Never Trust a Demon
Jump City's climate was usually mild, but that year it looked like the weather wanted to contribute to the festivities. Christmas Eve day dawned clear, sunny and bitingly cold after a fierce snowstorm, more than a foot of white, powdery flakes accumulated on the streets and cars and roofs.
Raven poured the boiling water into the prepared teapot and floated over to the panoramic window, looking out, waiting for the tea to finish steeping. She allowed the levitation to fade and her feet to touch the floor as she stood there, her gaze roaming over the slate-colored waves and the white-shrouded city beyond, immobile but for her eyes hidden under the hood.
Making a decision, she turned and walked to the teapot, pouring herself the tea, sweetening it and taking a careful, experimental sip. Nodding almost imperceptibly in satisfaction, she whispered her mantra and phased through the ceiling.
The untouched whiteness that covered the roof of the Tower with a gently rolling white blanket had a virginal aspect, softening the hard architectonic lines to a smoothly flowing cover that gleamed blindingly under the morning sun and deadened the sounds of wind and surf and gulls. Careful not to disturb the pristine surface, she floated to the edge of the roof, folded her legs in lotus position, sipped the hot liquid from the steaming cup and relaxed.
There was an astringent clarity to the air. It was cold and sharp and clear as freshly broken quartz, the breeze coming from the sea cutting effortlessly through her blue cloak to nip at her body. Her comfortable, form-fitting leotard was designed to grant her freedom of movement and allow her skin to breathe during periods of heavy exertion, not to protect her from barely double-digit temperatures and gelid winds. She shivered.
I'll have to go back inside soon or I'll get frostbitten, but it is so beautiful, so peaceful… I guess I can stand it a couple of minutes more.
She sipped the quickly-cooling brew again, while it was still hot. It would soon become tepid and then cold; she would have to drink it quicker than usual to avoid it. But the gulp of hot tea blunted the edge of the icy wind for a few seconds and she made full use of it, focusing on the quiet and tranquility around her, trying to get it to suffuse her soul and bring her peace.
She needed it. Since a few months ago, she needed it badly.
She sighed and closed her eyes. It was never simple. As soon as she would conquer one obstacle, another bigger, higher, mightier sprang up before her. She thought that she could finally relax and lower her defenses, that she could at last live without fear, that banishing her father back to the nameless shadow realm where he came from would be the last, most difficult and most demanding task she would ever face.
Azar, how wrong she was.
Malchior betrayed her. She fought him and defeated him and sealed him back into his book. Trigon tried to use her, but with help from her friends she found hope again and used her powers to overcome him. But this… there were no books that could tell her what to do, no lessons that she remembered that could teach her how to handle it, no wise sayings that could give her guidance. And she would rather suffer her father's eternal punishment than seek advice from her friends, as much as she loved them, as much as she knew they loved her.
Oh, she knew what was going on. She became aware of it a while ago. You can't really be efficient at controlling your emotions unless you know what those emotions are.
She frowned inwardly. It did take her too long to realize it. She should have recognized it much earlier, then maybe she'd be able to take some kind of action. But something in her – maybe one or more of her aspects, maybe something else – made her ignore it and scorn it and wave it away, while all that time it grew and expanded and sent deep roots into her heart and her soul. Now it had unfolded shoots all over her body and her mind, small buds opening all over her with fresh, sweet-smelling petals that shook and caressed her from inside whenever he was beside her, an exhilarating, addictive feeling that she couldn't help but both desperately crave and avoid in terror, seeking out his company as much as rejecting him with some horridly inappropriate reactions.
He really didn't deserve it. As childish and irresponsible as he was, as infuriating and insufferable as he could get, he was also loyal and caring, sensitive and selfless.
Worse, being an empath, she knew perfectly what he felt. He just hadn't realized it yet; he was impulsive and emotional, not in the habit of analyzing his feelings. He would just sense them, live them and act upon them and that's it.
She sighed again, wishing she could indulge in such emotional outbursts. But it was dangerous, it could unleash her power with unpredictable results. It was just too risky, too treacherous, too unknown. And yet… It was unknown because she feared to face it and she feared to face it because it was unknown. She would keep running in circles like a snake biting its tail until she found the courage and the strength to raise the sword and cleave the Gordian knot in half, resolving the situation for better or worse.
But what was better? What was worse?
Her eyes flew open as she sensed suddenly his presence behind her. He appeared on the roof and trudged through the deep drifts towards her. Coming alongside, he sat uncaring into the snow beside her, his legs dangling over the edge as he looked at her, a grin on his face and joy in his eyes.
"Hey Rae," he said quietly.
She tried at first to ignore him, but it was impossible. She looked coldly at him, letting him know that she didn't appreciate his interrupting of her private moment, even though she could feel the warmth of happiness pervade her, even though she positively basked in the joy she felt in his soul mingling with her own, banishing the cold of the frigid wind and making her heart pump faster.
"I just wanted to see if you're all right" he said. She winced inwardly, the obvious care and concern for her that he was radiating creating a small ball of painful burning in her throat. She fought it all down.
"I'm fine" she said in a low voice, not trusting herself to speak more.
He misunderstood it, which was perfect as far as she was concerned. "Oh. Ok, I'm sorry I…"
His emotions crashed into her, affection and love, shyness and concern, devotion and hurt. It made her close her eyes and clench her fists in an effort to subdue her own reaction.
He saw her eyes squeeze shut and took it for a sign of irritation. He snapped his mouth closed, cutting off what he wanted to say.
He sat for a minute more, his mouth working soundlessly, trying to get himself to say something, anything, but at the same time not wishing to interrupt or annoy her. Indecision and anguish rose in him until they combined into frustration. She sensed the entire process as it tore into both of them, clawing at her heart as it extinguished his joy. He sighed heavily and slowly rose.
"Sorry, I won't bother you, but you should…"
Her shoulders trembled, a bit from the cold, a bit from the tremendous effort it took not to let her feelings out. He saw it.
"You're cold… you're shivering!"
Concern for her washed away every other feeling in him and poured into her through her empathy, dazing her for a moment. Grasping desperately at the few pieces of reason floating around her mind she pushed everything back, breathing deeply to recover her balance. She lost track of what was going on for a second or two, then opened her eyes and looked at him. She gasped.
"Put this on" he said in an unusually serious tone, placing the top of his uniform around her shoulders.
She didn't know why, if it was the overpowering love and concern flowing from him, if it was the residual warmth of his body on the uniform as it went over her shoulders or his scent that clung onto it and made its electrifying way to her brain and down her spine or if it was the sight of his naked torso, the muscles rippling as he shivered, suddenly exposed to the freezing bite of the wind. Her control snapped and her mind went for the most familiar reaction it knew.
"Garfield, you imbecile! What in the Nine Hells do you think you're doing? You'll freeze to death! Do you have any idea –"
"Hey, it's OK, calm down!" he said defensively as he stepped back, his hands up, palms out. "Don't worry about me, I can handle it!"
"Handle it? Are you crazy? What –"
He grinned at her as soft, green tufts grew all around his body, enveloping it in a fluffy puff of fur.
"Arctic fox fur" he said through his grin. "I told you, I can handle it."
The grin dropped off his face. Her rage was ebbing away, but her eyes were still glowing dangerously.
"I'll just… leave you alone. I'm sorry to have bothered you." He turned and started plowing his way to the roof entrance.
Her anger was blown away, his hurt tearing her heart apart. She lifted her hand to beckon him, her mouth opened to call him back, but he couldn't see it and no sound would come though her throat. She stood there, looking at him in agony, her arm extended and her hand grasping after him, wishing she could do something, anything, her gaze locked on him as he walked away, and then she noticed –
When Raven thought about it later, she supposed she could've been forgiven for her reaction. She was completely unbalanced by the sudden maelstrom of emotions that was still thundering chaotically through her, and the sight of Garfield enveloped in puffy fur was definitely… uncommon. And then her gaze dropped from his retreating shoulders a couple of feet down.
She snorted.
Garfield stopped, surprised, his ears perking up.
She guffawed.
Garfield looked back, puzzled.
She laughed.
Garfield's jaw hit the floor.
Raven laughed so hard that she lost control of her levitation and plopped down on the feathery snow, unable to hold herself back any more, heaving great gulps of air and expelling them in huge gusts of unashamed, uncontrolled, unbridled laughter.
Garfield turned around, looking wide-eyed at her, then looked at himself. Yes, the fur did look somewhat ludicrous, but…
"Your b – b –" Raven tried to explain, shaking with mirth.
"My what?" he said, confused, his hand going to scratch the back of his head.
"Y – your b –" she tried again to say, but couldn't form any other word through the flood of giggles that she couldn't and wouldn't want to stop.
Garfield frowned, but inside he was ecstatic. Did I make her laugh? Did I finally make her laugh?
"Hey, no fair, mamma! I wanna laugh, too!" he said in half-mocking, half-truthful frustration.
"Your BUTT!" she shrieked finally and dissolved completely in howls of hilarity.
Uh-oh. Yeah, he could feel it now. It was completely wet from the snow that melted while he sat down on it, and the frigid wind was definitely making an impression on it.
Talk about the cold biting you in the behind, the thought passed through his head.
"Well, I don't think it's that funny!" he growled at her, but it only made her screech her laughter harder, holding her belly and rolling on the powdery snow, his uniform falling off and her cloak filling with tiny, clinging ice crystals.
He glared at her for a few seconds, the exultation from finally succeeding in making her laugh fighting with the annoyance born from shame. Then a malevolent grin spread across his face and he stepped towards her.
"So you think that's funny, huh? Well, whaddaya think about this?" she heard him, still unable to resist the almost hysterical shaking of her shoulders.
Two great handfuls of snow suddenly covered her face in icy darkness, filling her eyes and nose and mouth with cold, powdery crystals. She gasped for breath and choked, coughing, trying to get the slowly melting snow from her hair and her eyes and her mouth…
She wiped her eyes and looked at him, tufts of snow still clinging to her face. He giggled.
"Now that's funny!" he chortled, his giggling turning into a full-blown laughter.
Suddenly completely serious, she glared at him, her eyes getting angrier as his hilarity increased. He laughed lustily, enjoying his small revenge, when a soft word cut through his mirth, leaving him colder than the freezing wind could ever do.
"Garfield."
He looked up and swallowed. Her voice hissed through clenched teeth.
"That was not smart, Garfield. You know what it means, don't you?"
"I…" he stammered.
Tendrils of black power curled away from her, digging into the snow and reappearing, each with a snowball held in its misty black grasp.
"For thou hast sown the wind, Garfield, and thou shalt reap the whirlwind. This. Means. War."
A snowball exploded on his face and another one on his shoulder before he pulled himself together and morphed into a sparrow, flitting away from her barrage.
He flew quickly behind a snow-covered ventilation shaft and hid. She levitated higher to get a better angle and resume her bombardment. Seeing a flash of green, she grinned mischievously and prepared to unleash the snowball tornado.
The return fire surprised her. Before the first of Garfield's snowballs hit her, she managed to get a glimpse of a large green octopus, two of its arms securing it to the ventilation shaft, three busy making ammunition while the remaining three were spiraling in an intricate dance like a Gatling gun, picking up prepared snowballs and machine-gunning them at her.
Three more snowballs slammed into her, one smack in the middle of her face, before she had the presence of mind to create a black shield in front of her. Snowballs exploded on it.
"Sneaky, aren't we?" she said, wiping her face and using her power to lift several cubic feet of snow from the top of the shaft and plop them on top of the octopus. She approached, laughing, just to see the tentacles retreat into the snow and a large green dog appear, shaking itself to free its pelt from the clinging stuff. It looked at her defiantly and panted, then quickly turned around and started digging into the snow with its paws, sending an enormous spray of ice crystals her way.
Almost blinded by the dog-made blizzard, she used her magic to shovel large amounts of snow towards the green dog, trying to bury it under, but that just gave it more ammunition to continue drowning her in an endless flood of white. She tried to create a shield, but the spray was tall and wide and went easily above and around it.
She retreated, panting, laughing, feeling better than she ever had in her life. Her magic coursed through her and around her, small arcs of black lightning crackling softly from her hands and her eyes, a black aura around her, her entire body warm and tingling, not feeling any cold or wetness or discomfort, just a deep, wholesome, fulfilling happiness that burst from her heart and flooded every single cell in her body.
She felt something wrap around her ankles and lost her balance, collapsing down face-first on the snow. Garfield morphed back into himself from the snake form he was in and pressed her face into the fluffy, icy stuff deeper, laughing his victory. With surprising strength she squirmed away from his grasp, turning around, her hands gripping his arms and twisting his body away and to the side, making him fall on his back into the soft, cold layer. She dropped on top of him, also laughing, a huge snowball suspended in the air by her power, ready to slam it into his face.
His defensive move surprised them both. His hands shot up, his fingers curled into her wet hair and pulled her face close as he pressed his lips on hers, still breathless, the air hissing urgently though his nose as he kissed her and kissed her again and felt her lips cold from the snow and the wind warm up and kiss him back and their arms going around each other and their kisses becoming harder and longer and hungrier as they finally gave in to the feelings they both fought and denied and ignored and yearned so much for.
Her magic unleashed itself, but not in a destructive flood. It shot out in countless tendrils, arcing back into both of them, infusing them with its strength and warmth, making their skins tingle as if electrified, turning them painfully sensitive, touching them with a million ethereal fingers and giving them a rosy glow, feeding on their own passion and increasing their passion back in an endless feedback that made them lose all sense of reality until they had to break away from each other for sheer need of air.
They parted for a few seconds, chests heaving as they fought to breathe, both from their recent exertion and from the unleashed emotions. Just a few quick, deep breaths and they kissed again, making up for all that uselessly lost time, all that stupid shyness and senseless insecurity. It took quite a while until they were at last able to tear their lips away from each other's for more than a few moments.
They finally parted again, gasping in lungfuls of air.
"I think… we should… go back inside" Garfield groaned hoarsely.
Raven nodded, her eyes locked on his, a mischievous spark beginning to gleam in their violet depths.
"Gar…"
'Hmmm?" he said, not able to wrench his gaze from her eyes, wondering what that glow meant.
"Never trust a demon, Gar" she whispered, laughed, and rolled away as the huge snowball that her power was holding above them all that time slammed down on his face.
Author's Notes:
Aaaand, this is the fifth version of the "first kiss" scenario that I do, if my count is correct. So I like writing it. Sue me! :-)
Yes, it was snowing outside while I wrote it. What gave it away?
Oh, yeah. Almost forgot the disclaimer again. I only wish I owned the Teen Titans.