#bergen_county

Sylvi texts back: You okay? Need me to come over?

It takes a while for a reply. Will be ok. Wasn't great tho.

TXT: k. prolly not good company tho.

Txt: actually... this gonna sound weird. but would you pick up some cheeseburgers n fries from McRonalds?

And soon enough, Piper's doorbell rings.

A voice on the overcom. "Who is it... Sylvi? Just checking."

"Yeah, it's me. I come bearing fast food and a shoulder to cry on."

She buzzes the troll up, and by the time she reaches the 4th floor is unlocking the door. Piper's made a quick effort - a new t-shirt thrown on, her face washed, but it's clear from her puffy face that she's been crying. "Sorry. I probably look awful. Come in... just shove anything out of the way..."

"Seriously, not something you need to apologize for." Sylvi's looking kind of dressed down herself, her own make up minimal, hair in a simple ponytail. Her arms are full of bags. "I may have gone a bit overboard...."

The bags are brimming with burgers and large fries and apple and cherry pies. "I hope you've got something to drink? I thought about juggling shakes, too, but decided against."

"Holy guacamole, you cleaned out the eastern seaboard." Helping with the bags. "I'm supposed to be a vegetarian these days, it was part of my... rebranding. But dang if it just didn't sound like comfort food right now. Drinks I can do..." Dropping bags on the kitchenette counter, she opens the fridge which does have OJ, a case of sparkling water, a few takeout containers but not a lot else.

"Supposed to be? Like...did you decide that, or did somebody else?" She sorts out packages -- some hamburgers, some cheeseburgers, a couple of filet-o-fish for variety.

"I did... it's something I had thought about in the past, and thought it would help me fit a newer, brighter, sunny-side Piper." Unwrapping a burger and taking a bite. "But damn this tastes good. " She sniffs. "Though I feel shitty and that I should probably not be treating myself right now. I can pay you back after my next babysitting job, too."

"Oh, please," Sylvi waves off the offer of repayment as she digs into some fries. "Just do me a solid when and if I need it, okay? So...it didn't go great, huh?"

Piper has demolished half of the sandwich already, and sets it aside with a sigh. "He didn't understand. I... tried to explain, and tried to be gentle... but he was insisting that he could help. I finally snapped at him that I didn't want to be with him, and for him to leave... that cut through whatever he had up. But made me feel like I kicked a puppy off the roof..."

Sylvi sighs. "You tried. But...he's not real good at taking 'no' for an answer, I think."

"Maybe that's the sidhe poking through." She muses moodily. "He made it really hard.. I think I was a coin flip away from chasing after him when he finally walked off..." Wiping at her eyes again. "Did I do the right thing? I really do think I need to work through this... but he needs someone to be there for him... it's like, he doesn't feel like anyone's on his side. And that's not just angst... and now I abandoned him, too..."

"I don't know if there's really a right thing here. I mean, you need time, and if you don't feel you can tell him the whole truth, maybe he's not the person you need time with. And...look, don't take this the wrong way, but I'm betting he's going to get over it. I mean...maybe he hasn't hatched yet, but if anybody were gonna be a Fiona, it's Adam. He'll mope, but he'll heal." She picks up a cheeseburger. "Not sure if you'll be able to be friends without him beind weird, though. Remember how tense things were with him and Dagmar? Or...oh, you weren't here for that, were you?"

"I was... I was kinda part of the root of that, I didn't know they were a thing when he started flirting with me, and then we hooked up right after they broke it off. But Dagmar and I are cool, I think. She's good people. But no, even Snow could probably pick up on the tension there. And that's without having seen the Chief try to get them to... slug it out, or whatever THAT was, a couple weeks ago."

"I guess sometimes things have to come to a head before they get cleared out. "

"That sounds like a skin-care issue." Taking a handful of fries. "Do you think they got it worked out? I didn't see if things seemed better, or just.. different after that. I don't want to be the cause of that sort of tension, it was like, when they say you could cut it with a knife."

"Maybe I'll lay low around here for a while... I don't want to make things harder on him, and he has to go to the lodge, he's a Crash of the Storm, patrols and stuff..."

"Well, I know she's not always kind of cringe-ing around him anymore, y'know? Yeah, I think they worked some stuff out. As for laying low...um...I don't think you're built that way, Piper. I don't think that would be good for you, at all."

She bites her lip. "I do want to talk to the chief, but she's got a lot going on. I mean, there's plenty to keep me occupied around here. I don't need to hit up the lodge for a few days. Let things cool off..."

"Yeah, I get it. Hey...maybe you could play music for Lady Sparrow while she's painting? She might like that."

"Maybe... you think she likes music? I just met her the once. For a noble, she seems pretty down to earth. Not a flying joke there either."

Sylvi laughs a bit at that. "Lady Sparrow's one of the coolest sidhe I've ever met. I don't think I've ever seen her pull rank. She wants to be, y'know, one of the people. Did you know she started doing murals with graffiti tagging?"

"She mentioned spray paint - that's pretty bad ass. I wouldn't think she'd have that in her. A Unicorn, maybe, they tend to want to rebel a bit... " A small smile at that.

"You really need to see her portfolio sometime. It's amaze-balls."

"Do you think she'd want me around, though? If she knew my past? She's a Liam too. It took me a good... almost a year before I think the Mountain wanted to talk to me. But that could have just been me thinking he looked mad all the time.... grump trolls can be hard to read."

"You mean, this?" She picks up a handful of fries and holds them vertically in front of her mouth as a beard, and then frowns with her eyebrows.

Piper coughs and half chokes on her own fries, grabbing her water to wash it down. "Ex-ACTLY that!"

Sylvi grins. "He's always like that. I grew up with it, so I'm used to it. Drives Dad crazy sometimes, though, 'Hey, Frank-O, who pissed in your cornflakes today?' But he's just always concerned about something, and concerned he's going to do the wrong thing, or that he's going to miss a sign of something going wrong. It's his thing. But it doesn't mean he doesn't want to talk to you. He just...doesn't talk much."

She nods. "I think I might need to take a trip back to the coast... not want to, but... well, I'll talk to the mountain about it. If nothing else, I know he can listen..." And she takes an apple pie, and will gladly let Sylvi distract her a bit longer.

--------

Later, she returns to the roof. It's cloudy, with alternating showers - gloomy, to match her mood. And she watches the droplets fall, pause, return as the wind blows the clouds about... but she can't think right now of another place to go. Sitting on the damp concrete in the modest shelter of the stairwell, she plays her guitar softly, singing along. To herself, to no one, amplified by the weather, by her heartache, by knowing that she brought this on herself, and she brought this pain on another... on others.

Your fingertips trace my skin...
To places I have never been...
Blindly I am following...
Break down these walls and come on in..
I wanna feel the way that we did that summer night,
Drunk on a feeling, alone with the stars in the sky...

...

Oh life, it's bigger
It's bigger than you
And you are not me
The lengths that I will go to
The distance in your eyes
Oh no, I've said too much
I set it up

That's me in the corner
That's me in the spotlight
Losing my religion
Trying to keep up with you
And I don't know if I can do it
Oh no, I've said too much
I haven't said enough...

....

Between the wars we danced
Between the wars we laughed..
Don't wake me yet
Don't wake me yet
Steal the rest
Hasn't happened
Hasn't happened yet...

Ooooooooh,
Between the wars we stay
A fading echo spinning away
Lost in memory
Lost in memory...

.....

I took my love, I took it down
Climbed a mountain and I turned around
And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills
'Til the landslide brought me down
Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changin' ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

......

The devil's on your shoulder
The strangers in your head
As if you don't remember
As if you can forget
It's only been a moment
It's only been a lifetime
But tonight you're a stranger
Some silhouette...

Just hold me,
Don't hold me,
Just hold me,
Don't hold me...

Despite the emptiness of the roof, lack of amplifier, and soft singing, the melancholy may still carry - unintentionally, as she drifts from one song to the next, not even noticing the water dripping onto her, on her cheeks, onto her treasured instrument.

Sometimes, sounds might come from the side of the building that are not musical...

but they're infrequent and brief

During a break between songs as she rubs the edge of her sleeve to clear a bit of water off her guitar, she hears something. And it’s gone- but if she hears it again, she stands, wincing from too long folded into one spot, and goes to take a look...

Below behind the Apartments the.. the pool is almost done! They're doing the final touches!

For a second she's excited, and thinks about inviting her friends and Adam over... oh. And the gloom settles again. Guitar back in it's case at least, safe from the wet... she'll need to turn on a dehumidifier tonight to make sure it dries out proper. Leaning over the edge of the railing, and watching - then realizes that with boggans at work, maybe she shouldn't be. And turns away again.

She also saw a frustrated and filthy pooka girl with a racoon tail

Now that catches her eye. Rikki is making good on her promise? She watches for a bit longer...

It would appear so. Sometimes the boggans send her off with the other Beaver Pooka

and she does some crappy jobs for cleaning up stuff on the side

No sooner does Piper turn her head back, and she sees what even ten minutes of Boggan time is like...the pool looks like it's had another hour and a half worked on it

She gives her head a shake - was that pool filter there before? Boggans are taken for granted, surely. But it can't distract her from her good funk. But she makes a mental note to do something nice for Rikki later - she looks miserable. Mentally tallying up her spare cash. Maybe, uh. A leftover cheeseburger.