Poetic Condensation, or Culaccino

Here's the second installment of The Untranslatable Series! I know I'm referring to it as UTS when maybe it should be TUS, but whatever. It is what it is and I'll change it if it starts to bother me.

This is a piece of pre-RobRae relationship angst-fluff. Angst? Floof? Drama? Thing. It is a thing and I like it a lot.

Culaccino, Italian: the mark left on the table by a cold glass.

Rating: K+, because somehow I've started to cut back on my sailor's mouth.

Disclaimer: Can't afford them, don't own them, just like to play with them.

He stared at the circle of condensation left on the glass table. It had been a nice addition to the living rom, that little end table. It sat perfectly between the couch and the armchair on the corner of carpet farthest from the television. Everyone knew the armchair was, for all intents and purposes, Raven's. Far from the noises of commercials, movies, and video games, it was her little island of peace. Her reading chair. Her chair she retreated to when she still wanted to be part of the group but needed her space. Her chair when sitting on the couch with them became too uncomfortable. Her chair when her room was too oppressive or the rooftop too cold. Her chair to sit in when she wanted to be around people, even if she would never admit it.

It was a safe space, that chair. Even Beast Boy knew not to mess with it. Cyborg had found it at a secondhand store while looking for an old record player two years ago. It had once been the armchair of some old professor at Jump University, but when Cyborg saw it sitting in the lonely corner of the musty old backroom of the store, he knew just what to do with it. After some reupholstering, Cyborg had wordlessly set it up in the living room and placed one of Raven's books in it for her to find the next day. The happiness on her face was something Robin would never forget.

But the chair was not the subject of his musings. Not today.

The glass table had been his idea. After noticing one too many near-spills of Raven's tea, he decided she might want—need—something a little more stable than the arm of a cushy chair. While Beast Boy knew not to threaten the sanctity of the chair, that didn't mean he knew how to control his limbs in the vicinity of it. The same went for Starfire, though one could not fault the alien for her joyous spirit when she rocketed around the living room, and so where Raven felt no qualms when it came to yelling or glaring at Beast Boy, she tolerated Starfire's displays with infinite patience and a wary eye.

So yes, the chair had been Cyborg's gift to the rare mystic, but the table had been his. The look in her eyes when she noticed it that first morning lacked the unbridled joy from the day Cyborg brought the chair into her life, but there was a beautiful peace and contentment in them all the same when she saw the table. His table. Of course, the appreciation she sent his way that morning was more than likely also related to the steaming cup of Earl Grey tea he left for her, but he knew the table was welcome. No more near-spills, no more hot liquid threatening to fall across her bare leg or precious book bindings. And she had claimed it as her own with the constant presence of her tea mug, just as she had claimed the chair.

The grey iron and shining glass was a barrier in the space between the couch and chair, a space Beast Boy used to race through in an attempt to reach the GameStation before Cyborg. It had been a shortcut that always resulted in a frustrated-going-on-fuming Raven, especially when the changeling chose to streak through the small space in the form of an animal that was just a tad too big for the opening. The first time Beast Boy had tried to go his usual route the day the table appeared, Raven had been ready and stopped him with a barrier of black magic centimeters away from his inevitable collision with the piece of furniture. She pointed to Beast Boy, to the table, back to Beast Boy, and then calmly removed the magic wall keeping him from ruining something she held dear. Beast Boy had offered a sheepish smile before hopping over the couch as Cyborg usually did. There had been no further incidents.

A sigh escaped Robin's lips as he watched the frosty ring's perfect circle begin to waver. Contrary to popular belief, Robin liked to enjoy a glass of ice-cold water or orange juice in the morning before he brewed his coffee. He suspected Raven was the only one who knew this. By the time the other Titans rolled out of bed, Robin usually had his mug of coffee in hand, his early morning cup long ago placed out of sight in the dishwasher.

In the early hours of sunrise, though, he sat with a cool drink, the newspaper, and the steam curling out of Raven's morning tea. Before the glass table, he would sit at the breakfast bar or in the dining nook, restricted to furtive glances towards Raven as she sat reading, tea perched on her knee or on the arm of her chair. He could find no way to balance his juice on the couch and it was too cold to hold for long periods of time, so sitting near her in the morning was out of the question back then. He found her fascinating and beautiful; she was a mysterious being he wanted to know all of. She was undoubtedly his closest friend, but Robin always felt his desire to endlessly stare wavered between creepy and improper when done at such a distance. However, the only way to truly get to know Raven was to study her movements, and she was at her most emotive when she thought nobody was watching. Quick quirks of an eyebrow, a slight wiggle of the nose, the wispy smile that would appear on her lips for only a second when something she read amused her… she was queen of the micro expression.

Robin furrowed his brow as the circle from his glass faded as the morning sun warmed the living room. While the table had been a thoughtful gift to the resident sorceress, he had found it also served the useful purpose of holding his own morning cup so that he might read the paper on the couch. He enjoyed the wash of Raven's calm presence in the mornings and she tolerated his intrusion enough to carry on as if he were invisible. This suited Robin's mornings just fine, as he was also inclined to sit in silence before the hour of eight a.m.

They had an unspoken agreement: one handled the morning reading, the other the mug and glass. The first to rise was free to choose their task. Sometimes Robin would awake to find his morning paper sitting nearly on the arm of the chair, and other days there would be an icy glass of water waiting for his parched throat. There was no rhyme or reason to Raven's morning decisions, something that tickled Robin immensely. She was so methodical in all she did, yet there was no pattern to what she prioritized on any given morning. Tea or a book? It was random. It was Raven's means of whimsy and he indulged her with his own decisions when he was the first to rise by not setting any pattern or schedule to choosing orange juice or water. Though he did always choose drinks over papers, just as Raven always gave him water and never orange juice. The birds found stability in odd places.

Today their routine had been broken. Or perhaps the routine had broken last night. Robin sighed again, though it came out as more of a groan, and he let the newspaper fall to the ground, not caring how it landed as he heard it crumple against the carpet. He didn't claim to be perfect; in fact, he knew he was far from it. The current flaw interfering with his morning came down to the simple fact that Robin was the jealous type. While he wouldn't be the first to admit it, he was fully aware of the green streak running through him.

The Titans East had come over for dinner the previous night to celebrate the birthdays of Mas y Menos. Aqualad had been more friendly than normal with Raven, and while she had been nothing more than her usual self, Robin was still on edge about it most of the night. He was good enough to not let on to that fact and would have been perfectly fine if he had actually gone to his room when he said he was going to, but a last minute decision to get a glass of water before bed did him in.

Aqualad asking Raven out on a date was neither unprecedented nor out of line, but Robin's reaction to it could easily be described as the latter. He had paused outside the kitchen door when he heard the Atlantian's voice. He should have either turned around or just waltzed in to go about his business—he did live there after all—but he was curious and instead paused to eavesdrop. When he heard the word "date" dropped into conversation, Robin felt an instant vice curl around his chest, something so surprising and distracting that he hadn't even heard Raven's soft answer. If he had listened, he knew he would have heard her say "no" in that quiet way of hers, but hot surge of bitter fury and uncomfortable warmth in his cheeks was distracting. He had stormed into the kitchen like a child, banging cabinets open and shut as he grabbed a cup and left.

If he had paused on his way out, he would have heard Aqualad's understanding "oh" and Raven's exasperated sigh.

So here Robin sat, staring at the mark left by his cold glass and the invisible ring where Raven's tea had sat earlier. The ring of heat always faded before his own water droplet circle. On a normal day, Raven would still be sitting in her armchair, legs drawn up to her chest and book propped open on her knees as she stared at the rising sun. It was her favorite time of day. Robin was always the first to stand, finishing his paper and drink before her tea was gone. Around this time, he would rise to make his coffee and come back to sit quietly with her until the burning sun gave way to the bluebird sky. Only then would she leave.

Not today. Today, she had left him sitting there with a glass of ice cubes and a half-risen sun, leaving Robin frustrated and angry with himself. He knew he shouldn't have eavesdropped, shouldn't have reacted the way he did, should have trusted Raven-whatever that meant. The condensation where his empty glass had once rested finally faded and Robin stood to walk to the kitchen and make his coffee. He stopped short when the aromatic smell of roasted coffee beans wafted through the kitchen doorway.

A few drops of fresh coffee dripped into the steaming pot as the machine shut off with a quiet beep, its job done. Robin felt the tightness in his chest release, a tightness that hadn't let up since the previous night, and his shoulders relaxed as a small smile lifted the corner of his mouth. She had left a porcelain mug by the pot. It was one of her own.

Yay drabble! Please leave a review on your way out! It makes me write faster :)

-Ash