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The roof of Groovy Tunes, Saturday night

So after the world's hardest (and yet simultaneously most musical) conversation with Kathy earlier, Raven had decided that escape was the better part of valor and shifted into bird form to take to the skies.

It was a little bit windier than she was used to dealing with with hollow bones and feathers, so it quickly devolved into hopping across the rooftops, but it was still better than being back at the apartment unable to stop herself from belting out that she worried Kathy had been happier dead.

She paused for a breather on one of the taller buildings and stared out over the town, watching the tail end of what looked like a rousing ditty about unionizing sung by a bunch of rickshaw drivers. When the last notes of their number decayed out and the group broke up to go separate ways, Raven sat on the edge of the roof to enjoy the quiet sounds of a cool, spring night.

The music this time built so quietly and slowly that she didn't notice it was there until she began to sing.

"Sometimes in the morning
I am petrified and can't move
Awake but cannot open my eyes
And the weight is crushing down
On my lungs, I know I can't breathe
And hope someone will save me this time.
And your mother's still calling you insane
And high, swearing it's different this time,
And you tell her to give in
To the demons that possess her
And God has never blessed her insides,
And you hang up the phone
And feel badly for upsetting things
Crawl back into bed to dream of a time
When your heart was open wide
And you loved things just because
Like the sick and the dying."

She stood up and paced to the other side of the roof, arms wrapped around her middle, as the music crashed into full volume.

"And sometimes when you're on,
You're really fucking on!
And your friends they sing along and they love you,
But the lows are so extreme
That the good seems fucking cheap!
And it teases you for weeks in its absence.

But you'll fight it and you'll make it through
You'll fake it if you have to
And you'll show up for work with a smile!
You'll be better and you'll be smarter,
And more grown up and a better daughter!
-- Or son and a real good friend!
You'll be awake, you'll be alert,
You'll be positive though it hurts!
And you'll laugh and embrace all your friends!
You'll be a real good listener,
You'll be honest, you'll be brave!
You'll be handsome and you'll be beautiful!
You'll be happy!"

She was shouting it by the end, lord only knew who she was waking up in the building below her. She took a deep breath, wiping at the tears on her cheeks, then lowered herself carefully back down.

"Your ship may be coming in
You're weak but not giving in
To the cries and the wails of the valley below,
And your ship may be coming in
You're weak but not giving in
And you'll fight it, you'll go out fighting all alone."

The music faded back out and she went back to hugging her knees, staring out over the island.

Well. That one was almost happy, anyway.

[lalala, character growth through Rilo Kiley lyrics is totally normal, right? The town rooftops are open. . . .]

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Jono hadn't come in to work today, no. Partly because he was still hurting from yesterday's fighting, and partly because they were expecting dinner guests tonight, and all. But he realized somewhere in there that he needed to make out paycheques for the staff before payday rolled around, and so after Kanan and Hera had gone home for the night, he'd excused himself and sort of dragged his sorry self off to the Groovy Tunes anyway.

... Just in time to hear Raven singing, apparently. He blinked, and turned his gaze upwards before, thoughtfully, making his way inside. And upstairs. And out onto the roof.

//... 'Lo, luv.//

Was he lingering in the doorway? Absolutely. He didn't want to sneak up behind her or anything, here.

It was generally not a good idea to sneak up on Raven, yeah.

She looked back over her shoulder at him, then down at the street below. Huh. The music store.

Figured.

"Guess you heard me, huh."

//Got an ear for music,// Jono replied easily. //Mind if I take a seat?//

There on the roof. Absolutely. In part to talk. In part because he still kind of had holes in him from being run over by an overenthusiastic cat the size of a pony yesterday.

"Sure," Raven said, scooting over a couple inches to make sure he had room. "It's kind of your roof, right?"

//Sure is,// Jono agreed easily, though taking a seat took him a moment or three. //I've started a collection of them, now. Can't have enough rooftops.//

Ah, sitting. Sitting was good.

//Not a bad night for it, either. Not too cold, not too hot. Mostly quiet.//

Except for the occasional bout of singing rising up here and there around the island, anyway.

"Sure, when the island doesn't have you howling self-affirmations into the wind, anyway." Raven was a bit embarrassed by that. But at least it wasn't the song about how dying sounded like it might be kind of nice after all.

Hey, Jono had sung a few of those in his time here, too. He shrugged one shoulder a bit lopsidedly, giving her a wry little glance.

//There are worse things to howl into the wind. Island had me singing angrily at myself in a mirror, once. Not actually an experience I'd care to repeat.// He looked back out over the island. //Not giving in. Not a bad way to be.//

"Yeah, well. We'll see if it works. The last line was about fighting alone." Raven sighed. "And Kathy and I kind of . . . sang-fought with each other earlier. Because she's an idiot who doesn't know how to survive."

//For what it's worth, you aren't alone,// Jono offered, gently. //Sorry about your... song-fight, though. Days like this one are great for catharsis. Terrible for just about everything else.//

"Did you sing anything today?"

Jono gave his shoulders a shrug.

//Got off fairly lightly,// he replied. //Singing isn't quite right when I do it, anyway. I just sort of recite lyrics into people's brains.//

That said, the cats had probably not been as excited about his rousing rendition of the Meow Mix theme at feeding time as they ought to have been.

"Sounds like what you need to do is learn how to rap," Raven said.

//... The last thing the island needs is me, rapping,// Jono replied, faintly amused. //I'll leave the white bloke rapping to Eminem and settle for butchering every song I once loved when the island pulls stunts like this, instead.//

It really wasn't that bad. Jono just had opinions.

"Okay, then how about the scream rock stuff? I bet you could scream incomprehensibly in people's heads really well."

Sorry for teasing, Jono. It was cheering her up immensely.

Hey, if it was making Raven feel better, Jono would take it!

//I do happen to be a master of incomprehensible screaming,// he mused. //Ever have somebody scream chartreuse and the scent of oranges directly into your mind before?//

The power of telepathy. Though 'the scent of oranges' wasn't exactly terribly lyrical, granted.

"See, now that sounds like a whole new music genre to me. You could be a pioneer." Raven drummed her heels against the edge of the roof and watched a tall, older man in a suit spun lazily around a lamp post, too far away to hear if there was singing involved. "Might be hard to record, though."

//Th'phone that Barry made for me has difficulty with anything that isn't words,// Jono allowed. //Though I suppose the garble that it spits out whenever I say something utterly incomprehensible is--//

The next thing he said was, in fact, basically just the colour chartreuse and a faint sampling of the scent of oranges.

It was a very descriptive thing to say, truly.

Raven blinked and sat up straighter. "Oh wow. It's been . . . a long time since someone did that." She really needed to call Charles. "And you know, I always thought chartreuse sounded more like a red color."

//Well, then I'm almost sorry to inflict that horrid shade of green on you,// Jono replied, sounding... faintly apologetic, at least. If only because he was worried he might have startled her somewhat. //I try to keep my battering people with chartreuse to a minimum, at least.//

"Actually, I think it was last year's color of the year or something. It was all over the fashion blogs." Last time she bothered looking at fashion blogs. "You get hung up a lot on what you can't do, don't you."

//It's one of my greatest talents,// Jono quipped. //I've been hung up on th'singing thing for a while, though. There's nothing terribly new.//

It tended to drive people right up a post.

"I've never really had a whole lot of 'can't'," Raven mused. "Not really. I mean, there was plenty I was scared to do, but -- I can turn into anything. I practiced, and I learned to fly." She looked back down at her feet. "Now . . . I know I can do just about anything, and all I end up doing is sitting at home and watching TV."

Ah. Jono nodded a little. He had friends who mutinied against his old furniture because he'd basically destroyed a couch by sitting in it so much.

So...

//You're out now,// he noted. //Though... I've been there. Spent more nights staring brainlessly at infomercials after high school than I have sleeping in my own bed. Sometimes the idea of getting up to do things just makes everything feel... heavy. Is that it?//

Raven shrugged. "Maybe. I guess. I'm definitely not scared. There's not really anything scary after -- you know. It's just. Nothing's fun anymore."

//That can change,// Jono said, psionic voice even softer than before. Tired, maybe, a little. He knew exactly that feeling. Hated seeing other people in the place where he was, once upon a time. The place where he still sometimes went, on the bad days. //Not quickly. Not even nearly all th'time. But on occasion... sometimes you find yourself living again, even if it's only for moments.//

He wrapped his arms around himself, eyes fixed out on the island sprawl before them.

//It's work. It's hard. Sometimes starting to feel again is more terrifying than the hell that made you feel flat in th'first place. But it can change.//

Raven tapped her heels against the side of the roof, setting up a simple rhythm, and wondered if she was going to burst into song again.

Maybe it was after midnight. The effect seemed done with her now.

"Is it worth it?"

//Make it out the other side, more often than not you might be able to say it is,// Jono replied, tapping his fingers against his knee, a casual, unconscious counterpoint to Raven's own tapping. //There were a lot of times along the way that I didn't think it would be, though.//

"Are you better now?" Raven asked. "Or at least . . . more good than bad?"

//Well, I've gone from 'I might never leave my sofa again' to 'I work two, three, sometimes five jobs at a time in order to keep myself feeling like a functional living being,' but I've also married. Settled in. There are still days when I can't be bothered to get out of bed. Hell, it's far too easy for me to just shut down completely. Still takes effort not to, more often than I'd like.//

But that was something that he had been able to say since even before Weapon X and Akkaba had each had a go at him.

//But I'm thankful that I've made it this far. Nearly didn't. Nearly didn't a few times.//

He tapered off at that. Fell silent for a moment. And then looked over at Raven.

//It's worth it. Eventually there will be something in your life that you can hold on to. Something you can find joy in. Decide is worth it for you, too. Might be hard to believe now. But... this? This can heal.//

"I don't know if I can wait for 'eventually'," Raven admitted. "If it wasn't for Kathy, I'd probably have left again already."

//Any idea where you would go?//

He was curious, not judging. He could understand quite well that 'eventually' was a difficult pill to swallow.

"Back to the mountains," Raven said. "Assuming I could find a world where they'd be quiet enough. Kathy's kind of the opposite of quiet right now."

//You've both got a lot going on, and very different ways of dealing with it,// Jono observed, nodding a little. //You ever need to go somewhere quiet, th'island's rocky bits are practically in our backyard. Not many people head out that way, generally, and they're much closer than leaving for the mountains.//

"I'll keep that in mind." She wasn't super likely to take him up on it, though. "Thanks. For . . . understanding, I guess."

She hadn't had to explain a whole lot to him, hadn't at all, since she first got back. That made things a lot easier.

Jono hiked his shoulders up in a small shrug at that.

//No need to thank me for having been there,// he replied. //Just... like I said, you aren't alone. Might feel like you are more often than not, but there are people who have your back.//

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The roof of Groovy Tunes, Saturday night

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