Star Gazing's Not Boring

For a moment, Taylor saw red. She inhaled sharply and prepared to drop her fist down into Lia's face, but then she hesitated. She was confused. This girl was still talking trash and apparently not the least bit threatened and Taylor wondered if she really was holding back. Was she really just trying to piss her off, beating her at her own game? But... as weird and frustrating as it was, maybe she was right.

Taylor let go of Lia's hair and slowly relaxed her fist. Her conflicted blue eyes wandered away and she took a deep breath.

"I'm... not supposed to be doing this stuff anymore." She said quietly, almost mumbling. "I think. I'm not sure what it is that I'm doing, but I don't know if it's... like if it's what I should be doing."

She looked back at Lia, concerned. "Um, I think I want to let you up, but are you going to... ya know, like, kill me? I've got a big match coming up and it'd really ruin my week if you broke my head open."

Ultimatums, like the one Taylor gave earlier, served as flashpoints; they defined the interaction from there out. The aggressor wants something, and states what she will do if she does not get it. They leave no room for negotiation, and they shove both parties to the brink immediately.

So pushed, Lia never gave in. Threatening her to do something, even if it were something she would do anyway, was the single most effective way to get her to swear against it, spit in the aggressor's face, and dare her to follow through on her threats, or at the very least feign compliance just long enough to fight back.

Lia was stubborn like that.

Annoying as much to Lia as it was to the punk, Taylor blinked. She relented. Lia's scowl quivered, her countenance showing cracks as Taylor expressed doubt. Suddenly, with a sigh, her scowl faded completely and her fist fell. She lazily whipped Taylor with the sweater. "Grr, dangit. When you go and doubt yourself, you make it REALLY hard to continue this fight." Lia flashed Taylor her wry smile once more, "Picking fights with strangers is rarely advisable, Molars."

Adding a chuckle at Taylor's question, Lia continued, "Kill you? Let me put this to you plainly: If I ever kill you, we'll be on our feet. You'll be facing me. And you'll be armed." Lia winked at Taylor, "If you're not gonna beat the stuffing out of me, seriously, get off me, dangit."

Taylor hesitated some more. She grabbed onto her sweatshirt when Lia smacked her with it so they were each holding a sleeve. She looked hard into Lia's crazy red eyes, the kind everyone seemed to have, and thought. After a moment she got upset, stood up in a hurry and spiked her half of the sweatshirt down on Lia's face. "What the hell!"

"You are freaking ridiculous! I don't know what to do. I can't decide if I like you or hate you or if I want to MURDER YOUR FUCKING FACE! Fuuck!" Taylor ranted, becoming animated with rage. "Why can't you be a normal freaking person? It was all going so well at the bar until... I don't know. But THIS? This is ridiculous! And... you're trying to find my buttons and piss me off so that... so that... I don't even know, but it's WORKING, okay?"

Taylor kicked at the ground to try to fling dirt on Lia but nothing really happened. "And first it seems like I'll just roll through you, then you drop me like I'm an idiot, then you go back to sucking, I DON'T GET IT! What's your freaking angle? What do you want from me? From... ANYBODY?"

Lia pulled the shirt off her face, revealing her playful, childish smile. Lia sat up and dusted herself, as Taylor ranted and raved. Folding her legs up, Lia rested her head and arms on her knees. She closed her eyes and flinched as Taylor tried to kick dirt on her but did not move. "Meh. Like I said, I don't want anything from you." Lia reached up to scratch the inside of her left rabbit ear. "Things were going great until you were all a giant douchebag at the bar and wanted to pick fights with everyone in the place, people who were trying to be nice to you included, so whatever. Being friendly to you is a giant waste of time. You're just lucky the big bad champ-een has all the time in the world to waste in making friends with total belligerent douchers."

Lia leaned back, looking up at the sky, stretching her legs out and playfully kicking them up and down gently, "I DID kinda want to piss you off, but, man, you're like... angry all the time. What's the point?" Lia shrugged, tossing the sweatshirt lazily at Taylor. "I think I'm perfectly normal. You're the psycho who is constantly starting shit and cannot take the simplest of hints." Lia sighed happily, "I'm just... free. Free to do whatever I want. I haven't..." Lia let the thought trail off, "It's... intoxicating... I could run off right now to Brussels. I could build a boat. I could play tiddlywinks. I could collect pogs. I could start a band. I could start a garden..." Lia's eyes wandered back to Taylor. The bunny girl gave a hearty sigh of delight, "Anything, everything. It's all worth doing. I just... I'm on vacation." Lia nodded pensively, finally finding a strain of thought that made sense, "Vacation. Yeah. I'm just in it to have fun. To see and do anything and everything cool." A slightly more authoritative nod now. "Dude, I wear rabbit ears. What answer DO you want?"

Taylor was quiet while Lia talked. The longer she went on, the more her anger abated. She blushed a little, tucked her chin down, put a hand on her opposite elbow, and looked at the grass near Lia.

After a pause, she said quietly "I am not." She was having trouble thinking of something to say that wouldn't prove Lia's point. Moreover, she was having trouble coming up with anything to say that seemed to matter. She felt stupid, foolish, for having thought that maybe Lia was like her. That she was someone she would be able to get along with if they could get off on the right foot. She was wrong, though, Lia didn't care at all. Taylor wished she didn't care either.

"Well, I guess... mission accomplished. I think our little fight, like, showed me more about... like who you are and stuff. I... uh..." Her voice wavered a little and she blushed more. "I'm... okay. Um..." Here goes... "I'm sorry." She almost whispered. "I'll, uh, I'll leave you alone and stuff."

Taylor cautiously and sheepishly picked up her sweatshirt from next to Lia and shook off some of the dirt. Lia was just... from somewhere else. Or something. They didn't really have anything in common, she thought. Who knows, though, since she really knew nothing about her. Taylor felt like she was too dumb and too young and too... childish to really be able to talk to her. Maybe that was okay, though, it was better to know where you stand with people than to fool yourself into thinking you're something that you're not to someone else.

She wondered about Akashi. Was she mistaken about Akashi too? Maybe she just wanted Akashi's friendship so badly that she deluded herself into thinking Akashi was someone she wasn't. That was probably right, anyway, like Lia said, Taylor was... not easy to get along with. To say the least.

The park was empty, save for the few people hovering around the backdoors of bars on the strip, closing up shop for the night. Taylor didn't want to go home, but she couldn't stay here. She didn't even know which way to go, so she just awkwardly picked a direction and started walking. Maybe she'd stay out somewhere else, let the stars keep her company. They were way easier to get along with.

Lia's ears, both sets, twitched as Taylor said that one magic word. 'Sorry.' Her lips pursed tightly as she remained focused on the stars as best she could. Now she apologizes?! NOW?! Lia let Taylor get a few steps away from her before finally calling out, "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Lia stood up and marched down the distance between them, "Becaaauuuse, I think I just heard you say something absolutely NOT douchey." Moving with a purpose, Lia would take Taylor's hand and give her a determined, yet curious stare. "And that would be a horse of a different color, if you know what I'm saying." Lia continued with a wink, "Cuz if you're NOT a doucher, then I don't want nothing... er..." Lia paused, running through words in her head, "I... no longer don't not... I want not nothing... Yeah, not nothing to do with people who are non-douches."

Arching her head to the side curiously, Lia would ask, "So... uh... what DID you say cuz I didn't really hear that well and stuff?"

Taylor turned to face Lia. She made an irritated face. Lia was being funny, but Taylor wasn't in the mood. "What are you, my dad? I know this game. You just feel bad, and now you're just being nice to make yourself feel like less of a jerk. I know how that goes, okay? What are you going to do next, promise to take me to a concert and never come through?"

She sighed. Instinctively she wanted to start throwing insults and get angry and pick a fight, but she didn't. She was too exhausted to put in the effort, and too disheartened to try. She raked her bangs back with one hand, staring off into space. Maybe she was being unreasonable, but... what really bothered her is that she couldn't even think of Lia as a jerk. Maybe she was just normal, reacting normally to how much of a spaz Taylor was. And now that she seemed to be making an effort to make amends, even if she was just being totally fake about it like everyone else. She made Taylor feel... bad.

She sighed again. "Okay, look. You... heard what I said. Don't push it. I don't think that a couple little words can really totally change the impression that... all the other ones gave you. So, you're probably still right about me. Okay? I'm just gonna... I don't know, pick on nerdy girls for no reason and sleep with frat boys. You don't have to come. You're free to do whatever you want, anything in the world!" She said sarcastically, with just a bit of resentment. She didn't even really know why.

With a scowl that hid her reddening eyes, she jerked her hand free and turned to leave again. She looked at her sweatshirt, turning it over in her hands. It was pretty dirty. She could've just washed it, but the idea of going through all the trouble to get the stains out was too much at that moment. She took a setup step and threw the sweatshirt as far as she could. It landed inconspicuously in the middle of a grassy part.

Lia pursed her lips, giving Taylor a sly wink. "No, of course not. You're an idiot and you probably always will be an idiot. I'm not here to play daddy to you." Lia saw Taylor marching off and quickly scooped up her blazer and Taylor's sweatshirt. Lia squirmed herself into the sweatshirt, a tight fit given her slightly less slender build, and hung the jacket over her shoulder. With a giggle, Lia would quickly bound in front of Taylor, spin around, and walk backwards so that she would keep up with Taylor but remain facing her.

"Buuut, an idiot and a douchenozzle are totally different things. Dogs, for instance, aren't usually jerks because they can understand that they did something wrong and need to seek forgiveness." Lia's voice drew quicker in a crescendo as her logic train began to reach its goal. "And you said you were sorry. Ergo, you are at least as good as a dog. Even if you need to be thwapped with a newspaper a couple of times and given the special doggy version of anti-depressants to keep you from biting all the other new dogs... or rabbits." Lia's eyes went out of focus for a second as she sought to correct this rambling thought detour, "Anyways, we can finally roll this WHOLE thing all the way back to the bar. You see, before you started getting all bitchy and accusatory and asking the sort of questions that would get you and everyone around you killed back where I'm from," Lia said that last part quite fast to try to draw attention away from it. "I bought you a drinks and what not to try to... you know, make friends." Lia waved her hands out, smiling invitingly, "You seemed... you know, interesting..." Raising a finger, Lia quickly caught herself, "Not in the sort of... you know... eheh, that way." Lia's left fake ear bent over and bobbed to emphasize the euphemism.

Taking a deep breath, Lia continued, "So, technically, I wanted nothing from you earlier in the park, but I DID want something from you in the bar." Lia toyed with a loose lock of her own hair, staring at it thoughtfully, "I thought I was kinda clear about it back then, too." She turned back towards Taylor, "The lesson you learned from Gatt, I mean. That having your OWN posse is a great way to avoid getting jumped, and... you know, I figured..." Lia trailed off for a second, cleared her throat, and continued with a slightly more even tone, "Well, you got the champ at your back anyway; you are probably good." Pausing a beat, Lia would add brightly, "Eh, how do I look in this? I think it fits me better!"

With a weary glare, Taylor kept her mouth shut while Lia went on rambling. She rolled her eyes at Lia's assertion that she had wanted to be friends, and Taylor was the one who screwed things up. It was probably true, but given what a bitch Lia turned out to be, how long would that have lasted anyway?

She looked at Lia in her sweatshirt, unamused. "It's dirty. It suits you." She said. "And where are you from, anyway? The streets? Gawd, you're so hardcore. People probably tell you how awesome you are, like all the time, right? I wouldn't want to tangle with you, right, or else I'd end up with two to the chest and one to the head, am I right? Chills, really."

She sighed. "I bet you've got loaaads of friends. Like, posses to spare. Maybe I should just borrow one of yours, since I'm so scared to death of the big bad Threesome. You've got a gift, ya know, it's like you've known me for years."

Taylor didn't know if she wanted to beat Lia to death right then and there or go home and sleep for a week. She looked warily at Lia while she tried to decide. They both seemed like too much effort at that moment. She was getting tired. It was exhausting being around this bunny-girl.

Lia pouted, sliding the sweatshirt off, she sighed. "Alright. Clearly, this was my mistake." She tossed the sweater lazily at the ground in front of Taylor, "Apparently, you know something I don't, as your past performance against Gatt's crew sure doesn't lend much confidence, but whatevs." Lia smiled cutely, pointing a finger gun at Taylor, "And you're totally right. I'm a stone cold killa from da streets, yo. Bang bang, baby!" She blew on the finger gun cutely, "Who doesn't know anything about fighting, natch... And yet who doesn't get on mic and whine like a bitch when she loses... Hell, I'm betting the folks you're up against are throwing their fights just so we don't have to suffer through another embarrassing tantrum from you again."

With a weary shrug, Lia added, "Sorry for wasting my time here." Lia turned around and began to skip off into the night.