There is going to be no romance. Timewise, this is a year before Episode 62: Go!, which is the team origins episode. I wanted to do something short and simple with Raven because there's this one particular canon friendship that I adore.
Desperation, Says the Villain is on hold and the next chapter of Gimmick's Vice is still being worked on. I needed a breather so I did this fic, which is completely Hive Five unrelated. I also wanted to try my hand at Raven's possible first impressions of Earth. AU-esque, obviously.
When she arrived from Azarath, everything was so strange and new to her. The clothes they wore. The people she saw. The smells.
Azar, this world smelled. A horrible stink ever present, she could hardly breathe. Her first breath made her cough, then hack. Tears had formed, real human tears from some invisible irritant or another, and she felt dirt for the first time because she'd fallen into a mound. Groping, weak, outstretched hands, she blindly sought some relief or another, but with every pant she took the process became easier. Her fingers had clawed into soft earth and she'd tainted her skin with the mud of this world.
For a time, a long time, she laid there, utterly exhausted and in bafflement to how humans managed to do this repeatedly in the span of mere minutes. She couldn't imagine living her whole life on a planet where the very air she breathed wheezed and ripped through her chest and could lead to potential harm towards her person. She couldn't imagine proceeding under this masochistic agony.
She no longer coughed after that, her innate magic soothing her spiking, clawing throat pains for her and letting the experience sink into her muscles as a memory. It didn't mean she was eager to have another repeat episode, though, which was why she stayed away from cities for a time after that.
She remembered how desperately, irrevocably afraid she was when she first came to this earth. It wasn't even the constraining air that greeted her arrival. It was the people. It was the sounds, voices. Sights.
It was a regrettable bout of insanity that had visited her when she decided to see for herself what a 'city' entailed.
The first thing she noticed was the unimaginable and overwhelming usage of stone. Not to mention, uncreative. But their buildings towered over her! Not naturally, comfortingly, or even soothingly like the structures of Azarath, but here...
Windows warped and flickered the images reflected upon them. Alien. Huge, towering windows. Grotesquely so. Tiny, private ones—homes, and...skyscrapers? There were tens of many floors in each one of them, she'd read, but many more people inside. Hardly believing what she was perceiving, she walked among the locals in a daze, too taken in by the rushing, busy, thriving quality of the streets to hide. The sun was hot. Distasteful, even, and made her perspire in the most uncomfortable of ways, but she persevered. She could not stop.
She walked. In Azarath, she hated how hallow her steps sounded in the almost sterile silence, how quietly she had to force herself to move, if only to bring no attention onto herself. How cautiously she skulked...
On earth, the first thing she did in a city was simply to enjoy the sensation. Here, nothing echoed but the screeching noises of life—a city was all open spaces and high, far, and wide. Dizzying pathways. The smell was less than desirable, but the tastes...so attune to her surroundings and so heightened were her senses that she could taste. The air? Perhaps. She daren't touch a single dish, no matter how much the populace seemed to favor these vendors, these men and women of cuisine.
People ate here so freely, she was almost tempted to join them herself.
Food. Food was to be enjoyed here. Consumed with a fervor spurred on by hunger...? No abstinence or reserve—one must eat if one was hungry. But they ate with a relish? Was that what food was? A treat?
Seaside restaurants. She found it counterproductive, almost sick in a way. Did they not empty into their harbors pollutants and a variety of other things she daren't name? They caught fish. Fish, of all things! How freely these people raped the seas...how happily.
There were no open waters in Azarath. They...they never moved. Suspended. Not here. Not in harbors of seaside restaurants, not in this lavish, decadent life where everything was strange and new and bursting forth vitality and vigor.
Not Azarath. Nothing at all like her home. Her mother's homeland...frightened her.
She never saw moving water before in such a size and expanse before, but Earth seemed to delight in such surprises. Her waters were frozen and still. Sterile. Calm, if drunk and consumed. Controlled. Blue. Water was a commodity, a fact of life. It was simply there, existing, and her people never paid much heed to it...
Blues. Greens. Clears. Glinting brilliance, the sun was no enemy here. Glittering. Water, she gasped. Water was alive here.
Beautiful.
Brine. Kelp. Ships. There was a suppressing layer of something that tasted sharp. Unpleasant. Her tongue cried. Salt, she eventually identified.
Why was there salt? Why were there kelp and ships and swimmers and birds? People never swam in Azarath—it was unheard of. Ridiculous.
Her clothes were latched onto her. Like the transgalactic leeches she'd read in her textbook. Heavy and clenching, every time she moved it was uncomfortable and she couldn't understand what she wanted. It was so hot. What did one do then? She saw people in the water and men had no clothes on. Disgusting free voyeuristic displays, she carefully averted her eyes away. And she wanted to join them? Absurd, yet—
Naked? She looked up, then paused when she saw another walk on by. Not naked. Pants. Thin and translucent and clinging. A man. Grotesquely fat, belly flopping over, but he was happy. His eyes were crinkled. Nobody back home crinkled like that. Children. There were children at his heels, and some had his hands in theirs and they all looked so happy.
She looked away, not understanding why her chest tightened the way it did, why it clenched in a peculiar way. She couldn't help but peek in the corner of her eye how the happy, fat man led his happy, follower children into the water. Grains danced behind them and some caught on the wind, but most fell. They pricked at her skin and stuck to her suit. More discomfort. She shifted and tried to rub them off, but they stayed. Stubbornly.
Crying. Her head snapped up, and an instinctive, jolt reaction to the sight came. Swamped her. Overwhelming.
Blood. She knew about blood, how it was life's liquid. How easily it gushed in her arms, legs, head, and body. How...red it was. Her studies could never have described their sheer crimson. Tinged with pepper grains. Something lurched in her, then, and she knew it must have pained the little girl more to have them stuck in her wound than to have them without. An instinctual knowledge, perhaps, but more how she clutched and screamed at the redness, rubbing grit in.
People rushed forward and she held back in wonderment at the panic she saw in their faces.
No one did anything. Impotent, stupid; why gather if nothing was to be done? The man was crying. The happy, fat man who was happy no longer.
Anguish. She knew that expression well.
There was something lethargic about the scene. She could see the people and she could see their mouths flap, open and closed, but there was a roar in her ears. She couldn't understand it, but a pressure was building up and up and she nearly toppled over from its sheer weight and—!
She stumbled forward.
...These people were doing nothing?!
Falling was a sensation she never wanted to repeat again. Well, she fell forward and she fell fast, but instead of hitting the ground...
She lunged. She was lunging for that crowd of people, with their horrified faces and bared skin. Black, red, white skin—it didn't matter. She stood out, sickly pale, as she flew forwards, forwards...
Confusion. They were confused, but she was also confused to no degree. Gentle now, give her here and Won't you listen to my fears?
No more death. No more blood. She had enough.
Heal, something whispered deep within her. Heal...!
The girl gave a sudden heave, back arching and bending in an unnatural way and the people reared back, alternatively confused and horrified and terrible fear and horror spiked through her empathy and—
And then she healed. Blood went out and in. Grains fell away. The wound closed up, visibly, before their astonished eyes.
Witch, she was waiting to hear. Witch, they should've called her.
Blaring lights. The most annoying of sounds, right in her ears. Din with wind rushing together in a meaningless stream of babble. Men in uniform. Men with practiced, stoic worry scrawled all over their faces if one only knew where to look, and she knew where to look.
It was the expression of a medic, their only tool to keep sane. Closed themselves off to pain this way—a slither of thought—but no matter how hard she tried to do the same, to try and tamp down on her emotions, they still wanted to come out...Death made her want to cry forth unreasonable tears. She felt stoic, too, after awhile. Just like these men.
Medics. Healers.
She'd taken their job.
And they were...amazed? Everyone was. Every last one of them.
Hero, she heard some whisper. Heroine, she heard others correct.
...Superhero, she heard everybody say.
The happy, fat man was...staring at her. In a way that made her want to back away, but he never gave her opportunity to. He clasped her hands and murmured her thanks said so raw it hit her—she'd done good.
The little girl opened her eyes and smiled.
I feel good! the little girl said, and the phrase stuck with her.
Good.
I feel...strange?
And after that all she felt were eyes on her, appraising glances, and it unnerved her. Desperately wanting to escape, she fled, but the people kept cheering and...and—
She was confused. Why did they cheer for a thief who stole their jobs? Had they not have seen the men in white? Had they not have stood there and saw for themselves how their own actions could have saved the little girl?
Why were they so eager to label her as a hero? They knew nothing about her! She was no hero, she was—
She was bad, right? Someone awful. Someone undeserving of such vitality and life and vigor. She should be shunned and be done away with because she had no worth, no goodness. She wasn't a super whatever or someone to cheer for. She was...she was...!
Wanting to hide, she crouched behind a wall and curled legs inward. Dusk was falling and there were still people around, but perhaps they'd forgotten the events of the afternoon. Perhaps they'd already forgotten about her.
It was for the best. She tried to convince herself of that. It didn't work.
She stared at brick rows miserably, wondering where she was going to sleep, live, eat, breathe.
And it even smelled horrible here and she didn't know why. Filth. At least the sheer height of these buildings nearly blocked out the skies, but something twisted acid in her gut and she'd never known garbage before...litter...filth. Her suit sullied, her hair mussed, she must have looked a sight—pathetic, dirty, and lost.
That unidentifiable puddle of murky grit in the corner.
Shivering, she huddled within herself, but it was still so cold—
"...Mind telling me why a girl like you's sleeping in the rain?"
Night had fallen. She'd woken up with a start and staring into such an alien and strange face, she balked.
She hadn't noticed the rain. She must have looked pathetic.
She must have looked sad. He seemed indecisive, then determined. Crouching down beside her cringing form, he shrugged off his coat, revealing a huge sweatshirt outlined frame, and then did something odd.
Tight. Compressed. But warm. Soft. And the smell...
Comfort? She felt eyes drift shut, weary and exhausted, and she couldn't fall back asleep. Nevertheless, she snuggled close into the folds that enveloped her, hugging her senses and keeping her so terribly warm.
He sat up against the wall next to her, sounding bemused. "Why're you at a dumpster alley, anyway, girl? Don't you have a home to go back to?" The strange man's face contorted with something, but it was not malicious. She hurriedly shut peeking eyes closed when he glanced at her. "Did you run away, too?" His voice was low. Soothing. Coaxing.
Sad.
Angry.
Overwhelmed, she scooted back away from him, never noticing his flinch. "W-why...why are you unhappy?"
His dark expression lightened in his confusion. "What? Oh, I see, it's because you think I'm a runaway."
"I am not lost," she said. "I have not run from anywhere."
Now, mirth. Fascinated, she stared. "You can't seriously be telling the truth. I saw you run from the beach faster than people could snap up your photograph. It was cute."
"Cute?" she said.
"Why d'ya look cute? I don't know, man, but you were adorable when you were sleep—aw, crap. Don't take it the wrong way! I ain't a pedo, okay?"
She blinked up at him, lost.
There was this frustrated noise thing he gave in the back of his throat. "Forget it, kid. I just wanted a rest stop before I plowed through the rain again, and then I saw ya laying there. I was worried if you needed help or something."
Sharp, reprehending affront. A quiet retort? "I am not a child."
"How old are ya then? You look like you're not even in the double digits yet."
"I am of fourteen years. Not a child."
He gave a low whistle, shaking his head. "Damn, girl. You don't look it."
"And you? How shall I perceive your age? You are old."
"None of that now," he said, features again twisting with something. "I may be your senior, but I'm not that old. Next thing ya'll know, I'll be addressed as 'sir,' or something terrible like that."
"Age?"
"I'm seventeen. A high school kid, yeah? But it feels like I've just started. Not that it matters anymore."
"Schooling is important," she whispered. "You gain knowledge. You cannot get hurt."
He tensed. "Wanna bet."
"...Where I am from, I have education from a single tutor." Her shoulders drooped. "You are angry at me. I can feel it. I am sorry."
"Nah. Not at you, it's just..."
"Just?"
"I'm a monster." He sounded rough, pained. Minute tightenings of his face, clenching of fists, he looked straight ahead of him and glared. "I can't ever go back. Not for comfort, not for food or shelter. Not even for my old man. I don't belong there. I don't belong anywhere."
"And you are...not happy."
"Yeah." From the corner of her eye, she saw his lips twist even when his head was bowed and shadowed. "I can't have a life. I look like a freak. If people saw me out there in the streets, they would—well, it wouldn't be good."
Something stabbed at her. An agonizing, bubbling sensation that made her nearly lurch forward, nearly turned her innards inside out. His anger gave way immediately to anguish.
Familiar. Not unlike the happy, fat man. Not unlike her.
He was so sad. It was what broke through to her, finally, made her voice waver but be strong. "Whatever problems you may deal with, they matter little when you are kind."
He snorted, and she wanted to recoil. "Yeah. Kind. That's what they would call me, huh? Not happening. I'm not—"
"You are."
He stopped. "You're not doing so hot yourself right now, are you?"
Her voice was equally as cautious. "I am in similar circumstances as you, and...and I can feel your...emotions."
The pain of empathy, feeling otherworldly emotions foreign to her, emotions not even her own. It was the cruelest of abilities granted to her. She could see his startlement spike, feel his confusion. He was so transparent. Nothing at all like the monks of her planet.
"You a, uh...psychic or something?"
"No, but that is close. I can feel what you feel. I am not human," she said, and her voice came out oddly flat and empty. Deadpan. "Not fully."
The dark-skinned teenager looked at her and then broke out into a small smile. "I can't tell if that was sarcasm or the truth."
"It is the truth," she answered before she thought to answer, which had made her blurt it out in an unseemly manner, and he leaned back, chuckling.
"All right, all right, I see how it is. We're both strangers, hey, what can it hurt?"
She gave a pause, then turned towards him, new understanding in her hooded eyes. "Let us begin," she said.
"I told you about running away..." the hooded boy frowned, "but I haven't told you about why."
"...It is your greatest shame."
"Yeah. Something like that."
His features, or what she could see of them, were dark and she didn't want to pry. She never said stop, though, because he was working his jaw and she saw that this was hard. She stared at that tension, enthralled with how freely his emotions angrily swirled around him. He would be telling her his greatest secret, and who was she to turn him away in rejection?
It would be the cruelest thing she could achieve thus far with another human being.
It was also the first time she accepted that she could communicate with her mother's people. There was something stirring in her body, so faint and tantalizing it was bound to disappear, but she knew it wouldn't. Because it was growing.
Even now. Even as he talked. Even as she listened, it grew. That fervor that wanted their conversing to last—I don't want to be alone.
He stopped talking, and she laid a quick, furtive hand on his hand. "Don't—"
He flinched and she recoiled, but knew to go on. "Don't...it is yours alone. If you truly wish to show it to me, then I shall share the burden of your shame with you. But...don't," she said, "turn me away when I show mine."
The hand that had been outstretched, the one she had used to stop him, was gently grasped and the hand around hers tightened. Firmly. Strongly. Softly. He felt cold. Unnaturally so. Hard. "All right. All right, kid, but only as long as you do let me show you mine."
She didn't dare to look away, and her hold on his hand was gripped in response. Her voice never wavered, and her hooded eyes were intense. He was shaking. So was she. "Show me."
He obliged, flipping soggy wet, cottony hood back, and all shaking ceased.
With a rushing breath, she closed her eyes and parted tremulous lips to say, "You have been so alone." He may have looked like stone, but she couldn't stand it. How suddenly closed off this boy was. How suddenly too-cold, too-unfeeling. As a blind man would reach out desperately, so did she. Hands, trembling, grasped fabric to pull herself up and into his face and his eyes followed her progress without a word.
She stared plaintively into a mismatched pair and said, "Let me show you mine. I have not forsaken you," and grasped his face in hers and suddenly, suddenly...she felt so hurt.
There was a child. Through her, the stoic boy with mismatched face and blank eyes saw deeply in her and learned what memories really were.
Hurtful. The little girl lost was swallowed and enveloped and consumed, and that boy saw that he was not alone.
The emotions rose in a sharp crescendo and suddenly, suddenly, she was consumed and overwhelmed. Swimmingly deeply in a thousand impressions instantly, she felt her throat nearly collapse and give way to a crushing force, and she choked and clawed at it to no avail. It hurt. But he was in pain as well.
It ended. She closed her eyes and shuddered in the crevice of his neck and shoulder, and the memories ended. He closed his, too, overwhelmed by a grief that was not his. Surely not.
Yet he grieved. And in that astoundingly clear moment, he realized what she meant by being half-human and to bear gifts of shame that hung like effigies of unimaginable agony from her neck.
And he grieved. And that little girl lost held back a sob, and it caught in her throat. She could breathe again. Relief. Such sweet relief.
They opened their eyes and saw that they were not so different after all. They were the same, two brats of sulking rain, hidden away in a back alleyway in shame, they were the same.
And they didn't even know each other's name.
I am a profound fan of the CyRae friendship, not so much the pairing, but the intimacy I'm going for was hardly touched on in the show. This is probably at least a twoshot, as I've sketched out what happens next as there's supposed to be a timeskip of several months. I'm happy with the tone and this is my first try at a POV like this, but I imagine canon!Raven isn't as absent minded as this. I love the idea of a pre-team Raven, though.
The only reason Raven and Cyborg bothered at all with each other is because they felt safe in each other's anonymity. They think they'll never see each other again. Very unlikely.