Title: Funny Little Thing
Rating: K+
Summary: They say it's a "funny little thing", love. Pardon me if I fail to find the humor in it.
AN: Totally random, inspired entirely by the quote below. Sometimes, love just isn't sweet, or fluffy, and certainly not funny. Sometimes, instead, it just kind of hurts like hell. It's a weird little oneshot; please forgive me for the total "odd" of it. I was feeling strange, and kind of melancholy.
Disclaimer: You're quite welcome to sue the pants off me, if you really want to. Just don't be put out by the unsexy underwear. Poor girls can't afford Victoria's Secret.
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"Humor is merely tragedy standing on its head with its pants torn."
-- Irvin S. Cobb
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"I think it's pretty clear, then, don't you, Rae?" Cyborg leveled the overwrought sorceress with a serious stare.
Her mouth was open, twisted slightly as if someone had just told her the Pope had been caught kicking puppies, and she gazed blindly at the wall beyond his shoulder, as if the Ghost of Christmas Past stood just behind him. "I… I guess so." She looked at him then, that shell-shocked expression still on her usually unexpressive face. "What am I supposed to do, Cyborg?"
He smiled at her, a swelling of pride, happiness, and a little wistful sadness rising where his heart used to beat. "Well, you could try letting him in on it, Dark Girl. That's usually how you get these things started."
Raven blinked and closed her mouth, though she still looked as if somebody'd knocked the wind out of her. She nodded slowly, set her jaw, and sighed, as if coming to grips with an inevitable and potentially disastrous truth. Which, actually, she was. "Alright, then. I suppose I will."
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The door burst open, smacking against the garage wall with a heavy thud, and Cyborg looked up, startled.
Raven stumbled in, gripping onto the doorknob for dear life with one hand, the other pressed hard over her mouth, making her wide blue eyes stand out starkly against the pale skin.
"Raven?" He called her name for her attention, alarm rising as her eyes snapped up to him as if she were surprised to see him there. He stood up from his stool in front of the workbench. "Rae, you alright?"
She let go of the door and slapped both hands over her mouth, as if trying to shut away the strange gurgle she emitted. She took a few steps forward and stumbled on a stray wrench.
Cyborg caught her and she leaned her forehead against his metal chest, and he realized the slight shoulder under his hand was shaking. "Raven?" he asked again, starting to really worry.
Little gasping giggles escaped between her fingers, and he took hold of her by the shoulders and stood her back a bit, peering with grave consideration into her face. "I… oh, gods and angels… oh, Azar, Cyborg, I almost…" She broke off in a fit of weird, tittery laughter, and he eyed his workbench nervously, but the tools only rattled slightly.
"Raven, what the hell is going on? Did something happen?" He shook her a little.
She looked up at him and let one hand fall to the side, but kept the fingertips of her other hand pressed against lips curved in a tight, wobbly smile. " Robin—he…"
Cyborg's confusion, and a funny sense of dread, increased. "Robin, what? What about Robin?"
She laughed again; a short, sharp burst that ended in a squeak. It was between little gasps and giggles that she told him she'd gone into the living room to try to get Robin alone for a talk. "He and Star… heehee… they were watch—" snicker, snort "—watching a movie… and I… he put… he put his arm—oh gods, it's so stupid, so funny—he put his arm around her…" She laughed loudly again, raggedly. "And… And I… Cy, I almost… I almost told—told him… I…"
Her ragged laughter softened. "It's so f… f-funny… so stupid…" She leaned her head against his chest again, and after a moment, he realized she wasn't laughing anymore. She was crying.
He heard the sharp guncrack pop and hiss of all four of the T Car's tires blowing at once, but didn't turn to see the damage. He wrapped his arms loosely around his little heartbroken sorceress's quaking shoulders, stroked her hair, and murmured soothing, meaningless words as she cried, and wished she were laughing instead.
Even though it wasn't funny. At all.
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AN: Yeah, okay, I warned you it was weird. This is not gonna get more than two reviews, and they'll probably be SignSeeker and Em. Sigh. I don't blame you guys.
Yeah, Raven might seem a little out of character, I guess. But it's a human reaction. It's usually the things that hurt the most, that we wish we hadn't seen or heard or known, that seem to inspire that chest-ripping, this-isn't-funny hysterical laughter.
And if I somehow managed to lose you in the chain of events, the first segment is the end of Raven and Cyborg having a talk that leads to Raven very unexpectedly realizing her feelings for Robin. The second bit is the aftermath of Raven's miserably failed attempt to share them with him.
Ugh, even that teensy smidgen of a hint of Starfire/Robin puts such a nasty taste in my mouth. But, sorry, I'm just not a believer in perpetual happily-ever-afters.