Author's Note: I haven't update in awhile because life is crazy. I would tell you all unnecessary details about it in typical fanfic author fashion but I am not brave enough and I prefer the aura of mystery that comes with my inconsistency. Things will get juicier, and make more sense, just bear with me! Thank you for your patience *various heart and star emojis*
What used to mercilessly haunt him was the soul-shattering pain he saw in her eyes when he kissed her for what was supposed to be the last time. The night she almost murdered him in cold blood with a huge fucking rock. It kind of makes him laugh now, but at the same time, he wishes she threw it. Unfortunately, she had morals and he had a sense of self-preservation.
He can still feel his hips digging into her stomach. The way his teeth buzzed when they hit hers. How he barely felt his injuries because she had his body pumping an inhumane amount of adrenaline.
He remembers the weight of her body because it was warmer than anything he's ever felt. And his arms are tingling with that weight now.
Her neck in the cradle of his arm. Her back bent over his hand like a ragdoll. Her limp leg grazing his knee. Each imaginary point of contact, tingling.
He's still catching his breath, sweating even though he's only got boxers on and his blanket was thrown away hours ago. Heartbeat rattling his ribs like an xylophone or something.
What am I, a fucking seer?
The door creaks open. The sound and Roy's presence spark an irrational anger inside of him, and he'd snap if he could breathe. So he gives Roy a death stare instead.
"Chill, I heard… noises. You good?"
It's then that he notices the kitchen knife in Roy's hand. He gestures to it almost wildly, confused and irritated. "What were you gonna do?" he manages to gasp. "Stab me?"
Roy stabs the air with a big smile on his face.
He closes his eyes and tries to pretend that he's alone.
"You never know, y'know? I know it was probably a nightmare, but—"
He cuts Roy off by lifting his hand more aggressively than he has any right being at the moment. The guilt starts to set in. "Gimme a sec," he says roughly, dropping flat on his back onto the mattress.
He tries to breathe deeply, fully, filling his gut with oxygen with each inhale and releasing it steadily with each exhale. It gets easier each time, but his chest still hurts with the overwhelming sense of dread that the visions never fail to give him.
He needs it gone.
"I keep having visions," he mumbles.
Roy steps closer. "What?"
He sighs and takes way too long dragging himself up and leaning against the wall. "I keep having visions."
"Of what?" Roy gently sits at the edge of the bed, bewildered in a way that both reassures him and pisses him off even more. He can't look at him, so he turns his head and stares at the moon outside of the window.
And suddenly, like he's the one who took her prophetic life, he's struck with the urge to confess.
"Of her dying in my arms."
Like he's the one who did it, and how does he know he won't? The shame slithers down his spine and makes him shiver.
"…Starfire?"
It's not the fact that it's Roy saying it, but that he knows exactly who… that he's mentioning her at all. That hearing her name — even if it's her Earthname — makes him want to cave in on himself.
He didn't even realize he was clutching his own chest.
"I'll take that as a yes. My bad."
He shakes his head in disbelief of his very own existence. "Fuck."
"Whaddya need, Jay?"
He feels smaller, like he's sinking in the ground. His vision's blurring over, but he can still see her corpse clear as day in his mind's eye.
He frowns deeply like a sad, sad child. "Gimme a sec, gimme a sec," he whispers, holding his hand up again.
"Take your time man, don't worry. You alright?"
Get a fucking grip! Why does this hurt so goddamn bad? He grimaces and chokes on his breath. Why can't his chest stop aching?
He forces himself to speak, anyway. "Someone is sending me messages." He wheezes, winded. "I think."
"Who?" Roy's voice sounds like the hand that saves him from drowning.
And then her voice drags him back down underwater. "I'm sorry."
But before he can curse her life and her name, he takes one look at the ceiling and the pain evaporates like it was never even there.
He gulps down fresh oxygen, and it feels so clear. "She's going to die."
"Who's sending you these visions, man?"
He holds his palms open and stares at them. "I can still feel her. It feels too real," he mumbles to himself.
"Jay. You're scaring me even more than before."
He must look and sound insane. He can feel the bags under his eyes. His heart slows steadily. Exhaustion isn't even the word. "Kori."
"He's sending you the messages? Who's Kori?"
"No, that's… that's Starfire's real name. Koriand'r," he breathes. Like it's a name he shouldn't be speaking.
And he shouldn't be. He hasn't said it. He's been pretending it doesn't exist for years now. Pretending he hasn't thought about it.
"…Wow."
He blinks at Roy. "What?"
"I'm just surprised. That you're talking about her, I mean." He looks uncharacteristically concerned. "Are you okay?"
"The message. It made me so tired." He feels himself sliding down.
"Jason. Do you know who it was?"
"Yeah. Think so." His eyes are slipping shut. "Has to be… her… her friend…"
"Who?" Roy's voice is too soft, too far away.
He can see her face, but for the life of him, he can't remember her name. All he can focus on is her violet eyes as he goes down.
She had expected to sleep peacefully after a rather eventful night, but it has been hours and she is wide awake.
Sol had felt wonderful inside of her. He gave her a release she was not expecting, or even looking for — but they had given each other a single look and in what felt like seconds they were naked. She was sitting on top of him with her hands on his chest and it felt glorious.
While she feels the glow physically, her soul seems to dim as the night passes on. And something tells her that he may regret it for reasons of his own. She does not blame him.
At least he is resting beside her. She curls up further into the side of her bed, unable to fight off the flashes of memories that came with the intimate warmth of a man's body.
She is capable of being on her own, to enjoy it, even. But does she want to be? She has had a wonderful time so far with Sol. But now, a familiar emptiness encompasses her heart.
She misses him. She is yet to fully understand why he left.
She almost strokes the air, as if it were his face, as if he were there, kneeling by the bed and putting her to sleep. Sometimes, he'd sleep with her. But soon after, he'd leave her to wake up alone. And now he is not here at all.
Oh, Dick. Where did you go?
Behind the memory of him, something threatens to rear its head. She forces it away.
Not tonight. It does not matter.
She is not brave — or rather, she is not stupid enough to venture further into her past. Nothing good ever comes out of it.
There is only one man she can handle at a time. She is barely doing so — resisting the urge to call him on the communicator even though she knows he won't pick up.
It has been months and she misses his face almost desperately. The only thing that relieves her sore chest even slightly is that she knows he feels the same.
He has always made these kinds of choices — the ones that never make the pain seem as necessary as he makes them out to be. But for a while, she has been too tired to be angry. Too tired to forgive. For months on end, she has only been trying to forget.
Sol shifts beside her and she tenses, quietly wiping her tears away. He sighs before he resumes his silence.
Dick, I wish you could hear me somehow. I wish you could just erase these last few months. I wish you would tell me why it must be this way.
But she learned years ago, and the lesson stings as much as the first hundred times: she should not expect such transparency from him.
He still steals her sleep away without even trying.
He finally got himself to sleep but was rudely awakened by the sound of… fucking. It was uncomfortable and enraging to witness by ear, but what could he do? What could anyone expect from some dingy motel in such a colorful city?
No, he's not jealous. He's just a little lonely. He's just thinking about his girlfriend — ex-girlfriend — who he hopes will take his sorry ass back after this mission is over and he can finally explain why, why, why it all had to be this way.
He's never despised something so much.
But he knows — or maybe he's just hoping so hard that he's delusional, which is definitely something that has happened before — that she'll understand. And forgive him.
Maybe.
The noises from before ring through his head, muffled through the thin walls. He grimaces, shifting uncomfortably under the sheet. God forbid he sleeps.
And God forbid he doesn't think about how depraved he is, holy shit.
The woman just… sounded. Like her.
That's all.
He's too lazy to take another cold shower. Too ashamed to get off to the girl that's probably sick from how worried she is about him. He tries to breathe deeply and sink lower into the mattress, but to be frank, it sucks and his back already hurts.
But without all these grievances, would he have slept anyway? His anxiety hasn't let him rest until it completely exhausted him. The last time he slept even halfway decently was at Babs' place. She's probably worried about him, too.
The flash of a memory — her spreading her legs over him. Imagine her. On my lap. Right now.
He can't do this to himself right now.
He rips the sheet off his quickly warming body and forces himself onto his feet. He slips on a pair of shoes and steps out into the humid air in an old shirt and his boxers. Whoever may happen to see him would be another witness to his suffering.
He's never been a smoker, but he kinda gets why Jason is, now — only they could get themselves into the most impossible, deplorable situations they could possibly be in. It feels appropriate to have a cigarette in a moment like this, where he's trying to feel capable of living despite the disgusting heat in the air.
But it's just the dread of everything falling to shit that's making him overdramatic. He's barely kept it together, but he's managed to move quickly and smoothly under the pressure. It's what he's supposed to do.
Maybe I would've been better off if I didn't get a moment to breathe. He wouldn't be fighting off her memory, then.
Like she isn't always on his mind, anyway.
He could almost hear her calling out his name.
His eyes slip shut. He smiles, watching her in his mind. The way she'd always come to him. Run into his arms.
"I'm doing this for you," he barely whispers. Praying that somehow, she'd get the message, she'd understand. "I'll make sure I come out alive. I promise."
It's hard not to think about the weight that's kept him chained to Hell, but he's got plenty of reasons to ignore it. For now.
For just a couple more days.
Her voice echoes faintly in his head — is he finally losing it? It sounds so…
"Dick, where are you?"
Close.
He nearly breaks his neck with how fast he turns it towards the roof of the motel. But all he sees is a whole lot of nothing.
It was so soft, but there was no way he could have imagined it. It came from outside of his head. Outside!
He doesn't dare to even blink as he walks slowly away from the corridor. Questioning his sanity but simultaneously leaving no room for doubt. He knows his love's voice when he hears it.
But there's nothing, not a damn thing he can see from here. No red blur in the sky. Only the clouds in the darkness and the streetlights illuminating where he thought he'd see her — sitting on the roof, watching the stars. Like she'd always do.
It couldn't be. How would she know I was here? Or if she didn't, why would she be here at all?
Suddenly, he looks to the door next to his.
No.
Now he hopes it wasn't her.
But he's already going mad, thinking up every possible scenario — she's somehow found him and is plotting her revenge. God knows he deserves it. Or she's trying to find him. Maybe something happened to her. He made sure she wouldn't be able to contact him…
Maybe she couldn't stand the loneliness anymore. Maybe she was just drawn here. Or told to come here.
Maybe she's already in danger.
His blood turns to ice — he doesn't know what to think. How to react. If his mind is truly intact. He's gonna need it in the next few days. He can't just go around and make assumptions and lose it.
But his feet are already taking him in front of that damn door. And he's knocking like a goddamn psychopath, ready to knock it down if he has to.
It takes longer than it should for the door to open. But when it does, a man is standing there, rubbing his forehead and squinting through half-lidded eyes. "Can I help you?"
"Is there a woman here with you?"
The man blinks slowly, looking at him like he's fucking crazy. And maybe I am. The man looks over his shoulder. Scratches his beard nonchalantly.
And oh, he's this close to losing it.
"No one's here, sir. Good night."
But just before the door can close, he sticks his arm and foot in. "I heard otherwise."
The man shakes his head and scoffs. "So? She left a while ago. I don't appreciate being interrogated. I'm just trying to sleep."
"Did she have long red hair?"
The man peers at him.
"Green eyes? Not from around here?"
The man betrays nothing.
"Blonde and blue. Lookin' for someone?"
He sighs. "Seems like it."
The man's smile is strained. "Good luck with that."
He almost feels like a dick now — there's a good chance he just bothered some random guy feverishly looking for someone who may or may not be present. He didn't seem to be lying.
But the turning feeling in his gut is telling him otherwise.