Psyche (Working Title)
By Nastia
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Chapter 1: I Like It Rough
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Which is it that loves: the body or the soul?
After a complicated and stupid "almost break-up," Starfire leaves the Titans on a sabbatical. She rooms with Bee, only to find that her place at Titans Tower had been filled with a former romantic rival. Sparks literally fly.
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"Do you love me?" The words fell from her lips, clear and coherent as the day is long. Her eyes held a downward glance, absently studying the glimmers of the green and yellow ripples of water she sat in.
"Kory, you know I--" He brought his hands up to his face, waving them fervently as if they spoke instead. Richard Grayson licked his lips as Starfire, Kory Anders, sent him an angry glare.
"Dick, you know very wll what I mean." She paused, attempting to quell her building anger. Again she sent an empty glances towards the small waves of the pool, the blues and greens cast by the underwater lamp somewhat eerie at the late-night hour. Rain pattered against the glass panes of the skylight, the sound echoing throughout the silence of the pool house.
"Not a someone you will "always" love or who occupies a special place in your heart. Do you love me? In the way that means forever? In a way that we never have to find excuses?" Her face burned as she spoke. Slowly she moved her eyes from the lull of the waves to Richard's face. He stood in the middle of the pool, the water lapping around his midsection.
The dull, weak light of the overhead lamps cast shadows over his face. It startled Kory how utterly menacing the profile of Nightwing could be. Sometimes it seemed Richard and his alter-ego could be one in the same.
"No."
Kory drew in a sharp breath at his words, her eyes widening in shock. Once the initial surprise of his words settled in, it was only then that the all-too familiar sadness took hold of her heart. She took a step back, her sudden movement sending ripples throughout the pool. A sad, small smile found it's way onto her full lips as she ran a hand through her soaked hair.
With a force only she could muster, Kory sped forward and crushed her own lips onto his. It was a quick, passionless kiss, yet it hurt as much as any other good-bye. Tears. It was always tears. They pricked the corners of her eyes as she slid her hands down his chest and stomach. She stopped, biting her bottom lip. Again she looked up at this handsome face, offering him a sad smile.
Starfire swiftly turned, leaping out of the pool in a few short steps. The water that sloshed from her sudden exit sizzled as it hit the polished cement flooring of the pool house.
"Kory...?" Richard, Nightwing's gruff voice echoed throughout the hall. Starfire continued to walk away, leaving a trail of dull red energy in her wake.
"You're staying on, right?" As if the events of the past few seconds had never happened, Richard offered her a curt and business-like tone and a stony expression.
Slowly, she turned to face him, her eyes glowing. "No." She tossed him the same curt comment.
---
"It seems like you've gotten to know the ceramic god pretty well." Bee laughed at her own words as she took in the sight of Kory slumped over the once-clean toilet.
"Oh, stuff it. I'm in no-" Kory's attempt at her own subtle barb were interrupt by the sick rolling of her own stomach. Within seconds her face was shoved back into the toilet, the remains of yesterday's lunch splattering into basin.
"Are you sure you don't need to go to the hospital?" Bee's voice questioned, filled with concern as she approached her sick friend.
"I have no need of your earthly doctors!" Starfire rasped into the bowl, her body suddenly surrounded by a bright orange glow. Hot tears streamed down her face as she leaned into the bowl, her body shaking, waiting for the next flood of sickness.
"Kory, I really think--"
"Do not bother me!" Her voice filled the room with a loud boom, shaking the mirror and cosmetic bottles that lay scattered across the counter top.
Bee said nothing, a worried frown marred her pretty face as she unwillingly left the bathroom, only closing the door enough to block out her friend's heaves.
After Bee's unwanted presence was finally gone, Starfire openly wept. Letting her sobs go unchecked, she let her sickness run it's course until her stomach was empty. Until her heart was empty.
Starfire had lived on many planets throughout her life. Her own home, Tamaran, was devastatingly beautiful and placid. Ceres, a planet inhabited by silver spirit-like creatures, was also a paradise. Earth, no matter the serene blue ball it seemed, was by far the worst she'd ever visited.
Death ran rampant. Disease filled the lungs and minds of all it's inhabitants, the humans she had been co-habitating with for so long. At this point, Starfire would go as far to say that all humans were dirty and inferior. They lived their lives through their desires and hormones, brood animals who copulated without thought to the lives they could potentially bring into the world.
Yet, for all she had seen and lived through, the humans seemed gentle and kind in comparison. She had experienced the way of life of true animals -- of the Psions, the race of monsters who had used her body as nothing more than a shell for their experiments. Through her pain she had earned her namesake, the fire-hot energy she could summon at will.
Slowly, with all the strength she could possibly muster, Starfire hoisted herself up from the mouth of the toilet. It was only then that she caught her image in the mirror: hair tangled and matted, face streaked with tears and eyeliner, vomit crusted to the sides of her mouth, that she realized the unforgivable pain Nightwing had put he through.
She was not in pain over her disheveled hair or her ruined face, but through the fact that again she had allowed herself to be dragged through hoop after fucking hoop. It was always, 'I can love you, but only after I save this city,' or her favorite, 'We can only be more after I track down this long-dead super villain. By the way, he lives in my mind.'
So many times she'd trusted, forgiven, forgotten, and for what price? The price of her own happiness, the price of her soul? What kind of fool would barter her own happiness, her own life, for that of one filled with hurt and pain, just to be with the man she loved?
---
"Bee, why do you insist on these things?" Kory questioned, one hand on her hip as she nursed a cold martini in the other.
Bee, also known as Bumblebee, (or Karen, depending on who you asked), was somewhat of a local starlet. The super-heroine was known for her hours of partying with the glitteratzi, her fabulous outfits, and well, just plain living the glamourous life. However, she was far from the vapid party girl some would peg her to be.
"After last night, you need this. You want this..." Bee purred as she pulled Kory away from the bar and towards the dance floor.
The music was slow and sultry, spicy-sounding to some. It carried beats that border-lined sexual; it's lyrics sensual and heady, like a heavy perfume you could barely stand more than a few minutes of. While the vocalist continued to croon on about fantasies, Bumblebee and Starfire began a show of their own.
The lights overhead flickered red and purple, blues and greens mixed in for added effect. A crowd began to form around the two women as they began to dance together, seductive, slow, sensuous, borderline hedonic. Men began to chant obscene comments, other women began move together.
Starfire practically glowed from the attention, her body shining with an inner light. Bee leaned in and rested her cheek against Kory's, the two friends giggling softly from the scene they had caused.
On her home planet of Tamaran, sexuality was not something that came into question very often. Men and women were free to take lovers of whatever gender they chose. Some even traveled between heterosexuality and homosexuality freely. This was all accepted, on Tamaran, because not all women were expected to reproduce. Motherhood was something that was controlled and regulated. It was not something that would come unexpectedly.
It was also a thing of pain for most.
Suddenly the crowd began to leave them, forgotten to the lights of the party and to the sea of music. Instead, they gravitated towards the front of the club, towards the entrance, pulled towards the velvet ropes that sealed off the exclusive section of the club.
The crowd began to slowly part, making way for the center of it's attention; all eyes drawn towards the well-dressed muscular figure and his glossy-curled companion. The couple seemed straight out of a fashion ad, perfect in every sense of the word.
Kory Anders, Starfire, froze as she took in the sight of the couple as they strode past. Time seemed to stand still as she took in their image, her eyes fixed on that of Dick Grayson and his red-headed harlot. The couple glided past Starfire, both his and her eye's glued on Starfire; his a glance of confusion, hers of gleeful triumph. The red-headed woman tossed Kory a smug smile as she passed, her soft pin-curls bounced as she practically pranced through the club attached to Dick's arm.
In a span of less than ten seconds Starfire had been reduced to nothing more than a smoldering pile of sequins. At least, that's how she felt. Tears, she realized, wouldn't help her here. With all the strength she could muster, she shouted at the couple.
"Klorbag!"
Her words echoed throughout the dance hall, boomed over the sound of the pounding music. Again, the crowd's attention was drawn to Starfire and Bumblebee. Bumblebee tried her best to calm down her friend, however her words and encouragement to leave had fallen on deaf ears.
"I hope you enjoy an infestation of the Herpes, for you will contract it from your Klorbag! She has seen many-" Starfire was silenced as Bee's hand clamped down over her mouth as she attempted to drag her away.
"Star!" Bee hissed, her face red with embarrassment and mortification at her friend's antics. With a strength that was beyond even her, Bumblebee managed to drag her friend through the crowd and out of the night club.
"Oh, she is such a scheming, low, disgusting! Strumpet! Call girl! Hooker!"
Bee rubbed her forehead in frustration at her seething friend. Once Starfire was mad, or even slightly irritated, it was hard to calm her down. Her fiery attitude, paired with her ability to shoot radioactive energy from her fists, was something that was hard to deal with on a rational level.
Cell phone in hand, Bee began to dial the number for a cab. She looked down onto the illuminated keypad of her Sidekick. Three words into the conversation with the dispatcher, she was interrupted by the sound of metal scrapping and glass shattering.
Panicked at the sound of an accident, Bee expected to find a bloodied Kory in the middle of the road, maybe even under the front tires of a car. All she found was a dumpster thrown into the window display of a wedding planner's shop.
"Slut! Tart! Whore!"
Bumblebee sighed. Right now she wished to go nothing more than walk away and let her alien friend work herself out of this trouble. She knew the silent alarm of the upscale store would most likely have already alerted the cops to their, neigh, Starfire's, intrusion. The woes of having a super-human best friend...
"Bawd! Hussy! Wanton!"
On a mental note, Bee reminded herself to never again let Starfire read from her English thesaurus. Her grasp of the language was becoming far to colorful.
"Star, can you please calm down?" Always the rational-thinker, Bee finished her call for the cab and grabbed her friend by the arm.
Starfire breathed in deep, her breath coming out in a snort as she sank down to the curb of the street.
"How could he do this? With her?" Her voice cracked slightly as she spoke, as if she were on the verge of tears, even though it was the exact opposite of how she felt. Starfire buried her head into her knees, shaking her head in anger and confusion at the night's events.
Bee took a seat on the sidewalk next to her, the cold of the concrete seeping into her skirt as she did so.
"I really don't think he knew you would be here tonight. I mean, come on, you had to have heard about them already..."
The energy that perpetually sounded Starfire flared a deep red after she took in Bee's words. Of course she had known about Dick Grayson and his recent engagement to fellow super heroine Oracle, or Barbara Gordon. Starfire preferred the earthly term "Slut."
The news of Dick Grayson's engagement sent shock waves through the country, it was the only piece of gossip people could talk about. Everything from potential wedding planners to what would be served at the reception was endlessly talked about. As painful as it was, Starfire still felt love for the man-whore.
"Star, the cab's here. We gotta go..."
Bee pulled at Starfire's arm, further pushing Kory's anger over the edge. Starfire stood up, her eyes literally burning with bright energy. Within seconds her body cooled, and her eyes returned to their normal state. Bee glance up at her from inside the cab, motioning for her to sit down.
She could feel it. Surges of energy welling within her body, the aching feeling of defeat. Something was inside her, broken and irreparable.