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Nico caught himself just in time as his feet nearly slipped off the railing he was standing on. Feeling his heart skipping a beat, seconded by it almost rhythmically pounding in his chest as he realized how close he’d been to plummeting to his death. Nico didn’t deny he had no tendency for foolhardiness, but even he conceded dying wasn’t on his bucket list. So, before the adrenaline would drain off and his heart would return to normal pace, he gripped the edge of the roof and with a grunt pulled himself up, this time managing just fine.
He had discovered the flat rooftops of the apartment complex a year or so back. The way up had been easy from the balcony (albeit quite a gamble, as he had now learned), and it had been practically effortless to slip away in the dead of the night for a moment of tranquility and peace. Once he’d fallen asleep there by accident, and in the morning he’d stumbled upon a scene of Gideon and Max convinced he’d deserted them during the night. They hadn’t had quite the laugh about it Nico had.
He pushed himself up, feeling the three drinks he’d had in the evening starting to rise up to his head. The day was starting to die, its colors bleeding off into the horizon. The burning sun was being snuffed out into a chilling and callous night. The ceaseless bustling of the city was a comforting noise in contrast to the otherwise desolate and flat-topped buildings. Nico felt a light breeze brushing over him, bringing with it a smell of cigarette smoke and fumes.
It was then he realized he’d been wrong. The rooftops weren’t desolate like they familiarly were. A girl was lying on the gray concrete roof, staring out at the sky of fire and flames. Nico sauntered over, his steps heavy and slightly sluggish.
It was then, when Libby Rhodes looked up at him, eyes drowsy, a cigarette in between her fingers, that Nico knew she’d known he was there all along. Frankly, he wasn’t sure why he hadn’t known. The pull between his and Libby’s magic was something else, something so powerful they were frequently commended for it at the NYUMA (and something both of them constantly glared at each other for). There were things they knew about each other when the rest didn’t, being tied together like that. Mainly, sensing each other’s presences.
Libby sneered, eyes shifting back to the sky.
“Varona”, she said mundanely, lifting the cigarette in between her lips. She blew out, smoke escaping upwards, almost as if following her gaze like a moth would a light.
“A smoke?” she reached out the cigarette towards him.
“Since when do you smoke, Rhodes?”
“I stole a pack from one of Ezra’s friends”, she said, voice weary and drained. “God, he’s such a piece of crap. I hate him.”
“Fowler?”
“His friend, you dimwit”, Libby shot an annoyed glare in his direction, as she did in nearly every class. “I almost forgot what an asshole you are.”
Nico watched as the emotion on Libby’s face faded into absence, before taking the cigarette from in between her index and middle finger and placing it in his mouth. He inhaled, before breathing out a puff of smoke. He looked down to see Libby staring at him intently, with an amused expression on her face. Nico smirked, before tossing the cigarette off the edge of the roof.
“So, Varona”, Libby said, shifting from laying on her back to her side. “Entertain me - what brings you up here?”
She gestured around herself.
“I don’t recall you telling me your reason”, Nico slumped down onto the hard concrete floor. He laid himself on his back - as Libby did, too - turning to face her, now on the same level.
“Your thought in trade for mine”, Libby said, eyes fixed on his face. Nico relinquished.
“I wanted a moment of peace”, he said with uttermost truth. “Found this paradise time and time ago.”
He smiled smugly. Nico was almost certain he had discerned disappointment in Libby’s muted sage eyes. She narrowed them slightly, as he said:
“Your turn, Rhodes.”
Libby sighed and laid her head against the floor.
“I was at Ezra’s”, she said, turning her face facing him again. “His roommates birthday party. Wanted a moment for myself. Although this encounter kind of obstructs that.”
Nico wanted to ask her how she’d gotten up to the roof. He was curious. And, frankly, almost bitter - the rooftops had always been his place, his and only his, and yet now they no longer were. Nico shared so much of his life with other people, he had wanted something personal, something that had only belonged to him. And Libby Rhodes had a habit of permeating herself in things that were not hers to invade. Still, he had no willingness to purposefully offend her for his own, selfish thoughts. The rooftops didn’t really belong to anyone. Not even him. So, he bit his tongue and kept the vile sentiments as well as the curiosity to himself.
“And Fowler?” Nico asked. “Did you finally leave that wimp with the personality of a wet blanket?”
“He passed out on the couch”, Libby shrugged. “And sincerely, look who’s talking - the oaf who only spits malicious words out of his mouth.”
“Atleast I have some edge”, Nico rolled his eyes. “When Fowler was born the doctors probably were the first ones to walk all over him.”
Libby stared at him with something that could only be described as a chagrined look. Her lips were pressed into a taut line, and there was a frown on her face that completely and wholly failed to resemble the one she had when she was fixated on something she found interesting, but that really was simply just tiresome and dull.
“Do you think we all are wicked in some manner, Varona?” Libby asked him then. Nico would’ve been lying if he had stated the question hadn’t caught him off-guard.
He thought about it, before slowly saying:
“No.”
“No?”
“No.”
Libby rolled to her side, uneven bangs and strands of hair falling over her face. Nico had the urge to reach over and tuck them behind her ear himself.
“So you think we all are good in some manner, then?” she asked him.
“No”, Nico shook his head. “I think we are all blank canvases. The experiences we
have paint our lives, and it’s up to that to make us all well or sinister.”
“Hmph.”
Libby bit the inside of her cheek, a peculiar look in her eyes that Nico interpreted to be a desire to say something that was on her mind.
“A penny for your thoughts, Rhodes”, Nico said, a crooked smile overtaking his face.
Libby corresponded with a smile that very much mirrored his own.
“I just think it’s so unjust”, she said, lips hanging ever so slightly open, as if she was utterly fascinated of or by something.
“What is?” Nico asked, and he could’ve sworn the air crackled right there and then. “Entertain me.”
He said the last part almost mockingly. Teasingly. That was what he did with Libby. He kept her on edge, on alert. She kept him grounded to the floor, from floating away into an oblivion of bad ideas, recklessness and ruin. They were yin and yang, right and left, day and night. Parts of an equation impossible without the other. And as much as Nico hated being leashed onto another person on such a deep, personal level, he also rejoiced in it. He doubted he could ever reach the same kind of connection, the same kind of unity with anyone else. Elizabeth Rhodes was the one part of him that was one-hundred procent certain. The end of the string, as well as the beginning.
The corners of Libby’s mouth raised slightly, and she gave him a small smile.
“I just can’t see how it’s fair for someone to have so much it’s nearly everything”, she said. “It’s so wrongful for you to be born to wealth. To be so liked. So powerful.”
Libby drew in a breath. Nico couldn’t.
“So beautiful”, her voice was barely more audible than a whisper. “So handsome.”
Nico admitted to himself that he’d never considered Libby Rhodes to be beautiful. That word simply wasn’t reserved for her. She was pretty, in a sweet, innocent way that had more than once left people incredulous of the power she held within herself. Her hair, a generic chocolate brown with no deep glow, often cut painfully unevenly, rosy cheeks that made her look like she was blushing a little bit all the time and a frame that Nico had never really gotten the sense of, since Libby was always folding into herself, making herself as small as possible. She’d always been pretty, yes, but never beautiful. Never eye-catching. Never breathtaking.
And yet, in that moment, laying on the deserted rooftop with nothing but the commotion of the city and the darkening sky, with the final kisses of the sun lighting everything ablaze in a spectrum of reds, yellows, pinks and oranges, Nico grasped the fact that he no longer remembered how to breath. It wasn’t just the sky that was on fire - Elizabeth Rhodes was radiating, dazzling and everything in between. She was aflame, and right then, he felt himself a moth. Cautiously, he lifted his left hand, touching the skin of her cheek tentatively. He felt Libby tensing, as she gazed straight ahead at him, not blinking. Her eyes were like the first leaves sprouting into trees in the spring, painted with fair watercolors, leaving dots of silver and gray behind. She relaxed as Nico moved his hand up, brushing the loose hairs from her face away.
“Varona”, Libby’s voice hung in the air like sticky honey.
“Rhodes”, Nico voice was quiet.
“Nico”, Libby mumbled.
“Libby”, Nico said softly, something intimate in using their first names, their given names for the first time.
Nico traced his hand down Libby’s neck, her back, settling down over her waist, fingers splayed over the place where her skirt separated from her shirt, where her cool skin was exposed. With a small motion, he pulled her slightly forward, their faces no more than three inches apart. Libby’s eyes flickered down to Nico’s lips, and carefully she lifted her fingers to trail the outline of his face, his jawline, the way his cheeks and nose had been molded. Libby’s touch was lighter than a feather as she touched the lines of his mouth, his lips.
“Libby”, Nico breathed out. He loved saying her name, even if he’d never admit it to her. It was so easy for him to say (much easier than Rhodes, as a matter of fact).
And then Libby leaned in, her lips barely a centimeter from his own.
“God, please, say it again”, she murmured. “Nico.”
She must’ve realized the effect saying his name aloud had on him. Once again, it was something that bound them to each other. A part of their invisible string.
“Libby”, Nico breathed out again.
And then she pressed her lips onto his, and he was quite certain he had fallen off the roof, was plummeting to his death and that his brain was uttering the most out-worldly experiences for him as his final thought. Kissing Libby felt nothing more, nothing less than natural - something bound to happen - and he could almost feel the universes clicking as they shared their moment. Kissing her felt as if he was drowning, desperate for air and she was it. She tasted of cheap alcohol, cigarette smoke and vanilla. He didn’t care. He didn’t care of anything else but the feeling in his stomach, the feeling of her and her lips on his.
Libby broke the kiss, but left her face hanging nearly against his.
“We’re so drunk”, she mumbled. She pushed herself up, still in Nico’s reach, but so much farther away that he already ached to have her next to him again.
“Is it so bad?” he replied. Libby shot him another one of her peculiar glances, yet this time it wasn’t accusatory.
“Tomorrow morning we’ll go back to NYUMA and hate each other once more”, she voiced her ponderings. “I’ll have my boyfriend and you’ll have your flings. We’ll be the best and the praised, and keep glaring daggers at each other until we’ll go our own merry ways.”
Nico didn’t respond to that. Part of him wanted to stay silent as an objection, but another part of him knew it was evident. One more of the things he and Libby just knew that the rest didn’t.
Then she bent down and pressed one more kiss on his mouth. It was tender, sweet, delicate, vulnerable. As their lips parted, Libby pushed herself to her feet and started to walk away.
“I think you’re wrong, for the matter”, she said, turning around one final time. Nico remarked that at that moment she looked again like Libby Rhodes.
“I think we’re all born with a wickedness inside of us”, she said, hair lifted up by the breeze. “As well as a goodness. And through the way our lives shapes us we find ourself drawn to one or the other. One of us appeals to us, but still, it is our decision which one we decide to tail.”
“I think you’re too drunk to make sense of your thoughts right now”, Nico answered. They were nearly back to the old Nico and the old Libby.
“I do hope I am”, she said. “But sometimes…”
Libby lost her voice.
“Well, none of it matters. Yet”, she hesitated. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Nico.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Libby.”
Nico watched as Libby walked to the edge of the roof, and climbed down using a drain pipe. As her silhouette blended into the darkness of the night, Nico let himself fall backwards against the roof, to stare at the sky freckled by stars that had now taken completely control of the day. He felt himself slightly dizzy.
The next time they talked was the day after. Nico called Libby Rhodes and Libby called Nico Varona and they glared daggers at each other. Neither mentioned the evening before.