[1]
Growing dizzy with each deep intake of warm steam through his nose, Garfield took large sips of water to keep steady. The sinus pressure from the piercing stench of ammonia lessened with each sigh, but Gar knew he was reeling along the edge of dehydration and should probably get out of the spa soon.
He held the tiny bottle between his fingers thoughtfully before he finally added the drops of oil to the dispenser, releasing tendrils of lavender-sage vapors into the room. It took a good minute for his sensitive and weary olfactory nerves to pick up the fragrance, but when they did, his senses were expectedly animated.
Her eyes kindling with hope were the first thing that came to mind as he remembered how they minded him beneath the pale lights of Raven's room. Even while he awkwardly and painfully asked to borrow her oil, she watched him like it had been the highlight of her day.
Can't just knowing be enough?
Whether or not Raven was aware of how her body spoke nervously around him, it was getting harder for him to block out. Even her smell seemed stronger. Not the fragrances she'd wrapped herself in, like the one currently overflowing his senses, but a scent of her own, like something sweetly exotic that he usually welcomed like a fresh breath. But now, being around her stirred cringey feelings of rejection into the mix, which didn't suit him well. What's worse is there was little else he could focus on because he could feel her strange, covert attention on him, especially when she thought he couldn't. It was a frustrated and magnetic energy between them that raised the hairs from his skin, and leaving the room is all he's been able to do to keep from calling her out.
Vic thought he was being dramatic. Ease up, B. She's trying to look out...no need to make things weird. He's handled Karen's friend-zoning with a thick mask of false pride, so that means Gar should too.
But Raven isn't Karen, and he wasn't Vic, and their situations couldn't be more different. Vic wasn't there on the beach that day when Raven kissed him or knew how her eyes changed when she'd look at him long enough. No one else has seen how shy and awkward and atypically pleasant Raven could be when letting her guard down. She was a clumsy roller skater and a nervous dancer with a dopey laugh. Quick to help others but also too quick to blame herself. Maybe what they saw was just her hardshell, so to them, turning him down probably only made sense.
But none of them seemed to understand how quietly desperate Raven was to numb herself as if that was somehow better for everyone. The queen of mediation and balance should know better than to indulge this toxic martyrdom of hers, bringing everyone else down in the process. And what's more, is Raven consciously chose this over giving him a chance to show her it'd be okay.
But he just wasn't worth the risk, apparently, and Gar knew, that's what bothered him the most. Maybe if he had known that earlier, he might have done things differently.
His chest had become tight from ragged breathing, so Garfield drew in the warm, muggy vapor to his lungs before releasing it mindfully. His head was relieved from the pressure, and the earthy, sweet-smelling steam managed to subjugate the metallic sting.
Even if the smell flooded him with the feelings he'd rather avoid, he relaxed. And if he were honest with himself, Raven would have slipped her way into his thoughts anyway, lavender-sage or no.
As much as he's tried to ignore her, she still managed to work him up. But at least, he assured himself as he pictured her uneasily curious eyes, he had her worked up a bit too, and Garfield faintly smiled, briefly letting himself take small comfort in just knowing.
[2]
It was late by the time Gar made his way back down to the kitchen. Pots and pans stained with tomato sauce were stacked in the sink while the television served as the only light source. When he switched on the lights above the kitchen's island, he heard subtle stirring across the way.
As he stood before the open fridge, Garfield determined that it could use some serious reorganization. Karen had a bad habit of hoarding leftovers, which left them overstocked with tupper-ware of molding food.
The small clinking of ceramic against metal tickled his ears, and he looked over his shoulder to find Raven trying to sneak her dishes in the sink.
"She left a plate out for you," Raven told him, prompting him to look across the kitchen at a plate covered with tinfoil. He closed the fridge and crossed the kitchen, picking up the abnormal rhythms of her heartbeat on the way. "How's your nose?"
"Good," he unwrapped the plate to warm it up in the microwave as she leaned against the kitchen island timidly.
"So, what was with this smell?"
"I didn't notice it at first," he told her as he leaned against the counter, "but when I shifted, my snout started, like, aching, and once the sneezing started, it just got worse. Not sure what kind of chemicals they're using down there, but it's excessive."
"But it didn't bother anyone else?" she asked, and Garfield shrugged before retrieving his heated pasta. "And, it smelled like, what? Disinfectant?"
"It stung like ammonia or something, but was also kind of spicy? I don't know. Hard to compare it to anything."
Raven nodded thoughtfully. "Did you...hear, anything strange down there?" Garfield shook his head as he slurped his noodles, and when he finished chewing, he looked at her questioningly. "No other people or, like, animals?"
"Well, I mean, it was a hunting cabin in the middle of the redwoods, I heard other animals."
"But while you were down in the lab?"
"What kind of animal sounds do you think I'd hear in a secured research bunker?"
Raven briefly chewed her lip before regarding him cautiously. "Bird sounds...maybe?"
Garfield's face narrowed suspiciously, and Raven faintly winced before her phone buzzed from her pocket.
"Hey, Vic," Raven answered as Garfield continued to watch her. Pretty clearly, he heard the cyborg tell her to come to the OP's room.
"You need to see this."
He caught a quick tremor in Raven's face as she listened, and hung up the phone.
"What's going on?"
Raven wordlessly drew a portal and nodded for him to follow.
[3]
The cyborg's surprise was evident in his expression when he saw Gar emerge from the portal, but he quickly refocused.
"Alright," Vic stood so he could point closer to the screen, "I went through the footage a couple times over, about to give up, until...I caught this."
He replayed a loop that, to Garfield, didn't reveal anything unusual. He and Raven exchanged wary glances.
"Caught what, exactly?" Raven asked.
"Here, in the corner, look," he replayed it again, and besides the slightest discoloration along the corner of the recorded corridor, Gar saw nothing.
"Dude, what are you talking about?"
"Come on," Vic growled with a hint of impatience. He replayed the loop again with adjustments, and Garfield could discern a moving shadow with higher contrast, but even still, it didn't trigger any significant revelations.
"So...what, should we call the GhostBusters?"
"Alright, fine," Vic waved his hands with some amusement, perhaps realizing how poorly his vague kookiness was translating. Yet, Gar and Raven could see something clicking in the cyborg's head when he paused, narrowed his eye on the screen, and looked back at them both.
"What's going on, Cy? You need to reboot?" Gar's joke was easily ignored while Vic typed with inspiration. As they watched, he manipulated the filters to display the camera's thermal imaging, which revealed a flurry of bright purples and pinks that lined the well-lit corridors. As the log played, they watched a black figure of blue outlines glide across the screen.
"Whoa, what the fuck?" Gar said as he leaned closer, and the video continued to loop. "It's really a ghost?"
"I don't know about all that," Vic said as he stroked beneath his jaw in thought, "but I can't say that didn't make me think."
"It looks like a woman," Raven added, her thoughtful eyes watching the vague figure walk down the corridor on repeat. Gar noted the blurry silhouette, and while impossible to truly prescribe a human form, let alone gender, it did have a feminine essence to the way it moved.
"So, well, listen. When I finally noticed the shadow, it seemed strange because," Vic sat back down and typed away until he pulled up a new window, which displayed the image of the Tower's roof, "it reminded me of something."
The blurry image that now filled the screen was of Raven's suspended body amid a weird vortex. By the video's timestamp, he knew it was the security reel from the week before.
"Play it," she told Vic as she leaned closer to the screen, and Gar understood she hadn't seen the footage either.
At first, the video captured only small glimpses of Raven about 10ft out, discernible only by the black of her hair and clothes against a pale, trembling background. Raven's body remained still and rigid while the grey winds rushed around her.
"Here," Vic's finger followed another obscuration of dark matter as it grew more substantial on the screen. Another moment passed before they watched Raven's skin change from pale to blood-red, and her flowing mane of black became so white that it seemed to blend with the whirring storm around her. Garfield could hear Raven's heart as it began to beat against her chest.
Vic then adjusted the filter to display the thermal imaging. Raven's body glowed with bright oranges and yellows, indicating her fever through the physical changes, but just in front of her was another black figure outlined in blue.
Gar's eyes grew wide at the connection, but the conjecture of it all scrambled his thoughts around each other searching for meaning. As he tried to detangle the logic between the two incidents, Raven's pulse grew stronger in his ears.
"Wait," Her hand reached over to pause the loop, and then tentatively hovered over the keyboard as she struggled with the controls. Vic quickly stepped in and rewound the video, "Make it bigger?" Raven asked with a sharp edge to her voice, "Slow it down."
Lost and clueless, Garfield also leaned closer over the desk, trying to match Raven's cast onto the screen.
"Look," she held up a finger to the screen to direct Gar's eyes to the space between her chest and the shadow. When Vic slowed the video down just enough, Garfield barely discerned a black chain break from Raven's form, only to grow limp in her attacker's ambiguous grasp.
"What is that?" Gar asked, but when he saw how her fingers tentatively brushed the bare skin of her chest, he understood what she reached for.
"My necklace," her eyes held him desperately.
"The one you've..." Gar trailed off when Raven calmly drew a spiral of black before quickly disappearing through it, leaving the boys in the thick, echoing silence of the OP's room.