After lots of mission briefings which thankfully it wasn't too long, the actual party finally started. The conference room was all about the talks, but the swimming pool terrace on the sixth floor is where the real party begins. Not only that the swimming pool was put in bright lights mode, but the fact that the rest of the peoples completely torn off their clothes in favor of swimming suits. Wait, so what's the point of being formal if you're just going to lunge into the swimming pool?
Thankfully, it was just a choice. Only a few of the morons inside the forum would actually get into the bandwagon and jump into the pool. Perhaps more accurately free-spirited peoples. Stephanie looked like she was having a lot of fun even among the boys. It was probably because she's quite the free-spirited daredevil that would literally jump into the pool with her gown still intact. Other than her, there's Garfield, Victor, this Hispanic guy that had some sort of a beetle attached to his back, his Asian girlfriend, Megan, and even Donna.
Thanks to Damian's library of EDM music blasting through the subwoofer, the entire balcony shook like there was a vulcanic eruption. Everyone is either enjoying root beers on their red solo cups or late night barbeques, either swimming on the pool with their clothes off or standing casually with their expensive formal clothings. The barbeque alone magnetized her nose and put it into submission, and the swimming pool's lights in contrast with the dark skies of the evening made her to just enjoy it.
"Geronimo!"
Stephanie shouted as she jumped, curled herself into a ball, and dropped inside the pool. The entire water splashed through in almost every direction. Thankfully, the splash didn't go too far, as there was some sort of a force field somehow protecting the water splash from coming out.
"How does that work?" Cissie asked to Wally, standing right beside her with the cup near his mouth.
"It's just air." Wally said. "When water gets out, air bursts through one of the vents near the edge of the pool and block it. No splashes."
"That's actually pretty damn cool."
And that summed up this entire party so far. She personally had never went into a party with a group so intense, receptive, and compassionate. She never expected these kind of peoples to actually not rub her off in the wrong way. They have accepted her like she was already a part of them even if she's not in some sort of a ritual. Maybe perhaps it was her duty to be here. Maybe the Titans really were her calling, and yes she called it Titans. Her mind is not as anonymous as it should be.
Her hands were already a bit tired holding the red cup containing the root beer that she just picked up from the beer stand. Wally thankfully was mature enough not to get into the pool. After hanging sometimes with Cissie, he went to get some barbeques. Rachel is pretty evident to be just hanging on the corner reading some books she would consider actually interesting. Damian and Kory were eating barbeques together. And then Tim, Conner, and Bart chatting near the balcony.
She approached Rachel and to her surprise, she was a bit more receptive on having Cissie around. It was probably because Cissie is the only member around the group that actually understands a bit about politics, something a lot more relevant than a lot of peoples decide to think.
"Mind if I sit?" Cissie asked.
Rachel glanced back at her and smiled. "You're cool. I'll let you sit around, but don't hope that I'm going to reply something better."
"Right." Cissie said. "So this is what the forum is doing on their free time?"
"To be honest, we have a lot more free time than you can think of." Rachel said. "Four or five years we've been playing this game, and slowly but surely peoples understand how much power that the Titans can have."
"I thought your job is hunting supervillains."
"No, not really." Rachel said. "We don't hunt supervillains. We respond to them. We have the duties to protect innocent peoples and capture criminals who has commited a crime."
"So your movement is entirely reactionary?"
"Yeah, well it is now." Rachel said. "During the Brotherhood war, the Brotherhood kills lots of innocent peoples with genetically engineered soldiers and an army of metahumans. We turned our entire move to the offense, and even then lots of peoples are still dying."
"Are there cases like that?" Cissie said. "Are there times that you're going to move to the offense?"
"Yeah, and that's what worries me." Rachel said. "Because if we do, we're going to hurt peoples, and we're going to hurt a lot. Thankfully so far, the only time that actually happened was during the Brotherhood war, but that's because the Brotherhood is devil's incarnate that we had no choice but to go for war. We did kill some peoples, and we're not sure what to feel. Should we feel good because we take down a scum of the Earth, or should we feel bad because we're the one who decides their end?"
"Did you ever lose someone from the group?"
"Yeah, we lost a few peoples." Rachel said. "Garfield has a girl that he really likes. He probably loves her more than anyone else in the world, but the Brotherhood took her out."
"Wow." Cissie said. "I'm sorry."
"You don't even want to go to the details how they took her out." Rachel said. "Seriously, don't talk about the Brotherhood in front of him or in fact any other members. You're going to bring some seriously bad memories. All of that because we have suffered failure, every single one of us has failed, constantly, all throughout that one painful year. It's almost like torture. We're being punished, beaten up, physically and mentally. Peoples are dying left and right. We were constantly terrorized by those failures, probably even to this day. The Brotherhood brought us to our lowest point. We got angry, emotional, and even I had to suffer through that. It's uncomfortable, but nothing is when shit hits the fan."
"You're right." Cissie said. "And I'm just sitting here watching everyone having fun and being mindless for everything, trying to forget all of that. I'm not complaining, because I tried to have fun in these times too. I had some bad memories, but there's nothing that I could do about it. It's there."
"And that's fine." Rachel said. "The Titans had to at least suffer failure, and the Brotherhood, despite our victory, is one of our biggest failures."
Cissie chug down some of the alcohol, trying to get the depressing thought out of her mind. The music didn't blast through. The playlist randomly play a chilling song which was quite convenient for the depressing conversation. She hadn't fully joined the group yet, but she could already understand the pain and suffering that the group had to go through to even take the Brotherhood down.
"And the strangest part is there are some peoples who still criticize you." Cissie said. "I'm not going to lie, you did good with the Brotherhood. You saved the world. You killed the big man. Congratulations. Then you have some peoples bashing you over the mass media again, claiming to be something that you're not."
"We have never claimed ourselves to be heroes." Rachel said. "Only the lives that we save and the peoples that we helped can claim us to be heroes. It's a title that we earned, and we're proud of that."
"Have you ever had a thought that one day the whole group might fail on something again?" Cissie said.
"No one will ever come into success if they're not willing to subject themselves into a lot of failures." Rachel said. "We had to get out of our comfort zone, because from our failures we learn."
"So what have you learned from it?"
"I think it's fair if I asked you that question first."
Cissie raised her eyebrows as Rachel turned her question back onto her. And to be fair, Rachel is right. She's the one who had more experience, and perhaps listening to the inexperienced would probably put her into perspective.
"Well," Cissie began. "What I learned is that killing is bad and nothing would ever justify it, but sometimes you just have to. By the time you do, you're going to get scarred for life, and everyone here had suffered through it."
"We all have that ethical code: We should not kill, no exception." Rachel said. "But that's just the rule written on the paper. When you apply that here in the real world, there has to be exceptions. The rules cannot fundamentally be accurate. We have to take exceptions, and Brotherhood is one big exception. That's what I learned."
"I'm scared that you all had to be killers." Cissie said. "I'm scared that I had to be a killer."
"That doesn't stop you from at least try not to be." Rachel said. "Killing is not always going to be the answer. You need to at least try to be rational about it."
"I know." Cissie said. "I think I'm going to get some barbeque out. I'm a bit famished."
"You go ahead." Rachel said. "I'm comfortable here. Oh and Cissie?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for the talk." Rachel said. "You're not as bad as your father or your sister. I'm sorry about him by the way."
"You don't have to." Cissie said. "I'm a bit sad, but he got what he deserved. That's the life he chose. Me? Even if I'm going to kill, even if I'm going to be killed, at least peoples will know that I die saving the world. That's what's important."
Rachel smiled. Perhaps Rachel was the type of person who actually rarely smiled, but beyond her jaded face was an actual soul of a human being. Her smile noted that a lot, and she couldn't be happier that someone would be accepting of her here.
##
It was quite the surprising talk that she got with Cissie last time. The party was over in about midnight. Everyone had already came back to their own bed. She swore that she could see Damian making out with Kory before barging inside the room and doing god knows what else. Eh, it was quite the watch.
Rachel came right near the door towards her room, but before she could do so, Garfield is already outside. She wasn't very sure why he was in front of her room, though. It probably had something to do with annoying the living hell out of her again.
"Hey, Rae." Garfield began. "Sorry if I startled you."
"No, you're not." Rachel said. "If interdimensional demons don't startle me, you're not going to be."
"That's great." Garfield said. "Peoples are still going to have nightmares when I'm in full beast mode."
"You can't imagine." Rachel said. "Every single time peoples saw you in your eyes, they'll see nothing but the monster that put the most violent man in the entire the Titans to his doom for a few months. By the time they know your full form, you'll be banished, forgotten, and left to rot by those you deemed superior."
"Wait what?"
"What are you doing here?"
"I need to talk to you about something." Garfield said. "It's kind of important and um... did you bring in some herbal tea?"
"Uh... yeah I did."
"Maybe we can talk for a bit?" Garfield said. "Have a tea party or something."
Honestly, Rachel could do nothing else but to raise her eyebrows in confusion.
##
It's quite surprising that Garfield actually came in to her for a tea party. It's not just a normal tea party. They didn't really have the best cup for the day, so they had to use the beer plastic cup for the tea, but that doesn't really matter. Garfield and Rachel were leaning on the balcony looking at the midnight sky, with a blue moon high above the ground shining bright illuminating the dark knight of Star City.
It's not completely out of character for him to have a tea party with someone, but the most surprising thing is that he didn't mind mint. Some of the peoples on her spectrum does and that was quite bothersome. It's not that they hated mint, but they just find the taste overrated.
"So what do you want to talk about?" Rachel said. "Please tell me you're not overhearing things that I said to Cissie."
"Honestly I did." Garfield said. "And you know, that kind of intrigues me."
"You, getting intrigued with the failures of the entire team?" Rachel said. "What kind of world am I living in?"
"No seriously." Garfield said. "Will you at least stop joking around? Why are you the one joking now?"
"Maybe because I can't take you seriously as a person." Rachel said.
"Oh now you're messing with me."
"Someone has to."
Garfield bit his lips and took another sip of the mint. "At least your mint doesn't suck."
"Try harder, Gar." Rachel said. " I've made it for you for like four years. Of course it doesn't suck. You're pretty much accustomed by it now."
"You hypocrite."
Rachel raised her eyebrows and glared at him. "Excuse me?"
"You don't want me to joke around on you and not take you seriously. Fine, I can do that." Garfield said. "But when I try to do it, you scoff me off like I'm the manifestation of Monday Morning."
"Garfield, you have no rights to steal how I do things." Rachel said. "That's just not you."
"I'm trying Rachel, because the truth is I really like you." Garfield said. "Oh wait, wait a second... Oh... crap! You're smart."
"What is it?"
"Did you just use your empath to figure out how I feel and then later you deliberately insult me so that I can think a second thought?" Garfield said. "You're very evil, Rae. You're a very evil witch."
Rachel shrugged. "That's not going to be effective to insult me."
"I'm not insulting you!" Garfield said. "I have never insulted you in my entire life. I admire you, even. Is it because your dad is a demon and therefore, I'm not allowed to get closer to you?"
"No, it's not because of that Gar." Rachel said. "It's because... I'm not comfortable with you going after me when you haven't even moved on from her."
"I have." Garfield said. "I'm all alone now. I don't want Terra to get to my mind every time I come alone. I need someone else, Rae. I need you."
Rachel was honestly bewildered by how much honesty that Garfield put in every sentence. She knew when peoples are genuinely lying, and Garfield certainly did not lie of a single thing.
"For the record, that's one of the weirdest pick-up lines that I've ever heard in my entire life." Rachel said. "Although I admit, it doesn't mean that I'm not interested."
"So are you?"
"I... I don't know, okay?" Rachel said. "I never got used to being with someone else, you know?"
Garfield took Rachel's cup of tea and put it on the side of the balcony. She wasn't even sure how that happened. She continued on her rambling as Garfield did that.
"I... I've been with someone... technically I have." Rachel said. "But if you're coming here just to hit on with me, I'm going to-"
That's where the inevitable - or the evitable - happens. Garfield completely braked on Rachel's talking by doing the one single thing that should've gotten him a punch in the face or a broken nose. But instead, she stopped, widened her eyes, and the moment she realized what he just did, she closed her eyes and embraced it together. She knew that he's going to do it one day, and either way there's no way to make herself to be prepared for it, that sudden kiss of death.
Strangely enough, despite the sudden move, the longer Garfield's pushed his muscular body against her, the more she wanted him to. After about two seconds, she closed her eyes and grabbed in on Garfield's face, pulling him closer to her oral caverns. She honestly never thought that the vegetarian, tofu-loving Beast Man could taste so great, and the fact that his entire body pressed against her really seals the deal.
Slowly, the two got out of their clutch and stared at each of their eyes. The Blue Moon shine quite bright tonight, and their eyes couldn't be brighter after they embraced on each other.
"Wow." Rachel said. "I... I never thought that it felt that good."
"I know, right?" Garfield cupped her cheeks and finally confessed. "Seriously Rachel, I... I really love you."
"I... I think I love you too." Rachel said. "Garfield um... I know this is weird for me to ask, but... will you stay with me for tonight?"
"I..." Garfield said. "I'd love to. Of course. I'll stay. Anything for you, Rae."
"Thanks." Rachel smiled.
##
A/N: Starting College is quite the bitch, so I'm going to have to take a break.