Just a gaping hole where home had used to be.
It didn't look right.
She hadn't actually taken a moment to look at it since it had been demolished the month prior. On tax dollars, of course – made people even more annoyed, probably. She wasn't really paying attention to the politics. Their whole gig had been shut down. They were local stars, but not universally liked in the same way a celebrity would be. It was all a mess.
"You appear to be submerged in 'troubles,' friend."
Terra was snapped from her melancholic meanderings by the soft tone of Kori's voice.
Kori. She didn't go by 'Starfire' anymore. None of them went by their 'super' titles. Terra had never really been 'super,' per se, and so she'd never really assumed any kind of special name like that. At that point, the name 'Starfire' only seemed to bring up memories Kori didn't want to dwell on. Besides, it didn't make sense to be called the 'Teen Titans' when they weren't teens anymore, now, did it?
"What thoughts are being eaten by you? Erm-...What is being eaten by...-?" The whole gang had been a lot more isolated as of late, and Kori seemed to be forgetting a lot of the odd English quirks she'd started becoming more fluent in. She cleared her throat and slowly sighed out, "What is eating you?" before offering a wary, self-deprecating smile.
Terra smirked back and shrugged. Standing up straight from her leaned over posture against the balcony, she swept her hand from the short-shaven half of her skull over toward the shoulder length stranded side, pushing wind-nudged hair behind her neck and out of her face.
"Ah," Terra grunted dismissively, flicking out the wrist she'd just used to fuss her hair. "Just thinking back on the old days, I guess."
Kori nodded slightly, chewing her bottom lip as she cautiously studied Terra's exhausted body language.
"Yes, I-..." Kori fumbled hesitantly, her hands fidgeting with one another at her waist. "I, too, was upset by Mr. Grayson's...sudden interruption."
"You mean Dick?" Terra huffed under her breath.
Kori's green eyes rusted with bitterness at Terra's potshot, her vision lightly rolling upward, then to one side.
Terra shrugged wildly, citing, "What? He is one...Shoe fits..."
"Robin is...processing things in his own way, he-"
"You mean Nightwing?"
"Y-Yes, I...-" Kori's cheeks flushed briefly with embarrassment. "-think that he needs...further time on his own, in order to-"
"Two years, Kori. It's been two years."
"It has been twenty-two lunar cycles," Kori promptly corrected. "That is not yet two Earth years..."
"Puh-! Close enough, you know what I mean..."
The pair of them avoided eye contact in a cold, callous moment of ruminating on old, over-hashed disagreements. But Terra couldn't stay mad at Kori for longer than such a single moment.
"Look, I'm sorry, I know you guys still care about him – hell, I still do, too, OK? But I don't miss him. It's his fault things fell apart, so...-"
"That is not true," Kori was swift to retort. "He was doing what-"
"Can we just agree to disagree?" Terra huffed out tiredly, dryly, and with a sagging skull. "We've gone in circles enough times on this. Either way, he's not here, he's still...-" Terra wriggled a flippant hand out at the cityscape around them. "-...out there, doing the only shit he seems capable of doing with himself..."
Kori frowned – at Terra's sentiment but also her harsh language – but otherwise kept her tongue steady.
Terra followed through, "We're doing just fine without him, anyway. And I mean, you seem a lot less stressed out with Rachel than you ever were with him. Tell me I'm wrong."
Kori's sharp gaze dulled and glazed over toward one side.
"You are not," Kori conceded, breathing out a certain kind of content sound that Terra would make when pressed against Garfield's chest while settling in for a night of movie binging.
"I get why we invited him," Terra said, thinking back on their little pizza party earlier that evening. "Honestly, I thought he'd be a no-show. But the way he treated us? Especially you? Not cool. Not at all OK. Maybe he got spoiled from living in...elaborate, giant houses, with-...with friggin' high-tech gizmos and doozits, whatever...But unless that prick Wayne wants to cover our bills – which, uh, he doesn't, last I heard, what a shocker, there – so unless that magically changes? We're stuck making due with what we've got. Living with the rest of society is what I thought we wanted this whole time – it's what I wanted. It's what you wanted. Rachel, Garfield, Victor...hell, even Jinx. We did our time. We cleaned up this town. We got all of our crap sorted out. Sooner or later, ya-...Ya gotta put the toys away, hang up the suits, live a life. You know?"
Kori, who had wordlessly allowed Terra this indulgent rant, cleared sand from her eyes and nodded half-heartedly. At some point during Terra's ramble, Kori's body had sunken from a few inches off the ground to standing solidly square on the concrete.
"In the past," Kori reminisced, "whenever he has gotten...like this, I-...we would help him through it. We all helped one another overcome our personal obstacles. We worked together to...-" Her expression strained as she tried to recall a phrase. "-...to fight our...devils...?"
"Demons," Terra corrected. A dark-humored smirk found its way upon her face.
"Yes," Kori said agreed, catching where Terra's mind had gone. "We fought our demons. Quite literally, when necessary."
Oof. Yea. Rachel's whole...thing. Felt like a lifetime ago.
"Aaaand," Terra slowly acknowledged, "I'm not saying that wasn't a good thing. I'm not saying Dick didn't do his part. I'm just saying...-" She waved her hand out in a sweeping motion as she shambled toward her point. This was Kori, so Terra had to be delicate with how she worded this. "There comes a point where life forces you to...move on, or...stay behind. He chose to stay behind. We...didn't."
Kori let Terra's words sink in a little. The whole subject – Dick's behavior, his choices, his role in their lives – had been like watching sand gradually settle in water when it came to Koriand'r. Slow, easily disturbed, but ultimately bringing clarity. That evening had stirred things back up, but at least the process got quicker for Kori to resolve each consecutive time it happened. Doubly so ever since she and Rachel had become a thing, 'entered an amicably mutual romantic relationship,' something Terra had seen coming a mile away when seemingly no one else had. Could maybe chalk that one up to being the late-comer to the club, perhaps.
A minute or so of silence between the pair went by, the sounds of late night traffic washing over them. What had once been an ambiance that put Terra on edge had become comforting. No more night patrols, no more risking their asses all the time...Most folks didn't even recognize them on the streets anymore, so long as they dressed like...folks on the street.
"Hey, um," Terra started up, running her palm across her face. She twisted her abdomen toward Kori, slouching against the metal railing of their apartment's balcony. "Sorry for bringing it up, I just-...I didn't think it'd bug me so much, but it...-"
"I like the bugs."
Terra was...confused.
"You, uh-...Huhh-what-now?"
"I like to be 'bugged.' I do appreciate insects, as well, but to be bothered – to be 'bugged' – is something I suppose I...enjoy."
"...How...so?"
"When I experience such an emotion, it is due to conflicted feelings. Conflict between emotions occurs when something is...off balance. When something requires attention, psychologically speaking. So, when I am 'bugged,' it...invariably leads to situations...like this." Kori gestured her wrist upward toward Terra, smiling wistfully. "It leads me to seek resolution. To re-balance something that is off center. To resolve something has been causing emotional turmoil."
Terra was taken aback, clueless as to how to respond, but...glad? Kori seemed comforted somehow.
"Uhh...That's...good? Right?"
Kori giggled softly through her nose and nodded.
"Yes. It is good. I appreciate that we are able to...-"
The front door to their apartment opened, and a weary-looking Rachel came shambling in. Her hair was windswept, her face slick with sweat, and her eyes dim beneath furrowed brows. She had a reusable grocery bag slung over her shoulder, and it looked heavy.
Kori was immediately flustered, eager to greet Rachel, yet hesitant to abruptly cut short such a delicate conversation.
"O-Oh, welcome, Rachel, I-..." Kori held up one finger toward Rachel from across the way, and Rachel nodded complacently, setting down the grocery bag and hanging up her denim jacket. Turning back to Terra, Kori settled the convo down. "I, too, appreciate that we can discuss these...complicated matters so openly. I will reflect on the thoughts you have expressed."
Terra shrugged lightly, citing, "Just saying, you don't owe that guy anything at this point. That's all."
"...Who?" Rachel's gravelly voice asked from a room away, inside the apartment.
"Guess," Terra called back with dull-drum sarcasm.
"...Oh," Rachel eked with disinterest, resuming untying her tall black boots.
"Let us heed Terra's advice," Kori belted out – with a bit too much enthusiasm – as her body once again lifted from the ground and soared toward Rachel. "and not let our thoughts lurk on such...darkened clouds this evening."
Rachel was peeling her enormous boots off – with her hands, not her powers, to Terra's intrigue. Upon reaching Rachel, Kori daintily drifted right up to her and planted a gentle kiss on the woman's cheek, which was absorbed with that melted-ice smirk on Rachel's face which Terra had come to recognize. Terra's was a romance going years strong now, but these two, they'd only hooked up properly a few months ago, even though they'd been living together for so long. It was kind of weird for Terra to try and imagine that kind of dynamic for herself. Wouldn't it feel like you were dating your sister, or something? But somehow it just made sense with those two. The Titans were a surrogate family, and families...had couples in them a lot of the time.
As Kori and Rachel caught up on Rachel's brief shopping trip, Terra's phone vibrated from the coffee table. A nature documentary they'd been watching had been put on pause. Terra had been hoping for something in the documentary – one about honeybees – might offer some keen, metaphorical insight into current life goings-on. But it did not. The closest it got to that was giving her uncomfortable flashes to years-old trauma related to the Hive incident. On the flip-side, they'd have never met Jinx otherwise, and she and Victor would never have hooked up.
Terra's phone vibrated again, nearly toppling off the gothic-framed, glass coffee table. Terra scooped it up, swept her hair back out of her face, and checked it.
[ Gar ]
[ waddap? We still on for some ctr tonight? ]-
[ Vic's butthurt over last time, he wants revenge. ]-
With a smirk, Terra typed out a reply.
-[ I'll head back in a sec. ]
-[ You tell Vic it's not my fault that CTR made him weak. ]
Terra let her phone drop to her side as she noticed something about Rachel and Kori's convo pick up in tension. The items Rachel had bought were being put away through hushed chatter, but their tones had been getting increasingly irate.
Terra was jarred back to her phone by a reply – only not from the person she'd expected.
[ Vic ]
[ I KNOW you are not trash-talking the greatest kart racer ever made. ]-
[ I will throw down with an itemized list that scientifically PROVES CTR is superior. ]-
Smiling mischievously, she fired back.
-[ speaking of itemizing, you gotta learn how to deal with items, bro. ]
-[ It's a kart racer. Items are like a key component man. ]
The response Terra got to this elicited a snorting chuckle from her.
[ Vic ]
[ Yes. When items are balanced and fair, they add a layer of depth and strategy. ]-
[ When they're blue shells and lightning bolts, they are straight up bullshit, and you know it. ]-
"- to worry about, I no longer possess that...manner of interest, Girlfriend."
"Its not about that, it's-...I just don't trust him, Kori."
"He is most likely lonely. It is his way of requesting aide, of asking for support, and we-"
"Hell of a way to show it. I don't care what he's feeling, let someone else handle it."
"Dear Girlfriend, you are quite aware that I am capable of convincing him to-"
"You're my Dear Girlfriend, too. And you don't have to put up with his shit anymore. OK? It's done, you...did your part. You can't just...MOM your way through everyone's else's problems, it doesn't work with everyone. Look, Kori. I love you? I have grown to accept, even admire, the...Mother-ing you do. But him? He needs to grow up already, and you continuing to coddle him? It's not helping. It's not. You need to stop doing this, Kori. Do what you want for a change."
"Uh..." Terra slowly slipped her phone into her pocket, suddenly feeling quite awkward about being here. "I, urh-...The guys're waiting on me, soooo...-"
"For the playing of electronic entertainment," Kori stated, nodding at Terra, then glancing at Rachel. "Perhaps we could stand some...entertainment? With friends?"
Rachel's eyelids fluttered irritably, and yet she nodded through a tired sigh.
Terra tried to avoid observing their tension, as it felt innately more personal and invasive with these two than with the couple she lived with. She offered to the pair, "I...am sure that would be fine with them, if you-...I mean, if you want."
"I do," said Kori, sucking in a deep breath through her nose. Glancing at Rachel, she brushed her fringe bangs to one side, then exhaled peacefully. "You suggest I do what I want to do? I want to enjoy electronic entertainment with my Girlfriend and surrogate familial figures."
"You...don't have to put it like that..." mumbled Rachel. "You want to just hang out. It's fine."
"I am...feeling self-conscious," Kori eked out warily, pinching her fingers at the bridge of her nose. "Might we please just...enjoy shared...entertainment experiences? Please? And no longer stress ourselves with this directionless conversation of concerns?"
Rachel shrugged, then nodded. As Kori swept past her, eagerly putting on shoes and a coat, Rachel swapped glances with Terra. Wide-eyed and tight-lipped, Terra shook her head slightly, as if to ward off any responsibility over Kori's mood.
With her worn and weathered but still regularly cleaned NASA jacket on, Kori briskly walked over to the fridge, retrieving a six pack of soda cans and a jar of salsa. Terra's brain fired off a certain, specific set of reflexes when she realized Kori was planning to take this over to the group.
"H-Hey, uh, can I check the ingredients on that salsa?" Terra prodded, feeling a slight sweep of panic that she hoped she masked well enough.
"Oh," said Kori, pausing at the boundary where the kitchenette's tiles crossed to the living room's carpet. Glancing at the glass jar in one hand, she plainly cited, "Yes, this is vegan-friendly, if that is your concern. However, you are welcome to inspect it yourself, if-"
"N-Nah, nah, you're good, just, uh-...Just checking. Instinct."
Terra smiled awkwardly at Kori, who glowed back briefly with a warm empathetic spark.
"Speaking of such precautions," Kori said to Rachel, "shall I retrieve your headphones for you?"
Rachel was waggling her fingers around as grocery items and doors were enveloped in black energy, sorting themselves out. She nodded simply to Kori, but added a raspy "Thanks."
Terra knew this was in regards to a pair of noise cancelling headphones Kori had gotten Rachel as a holiday gift. Rachel had been wearing them around often, basically every time Terra had seen her in public – but she'd left them at home for the pizza party that evening with Dick. Terra figured something about that was intentional, but wasn't going to pry into it.
While Kori was in the bedroom, Terra casually offered, "Yo, Rach, if you're, yunno, not feelin' it tonight, you totally don't have to-"
"I'll come."
Rachel had interrupted, but her words had not been cold. There was a brief lapse in her solemn body language where she seemed to realize what she'd just done, and had nearly dropped a levitating container of mustard.
"Uh." Rachel cracked a corner of her lip upward in a clear effort at smiling, and regained control of the yellow bottle. "Sorry. More...social interaction today than...I'm used to." She tidily placed the bottle in the fridge door with powers before closing it effortlessly. "But it's...good. It's fine. To be honest, I could probably use the...palette cleanser after how dinner went."
"OK," said Terra with a slow nod. "Just throwing it out there that you don't need to force yourself."
"Thanks. But I want to. I might just...need to take a break at some point. That's all."
Terra felt her phone vibrate again while Rachel said this, and she didn't even need to check to know it was Garf asking what was taking them so long.
"Erh, yea, 'course. No problem," assured Terra, approaching the apartment's front door.
Kori appeared out of the bedroom, flaunting a pair of big, black headphones which she tenderly and carefully placed around Rachel's neck. Rachel smirked bashfully back at the proximity and daintiness of the deed, and Kori stuck her tongue out quickly, tapping its tip against Rachel's nose. This caused Rachel to flinch and...giggle, playfully pushing a grinning Kori away from her as her face lit up red.
"What was that?" Rachel snickered.
"On Tamaran," Kori tartly began, waggling a finger, "it is a sign of-"
"No, it isn't," Rachel called her out, grabbing her cheek between two fingers and pinching slightly.
With a squeal of a laugh, Kori smacked Rachel's hand off of her face, conceding, "It is not, I am making a mess with you."
"You know full well that's not the saying. Now you're just being a...dork," mumbled Rachel, now realizing Terra was staring at them as this went on and getting self-conscious.
"I am indeed being your dork," Kori beamed and ran a hand against Rachel's cheek, brushing purple hair back over one ear.
Lingering in the open doorway, Terra had lowered her eyelids at this disgustingly adorable interaction. "You two done yet?" she cited dryly, but with an ember of warmth. "You're so cute, the scale is being tipped all the way around to the opposite side into 'gross' territory."
Their cutesy demeanor tidied itself in an instant as Rachel slipped on a pair of black loafers and Kori slipped on sneakers. Kori was obviously trying to suss out what Terra's comment meant.
"Is there a kind of scale that...works differently than I am aware of?"
"I'm not sure 'scale' is the best word for her metaphor," Rachel coyly prodded, smirking at Terra as she pushed her other set of side-bangs behind the opposing ear to even things out.
"C'mon," Terra sighed out loudly but facetiously, leading the others onward.
"Hm," Kori hummed in loud thought as they traversed the apartment building's hallway. "Is this...similar to the Canned Valley phenomenon?" A brief moment of her expression wrinkling before: "Ah, that is, I mean, the Uncanny Valley."
"Uhhh...-?" Terra pondered for a second. "Yea. Yea, it's like that."
"Oh," Rachel eked out dully, shivering as they went up a flight of stairs. "Eugh, now you're reminding me of images I wouldn't even put in my enemy's minds."
"Then the metaphor stands," Terra jabbed gleefully.
As the trio reached the top floor, Rachel paused, and rather suddenly. Kori squeaked with surprise as she collided into Rachel from behind. Terra, hearing the racket, turned her head over her shoulder and came to a rolling stop. Rachel was giving her a strange look – a sort of ashamed one.
"Erhh...-?" Terra latched her thumbs through her beltloops and let her arms hang as she shambled a few steps backward. "Everything OK?"
"I forgot to thank you," Rachel mumbled. Kori blinked at her, rising up from the last step and standing beside her.
"Thank her?" Kori asked quietly.
Terra shrugged, figuring she knew what Rachel meant and didn't want to make a big deal of it.
"For telling him off," Rachel clarified. Kori's face tightened into a nervous wince as Rachel went on. "I know it...probably should've been me to do it, or-...Well, I'm just glad someone did."
"Your language was...harsh," Kori warily muttered. "But...harshness is the language Richard seems to understand most clearly, at least as of late."
Rachel took Kori's hand and nodded sullenly, to which Kori shrugged up one shoulder, looked off into a distant place, and sighed.
"Totally wasn't a problem," Terra assured. "That guy wants to act like that?" She shoved a thumb off behind her. "Outta here. We've been through enough crap, we don't his guilt-tripping bullshit. I'll do it again if he wants to try pulling that junk."
As Terra grunted her defiances, Rachel and Kori caught up to her, side by side.
Kori tried to lift the mood up by declaring, "I for one am extremely pleased and edified that you chose to stay with us."
"Heh. Well, you can thank Garf for that."
"I am thanking you more," Kori insisted, giving Terra a gentle pat on the back as they reached her apartment's door.
"I'd say 'you're welcome,'" Terra mumbled, pulling out her room key. "But you guys are the ones who welcomed me, so...-"
As Terra unlocked the door, Rachel concluded the conversation.
"And you chose to accept our invitation, despite everything. I owe Dick a lot for...everything he's done for us, but...we can't make him re-enter our lives. He has to want it. And right now...he doesn't. So...-" She squirmed a little at Kori's disparaging look. "Nothing we can do about it right now. Let's just...try to take our minds off it."
"I'm with you there," said Terra, pushing the door open.
Upon entering, a small, green rodent greeted them. It was...kind of like a rat, but with beady little black eyes, a thin, long snout, and-...Well overall, just kind of more cute. It was Garf, of course, though Terra did not recognize what he was supposed to be.
She scooped him up just the same in her hands, lifted him to her face, and nuzzled his tiny little nose against her own.
"I have no idea what the heck you are, but you are cute."
The green creature in her hands morphed, and gangly green arms wrapped themselves around her as Garfield assumed his default form, smacking a slobbery kiss on her forehead.
"Bandicoot," he said in a sarcastic matter-of-fact way. Bobbing his head behind him toward the massive television in their living room, he added, "Obviously," referring to the cartoony kart racing that was going on.
"-don't understand why they all have to have...tits."
"They're humanoid cartoon animals, Jinx. You're overthinking this."
"Easy for you to say, Vic. You don't have tits."
"And I won't deny any artist the right to...freely express their admiration of tits, even in cartoon animal form."
"Oh, whatever. Your brain is so wired to be horny you still are even without a pe-"
"Whoaaa, say it louder so the whole floor can hear you."
"You were the one just confessing you're a furry."
"Say what, now?"
"She's got a point, you know," said Garfield, cutting into this awkward conversation as the group reached the massive couch. "It's weird to make cartoon lady bandicoots look...like that. But it's not surprising. One of the things that makes us different from, like, ninety-nine percent of everyone else livin' on this planet? Our sexuality is wayyyy more complicated that just reproduction. When you start thinkin' about it, it's actually-"
"I know we're all consenting adults here," Terra butted in, her face beginning to boil over with ideas and acts she did not want to get pulled into this kind of conversation. "but maybe we should...change gears?"
"Please," Rachel pleaded in a low, deadpan groan.
"Aw," cooed Kori, "but I wish to hear more of Garfield's ideology on the superfluous use of-"
"I do not," Rachel countered, placing a single finger up to Kori's lips.
Kori kissed said finger, and Rachel burst out an involuntary snort-laugh, pulling her hand back.
"Ew," Jinx sighed out melodramatically, making it apparent that she was being facetious.
"It is as Garfield has said," Kori cited with a wink and a smile, lifting a finger up. "Even something completely unrelated to reproduction, such as fingers, can carry romantic and/or sexual connotation, depending on-"
"All-right, all-right, all-right," Victor blabbered. "Is everybody here to wax poetic about your organic private parts, or are we gonna game?"
"Did you just say 'wax poetic?'" Terra goaded with a critical glance.
Jinx lifted up her skinny hand with pride, citing, "I taught him that one."
"What's that mean?" Garfield muttered, scratching his green mutton chops. "'Wax poetic?'"
Rachel opened her mouth to speak, but Kori beat her to the response.
"Oh, similarly to Victor, I also am in relations with a gothic girlfriend," Kori proudly flittered her hands in Rachel's direction, and Rachel blinked dryly over an amused smile. "and have been taught this phrase, as well. It means to speak of something with increasing enthusiasm, as in the opposite of 'waning,' 'to wax.'"
"You seem...-" Terra swapped smirks with Garf as she spoke to Kori. "-...weirdly excited to talk about this stuff, Kor."
"Ah, yes!" squealed Kori, clapped her fingertips together like hummingbird wings. "I am 'here-for-it,' I think is the phrase? I have learned a lot recently about these matters of superfluous sexual behavior inherent in many sentient, organic beings."
Rachel's face seemed to light up pink, her eyes wide, and her lips tight. It was a look that read, 'Please goddess do not overshare what I have taught you.'
Victor looked incredibly flustered by all of this, and flaunted two game controllers around.
"We gonna play some kart racing here, or what, people?!"
"Come on," said Jinx. "You were the one just trying to defend the booby-bandicoots."
"I was not 'defending' them, I was-"
"Furry."
"If I'm a furry, then Terra is, like...whatever that is, doubled."
"Hey!" Terra snapped, trying to keep her face from blushing too red. "Stop talking about the community like they're any weirder than any of us. Like Garf was saying, it's-!...People-!...Sex is weird, OK?!"
"Does that make me a furry, too?" Rachel sighed. "Seeing as...you know...-" And Terra was reminded of the fact that Rachel and Garfield had once been a thing.
"Maybe we should stop talking about this," Terra groaned out, her shoulders slumping with an exaggerated wariness.
"As intriguing as such a conversation is," said Kori, "I detect a lot of the 'awkward sauce', and wish to move on to more philosophically neutral things, like...-" She zipped through the air and swiped one of the controllers Vic had been holding. Her eyes glowing a dangerous green, she growled lowly at Victor: "-...utterly annihilating our enemies in electronic sports." This was followed by a complete swap of tone as she giggled at Victor's alarmed look.
"Damn," Vic sighed, clicking at his controller. "Just when I think you all don't scare me anymore..."
Jinx slid an affectionately bemused hand across his metallic shoulder – one that was slimmer and smoother than it had once been. Years of tweaking and adjusting had lent Victor a form that was just as efficient but more subdued in appearance. He even sported some 'tattoos' of a sort on his arms – artwork Jinx had carefully created.
"Is that salsa vegan?" Garfield was asking Rachel with a cryptic glare.
"Yes," said Rachel in a firm, impatient groan. She handed the jar to him unceremoniously.
Terra recalled that they had laid out snacks on their smooth, stone coffee table, in case people were hungry – after all, not much pizza had been eaten earlier. Everyone had lost their appetite pretty quickly...
Garfield was struggling to open the jar, but like second nature, morphed his arm into a tentacle with suction cups, and managed to pop the lid off with ease. Terra admired his adaptability – she would've...probably morphed into a gorilla and crushed the damn thing.
Terra opened the bag of tortilla chips they'd been saving and poured it all straight into the large baking bowl on the coffee table. Garfield immediately dug in.
"So we're done talking about bandicoot boobs?" Jinx said, grabbing a controller for herself.
"Video games," Vic puffed, like steam from an over-boiled teapot.
"Not before I get some carbonated hydration in me," Garfield cried through a mouthful of chip-and-salsa, eyeing the six-pack of soda cans Koriand'r was still holding in one hand.
"I thought carbonation dehydrated-?" Kori began.
"Just let him have this," Terra murmured into Kori's ear as she sat down beside her.
Rachel took the opposite side, sighing, "We don't want to break his heart. He's still recovering from finding out why beer causes weight gain."
"What about beer?" Garfield asked, his pointed ears perking up, much to Terra's delight. "We got any beer?"
"No," Terra chuckled. "Drink your soda, dummy."
Garfield squinted his eyes with suspicion at Terra, and she tugged one eyelid down, sticking her tongue out at him. He rolled his eyes and smiled before snatching up the purple soda cans with glee, getting in the way of the television.
"Dude!" Victor grumbled, still unable to even get a match started, as no one was paying enough attention. "It's gonna take us half an hour just to play a three minute round. My gabbing-to-racing ratio is depressingly low tonight."
By this point, Garfield had handed everyone a can of soda, but just as he went to open the first one, Jinx stopped him.
"Wait."
The room quickly fell to a dire tension.
With a devilish twinkle in her eye, Jinx snapped her finger, and the familiar rippling wave of unease washed over the group from her powers doing...something.
Wearing a mischievous toothy grin, Jinx wryly declared, "Let's play Russian Roulette, grape style."
"Oh oh oh," Kori set her controller down, flicking up a wrist. "This is the game of chance originating from the use of a six-chambered armament, correct? The joke is...that there are six of us, only...rather than a decidedly unfun explosion of gunpowder against someone's cranium, the loser will...be covered in fizzing purple carbonated liquid! Haha! I do appreciate these kinds of japes now."
Jinx's wry pride withered slightly as she flatly replied, "That-...Ugh, yea, basically. Fff." It was clearly less fun when Kori played along with it, but Terra could tell that Jinx was soft on Kori by that point, secretly enjoying just how opposite they could be. Maybe something about dating Rachel was helping Kori subconsciously...understand how to get along with the grumpy ones in their group?
"What mischievous hijinks!" Kori chuckled. "Such creativity! I volunteer for this game!"
Jinx shook her head slightly at Kori, but smiled, saying, "Someone's ready for a good time, huh?"
"Wait, wait," Terra grumbled, pointing at her can cautiously. "Did you...hex one of these?"
Jinx's pearly teeth flashed wide as she responded, "Maybe."
There was a round of eye-rolls and the like, but Kori eagerly grabbed her own can from the coffee table. Before anyone said anything further, however, the cans were all enveloped in a deep black haze as Rachel used her own abilities to spin them in a tight, ominous circle before redistributing them.
Mirroring Jinx's smirk right back at her, Rachel cocked her head slightly to one side at Jinx and said, "Don't know about anyone else, but I'm feeling pretty lucky..."
Jinx's expression soured into a pout as she stared down the can she'd been given with uncertainty.
"What's the matter, J?" Vic teased with a slight bump of his large elbow.
Jinx shot him a death glare, her cheeks sizzling pink, and he laughed. Garfield, who was lingering above everyone to one side, reached his hand over Jinx's head, high-fiving Vic.
"Nice one, Raych," he said, to which Rachel closed her eyes and shrugged, feigning joking innocence.
Jinx sorely planted her can on the table and crossed her arms, lulling her head to one side.
"Wasn't thirsty, anyway."
"Oh, is this...-?" Kori took a second to figure out what had just happened. "Ahhh, the game has been spoiled, hasn't it?"
Rachel shrugged again, but opened one eye to look at Jinx, who rolled her head around her shoulders, sighed dramatically, and tossed her hands up.
"You got me," Jinx conceded. "I hate that you've figured out how to pick up on that."
"It must be our sisterly bond," Rachel said, cracking her joke dryly.
"Must be," Jinx retorted sarcastically.
"Hm?" The humor floated way over Kori's head. "I thought it was because Rachel has learned how to detect traces of your energy in the inherent aura of any object you hex." A quiet beat, then, "Ahhh, the use of sarcasm. Between the two of you, your mannerisms of speech can...make it slightly difficult sometimes, and...-" Kori trailed off sheepishly, but Rachel patted her palm against Kori's thigh with an endeared look.
Terra grinned at this, and at Jinx for trying to cause more mischief.
"Guess this is a sign to start giving up the magic act at home," Terra said matter-of-factly, kicking up one foot over the other knee reaching over for her soda can.
"Just trying to liven things up a little," Jinx defended, her veneer of 'edginess' thinning as she set her unopened drink (ie carbonation bomb) down on the table. "It's not like these things can do much good around the house like everyone else's..." She lifted her hands up, staring into her palms with a distance expression, eyes glazed over with a layer of remorse.
"Wh-? Hey, whoa," said Vic, immediately keen on jumping aboard the 'good boyfriend train,' as he was keen on doing. "Said it before, n' I'll say it as many times as I need to: your powers aren't just some 'thing,' they're part o' you. I ain't gonna let you talk about any part of yourself like that. Just because we're not smashing skulls in these days doesn't mean what makes you you is any less beautiful or good. You got that?"
Jinx's eyes had started to well up and she dabbed her wrists against her cheeks daintily.
"Mm," she hummed out through her hands.
Victor kissed her on the cheek, and she smiled weakly, avoiding everyone else's gazes as much as she could.
Terra drummed her fingertips against her can awkwardly, unsure of what to do or say.
"Victor's words are ones I agree with," Kori offered. "I...would invite you to please incite non-violent japes upon my person any time it would cheer you up, though I would recommend keeping it a surprise so as to maximize the effect."
"I'll help," Rachel volunteered, lifting a hand, and saying it with absolute nonchalance. "Having someone on the inside should make bobby-trapping our apartment easy."
Kori gasped in playful offense, and Rachel shrugged, her eyes twinkling with mischief at her girlfriend.
"Puh-!" Jinx half-laughed, half-sobbed. In a recovering whimper, she said, "Thanks, I'll...definitely consider that, you two..."
Aaaaand suddenly Terra's brain clicked one and one together as she realized maybe this was a motivating factor in why Kori had been so encouraging with Jinx about this kind of thing. With a reluctant sigh. Terra set her can down on the coffee table. Leaning over the couch's edge, she flicked her finger in a tight circle, grabbing the geo essence of the stone table and spinning it in a half circle, so that Jinx's soda can was in front of her. She scooped it up, and with a few more flicks of her wrist, swapped her can with Jinx's, so now she was the loser of 'Grape Soda Russian Roulette.'
"Sorry," she said, setting her elbows on her knobby knees, and her cheeks in her palms. "I know I haven't been playing nice with everybody lately, but...I never meant to actually hurt anyone's feelings."
"Except Dick's," Garfield backed her up, still hovering over Jinx at the couch's edge.
At this, Terra flinched slowly, her face wrinkling up with uncertainty and her head sinking lower into her shoulders.
"Not even him, really," she defended. "I just want him to back off, is all..."
"Well," huffed Vic, "based on what you said to him tonight? I'm pretty sure it's gonna be a while before any of us hears from him again..."
"Good."
Everyone seemed caught off guard by the fact that Kori was the one who had said this. She scratched at one of her eyebrows awkwardly and shrugged – there was an awful lot of shrugging going on amongst the group that evening. Uncertain moods to go around.
"I do not wish for Richard to continue being a...difficult topic to discuss around me," Kori concluded simply. "But I also do not wish to discuss him further right now. Might we...finally indulge in fantastical race simulations?"
"We might," said Rachel, squeezing Kori's hand and leaning in for a kiss, which was reciprocated.
"Well, it's about time!" Victor cheered, grabbing his controller – but firing off a cautious double-check at Jinx, making sure she was OK. Rubbing some dampened eyeshadow into her sleeve, she laughed through nose and nodded in agreement, taking up her controller, as well.
Garfield set his drink down at the table's edge, morphed into a mouse, scampered across the spine of the couch ('Eugh!' 'Gah-!' '...Ulgh' 'Eep!') before pouncing down Terra's shoulder and into her lap. He hopped off and landed on his humanoid knees at the coffee table. He then transformed into a crocodile, and scooped up the 'soda bomb' Jinx had hexxed, detonating it between two large green jaws before spitting out a flattened, wet can onto the wooden floor.
Various cries of disgust rang out, but Terra just beamed at him as he turned into a rabbit in her lap, nudging at the controller in her hands.
"I know Garf's a lost cause," said Victor, "but if you're all gonna drink that stuff in here, can you at least use the damned coasters?"