A/N: Hi! I thought I might try starting up one of those one-shot collections, because this section is starved for fanfic and also I need to write Psychonauts fanfic. I also figured it might be good for me to write short, quick things once in a while instead of concentrating so hard on longfics.

Summary: Raz and Lili chat on the roof of the Lodge. (Raz/Lili)


A cool night breeze ruffled the strands of hair that poked out from Raz's cap. He turned his face into it, resting both hands on the rough wooden beam he was sitting on and swinging his legs back and forth in the empty space beneath him. He'd always enjoyed the feeling of being high off the ground. Maybe that was the circus blood in him.

This was one of the highest accessible points in camp. Technically campers weren't supposed to be up on the roof of the main lodge, but how could he resist when there were literally poles and tightropes leading right up to it? Besides, it wasn't as if he was in any danger. He knew how to fall from high places and not get hurt, even without his levitation bubble.

He braced his legs against the beam and leaned back to gaze up at the sky. It was an inky purplish-black dotted with stars and a jagged crescent moon. Last night the sky had been choked with clouds that resembled tortured faces. He had mentioned this to Agent Cruller, of course; Ford had mused that what he was seeing may have been influenced by his inner turmoil. It had been a crazy night, after all. Still, Raz wasn't sure he believed all that, but maybe there was something to it. There were no clouds at all in the sky now.

Funny, you never struck me as the silent, sitting-around-brooding-about-things type.

That voice wasn't his. Raz turned around, already knowing exactly who he would see standing on the slanted roof behind him. He raised an eyebrow. "You need to get your thoughts under control, Lili. I can still hear them loud and clear."

"Oh, come on, you know I meant for you to hear that." Lili swatted his shoulder lightly. "This spot taken?"

He scooted over, allowing her to sit down next to him.

"So what are you doing out here?" she asked.

"Silently sitting around and brooding about things. What about you?"

Lili indicated the lodge with a nod. "Everyone's in the TV lounge watching the movie adaptation of the Psychonauts comics. It got pretty crowded in there and I wanted some fresh air."

Raz nudged her. "Oh, is that the only reason you came out?"

"I've seen that movie like five times."

"So… that's the only reason?"

"Vernon was telling a story about a time he thinks he met one of the extras."

"And…"

"And I was looking for you, brainiac!" Lili elbowed him. "We haven't really gotten a chance to just hang out or anything. So here I am."

Here she was indeed. Raz fell silent, continuing to mindlessly swing his feet back and forth as he trained his eyes on the ground and did his best not to look at the girl sitting next to him. The moonlight turned the edges of her hair silver.

Down by the wooden ramp leading up to the lodge, a skinny cougar paced back and forth. Raz's skin crawled at the sight of it—those cougars could set you on fire before you'd even seen them.

"It's nice out," Lili commented.

"Yeah…" Raz replied, still watching the cougar. "Kinda creepy, though."

"Well, yeah, it gets like that here every night. Especially with those things running around." Lili nodded toward the psi-cougar.

"I don't get why no one tries to do anything about them! The bears, too," Raz grumbled.

They went quiet again. Lili shuffled closer to him, resting against his shoulder. Raz was acutely aware of the side of his hand now brushing against hers and sending shivers through his arm. For a few moments all that could be heard were the chirp of crickets and the occasional sharp cry of the cougar patrolling the ground.

"Is it weird, talking to your dad about stuff now?" Lili asked after a minute.

"It's… different." Raz kept his eyes locked on the cougar. Maybe he should try setting it on fire from up here. Get in some target practice and also give the thing a taste of its own medicine. "Whenever we talked about psychic stuff before, he'd always just shut me down and tell me to practice the trapeze or feed the elephants. I always thought he hated me."

"Well from what you told me, your perception of him was pretty distorted."

"And apparently too bald." Raz let out a dry laugh. "I don't know, Lili. We've been at odds ever since I started showing psychic abilities and now suddenly he's here and accepts everything about me? And I always suspected he was psychic but I never knew for sure, and now…"

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. And now he's here like there was nothing wrong at all. "Was it really me the whole time? Was I the one pushing him away?"

Only once the words were out did he realize he'd said them out loud.

Lili placed a hand on his leg and he cringed. "All that stuff last night…" she said, glancing away, "…that was pretty heavy. I wasn't really sure we'd all make it out of that."

Raz locked his gaze on the cougar again. "Yeah, no kidding."

"You have to know that your dad's proud of you. And you know… if you ever need to talk about stuff like this with someone, I'm here, okay?"

He narrowed his eyes, focusing, and felt his heart give a flip when the end of the cat's tail sparked and started smoking. The cougar yowled and spun around in a circle, spitting, and dashed off in the direction of the lake.

Lili snorted. "Nice one."

"Hey, it was like fifty feet away! That was pretty good for fifty feet!" Raz protested.

"Sure, whatever, you're just avoiding the subject." Lili shifted on the beam, taking her hand off Raz's leg and setting it down next to her again. Something near the ground caught her eye and she turned back to Raz. "Hey, look… fireflies."

He looked. Little dots of light were floating around the lampposts, fading in and out.

"Dad and I used to catch those in the summer when I was little." Lili leaned her head to the side. "Sometimes I'd end up having jars and jars of them sitting in my room at night. We always let them go in the morning. Did you ever do anything like that?"

Raz shrugged. "When I was really little I used to find trinkets and things that people lost or left behind when they left the circus for the day. I'd show them to Dad because I could pick up faint memories and feelings from them, and he always threw them away."

"Maybe he was just putting them in a lost and found or something."

"Yeah, maybe."

Lili turned to face him. "But you never caught fireflies?"

"Not as far as I can remember, no."

She took his hand in hers. "We need to fix that, then!"

Raz looked down at the fireflies doubtfully. "But that's so… childish. Shouldn't we be doing something more important? Like training or something?"

"Boy, would Sasha be proud of you!" Lili said in exasperation. When Raz smiled, she went on to say, "That's not a good thing! Come on, Raz, you can take a break from being Number One camper and go do a dumb kid thing with me."

He let out a puff of air. "Hey, I can be Number One camper and still do dumb kid things."

"Good! So let's go, hero."

"Can we name them after me, at least?"

"Jerk!" Lili let go of his hand, her brow furrowed in a fake scowl. "You can name the ones you catch. Which might be like, three."

Raz sat up straighter. "That's how many you'll catch, you mean."

"Are you kidding? I'm gonna get five times more than you, circus-boy. You've never even done this before!"

"That's it, you're on!" Raz jumped off the beam, mentally forming an orange bubble that allowed him to hang in midair and float down to the ground. Lili landed next to him with her own pink bubble.

"Whoever has the most before someone catches us out here wins," Lili said as soon as her feet touched the dirt. "Go!"

Both of them ran to the lamppost, reaching upward and cupping their hands to catch the fireflies bobbing in the air. Raz caught two in his hand before one spread its wings and lifted back into the air.

"Ooh, there goes Raz, Jr.," Lili said. She had a ball of pink mental energy hovering between her hands, inside of which four or five fireflies buzzed around each other.

"You didn't say anything about being allowed to use powers," Raz accused. "That's not very fair… for you. Guess who has all his merit badges?" He formed his own ball of energy, going after fireflies with renewed gusto.

"Sure! Rub it in, why don't you?" Lili said, but her eyes sparkled pink with the reflected light of her energy bubble.

Suddenly it didn't matter who won. Not that it ever had, really.

Maybe he'd even "accidentally" let a few of his fireflies escape to give Lili a better chance.

"I swear if you let me win, I'm dragging you upstairs so you can sit and listen to the rest of Vernon's story," Lili warned, making Raz wonder if she'd managed to break through his mental shields and read his mind.

Nah… she just knew him that well. Better than anyone else he'd ever met.