Xanthous: "Limerence"
lim·e·rence (ˈlimərəns) : n. the state of being involuntarily infatuated or obsessed with someone, typically characterized by the strong desire to have one's feelings reciprocated.
"Prophet!" said I, "Thing of evil!–prophet still, if bird or devil!–"
—Edgar Allan Poe, "The Raven"
"I'm not going in there."
Speedy stopped halfway across the threshold, hand on the doorknob, and rolled his eyes. Above him, a weakly buzzing "Psychic - Inquire Inside" sign creaked ominously as it swung back and forth. "And why the hell not?"
Raven purposely ignored him, spinning on her heel and turning away from the shady-looking "apothecary" but stopped abruptly, eyes wide, as she glanced across the street.
A man and a woman locked in a fierce embrace pressed up against a wall in the shadows of a side street. The man's back was turned but green cat's eyes flashed as the woman noticed Raven's shocked gaze. Dressed in nothing but a scrap of silk and stiletto heels, she smiled at Raven, her wicked grin a slash of scarlet across bone-white porcelain. Unexpected tension and desire pooled in Raven's belly as the woman made a show of dragging long, ebony-tipped nails down her lover's broad back before opening her mouth and sinking ivory fangs into his neck.
Speedy followed Raven's gaze and chuckled. "Well, that's just rude."
"I'm glad you think this is funny." Unable to keep watching, Raven glowered at the sidewalk and tried to get her erratic heart rate under control. She couldn't tell which excited her more, the scene across the street, or the secrets hiding behind the tea shop's ragged door.
Speedy took her arm and turned her to face him, his determined aura and set of his jaw and the heat of his hand on her arm messing with her resolve. "Come on, Raven. What do you have to lose? Besides," He gestured at the scene across the street and back at Raven's androgynous black combat suit. "I shouldn't have to tell you that outside appearances are usually deceptive."
Red paper lanterns strung haphazardly along dangerously low-hanging telephone lines bathed the street in an odd mix of crimson light and shadows. Raven shivered as the damp wind carried to her the scent of blood and sex. "I know that. I just don't like this place."
"This is Gotham's Red Light District, not Warm-and-Fuzzy-Feels-All-Around District—what'd you expect?" said Speedy as he snorted and opened the door. "Look, I trust this guy; he's given me and Nightwing a lot of legit leads in the past. But, if you'd rather stay out here, be my guest."
Raven scowled and pushed past him and into the shop. Of course she wouldn't rather stay out there. Besides, the comforting scent of spices and herbs coming from inside was…refreshing, to say the least.
"Welcome, welcome! I've been expecting you," said a very tall, very bearded, very rotund man swathed in expensive-looking scarves and gold jewelry from behind a counter covered in dust and scattered herbs and odd jars. Leaning heavily on his elbows, he framed his face with his hands and winked conspiratorially at Speedy before nodding at Raven. "So, is this the lovely devil you were telling me about, darling?"
Speedy nodded, having the decency to at least look embarrassed as Raven raised her eyebrow at him. "Raven, this is Madame Indigo. He—err, she?—is one of the most powerful warlocks in Gotham."
If Indigo was offended when Raven's other eyebrow shot up, he certainly didn't show it. "Witch," he simply corrected, and thrust out his arms to make grabbing motions at Raven with his stubby, ringed fingers. "Come here, then, and let Madame Indigo look at you!"
When Raven didn't move immediately, he surged forward over the counter and grabbed both of her hands in his, drawing her to him so that he could peer at her. Raven averted her gaze and as his eyes roved over her face and then the rest of her body, she tried not to notice the layers of grime caked under equal layers of make-up or be creeped out by the bits of food in his beard.
"So, you are the doomed one," Indigo said, voice suddenly grave, and Raven met his eyes sharply. His smile was pitying, though not unkind, as he released her hands. "There is not much I can do for you, little demon."
"Excuse me?" Her voice came out in a croak, and Speedy stepped closer protectively.
"Oh, dear." He looked back and forth between her and Speedy and his round, powdered cheeks sagged with genuine sorrow. "No one has told you?"
"Told me what?" Raven asked, patience wearing thin and temper flaring, but Indigo simply shook his head sadly, then motioned for them to follow him as he disappeared into the depths of the shop.
Speedy ignored Raven's wordless 'what the fuck?' and pushed her forward. "After you."
They were led to a room deep in the bowels of the shop that strongly resembled its owner—brightly colored fabric threaded with runes and pentagrams was draped virtually everywhere, and glinted under light cast by golden candelabras. Various trinkets, stacks of cards and small satchels bursting with twigs and bone littered every available surface, and Raven had to duck as furred pelts, dried lizards, strings of garlic and clusters of large strange-looking fungi hung from the ceiling.
"'Psychic' my ass," she muttered to Speedy under her breath, pointing out the bulbous mushrooms.
Indigo bade them sit in a pair of overly cushioned chairs as he procured a gilded box from one of the shelves lining the wall behind him. He carefully set it on the round table before them before lifting the top, revealing a large crystal ball. Raven took one look at it and immediately rose to go, but, once again, a warning glance from Speedy and his hand on her arm gave her pause, and she reluctantly settled back into her chair.
"It is odd that you have so little faith," said Indigo, as he removed his rings one by one and set them on the table beside him. "When you, too, rely heavily on magic and sorcery."
Raven stiffened as he chuckled, and Speedy laughed outright. She waited until they were finished before asking coolly, "Do you even know me?"
Indigo sobered, his eyes growing grim as he frowned thoughtfully at her. "I knew your mother. She came to me seeking protection just before you were born."
Raven scoffed, and her eyes narrowed dubiously. "Really. You knew my mother."
Indigo did not immediately respond, his eyes glazing over as he focused on something far beyond the room. When he spoke again, his voice was wistful. "You look exactly like her, you know."
"What did her mother need protection from?" Speedy spoke up after the witch had lapsed into another pensive silence.
"I…had always thought Satan a myth, you see. Just something to scare little witches and wizards into bed, or, I suppose, give the more wicked of us someone to pray to. So I humored her. Cast a circle of protection to hide her from her…pursuer."
He was stalling, and, nerves being as frayed as they were, Raven was about five minutes from ripping the truth from his fat throat herself. Her eyebrow twitched erratically. "She was running from the devil?"
"You have to understand—at the time, I didn't believe her. If I had known just who she carried, I would have made the circle stronger, more efficient—"
Raven's hand slammed down on the table, causing the witch to jump guiltily. "Who. Did. She. Carry?"
As if the words themselves were sacred, Indigo leaned forward and whispered: "La Mortifera."
Raven tried to look unruffled but her blood had run cold. Speedy tensed beside her, folding his arms across his chest. "Bringer of…Death?"
"Someone knows their Latin," Indigo said dryly, then sighed. "It would be easier to just show you, my dears." He reached for Raven and pretended not to notice her hands tremble as she took his. "Darling," he nodded to Speedy, eyes closed, "be a doll and snuff out the lights."
One by one, Speedy blew out the candles, and they were plunged into darkness. Raven didn't know she was fidgeting nervously until Speedy's hand closed around her knee, and stayed there. Naturally, her pulse only skyrocketed, and she wanted to tell him that he wasn't helping at all.
Gradually the glass ball filled with luminescent clouds, and Raven found herself inexplicably leaning forward to stare into it. She could just barely make out her face in the reflection of the glass, but as she looked closer, she realized that it was not a reflection at all. The Raven in the crystal ball looked alone, afraid and lost, the swirling smoke around her solidifying into the red lights and dark street in front of the apothecary.
"Is that…me?" Raven asked softly, afraid that her voice would shatter the illusion. The girl shifted, and the swollen curve of her belly became evident. "That can't be me. I'm not pregnant—"
"Silence," Indigo snapped, and Raven flinched because his voice had taken on an odd, otherworldly tone several octaves deeper than his falsetto. "Her name is Angela, and she is the woman who will bring La Mortifera into this world."
The room went eerily silent, and Raven's thudding heart ground to a halt. "My mother?"
As if she hadn't spoken, Indigo continued, and the images in the ball shifted to illustrate his words. "Her story begins at the dawn of the universe, when Man worshipped the Light. He was merciful to Man, and cleansed away their evil thoughts so that they might prosper. Far and wide Man searched for the most powerful and beautiful women to become priestesses of the Light, so that through them, Man might show their gratitude."
A line of white-robed women stood on a cliff facing the sun, their arms raised to the sky. One stepped forward, and Raven was shocked to see that she had the face of the black-haired girl—Angela—an angel among men.
"So taken with the high priestess's beauty was He, the Light took a human vessel, deciding that he wanted her as his wife. They were married in a ritual that lasted seven days and seven nights, and ended in a celebration that spread to the furthest ends of the earth. The woman conceived, but in conception, they committed a great transgression against the laws of the earth. All of the evil that the Light had wiped from Man poured into the woman as his seed, fertilizing their offspring with pure sin."
The crystal ball swirled with crimson light as destruction and death erupted within it. It was completely silent, yet Raven could feel the flicker of flames on her skin.
"They called him Skaath—the incarnation of all evil; destroyer of life. His mother was the first life he took, but Skaath spared his father only because he could not exist without him. The Light took this opportunity and banished Skaath to another dimension to protect the Earth but it was already too late. Evil had infected the world, and eventually, Man fell away from the Light."
Villages disappeared as skyscrapers sprang up almost comically from the ground to form cities, dirt roads vanished as streets canvassed countries like gravel ribbons until Raven was looking at the grimy streets of Gotham once again.
"Skaath was not as completely banished as his father thought. He lay dormant in the hearts of man, surfacing now and then in murder and during war, growing stronger, waiting for the moment that would grant him enough purchase on our world to return. And then, in the summer of 1989, Skaath found his chance."
A young man appeared, no older than thirty, kneeling before an altar, his head bowed in prayer.
"A broken, abused man believed he had found the secret to invincibility. He was prepared to pay with his soul—the ultimate price—to attain it. Foolishly he ascribed to the teachings of an ancient sect, the Church of Trigon. Only aware of the power their teachings promised, he let himself be completely devoured by Trigon—who was none other than Skaath himself—and re-established the cult as the Church of Blood with himself as their leader."
Speedy's grip on her knee tightened, his growing dread bleeding into hers through his fingertips. He cleared his throat, trying to get her attention, but Raven's eyes were glued to the glass ball.
"Eventually the man lost every shred of himself as he submitted to Skaath's evil designs. He was Trigon to his followers, and they obeyed him mindlessly, making a path for him to truly and physically enter the world. It would take some time, but was was a few decades to the dozens of millennia he spent waiting for this moment?
"In some cruel twist of fate, or perhaps it was destiny, his disciples recruited an orphaned girl who bore a striking resemblance to Skaath's mother. Unable to resist the wicked irony, he welcomed Angela into the fold—gave her a home and a place beside him as his wife. Beguiled and blinded by his elaborate deception, the girl accepted his offer to become his queen.
"Skaath needed Angela, for ancient prophecy foretold that only through the innocent blood of his heir would a portal to Earth be opened, leaving nothing to stop him from destroying it, once and for all."
The man kissed Angela passionately on a canopied bed raised on a stone platform, cultists watching from the shadows with rapt attention. The candles surrounding them suddenly blazed brightly, and both Raven and Angela gasped as Trigon grew impatient and violently away ripped her clothing. She screamed and tried to back away but choked as he wrapped suddenly-clawed hands around her neck and thrusted into her without warning. Raven was trapped in the vision and couldn't look away, even as Speedy stood angrily and tried to pull her hands out of Indigo's.
"This was a mistake—I'm sorry, Raven, I was wrong to bring you here—"
"No," Raven whispered, unmoving, tears falling openly from her cheeks onto the table. "I need to see this."
"Unable to contain himself, Skaath revealed his true form to her as he released his seed. Terrified and traumatized, Angela could do nothing to stop him, and endured the agony until he was finished. Exhausted, Trigon's human vessel fell asleep, and they were left alone in the chamber. Bruised and bleeding, Angela took the chance to run as far as she could from the Temple."
Angela appeared inside the bathroom of a bus station. An empty medicine bottle dangled from her fingertips as she swallowed pill after pill after pill. The scene changed and she was in a different bathroom, this time devouring the entire contents of a pill bottle. Once again the scene changed, and once again Angela tried to end her life beneath the flickering lights of a dingy public restroom.
"Every effort Angela made to commit suicide proved ineffectual, and eventually she made her way to Gotham, changing her name to Arella, and guiltily seeking out protection for her unborn child whom she had grown to love."
The crystal ball flickered once and went dark, punctuating the end of Indigo's tale. Raven continued to gaze motionlessly at it as an irritated Speedy relit the candles, unwilling to breathe or say a word.
Indigo studied her, honest concern lining his face. "Are you alright, pumpkin?"
"Are you fucking kidding me? You just told her she's the spawn of Satan. The fuck do you think?" Speedy snarled and brought a fist down on the table, hard.
The noise snapped Raven out of her reverie and she blinked rapidly, trying to process all of the information that had just been dumped on her. One by one she fit the missing jigsaw pieces into the fragmented puzzle of memories in her mind until it made perfect sense.
Raven supposed that she should be feeling relieved to finally find the truth, but she couldn't—not when the it had come at such a horrifying price.
"You can't possibly have believed him, Raven. The guy's a nutjob. I can't believe had me fooled for so long," said Speedy, nudging her elbow with his. They leaned together on the rail that circled the roof of the compound and overlooked the River Liberty. Raven could just barely make out Arkham Asylum's soaring turrets beyond the crashing waves.
"But you saw, Roy. I know you did." It still hadn't sunk in for her. That her mother had given her life protecting her—daughter of the literal incarnation of evil—it was almost too fantastical to comprehend. Almost.
Indigo hadn't let them leave without giving them a final warning—that come Raven's 18th birthday, hell would erupt on earth. He did not tell them how, lamenting that he did not know the full prophecy, and could only insist that she find a way to stop it, else, mankind was doomed. And it would be her fault.
Speedy started to say something, but she held up a hand and tried not to look at him. "Please, I—I think I need to be alone right now."
Once she was sure he had gone, Raven sagged, giving in to the waves of tears she'd been holding back. The metal railing twisted and warped beneath her fingers as she let out short bursts of magic with each sob. Everything she had strived for in the past few months lay in shambles at her feet—every hope she had for her future had stayed behind in the Red Light District, trapped inside Indigo's crystal ball. What was the point of even continuing now?
Raven wondered miserably if Angela hadn't had the wrong idea after all—committing suicide to save the world from an abomination. By giving birth to Raven, she had willingly given birth to the world's destruction. Self-hatred rose inside her like a tidal wave, and her hands closed into angry fists, leaving half-moon marks where her fingernails dug into her skin.
You should finish what your mother was not strong enough to do, a tiny voice whispered to her from within. It is your destiny to cause pain and suffering, why did you ever think that you could escape that?
No, another voice spoke up, There has to be a way. There's always a way! "There's always hope," Raven murmured, but the inky waves crashing below her looked so inviting, and she imagined herself falling into them like she did during meditation. She imagined the water swallowing her whole and embracing her in its cold arms as her life ebbed away with the tide.
Before she knew what she was doing, Raven was on the other side of the rail, the river a scant step away. She closed her eyes and lifted her foot and the world went still, the silence broken only by the soft thump, thump of her heartbeat.
From the speeding cars that crawled along the highway, to the River Liberty's angry waters that were reduced to mere ripples along molasses, to the strong arms slowly encircling her waist—they all moved in slow motion. Raven was hyper aware as she was pulled backward over the rail, but every second dragged out to an hour, giving her time to count each and every eyelash framing Nightwing's terrified eyes, and softening the impact as she bounced upward after hitting the floor.
Time sped up again as Raven stared up at Nightwing in shock and in confusion as he shook her until her head cracked against the cement and she cried out in pain. He quickly gathered her up in his arms and tried to apologize for hurting her but nothing coherent came out of his mouth.
"Why would you ever—don't you ever do that to me again—what in the actual fuck were you thinking?!" Nightwing finally gasped out, his hand cupping the back of her head and pressing her closer to him as they kneeled beside the warped railing.
His pure, solid relief and unexpected tenderness overwhelmed Raven and pricked at her eyes until she melted into the warm cocoon of his arms with a sob. Why wasn't anything exploding? "I just—I just didn't want to hurt anyone else!"
Nightwing waited patiently until she calmed down, then gently pulled back enough to glare at her. "As humans, we are inevitably prone to hurting others. Not something worth giving your life for, Raven."
"No, you don't understand—"
"I understand perfectly. Speedy told me everything."
Raven jerked away from him. "He—he told you?!" she exclaimed, but what she wanted to ask was, "And you rescued me instead flinging me from the rooftop yourself?"
Nightwing raised an eyebrow, but let her go. "Yes. How did you think I knew where to find you?"
"So…you know about the prophecy, then. And who my father is," said Raven slowly, unable to believe what she was hearing. How much did he know? "I don't understand—why did you stop me? You know what I am. You know I'm not human."
"I don't care. And I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm pretty bullheaded when it comes to the people I care about, Raven," he stated plainly, shrugging. "And you're human enough for me to fight the apocalypse for. Isn't that all that matters?"
Raven could only blink up at him. Nothing he was saying was making any sense. Nightwing smiled back at her, and she could feel the tension slip out of him right before he raised a hand to her cheek and leaned forward, and, for the second time that night, Raven's heart stopped.
Was he…was Nightwing about to kiss her? And, more importantly, did he or did he not know that she was a girl?
"Look, I don't care that you're a guy, and honestly, you could be half hotdog for all I care," he muttered as he caught the terrified look she was giving him, "I'm tired of fighting this…whatever this is going on between us, Raven."
Okay, so he definitely still thought she was a guy. Which only made everything even more confusing.
"There is nothing going on between us," protested Raven, putting a weak hand on his chest as Nightwing tried to close the distance between them.
Their noses touched as he angled his head and paused, mouth only centimeters from hers. "Really?"
Deliberately, Nightwing covered her hand with his and pressed it against his chest until Raven could clearly feel his heart race beneath her fingers. Then he placed her hand on her own chest so that she feel her own heart betray her with its hammering pulse. "Doesn't seem like it to me."
Still, something was holding Raven back. Maybe she was still in shock from near death, maybe she didn't feel comfortable knowing that he still thought her a guy, or maybe it was the strange, unshakable feeling of guilt that flared when she wondered what Speedy would think.
"I—I can't do this. I'm sorry," Raven mumbled as she yanked her hand from his. She tried not to watch Nightwing visibly clench his jaw to contain his temper and disappointment, and fled the rooftop.
Though they never spoke again about the incident on the roof, Raven could feel that something had changed drastically between her and Nightwing. Though he was always civil, their conversations always felt strained, as if they were just going through the motions.
Both he and Speedy had promised to do anything they could regarding the impending apocalypse, and eventually, after she broke down and finally told them, Beast Boy and Cyborg swore as well, causing her heart to swell with gratitude for their unmerited loyalty.
Even so, Raven was far from feeling reassured. The remaining days of Spring Quarter were passing too quickly for her comfort, October and her birthday looming ominously on the horizon. She wished that she could stretch out the days like that one moment back on the rooftop but before she knew it, the team was called back to Paladin for the start of Summer Quarter.
Raven eyed the heavily perfumed post-it stuck to the inside of her locker—how had it even gotten inside?—and sighed. Ever since they'd gotten back, Gar—they'd shed their codenames for the Summer Quarter—had somehow got the idea into his head that she needed to get laid before the end of the world. He was also convinced that it would cure the bad mood that had followed her from Gotham. Cue a steady string of unsolicited winks in the hallways and scribbled phone numbers hastily deposited her locker.
She crumbled the note—pretty sure that fraternizing with the staff was explicitly against the rules in the first place—and tossed it into the nearest trashbin. Almost immediately, the bane of her existence appeared at her elbow.
"You can't throw all of them away, Wren," he whined, and Raven had to physically restrain herself from grabbing and stuffing him into her locker.
"Watch me."
Garfield groaned in exasperation as she pulled out another crumpled note and tossed it. "Are you really telling me you wanna go dateless to the Solstice Gala?"
"For the last goddamned time, I have no intentions of attending a convoluted attempt to cram hundreds of hormonal teenagers into a ballroom and call it a party."
Garfield followed her all the way to her next class—three buildings over—before finally parting with an irritated, "bet you'd go if Roy asked you" thrown over his shoulder.
Of course, Roy was present at the time, and wasn't about to let her live that down. She sidestepped him as he tried to block her entrance to the classroom, choosing to ignore him instead.
Raven had found that she was no longer able to look Roy in the eyes for any length of time. If she did, a wave of something started to build inside her and she had to physically put as much distance between them as she could before something exploded and killed somebody. She could barely maintain a coherent sentence around him, and when she'd worriedly confided in Nightlocke, the witch simply smiled and said, "I'd be worried if there was no one had that effect on you," then went right back to discussing the prophecy and possible solutions.
Raven glared down at her notes as their Criminology professor droned on and on. It just wasn't fair. She had the apocalypse to deal with—why did she have to deal with a stupid, schoolgirl crush too?
Roy seemed to take the hint and stayed silent as he followed her to the training rooms for Raven's combat tutoring. Initially, she had thought that the sessions would cease, seeing that they had passed their field exams with flying colors, but they had only intensified. Richard had insisted that they needed to be at their best at all times. They could not afford to grow complacent, and Raven agreed wholeheartedly.
As usual, Richard was already there when they arrived. He raised a hand to wave, but stopped as the shrill exclamation of his cellphone exploded from his pocket.
"Grayson. Oh, hey, Kori." Richard's face grew carefully emotionless, and Raven exchanged raised eyebrows with Roy. "Yes, I am aware that the Solstice Gala is tomorrow night. Actually, I'm kind of swamped with schoolwork right now, so I was actually thinking of…not going?"
"Dude." Roy's eyebrows had nearly disappeared into his hairline. Richard—having tested out of most required classes—was lying through his teeth, and the three of them were deeply familiar with the red-haired alien's wrath.
"I guess he wants to die before I kill him," Raven remarked dryly, earning her a sharp look from both directions—they all hated when she referred to the prophecy like that. She shrugged her indifference. It was nice that they believed in her, but Raven wasn't going to sugarcoat things.
"Hey, I'll talk to you later alright, I uh, have a class. Yes, I have class at seven in the evening. Yeah, uh, l-love you too. Bye." He blinked at their looks of incredulity. "What."
"Trouble in paradise?" asked Roy, trying and failing to keep a smirk from his face.
Richard scowled at him. "It's nothing."
"Dude, you just lied to Starfire. What is going on with you two?"
Richard locked eyes with Raven for a second, before dropping his eyes to his exercise bag. "I just…don't feel the same way about her. I never have. I'm tired of pretending to be something I'm not."
"And what's that?" Roy prodded, intrigued. "Straight?"
Richard was silent for a second too long and Raven cleared her throat loudly, anxious to drop the subject. "Can we please just spar? We can plan Dick's funeral later."
So they sparred, and Raven pretended that Richard's hands didn't rest on her hips longer than necessary when he threw her over his shoulder, or that when Roy tackled her to the floor, he didn't press against her as he caught his breath. She endured an hour of this pretending, then feigned fatigue and retired to the loft early, feeling everything but tired. Every single fibre of her being sang with energy, and, down to the tips of her toes, she trembled with unspoken desire.
The evening of the Solstice Gala found Raven deep in the library.
Having exhausted the entire mythology section, she had persuaded the librarian to grant her access to Restricted Materials on the third floor, and there she'd sat from morning.
One book in particular had caught her eye, and although the terminology was different—she recognized the four eyes and horned visage of Skaath immediately. He glared at her from the page, and although he was just a drawing, Raven's mouth had gone dry.
On the following page were four simple lines (1)—the rest of the book was eerily blank:
"THE GEM WAS BORN OF EVIL'S FIRE,
THE GEM SHALL BE HIS PORTAL.
HE COMES TO CLAIM, HE COMES TO SIRE,
THE END OF ALL THINGS MORTAL!"
Hands shaking, Raven flipped through the book again, but could find nothing that suggested an alternative. Turning back to the prophecy, she noticed a jagged edge near the book's binding—in fact, it looked as if a page had been ripped out.
Raven stood abruptly, everything else forgotten. What if there was a second part to the prophecy? What if, instead of doom, it was foretold that she would defeat her father?
Raven tried not to run as she left the library, book cradled carefully in her arms. Her first thought was to go find Nightlocke—surely she would know what to do—but she faltered as she remembered that the witch would be chaperoning the Solstice Gala. It wasn't like she could call Madame Indigo either (she was fairly certain he didn't own a telephone), and Richard had given in to Kori's demands, so that only left Roy.
She had been doing well at not letting herself end up alone with either of them, but this was important. However he made her feel paled in comparison to the hope she now held in her hands, and she only hesitated for a second after knocking on his door before entering the keycode and bursting in.
It took Raven a good minute to make out exactly what was going on in front of her eyes, but by then, she'd already seen too much. The book tumbled from her hands, forgotten.
"Raven!" Roy gasped, and hastily tried to throw off the blonde woman straddling him, her arms tangled around his neck. "This—this isn't what it looks like."
Raven shook her head frantically, already retreating. "No—no, I shouldn't have just come in like that. I'll just—I'll just come back later."
She couldn't get out fast enough, and her feet tripped inexplicably over the bare carpet. Finally, she was across the threshold and the door slid shut behind her, cutting off Roy's pleas for her to come back.
Raven wandered through the halls in a daze until the next time she looked up, she was outside on the stone overhang that overlooked the lantern-lit common grounds. She cried out, suddenly, as a searing pain shot through her chest, and it felt like something dislodged itself from her heart.
All at once, the fog in her mind cleared. As the pain faded away, Raven cursed herself for her stupidity. She'd never had a 'crush' on Roy—she had been under the side-effects of the spell reversal the whole time! She hadn't noticed the magic residue—her mind was too preoccupied with everything else—and had instead believed herself to be falling in love with him. It had taken the sudden jolt of heartbreak to finally snap her out of it.
Raven let out a sharp laugh of relief. If only everything else could turn out to be a magic-induced dream.
"What's so funny?" Richard had an uncanny ability to find her at the oddest times, but Raven was too blissed out at the moment to even care.
"Don't you have a date?" She eyed his freshly pressed tux and raised an eyebrow. "An extremely dangerous date?"
Richard looked uncomfortable. "I, uh, told her I needed to get some air. And that maybe we needed some space."
"How are you still alive?"
"She may or may not have taken that to mean that I needed to go to the bathroom."
"And you didn't correct her."
He grinned cheekily at Raven, who was currently finding him too bright to look at and instead focused on the students milling about on the dance floor below. He dug for a moment in his pockets before holding out a long, brightly colored tube.
"Um, thank you? I think?" Raven accepted it from him and turned it over in her hands uncertainly. Richard smirked and pulled out another tube and propped it up on the ground. She stared curiously as he whipped out his lighter and lit the string trailing from the tube.
"You might want to stand back," he warned right before the tube shot into the sky with a pop and exploded into a billion multicolored lights.
The crowed below cheered wildly and Raven looked back at Richard with childlike wonder. She held out her tube to him. "Do that again."
He studied her wordlessly for a moment. "You've seriously never seen fireworks before? Dude, what planet did you come from?" He shook his head and laughed. "Nevermind. C'mere, I'll show you how to do it yourself."
She let him guide her hand with his to light the end of the tube and gasped as it shot into the sky and exploded. The crowd was ecstatic, their enthusiasm infectious, and Raven smiled up at him—a genuine smile.
Somehow, more and more fireworks materialized from Richard's pockets until she was convinced that he was pulling them out of thin air, and one by one they fired them off, him patiently explaining to her the different kinds, how to light each one, and that what they were doing was pretty much illegal.
She didn't care, though. For the first time in weeks, Raven's mind was clear of worry or doubt, and she was truly enjoying herself. She didn't protest when he leaned against her on the railing as they watched the crowd fragment into pairs as the slow music came on, and she even let him jokingly parade her around the overhang in a mock waltz.
It was only when his hands were on her waist and they weren't so much mock waltzing as they were swaying in place that Raven realized that the mood between them had changed from boyish fun to something far more profound. Richard was gazing at her sadly, a mix of wistfulness and misery darkening the blue of his eyes. Raven sighed and backed away.
"Why?" he asked simply.
"Because I'm me, and you're you." Raven replied, hoping that he could understand from the inflection of her words. "We…we just can't."
"We can't what, Wren?" Richard stepped forward, backing her up against the rail, eyes smoldering. "Say it out loud. I need to know that I'm not losing my mind here."
Raven shook her head, knowing full well that acknowledging their unspoken attraction to one another would only make it all the more real—and she couldn't lie to herself that it was just a magical side-effect, either.
"If you won't say it, then I will." His jaw had set stubbornly, and he paused, daring her to object. "I'm attracted to you, Wren Lee. As in I have feelings for you that aren't friendly or brotherly in the slightest—"
"But Starfire—"
"Stop trying to bring her into this! This is about me and you." Richard jabbed a finger into her chest on 'you', clearly irritated. "Kori has nothing to do with this."
"But she's your girlfriend—"
"Kori has never once asked me if I wanted to date her!" he interrupted incredulously, "She came to Earth, kissed the first person she saw and automatically decided that we were betrothed—I never had any say in it!"
"—but I'm a—a demon!"
Richard groaned and exasperatedly ran a hand through his hair. "And Victor is a robot and I think Garfield has Martian blood. I know what you're really trying to say, though, Wren. It's because we're both guys, isn't it?"
No sound came out of Raven's mouth as she opened and closed it, unable to form words. Richard's eyes were sad as he took her hand and pressed it to his heart. "All I know is that this is real and I have never felt like this about anyone. Not Kori, not Batgirl, not Zatanna, not—"
"I get it."
"—And if you're afraid, I understand—I was afraid at first too," said Richard, and his eagerness to reassure her broke Raven's heart. "We can take this slow."
Raven wished she could just tell him right then. She wanted to confess everything, but she was too afraid—she knew it would break his heart that she lied to him for so long, made him think he was in love with another man. He'd think she was toying with him. She couldn't do that to him; she could not stand to hurt this beautiful boy.
But, at the same time, she just couldn't bring herself to tell him no.
They walked together back to the suite, awkward silence weighing heavily on their minds. If Raven wasn't sure before, she was sure now—nothing would be the same between them, ever again.
She had not accepted him, but somewhere on that balcony they had agreed that yes, they were attracted to each other, and Raven was pretty sure that it was the same thing. Every now and then, she caught a small, satisfied smile creep over Richard's face out of the corner of her eye, and mentally she threw a tantrum. How was it that every time she clawed her way out of one problem, she was already drenched in more trouble?
As they approached the hall leading to the penthouse suite, Richard suddenly stopped short, and Raven, so intent on mentally berating herself, crashed into his back.
"Kori!" he exclaimed, "I—what are you doing here?"
THE PLOT THICKENS
(1) - this is the original prophecy from the Teen Titans television series.
Also, the bit about BB's Martian blood is from the Young Justice explanation of his powers.
Please leave me your thoughts and point out any mistakes! Love!
-Ehbi
P.S.- Also check out my new story, Amor Fati!