I found it hard to decide the right pitch of Raven's feelings at this early stage. The end result is...satisfactory, I think. Small reference to the staggeringly wonderful fic 'Breaker' by Shire Conspire added to the mix.
8 o'clock. 9 o'clock.
Raven wondered if it might not have been a mishap with her powers.
10 o'clock. 11 o'clock.
She wondered if it might not be a brief misunderstanding of other, more platonic emotions.
12 o'clock. 1 o'clock.
It was time to cave. She dove into Nevermore with no precise plan of action in mind, no location of appearance clear in her intentions. She woke in a corner of Happy's colorful dreamscape to a lavender-cloaked emoticlone she had never seen before offering her a hand up.
"Who are you?" She cringed slightly at how weak her voice sounded.
"You know."
"No, I don't."
"Let me help you up."
"No." Irrationally, Raven didn't want to be touched. Not by whatever part of her soul that one emoticlone stood for.
Lavender Raven exhaled, long and slow. She straightened, apparently conceding, and made as if to sit, only to have real Raven nearly fall flat on her back in her efforts to escape contact. The emoticlone looked on as Raven tried to right herself with some dignity, mouth curved downward and hands up in a strangely defensive gesture. Then she sighed again.
"You know who I am. I wouldn't be able to manifest otherwise. You aren't even denying me. Just…avoiding me. " And she gave Raven a small, sympathetic smile. "It isn't time, then. I'll…be around." She used few words, like Raven herself did, but they were suffused in a gentleness Raven was sure lacked in her own speech. Lavender Raven gathered her cloak in one hand, turned to the left like a ballerina building momentum and dissolved into thin air. Raven sat amidst the pink and purple for a long time.
By three o'clock, Raven lay spread-eagled on her bed, head heavy, wondering about the minute cracks in her ceiling, about the way the moonlight slanted through her curtains. She thought about the seeming indolence of the world when something cataclysmic happened in the emotional plane, how the night wore on, silent and serene even as her own heart was caught in a raging storm.
She though, of all things, of how this was a lot like taking a step to realize you'd broken an ankle. You'd lay all your weight on it for all of a second before angry bursts of pain shot up through the leg and you'd fall, gasping, hurting and bewildered. Because the realization did bring pain.
Tread marks on her carpet.
Light nail scores on her arms like half moons where she clutched them.
She had felt respect for Azar, a fearful sort of attachment to her mother, a fierce affection for Robin, Cyborg and Star, and a giddy infatuation for Malchior. The ambiguous pressure that curled around heart when she thought of Beast Boy, however…
Fear, joy, expectation and despair. Like surfacing for air after being near drowning.
She was in uncharted territory.
Raven had learned well enough what denial of her emotions caused on the fabric of reality when she'd brought a monster from a horror movie to life. Which was how, by six o'clock she'd resolved not to avoid company in general or Beast Boy in particular (not more than she regularly did, at least), and to let herself feel.
They were part of a team. They battled criminals that would try her patience and demand that she use her powers to great effect. Avoidance would breed still more strife in her and unbalance the team, she might grow unused to Beast Boy's presence and become unstable when their paths did cross. And, if she allowed herself a second of naked honesty, she knew not seeing him would do little to quell her quiet longings to do so.
Suppressing desire didn't weaken the longing. It gave it strength. So when her alarm clock rang at seven, she stopped it in the middle of the first ringing and went about her morning routine.
She felt Robin's calm psyche as he headed for training room, Star's joy at the morning bursting to life not fifteen minutes later, and forcibly made her powers dormant. She idled in her room, trying to read, trying to meditate, until finally succumbing to hunger by nine.
Everyone was in the common room when the pneumatic door opened.
Star was carefully spooning a repeat of her blue gunk dish into Silkie's eager mouth, Robin had turned away from the main computer to stare at her glowing face, Cyborg was momentarily absent…
…and there was Beast Boy, devouring his tofu scrambled eggs without a care in the world. But of course, he had to be the first to notice her. "Morning Rae!" then he thought back on what he'd said and smiled at the silly double entendre. Raven could almost hear his thoughts, knowing he'd be mentally filing the weak joke for later use. She shook her head, just barely catching her own smile before it broke her careful façade.
She'd get some toast and whatever Cyborg might have left for her on the stove, read her book on the couch like she did every other day, and everything would be alright.
"Yo BB, the last installment of Crash Bandit Kart, just in!"
Raven's head didn't move, her eyes continued to wander down the words, the words were consigned to her memory all the same. But the world around her stopped being a distant shuffle of white noise.
"Cool! So unless the alarm- nah, never mind, not gonna jinx it, how about I kick your ass around for a bit?"
"What!? You wish, scrawny butt."
"Hey!"
They'd have to come to the couch, of course. Raven tried hard not to care when Beast Boy chose the side closest to her. She had to put in a little more effort when he sprawled onto the couch, one thigh coming to rest beside her own, bare in her leotard, and remembered just in time that this behavior merited a retort before shuffling away.
"Yes, please do invade my space, Beast Boy."
"Yeah, sorry Rae. But this seat? Best angle when playing first person." He pointed to the couch cushion for emphasis.
"You'd know, of course." His smiling eyes felt unexpectedly hard to meet, so she looked at his hands instead, confused. She mused idly about how Beast Boy rarely, if ever, took off his gloves, then realized she was staring and snapped her attention back to her reading.
They played several rounds as she read her book on the sidelines, sometimes even managing to get genuinely annoyed at the noise. But then he'd win and do his idiotic victory dance, and she'd feel her eyes pause for a second in her book, the noise aggravating yet endearing. She wanted to roll her eyes and mutter something sarcastic, to which he'd quip back and start an argument, or maybe make light of it and start a conversation.
Star had even paused on her way out to let Raven know she'd be welcome to join in on her morning flight. She'd refused. Because she wanted to read her book there. She wanted to stay. She wondered if screaming would feel as purging as her mind suggested it would.
She clutched her book a little harder instead.
A hairline fracture promptly appeared across the rim of the mug Robin was raising to his lips in the kitchen area, where he always went to prepare himself his first coffee once Star had left.
"Something wrong, Raven?" He glanced at her, then examined the broken ceramic, put out. Probably wondering if it would keep together if he ventured a drink.
"Yeah. Just haven't been sleeping well." A half truth, since she'd only been disturbed from her sleep the night before. Insomnia did make it harder not to succumb to strong emotions.
"Maybe you should go on to your room and meditate?"
"Maybe." Deflection. She was too high strung at the moment to concentrate.
"Tea?"
"Why not?" She put her book down on the couch cushion and vaulted over its back, headed towards the cupboard that housed her tea blends. Valerian for her overenergized brain, a dash of lemon balm for peace. She dusted the herbs into the kettle, waited as it came to boiling point -
"Eurgh, what stinks? It's like the lining of a sweaty tennis shoe. A Cinderblock-sized one." Beast Boy was looking at her and Robin, nose wrinkled and wearing an expression of outrage so deep it was almost comical.
"It's valerian root, kid." Cyborg didn't even pause in the act of activating the turbo of his animated vehicle as he answered. "Not exactly Chanel number five, and it tastes a little bitter, but it's great for insomnia. And anxiety."
Beast Boy continued glaring at the kitchen like its occupants had offended all of his ancestors. "So you have to actually drink the stuff too?" He shuddered.
"I wouldn't have to drink this stuff if some of us learned to be seen and not heard."
"Nice try Rae, but in all the years I've known you, you've never stunk up the kitchen like that." He smirked, then seemed to take another whiff of the steeping valerian and cringed. "Trust me, I'd remember that."
"Yes, I suppose something had to stick eventually."
"Hey, that was…actually, that was lame Rae." His expression lost its pointed, mocking edge. "Real bad night?" He might have been remembering his own sleepless wanderings.
"I dreamed of you, actually." Wait for it, wait for it… "I woke up screaming for help."
"Whoa, that intense?" He raised an eyebrow, slinging his arm over the back of the couch in what he must have thought was a suave, inviting way. Their teasing didn't often venture into this territory, but even as Raven identified it as a joke, a hint of warmth was flooding her cheeks. She was loathe to admit it, but she had nothing to toss back.
"BOOYAH!" The screen flashed with fireworks and virtual confetti as Cyborg's kart made it over the finish line, Beast Boy swiveled around in open-mouthed dismay, and Raven could breathe again. "And once again, widdle Garfie shall dine on the fine cuisine of Chez Cyborg, because you just got served! Woohoo!"
"We're so gonna have some serious issues if you ever call me that again."
"Is there a radio on in here, or is that the griping of Garfie I hear?"
"Dude, that is it!"
Raven turned her back on the spectacle for a moment to share an understanding glance with Robin. He was tipping his coffee into another mug, grinning tolerantly. "And then they ask why we drink." He quipped, even though his drink was perfectly free of alcohol and all of them knew it.
Robin had no idea how right he was. The sheer irony brought a laugh from Raven, and a mildly shocked tilt of the head from their leader. Another race was starting on the large screen, and Raven decided she'd exposed herself enough for the present time, summoning her book from the couch seat and gathering both it and her cup to go find a quieter place to read.
She felt less and less inclined to leave with each step, and had to coax herself through the common room door.
I am the undisturbed surface of a deep, dark lake.
Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos. Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos.
The guileless look in his eyes. The way his smile curves too deeply, honest in its artlessness.
Raven sighed and dropped out of her meditative hovering. She hauled herself off the bed, ignoring the book she'd carried about all morning and picked a tome from the shelf that housed her poetry with her powers, choosing at random. It was Shakespeare, and she wasn't often in the mood for him, but he was appreciated.
She opened it, the firm spine cracking from lack of use, and rifled through line upon line until a particular page caught her attention.
My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease
The strength drained out of her legs and she dropped heavily back onto the mattress, caught in a whirlwind. Identification. Despair. And somewhere underneath her bewilderment and mild horror, there was exhilaration.
Affection. Lavender Raven, she decided, would be called Affection.
She felt cold with fear and weak with disappointment at the thought, warm with animation, oddly giddy with something like catharsis. Letting herself feel.
Yes, she was feverish.