she wouldn't have to wonder about it. Then she leaned back and started strumming through her song again.

She's got her ticket
I think she gonna use it
I think she going to fly away
No one should try and stop her
Persuade her with their power
She says that her mind is made
Up

Yeah, she wished.

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

Anders and Cally (and presumably Pippi) have left the Viper-painting party (http://community.livejournal.com/fandomhighdorms/515762.html#comments) by now, but Nadia might note the paint splattered over the roof.

There's also a whole pizza, some chips, and a bottle of soda left behind.

[nadiathesaint]

[ooc: thanks for the heads up.]

[anole-x.livejournal.com]

Every time I check back on this thread, I keep reading that as "Victor-painting party" and then my brain breaks a little.