TRANSITION
(START
IF [Anyone Asks] THEN
DO [Titans = Not Mine]
UNTIL [Heat Death of Universe = True]
ELSE [Incoherent Mumbling]
ENDIF
-Concolor44)
CHAPTER 9
… elsewhere …
When Rachel finally opened her eyes, it was to find Jinx gazing at her steadily. The pink-haired sorceress was lying beside her, lightly and slowly stroking Rachel's arm. A warm smile grew on the Titan's face. "Hi."
"Rae, can I ask you a question?"
"You just did, so I guess you can."
Jinx's lips quirked in a quickly-repressed smile. "Your point. And really, I've got more than one."
"Ask away."
"Why did you kiss me?"
Rachel reached up with her free hand and laid it against Jinx's neck. "We have a reasonably solid emotional link. You can know what I feel if you want to. Why don't you tell me?"
Several seconds eased by hesitantly before Jinx said, "Because I'm afraid."
Scooting herself a little closer, Rachel draped her arm over Jinx's waist. "Okay, then, I have a question for you."
The other girl gave her an apprehensive look. "I'm afraid of that, too."
"You needn't be. It's a simple question, easily remedied with one word. I was wondering – have been wondering for a long time – what your given name is. All I know is 'Jinx', and I don't think your parents named you that."
Jinx's lips twisted in distaste. "My parents. Well. Why don't we talk about something more pleasant? Like, for instance, amoebic dysentery?"
"Whoa. Touched a nerve there."
Jinx rolled away and stood, then walked off in the general direction of the crystal cavern. Rachel shortly followed her, never losing sight of the bobbing pink hair. Jinx flopped down on another of the convenient mossy hummocks right at the edge of the opening into the scintillating universe of light. Her companion stopped a few steps to her right, and waited for her to speak.
It was a long wait. She silently stared out into the actinic glory for quite a while. But at last Jinx said, "I don't think about my parents. Not unless I have to … and I don't have to very often."
"From that boiling kettle of emotional stew I can sense, I'd say you have some unresolved issues with them."
Jinx barked a laugh at that. "You think?"
Rachel came over and dropped to her knees, capturing the gaze from those pink eyes. "I know you've been on your own for a long time. You entered the H.I.V.E. Academy when you were twelve, but you'd been living on the streets. That's not anybody's concept of 'normal' for a kid. I know you're not 'normal' in the usual sense – for that matter, neither am I – but even so, that's mighty strange."
Jinx glanced away. "And I turned out mighty strange, didn't I? Truth in advertizing."
Rachel reached over and trailed her fingers down Jinx's arm, causing a shiver. "I don't want to make you uncomfortable. Azar knows I've already done that enough for one lifetime."
"Several."
Rachel chuckled. "As you say. But if you'd rather not talk about it …"
"That's not really the problem." She paused, studying Rachel's face. "You've got a demon for a dad, right?"
"… That's right."
"Tried to destroy the world? Kill everyone? Bring about the Apocalypse? That sort of thing?"
"Yes. He did. How does that relate to …"
"And you stopped him."
"Well … yes. With a significant amount of help."
"Uh-huh." Jinx nodded. "Well, we may have that in common. My father might not have been a real, live, magic-working, fire-conjuring demon, but you'd never know it by his actions … at least not where I was concerned."
A sympathetic frown came to rest on Rachel's face. "I'm sorry."
"Not as sorry as I was, I'll bet." She was silent for a few seconds, and then seemed to come to a decision. Nodding to herself, she continued, "I'd always been … what they called 'funny-looking', and my, ah, 'gift' showed up pretty early. By the time I was five or six my relatives were referring to me as 'that black cat girl' or 'little miss bad luck' or 'the walking accident'. I couldn't control it then, and things just … happened. I didn't know what was going on. If I got mad, things would break. My mother …" she spat the word out like a piece of bad fruit, "thought I was possessed. She and an aunt had joined this stupid cult, and they dragged me to the leader guy for an exorcism. They called him Brother Buck. He went through a bunch of mumbo-jumbo and told them that, yes, I was harboring a demon and that it would take a lot of work to get rid of it. He had them bring me back the following night, and he had one of the rooms in his house fixed up like a set from 'Tales From the Crypt'. They all prayed around me – lots of screaming and crying and babbling and crap – and then he sent the others out and set me down in a chair and put his hands on my head while doing his own wailing and moaning. Then he told me I had to get undressed."
"Oh, Jinx, no!"
The pink eyes narrowed. "Oh, yes. He, ah, patted me down pretty thoroughly. Then he made me get dressed again and called in the women and told them he needed to see me the next night. That went on for four nights."
"What an awful creep!"
"Uh-huh. The fifth night he had 'em take me back to his … bedroom …" She stopped, looked away, and swallowed. "He gave me something to drink. Then he had these … these thick, silk ropes and he … tied me down. I don't remember much of what happened after that."
Rachel whispered, "By Azar."
"The next night he had them bring my father, too. Brother Buck sent the women out and explained to my father what needed to be done. They tied me to the bed, face-down. Then … my father took a big leather belt and he …"
"Jinx, please," she said around the huge lump in her throat, "you don't have to …"
"… and he stood at the end of the bed and watched while Brother Buck fucked me in the ass. My father just stood there and let him." Jinx's voice was nearly a deadpan; she might have been discussing carpet samples with a salesman. "It hurt so much. I cried and screamed until my throat bled, but he wouldn't look at me. Brother Buck kept calling me 'bitch' and 'whore' and 'abomination'. After a while my father started to beat me across the back with the belt, but it didn't hurt as much as what Brother Buck was doing. He kept saying, 'Out! Out! Out!' like some kind of mantra."
Rachel was crying freely now. She hugged the other girl close.
"I was nine."
Racking sobs shook the dark-haired girl as she held Jinx and relived that ordeal with her. After quite a few minutes, when Rachel had regained a measure of calm, Jinx continued, "Brother Buck had a pacemaker. It suddenly went into overload, and he fell off of me and keeled over on the floor. My father started yelling, and the women came back in and saw what they were doing, and … there was a lot more screaming and yelling. At some point I realized that all the ropes had broken. I scooted off the bed, grabbed my clothes, and ran home."
"I didn't sleep that night. Every part of me hurt, 'specially where Brother Buck had been having his way with me. It had bled for a while. I was so scared they'd take me back there. Of course by then he was dead, but I didn't know that at the time. I didn't understand what had happened to me, except that my father, who was supposed to protect me from shit like that, had tossed me to the wolves and just watched while they tore me apart. Way before dawn the next morning my mother dragged me out of bed and told me I had to leave. She said the demon in me had killed Brother Buck and that my father had told her it was him or me. I tried to explain what happened, but she slapped me and told me to shut up. That's when the water heater exploded."
"Exploded!"
Jinx gave no sign that she'd heard Rachel's exclamation. "It was a gas heater. Caught the house on fire. We all ran outside. My … father had a shotgun. He was yelling about how the demon had done it, and the demon had to die, and he pointed the gun at me."
"Oh, god."
"I saw him do it. I saw the look in his eye, that awful hate, that terrible fear. He wasn't a well-educated man. He held his share of superstitions. I guess it's possible that he really did think I had a demon in me." Her pretty mouth twisted in disgust. "He was going to kill me. He had every intention of killing me, and I knew it cold. I was so scared I couldn't even scream. But I threw a hand out, and this pink ball of flame shot over and hit the gun … and it blew up in his hands. My mother screamed, and … I think she ran over to him. That part's kinda hazy. But it was like … all of a sudden I had this … fountain inside me. It just swelled up and filled me. Another ball of pink fire popped up in my hand, and I threw that one, too, toward the house. There was another explosion – what went 'bang' that time, I don't know – and the nearest wall started to fall toward us."
Rachel's breathing was fast and shallow. The emotional torrent streaming off Jinx nearly overwhelmed her.
"I ran." She took a long pull of air through her nose and let it out slowly. "I ran all the way to downtown, dodging through alleys and back yards, and I hid in the baggage compartment of a bus, and I left that place, and I never went back." She twisted around a little to face Rachel more fully. "I don't know if they're dead or alive, and I really don't care." She stopped, thought that over, and snorted. "Okay, I lie. I do care. I hope like hell they burned to death under that wall."
Jinx could tell at that point that Rachel was a basket case. The dark head shook in a regular rhythm of weeping. Jinx scooted closer and hugged her former enemy, trying to offer comfort and support.
Rachel looked up and asked, through the gasps and gulps and hiccups, "How c-c-can you bear it? How can you … get through th-the day … and not …"
"I once heard somebody say that it's really amazing what you can put up with, if it has to be put up with. That's how I do it."
"But you aren't even crying or …"
"I used up all the tears I had on that sack o' shit a long time ago. It would just waste water to do it all over again." She patted Rachel's head gently. "And to answer your first question, I like 'Jinx' a lot better than my given name, and I'd really rather you call me that."
"God, Jinx, I had no idea you were so strong!"
She shook her head emphatically. "I'm not strong. I'm stubborn. It's different." She smoothed Rachel's hair back away from her tear-stained face. God, she's beautiful. Inside and out. "Hey, Rae, you gonna be okay?"
Rachel had caught the stray complimentary emotion as if flitted across Jinx's mind. "Yeah." … sniff … "I think so. If you are. And you look like you are."
Rachel was already in Jinx's arms, the dark head cradled just under her collarbone. She looked so cute and vulnerable and sincere … and handy. It just seemed like the most natural thing in the world to bend the remaining few centimeters necessary to bring their lips together.
Jinx had a much better vantage point this time to examine how she felt about this.
Physically, it was incredible. Rachel was all soft lines and smooth curves, her lips plump and rich, still hot and trembling slightly from her weeping. She tastes like a cool autumn evening! Jinx pulled away for just an instant to take a breath, and then when she reached down to recapture that glorious mouth, Rachel was nothing if not encouraging. She twined her fingers into Jinx's cotton-candy tresses and held on hard.
Emotionally it was even better. She knew what Rachel was feeling (especially as close as they were now!) and it resonated with her own response, building together into a towering crag of desire that made her weak and light-headed.
They broke the kiss and rested, breathing hard, clutching each other fiercely. More than a minute passed before Jinx broke the silence. "Rae?"
"… Yes?"
"How did … we get here?"
"By a crooked road, of that I'm sure."
Jinx buried her face in the hollow of Rachel's neck, squeezing her eyes hard to stop the tears. Rachel whispered, "You don't have to hold back on my account."
"But … Jinxes don't … cry."
"Maybe they should."
"No! I can't …"
"Can't what?"
Almost inaudibly, "… I'm afraid."
"I understand. You're afraid to love." The emotional backlash from that simple statement rocked the empath's mind. "Oh, Jinx, I'm so sorry! You've never … No. You haven't. Oh, Jinx." She scooted herself a little farther up Jinx's lanky form, softly pressed her lips to the pink hair, then to the cheek under it, then to the lids of each of her marvelous cat-like eyes. A few wet spots on Jinx's face marked the passage of Rachel's tears as she fitted their minds together. "The only people you ever dared to love unconditionally were not worthy of it. You were betrayed. You have never loved anyone unreservedly since."
Jinx shook her head, not trusting her voice.
"And you're afraid it will be the same with me. That I will … hate you? Jinx!"
"I'm sorry!"
"Oh, Sweetie! Jinx, look at me." The pink head stayed where it was, her face hidden behind her long bangs. "Jinx? Please?"
The pink irises found hers, the vertical-slit pupil nearly round in the low light. All the need and fear in those eyes tore at Rachel like a grappling hook, and she cradled her new love gently. "Do you think me untrustworthy?"
"What?" Jinx sat up suddenly, pulling back a little. "No! I don't! I couldn't! Just knowing what you feel … I mean, it's … I can't …"
"Exactly. Hon, please don't be afraid to love me. Because I'm certainly not afraid to love you."
Jinx stared into those deep purple orbs for several long moments, breathing raggedly. "But why not?"
"Why would I be?"
"… Because I'm a criminal! I mean, shit, Rae, come on! We've been on opposite sides of the law since before we met!"
"And why do you think that is?"
"… Uh … because I liked stealing stuff and you liked stopping me?"
Rachel's tinkling laugh made Jinx's belly go all wobbly. "That's yet another thing I love about you. You have a brutal honesty and a delightful turn of phrase."
"And it still doesn't fix our problem."
Rachel reached over and pulled the taller girl to her breast. "I think we can burn that bridge when we come to it. In the mean time, we are here, and we have each other, and our problems, such as they are, are back on Earth."
"… I suppose."
"And Earth is tens of thousands of light years from here, and the long arm of the law just isn't long enough."
Jinx couldn't really argue with that logic. She snuggled into the soft, silken weight of Rachel's bosom. "And to think that a few days ago we were trying to kill each other."
"I never …"
"Yeah, hang on, me too. That was just a figure of speech. I know you never tried to kill me. And I didn't really want to kill you, either. I wanted you to leave me alone." She cuddled closer and followed that up with, "But not now! Please, please, don't ever leave me alone again!"
Rachel whispered, "I won't! Oh, my sweet, precious Jinx, believe me, I won't!"
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And that's the end of the chapter itself.
I have been informed (and THANK YOU to that perspicacious fellow) that I may have been infringing the rules a bit with my Interlude. Therefore, I am moving the bulk of that piece to my Profile, and only including the Accolades to My Reviewers here.
100 Silver Wings, your reviews REALLY make my day. It's easy to tell that you incline a fair number of brain cells to the task, and you invest the time required to put it all down cogently. That is all the coin I ask, and you pay handsomely. Thank you so much!
Spikesagitta, I must agree with your assessment: Raven + Jinx = Teh Awesum. That's why I'm doing this (and for a couple of other reasons that I'll get to in a bit).
Kaleidoscope-of-Insanity, we are of one mind concerning Gar. I've never been very fond of his basic character or (especially) the way he was always written. He had SO MUCH potential, and they NEVER let him cut loose. I figured it was about time.
Destroyahirismix666, I am pleased that you are hooked. I hope it didn't hurt too much!
So. On to the next chapter!
