A/N: Well, hullo there everybody! So it's been a while, that's for sure, and I KNOW I should be working on the other multichaps I have floating around on my harddrive, but for some reason this jumped into my head and wouldn't leave. It's the first thing I've written in months, finished in the span of two hours, and now posted on here. A strange thing. Not one of my usual pairings. But I guess it's as good as anything to get me back into the swing of FanFiction. Thanks, guys! Enjoy.
She didn't remember what exactly they had been fighting about. Probably something silly. Something inconsequential. They always fought about silly, inconsequential things. Like when he stared too long at a waitress. Or when she was out too late again. Or when he spent too much time with the Titans, who she was still getting used to. Or when he noticed that glint in her eye when they walked past the museum's jewel exhibition. Silly, inconsequential things.
She'd been too angry to think straight, too blisteringly furious to even remember what he'd said now. What he'd said with his electric blue eyes boring holes through her forehead, what he'd said that made her slap him once, hard, across his freckled cheek, and flee to her room. Made her lock the door. Made her blink back furious, angry tears and wrench a dusty suitcase out from the depths of her closet. Made her stuff haphazardly folded items into a canvas duffel bag, her hands so white and small and thin against the dark wardrobe that they might have been Luna moths.
She had to get out of here. It had been a long time coming. She had to get out, figure herself out before she even began figuring him out.
She wasn't good. She had never been good. All she was, inside and out, was bad, bad luck, and if he couldn't see it, she'd show him once and for all. She didn't belong here. She didn't belong anywhere come to think of it, but especially not here.
Half of her wished she hadn't slapped him. Maybe he'd have forgiven her if she hadn't slapped him. Maybe he'd be at the door now, whispering from the other side, begging her not to go and blaming himself even though the deepest part of her admitted it was all her fault.
Maybe it was always her fault.
No. Not always.
Even when she'd exploded at him, part of her mind winced, clenched its teeth, and instantly regretted everything its mouth was saying. It wished it could take it all back, swallow the words flinging spitfire from its tongue, but she was too proud to back down now. She couldn't even bring herself to apologize.
She clutched the zippered sides of the suitcase, clinging to it for support on top of her black sheets, and hung her head, shoulders shaking. She refused to cry. She would not cry. What was Raven's favorite phrase?
People come. People go. People come. People go. People come. People—
"Jinx?"
A soft knock. His voice. She jumped, whirled, stared at the blank gray metal as though her thoughts had seeped through it, into the hallway, for him to read all he liked. She furiously scratched the water from her eyes.
"What do you want?" she croaked, winced at the weakness in her own voice, and repeated more loudly, "What do you want?"
"To talk?"
It always went this way. He was always the braver one, the stronger one, waving the white flag and stepping off his horse first. Approaching with a truce and whispered words.
She huffed, held viciously tight to the anger that was already dissipating at the mere sound of his voice, and hissed, "I think we've already done plenty of that."
He sighed, and there came a soft metallic thump. She was familiar with that thump. It was his patient pose, shoulders slouched, resting his forehead and a clenched right fist on the other side as he fought the quick hot words that jumped to his tongue and only made things worse.
They were bad for each other, the pair of them. They were like matches and gasoline, and the words flung between them like sparks or brimstone. She crumpled a plum-colored dress in her fist, prepared to pack it, then remembered that she'd worn it on their first (official) date, and flung it into a corner.
"Jinx, please open the door."
"Why should I?" she spat. Her dresser and closet were now nearly empty. Only a few sentimental items of clothing and jewelry lay derelict and scattered in various areas of the room. She refused to take them with her, out of spite or out of heartbreak, or maybe out of some misplaced sense of propriety—he'd bought them for her, with her. Rightfully, they were his. He may have given them to her, but she needed no more attachment to him than she did to anyone. She belonged to nobody. And nobody belonged to her.
"Because I don't like talking with a sheet of metal between us."
"We're not talking, Flash."
"You promised you'd never call me that again."
"It's my specialty. To break promises." The answer was venomous, and even she could hear the sharp intake of breath from the other side of the door. It was satisfying in a way, to know she could hurt him just as well as he could her. But the feeling quickly faded, replaced by an empty kind of angry that she didn't quite recognize.
She frowned, folded a scarf into the corner of the bag, and repeated the line quietly, with a small change. "We're not talking, Wally."
"Yes, we are. Jinx, please. I…I hate it when you're angry."
"Who said I was angry?"
"We fought. And you locked yourself in your room. I'd say that pretty much covers 'angry.'"
"You're an idiot."
"Yes. A big one. Open this door, and you can say it to my face."
"No." She whispered it at first, quietly, staring at the back window of her room that overlooked the ocean, vaguely wondering what it would be like to disappear, vanish into thin air like a ghost and not have to worry about anything anymore. Who she was. What she was. What she'd done or been. Then she said it louder. So he could hear from his exile outside her room.
"No. It's over, Wally. Everything we've had to say to each other we've said it. Let's just call this one finished."
The zipper on her suitcase stuck, and when it finally gave after many a vicious tug, it split the silence in the room like a crack of lightning.
The breathing on the other side of the door froze. "Jinx, what was that?"
She didn't answer. She'd lost her grip on the zipper, and fallen to the floor, and was scrambling to pick herself up.
"Was that a zipper? Are you packing?"
She latched onto the suitcase like a thing possessed, locked it, lost her balance and the whole thing slid from her bed to the carpet with a solid thump.
"Jinx, I'm coming in."
"Door's locked!" she shrieked triumphantly, struggling to lift the heavy suitcase. She was built for agility, not strength, and never had she regretted skipping weight training so much before. "You can't without the passcode!"
She'd changed it twice in the past week, paranoid after she'd found Mas y Menos snooping through her things, having been supplied the security code by Sto—Cyborg.
She managed to pull the case into a treacherous upright position, and now was struggling to lift the duffel bag onto her shoulder when there was suddenly a humming noise, as though someone had built a beehive into her door. She blinked, turned, and stared at the metal, an area of which was glowing with blinding white hot light. Through squinted eyes, she could barely make out what appeared to be a vibrating form, and a red sneaker stepping through the metal. Before she had time to think, he was standing in front of her, a dull red glow around him like a halo, and she could practically feel the warmth surging from him in waves.
She must have looked like a fish with her mouth hanging open, staring at him as though he were the eighth wonder of the universe. She quickly closed her mouth, and shot him a glare, and spat, "Well, that's a new trick."
He didn't answer her. His eyes flickered once from the suitcase to her face, and back again, and then they locked with hers, blue and crystalline, and refused to let go. He strode forward, evenly, surely, and with a purpose she wasn't quite ready to discover.
"Wally, I told you. We already talked, we've said things we've probably wanted to say for a while, and I don't feel like rehashing this anymore. Let's give it up. This can't go anywhere."
He apparently didn't listen to a word she said. She retreated, abandoning her position in open ground for some cover behind her bed, and stammered:
"Don't try to make me stay! You know I can't stay, this isn't working, and you know it isn't! We should stop now. Tonight. Before this thing goes any farther than we can handle it."
He still wasn't listening. Without missing a beat, he vibrated his atoms through her bed, setting the black comforter on fire and making the sprinklers come on, and he backed her into a corner.
"You're not even talking to me! I'm the one doing all the talking, and you're the one who wanted to talk! Why won't you just say what you want, Wally, hmm? Why can't you just say what's on your mind, and why can't I do the same without you getting angry at me, and will you just STOP!"
At a loss for what else to do, her hand shot out and planted itself firmly on his chest, bringing his forward momentum to what appeared to be a surprised halt and giving her time to wipe the beads of water from her eyelashes. Tears? Sprinklers? She was afraid to say.
There was a moment of silence, where nothing was heard except for labored breathing and the soft whisper of the sprinklers quieting the fire on her bedspread, and she gathered herself. She calmed her breathing, her hyperventilating, and raked the hand not on Wally's chest through her soaked hair. She felt cold. Cold and broken, except for the hand touching his body, which was blisteringly, exceedingly warm. Hot, even. Blazing.
And fluttering?
There was no other word to describe what she felt beneath her palm. Fluttering. Something was fluttering like a caged bird against her hand, and that something was coming from inside him. She blinked, stared at the white fingers against the yellow shirt, and felt again. Fluttering.
She looked up at his eyes, enigmatic. Burning. Blue crystals like stars, and she found she could do nothing but swallow.
"Is that…Is that your h-heartbeat?"
He merely stared at her, stared and forced her to look back at her hand. She spread her fingers, and something shot through him, something that felt like a shiver, and old familiar tingles ripped through her skin. The fluttering increased tenfold.
"It's so fast."
"It has to be. Metabolism and all." His voice was soft, dream-like, as though he was answering her question on autopilot.
The tiniest of smirks graced her lips, and she rubbed the spot lightly. She might have been imagining it, but his temperature increased. "And here I thought I was special."
He didn't answer, but when she looked up at his eyes, his face spoke volumes.
"Don't go," he whispered. "I'm sorry."
The hair plastered to his head gave his face a funny shape, and she impulsively reached up with both hands to push it back. With a gasp, his burning palms jumped to the hand on his heart, holding it there fast, surrounded by the pulse in his thumbs and his chest. She paused, looked at him, and settled for pushing the bangs from his eyes with one hand.
"I'm the one who should be sorry," she replied. "I'm no good, Wally. No good for you, for the Titans, for anybody. Remember? Bad luck?"
She stroked the apple of his cheek with her thumb, and he sacrificed one of the hands on his heart to press her palm to his face. His eyes closed gently.
"Funny you say that," he answered. "'Cause I'm pretty sure you're the best thing that's ever happened to me."
She winced. "No pretty words, Wally, please. Sometimes I feel like all we ever are is pretty wor—mff!"
He kissed her. Like a man drowning, he kissed her there, under the sprinklers with the last remaining bits of her sheets smoldering in a pile of ash on her bedframe, and he kissed her. His hands let go of hers, trading them for a tangle of fingers and warmth in her drooped pigtails, and he crushed her as close as was humanly possible. She was sure she was going to asphyxiate. Her back was to the wall, and the only thing she could feel in front of her was warmth, and fire, the vicious pounding of his heart bouncing off of hers.
She wanted to push him away. It wasn't fair what he did to her, insult her, fight with her, break her down bit by bit until there was nothing left but a tired, frightened little girl who thought running away was her best and only option, and then come to her with sweet words and whispered apologies and kiss everything…e-e-everything…every…
Oh, what the heck.
Her hands slid up his chest, wrapped their attached arms around his neck, and surrendered. He wasn't much taller than she was, but it was enough for him to pluck her from the ground in his arms, pull her stomach flush against his so every ripple of muscle was felt by the other, and wipe her mind free from everything but him. She pried his mouth open with a quiet sigh, was met with no objection, and traced the inside of his upper teeth with her tongue. He writhed in her arms, pinned her to the wall, clutched handfuls of her hair and burned himself into her skin. She didn't mind. They were fire and ice, and presently they were melting together into one. The water drops off the sprinklers steamed on his face.
"What do I want?" he murmured breathlessly, and against her chest his heart was humming, singing. She could practically hear it. "I want to give myself to you, Jinx, and I want you to take me. Take all of me and promise to never let me go, okay? I want you to promise to love me."
She froze, stared at him, and he blinked back. "Because God knows, I love you."
She couldn't feel her fingertips for a second, so she combed them through his wet red hair, and grinned. "You're blushing."
His face was bright red as a tomato, and his freckles had all vanished. He beamed goofily back up at her. "Yes. I love you. It's embarrassing, really."
She silenced his insults with a kiss, and touched every inch of his skin, wet and slick from the sprinklers, and when her fingertips traced an arrow over his fluttering heart, she whispered against his lips with a grin, "I love you, too. Promise. But I'll tell you this right now, Cyborg's not going to be happy about this water damage."
A/N: See? I told you it was kind of weird. Especially for me. Always figured my first Teen Titans fic posted would be BB/Rae, being the ravenous shipper of them that I am. :/ Eh. It'll take me a while. I'll get back into it, hopefully. Review, sil vous plait!