Valda: Good point, and I know. Instead of you seeing that, I was hoping to convey that he won't show himself (his full self) to anyone but Sara. (Besides the fact that it is unmentioned that he has paranoia that someone is watching him, a hint that will soon come in handy!)
A/N: I have big ideas for both the adults and teenagers, so don't think this is a purely romance story. I am actually just building up a beginning before I get into the real action. I hope y'all like where I'm going with this story!
Disclaimer:
Me: Teen Titans are not mine. I'm going to go ask my psychotic teammate to bash my head in with her Lacrosse stick until they are mine.
Fans: How will that help?
Me: I don't know. It'll jog my brain cells so I can think of an idea how to own them. I always do it whenever I need an idea and it always works forrrr meeee…trails off into a drool-ful concussion
Fans: uhh…backs away slowly
TT2"Richard!" Kori squealed nervously, rushing about her house with three bowls and two bottles in her arms. "They are almost here! Are you ready?"
"Kor, cool your jets. They won't be here for another ten minutes. We have time, I promise!" he called from their bedroom, where he was pulling on a pair of jeans over his swim trunks.
"My jets are cooled!" she retorted frantically, slinking outside and spreading the various treats across a glass coffee table.
Richard came jogging out onto the patio a few minutes later, before their majestic pool and garden. "It's an expression, babe. You don't have jets."
"How are you to know?" she asked skeptically, crossing her now free arms over her chest. "You did not know I had eight more stomachs than you, what else might you not know about me?"
Richard sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Ok, Kor, let's do it this way." Richard came forward and enveloped her small body in his arms "Calm down, hun. It'll be fine. I know it's your first party not including royal parties you've had on Tamaran, but it'll be fine. It's just Gar, Rae, and Vic." He imbued her with a great sense of accomplishment, and he could see her face light up considerably. "They don't care about the party. They care about spending time with us. Calm down." He pressed his lips to her forehead.
The doorbell rang and Kori's fears came back as she squealed in surprise. "Now go be a good little hostess and let our guests in," he joked, giving her a small and heartwarming hug.
Kori smiled feebly. "Thank you."
"Anytime, babe," he cooed, before stretching out on a lounge chair and flipping a pair of sunglasses over his eyes.
A few moments later, Kori came back with Garfield, Raven, and Victor at her heels. "Hey Richy," Victor greeted, giving his friend a high five which turned into a manly hug. "How goes it?"
"Just fine, man," Richard replied. "Hey Rae, hey Gar," he greeted his other best friends, sitting up from his lounge chair and peering at them through his sunglasses. His eyes traveled down to their intertwined hands. "Heard about your little beach escapade last night. Way to go, Gar," Richard told him nonchalantly.
Garfield turned a bright hue of crimson. "How'd you know? We haven't told anyone!"
"Damn, man, it was all over the news," Victor stated, throwing his stuff on a chair next to Richard's and joining the conversation. "Even I picked that up when I was…" Victor trailed off and turned slightly pink, before mumbling, "Err never mind."
"When you were what?" Raven asked, having just spoken up for the first time.
"When I was at home last night. I turned on the news and I saw the footage of you two making out on the beach," he replied calmly. "I can believe you two went at it without even realizing there was a Paparazzi around."
Garfield let out a laugh harder than intended and earned a glare from Victor, and strange looks form everyone else. "Ahh…sorry," he responded in a small voice, managing a weak smile and turning red yet again. "Nervous reaction."
"Ok then…" Richard trailed off. "Let's go swim now!"
Everyone agreed unanimously, as Raven asked Gar what had happened. He replied with a very vague shrug, before pulling off his black shirt and his cargo shorts. Richard kicked off his jeans and waited for Kori to slowly and accurately untie the ties on her intricately designed tank top, and unbutton and pull down her jeans. "Urgh!" he grunted when she was finally in nothing but her bathing suit. "You take too long!" he groaned, before taking the initiative to scoop her up and throw her petite body over his shoulder
"Let me down!" Kori shrieked, thrashing and beating upon his back. "Kreknar perta nui setrax mela…" Kori continued to rant in Tamaranian and beat on his back until Richard had pulled her back and thrown her in the pool. She came up sputtering and-obviously-wet. Reverting to her old ways, the woman fueled up a Starbolt and shot at her fiancée, but he dodged it and chuckled. Caught off-guard, though, she shot again and hit him right in the leg.
"Oww!" he moaned in pain, hobbling to the edge of the pool to sit down. "You burned my bad knee!"
"You are lucky," she hissed. "That was NOT my original target."
"Hey, if you want any more children you best no be aiming for my-" he started, but was cut off by Raven.
"Ok, I am pretty sure none of us want to hear you finish that sentence," she deadpanned. Richard whimpered a little before submerging his burned knee in water and then slipping into the shallow end of the pool. This was followed by a "Cowabunga!", and a large splash as Vic cannon-balled into the pool. Vic swam to where his four friends congregated and rose from the water, with droplets dripping off his head.
"I jumped in to avoid hearing a sentence that would most likely scar me for life," he joked, grinning wickedly. "Thank God I jumped in when I did, or I might've-" he stopped, gave a fake shudder, and grinned again.
"Hey, Vic, Man, what mauled your back?" Richard asked suddenly, swimming over to him.
"What do ya mean?" he asked casually, though he had a pretty good inkling what his friend was talking about. Richard frowned as he stood in front of Victor's back, tracing the scratches that started at the highest point of shoulders and went down to the bottom of his tensed shoulder blades.
"I mean did you get into a fight with a lawnmower? These look fucking raw," he stated, withdrawing his hand.
"Oh, man, I nearly forgot," Victor faked, turning around to face Richard, and Kori gasped as she took a good look at his back. "I was paying rent today-y'know old Mrs. Smithers-and her Great Dane was playing around with me and accidentally scratched my back. She offered to patch me up, but I told her I'd do it myself because I was running late. I guess I forget to do so."
Richard's eyes bugged. "Violent dog."
"Naw, he's just playful," Victor told him. "I barely felt it, though. The skin's tough, thanks to the realistic holographic projector on my new and improved holo-rings. Technology has come so far I'm proud to say I could very well look, sound, feel, smell, and taste human soon."
"Taste?" Richard asked, a semi-interested eyebrow raised.
"Er-hah-I got caught up in the moment," he chuckled nervously. "But, technically, if someone were to lick me-" Victor glared at Garfield, who had burst into laughter "-not like that you sick-o!-I would taste human."
"Lovely," Raven stated sarcastically. "I needed to hear that."
Victor chuckled, leaning back and swimming about in the shallow end. "Aw, Rae, cut the guy a break, it's not his fault he hasn't gotten laid in a while."
Victor looked taken aback at his best friend stating something so bold, but let it go. "Yes it is," Raven retorted with an evil smile.
"You're very nice," Gar told her. "Maybe if you're gonna be mean like that, I'll sleep on the couch tonight."
"Well maybe I'll just have to…" she trailed off and moved to jump on his back. "Jump you!"
"Ok, something WE could've lived without," Victor retorted with a smirk. "Just so you know. Right?" he asked of his two friends, and they both smirked and nodded in agreement.
"Uh, not like you two haven't ever been like that," Raven told them in a knowing tone. "So don't even think about making fun of us for it."
Victor laughed as he watched this exchange, but the ringing of his cell phone broke the silence. It was the song he had heard when he went to meet Jenna at the club. "Ooh hold on," he told them, jumping from the pool and shaking himself dry real quickly, before digging into his bag for his cell phone.
"Yello?" he asked as he flipped open the phone and pressed it to his ear, which was full of water. "Wait a sec." He tapped the other side of his head in hopes of getting the excess water out. "Yello?"
"Hey babe," a voice purred on the other line.
"Hey there," he replied, his voice getting deeper as he slid back onto a lawn chair. "What up?"
"I'm on break at work and dead bored. Neither Matt nor Jimmy got the same lunch shift as me, and everyone else went out to eat. They invited me, but I told them I'd hang back in case Jones needed me to start working earlier than one," she explained. Jenna leaned back on the bench she was currently perched upon, and began swinging her bare legs back and forth.
"Sounds like fun," he responded, pulling up a knee and resting his arm upon it.
"It is when I get to talk to you," she cooed. "What are you up to?"
"I'm having a little pool party with the Titans, at Richard and Kori's house," he told her. "Ahh, they saw your…souvenirs…on my back," he whispered this so the other Titans wouldn't hear.
"Oh…" she whispered in a small voice, blushing. "Sorry."
"I'm not," he replied in a throaty voice.
"Well, then," she purred. "Tonight…there's a club in upper Jump City. Me and a few of my buddies are regulars there. You up for it?"
"Definitely can't wait," he responded, his eyes traveling to his friends who had now engaged in a small game of Chicken. "And maybe afterwards," he whispered. "We can head back to my place and…well…I think you can fill in the blanks."
"Sounds like fun. I get out at five, so I'll be ready by seven. Meet us at The Chill tonight at seven-thirty. Tell the bouncer who's working, Big Mac, that Jenna sent you. He'll let you in," she told him. "Don't party too much today or you'll be too worn out to party with me tonight."
"I'd never dream it," he told her.
"Can I ask you something?" Jenna began in a small voice, working up the courage to ask the question she had thought about for the past few days.
Victor was puzzled for a moment. "Anything. Shoot."
"The Titans…your friends…they don't know about us, do they?" she asked him softly.
Victor sighed once he pieced together what the real meaning behind that statement was. She didn't care about them knowing, he knew that. She cared about them accepting their relationship. "Gar is the only one that knows. I haven't had the courage to tell anyone else, because though Kori would trust you, she would immediately tell Richard who would tell Raven, and they are the two least trusting of the bunch. You're special to me, Jenna, you really are, but I need some time before I'm ready to tell them how special you are to me. Please believe me."
"I believe you, Vic," she stated softly, smiling tenderly and feeling her eyes water slightly. "You know, you're the first guy to ever treat me this special."
"I don't see why. You deserve to be treated as extraordinary as you are," he whispered. "Look, Rich is coming over so I have to go. I'll see you tonight though. Bye."
"See you tonight. Bye baby," she replied before the other line clicked and she was gone. Victor sighed and flipped his phone shut, before putting a fake smile on.
"Hey man," he said to Rich, putting his phone back into his bag and standing up.
"Who was that?" Richard asked, walking back to the pool with his long-time friend. "You were on the phone for-like-five minutes. Is that your little girlfriend Bee?"
"Naw, man," he told him. "I forgot to tell y'all, Bee and I broke up."
"What?" Richard asked, his eyes bugging as he stopped in his tracks. "You're kidding. Why? I thought everything was going along fine, why did you two give up what you had?"
Victor sighed. "Well, I guess we both felt that while we were so far away, it'd be hard to keep faithful to each other when now in the real world. We didn't want to do anything we regretted, so I guess we just needed to see other people," he told him.
"Hey, guess what" Richard announced to the occupants of the pool. "Vic here's a single man."
"What?" Kori asked in disbelief, swimming over to where he sat delicately upon the edge. She crossed her arms on his lap and rested her chin upon them, looking up at him. "You and Karen have split up?"
"Yea, we decided to move on and see different people…who knows, we might get back together, but for now, I'm a free man," he told them all, grinning widely. He and Garfield shared furtive glances.
It was their little secret, for now.
TT2"Dear Azar, I am wiped," Raven whined as she arrived home at near five that night with Garfield. She collapsed on the couch, on top of her fiancée.
"You're on me," he commented, muffled into her hair.
"I know," she chuckled. "I was too lazy to walk over to the other couch."
"I can see that," he replied, blowing her hair out of the way and wrapping his arms around her petite waist. "And now you're on me."
"So I've heard," she replied, gently rolling over to face him. Raven pressed her lips to his. "And now I'm kissing you."
"Ooh, I'm beginning to like this," he cooed, leaning up to kiss her softly again. She entangled her hands in his green hair, which had been revealed when he discarded his holo-ring upon a nearby table.
The doorbell rang throughout their apartment. Raven sighed and stood up form her rather comfortable spot upon Garfield. He began whining and sat up as she walked to the door. "And I'm beginning to dislike this," he whimpered, scrambling up and grabbing her around the waist.
Raven squealed and laughed at the same time, her hands resting over his on her stomach. "You psycho, let me get the damn door," she chuckled, walking to the door with him behind her, his chin rested on her exposed shoulder.
"Never will I ever let you do anything without me. Ever," he told her, chuckled, as she pulled at the knob and let the door glide open.
A small frame stood in the door, about 5' 5", with long sun-bleached hair and small freckles dotting her pretty face. Her blue eyes shined with tears.
"Beast Boy?" her voice quivered. The man before her let his arms fall from his fiancée's waist and his previous smile dropped.
"Terra?"
TT2Victor was walking into The Chill that night, striding with one hand in his pocket and the other running over his head, a smile across his lips.
"Hey man," one of Jenna's friends, Matty, greeted. "Sup?" he adjusted his sideways baseball cap and gave Vic a sly smirk. "Jenna's waitin' for you. Better get in there before she gets anymore impatient. She's not a fun girl when she's impatient."
"Trust me, I know that," Vic responded with a chuckle. Matty moved to give him a high-five and Victor returned the gesture. He realized Matty had a long, raw scar running down his palm and turned back to ask him about it, but he disappeared.
Victor shrugged and supposed he must've cut himself or something. Sure it was nothing important, he let it go as he journeyed towards the center of the club. Loud, pulsing Kanye West music was coming from the clubroom, in the form of his popular song "Golddigger".
Victor entered the main room to see Jenna dancing in a pack of her close girlfriends, with a few of the boys he had met the other night. "Hey you," he greeted, coming up next to her and giving her a quick hug and a tender kiss.
"Hey there," Jenna greeted in a seductive voice. She was clad in tight blue-jeans, a black corset top, and a black choker with a pale pink amulet. "Glad to see you could get away from the Titans for a while to see your favorite sorceress."
"Ooh…" he started jokingly. "Who said you were my favorite sorceress?"
"I supposed you did the other night when you said-" her voice got progressively louder, and Victor knew what she was about to say. Hastily, he covered her mouth and grinned sheepishly.
"Ok, you win. Just…don't say that out loud in public," he told her, turning slightly pink. Jenna smirk as Victor removed his hand. "Now, then," he started casually. "I came here to dance with my girl, and I hope that's what I get to do now."
"But of course," she replied, her smirk turning into a small grin. She threw her arms around his neck, and began swaying her hips back and forth, noticed by the pack of girlfriends she had been dancing with before.
"Ooh. Jenna's got a boyfriend!" one of them cooed, before laughing.
"Oh yeah, real funny," Jenna retorted. "I don't see you with anyone, Cassie!"
The girl named Cassie promptly shut her mouth, and Victor chuckled. "Great control you have over your friends there," he whispered in her ear. Jenna smiled and shrugged. "It must be a gift. Synonymous to your many other gifts."
"You can say that again," she purred.
"Since when did innocent-well, not so innocent-little Jinx from the HIVE become such a frisky little sex Goddess?" he asked in a surprised tone, an eyebrow raised.
"Ever since I met you," she replied, her voice merely a baritone hum as they continued dancing. The song eventually melded into Missy Elliot's "Lose Control". The dancing was now more fast-paced, but Vic's stance hadn't changed, with his arm still around her waist.
"Shit!" Vic cursed aloud as the song came to an end and melded into something he had never heard before. In the doorway, standing tall and unmistakable, were two people he was sure he did NOT want to see right now: Richard and Kori.
"What's wrong?" Jenna asked, following his gaze to the two former Titans standing in the doorway. "Oh shit."
"Yea. I can't let them see me. Rich will blow a fucking fuse!" he hissed, grabbing her hand and staying low to try to evade the pair. The two had successfully gotten to the other side of the room, far away from both Titans, when Victor spoke up. "I'm so sorry," he said, a melancholy look on his face. "I just…I treasure their friendship, and I don't to ruin it over you. Because I treasure you too."
"It's fine. I understand, Vic. I just…y'know, being me, I don't care, so I would willingly walk up to them, slap them both in the face, and tell them we're dating whether they like it or not." Victor chuckled as they continued their dancing routine.
"I just don't get it. It seems like my friends are stalking me. I see Gar and Rae at the restaurant, and now I see Kori and Richard at the club. I have my own personal bodyguards, when I can clearly take care of myself," he told her, with an over-exaggerated roll of the eyes.
Jenna giggled endearingly and kissed him. "Maybe it's just a strike of bad luck." So no one else could see, Jenna pulled their bodies closer and fired up a ball of pink energy between them. "You do believe in bad luck, right?"
"Not ever since I met you, Jenna," he replied, kissing her back.
TT2The night found Victor and Jenna lying on a blanket in the grass at a local park, at about eleven. They had successfully evaded Kori and Richard the whole night, and after a few close calls, called it a night for the club and moved on. They had retired to the park, and had been sitting there ever since.
"I think we should spend some time outside of the club," Jenna stated.
"Me too. I didn't want to say it and sound like a loser, though," he replied, blushing slightly.
"How about…I cook dinner for the two of us tomorrow night…just you and me?" she suggested, with a soft and genuine smile, turning around from lying on her back to hover over Vic slightly.
"I thought you couldn't cook?" he replied, an eyebrow raised.
"Well, I might've exaggerated a bit. I can cook, just not that well. It shouldn't be that hard if I follow a recipe," she replied confidently. "So what do you say?
"That sounds nice," he supposed. "And then afterwards, we can go back to my place, maybe watch the football game on new plasma-screen."
"You like football?" Jenna asked.
"Love it," he replied with a toothy grin.
"Awesome. Sounds like a plan."
They fell into silence once more.
"Hey Vic," Jenna started softly, curling up to his warmth as he adjusted his arm around her shoulders. They were both contemplating while looking towards the star-dotted sky.
"Yeah?" he asked back, his head lolling to rest upon the crown of hers.
"Do you believe in love at first fight?" she asked, trying hard to keep her straight and contemplative face.
"What?" he asked, his eyebrows furrowing. He retracted just a little bit to look her in the eyes, seeing her pinkish-hazel orbs were shining up at him. The small smile previously etched into her features lowered into a knowing smirk.
"Y'know…love at first fight," she repeated as if she used this term this casually everyday. Jenna laid her head on his chest and let him entangle his fingers in her long, straight hair. "I do. I believe that the first fight I ever fought you in was when I began to like you."
Victor chuckled and trailed his large, dark hand down to her face to stroke her milky skin. "It's a funny thing…I'm believing in things like these more and more everyday. But I think when I was really first impacted by you was…the fall formal. I remember Gizmo had a fit when he saw us together, and when you tricked him by telling him we were together. That fake-out make-out was the best moment of my life at that time."
Jenna smiled to herself and cuddled closer to him, purring contentedly. "Me too, Vic. Me too."
TT2