Author's Note: This one is a bit longer than usual, but I still wanted to keep it here. I hope you'll like it.
-=oOo=-
School of Hard Knocks
Garfield never understood what came over him that day. Even when Raven asked him about it later he could only shrug his shoulders in puzzled ignorance and rub the back of his head.
That morning he woke feeling quite peppy. He was definitely not a morning person, so that fact in itself may have been a warning sign. Unfortunately, he did have a history of not paying attention to warnings.
He headed down the hallway to the Ops room with a relaxed swagger, savoring the soon-to-come banter-and-breakfast with his best half-metallic buddy. His mind was focused on planning the strategy for the verbal attacks and ripostes, hungering for the bicker almost as much as he hungered for the non-dairy waffles. Then he sensed the fresh trail of her scent and something snapped in his mind with an almost audible pop.
He certainly wasn't indifferent to her. He'd been crushing badly on the dark empath for months, maybe even years, but all that time he kept those feelings locked and chained and smothered inside, where they burned his heart like a swallowed sigh.
He saw her as soon as he turned the corner, and the sight was painfully familiar. Her nose was buried in a book while she walked slowly but purposefully towards the same place he was heading for. A huge grin split his face in half.
It was a scientifically proven, observationally confirmed and experimentally verified fact that Gar never thought much about his actions until after he performed them, usually to his own detriment. Still, this time he managed to surprise even himself. He morphed into a sparrow and fluttered around the oblivious sorceress, transforming back into himself to stand in her way. As engrossed in her reading as she was, she still kept some awareness of her surroundings and made herself stop before she bumped into him. Her book went down and her eyes went up, the brows already knitting together as she recognized who was interrupting her.
Her face was still forming a frown at the goofy grin he was sporting when he leaned closer and kissed her.
The book fell from nerveless fingers and thumped on the floor. Light fixtures throughout the corridor exploded in a staccato of bangs. Part of the armored paneling peeled off the wall, curling into a roll as if it was wallpaper and not inch-thick composite steel.
He pulled back and gazed into her shocked eyes. His grin widened and his arms rose to embrace her as he bent forward again to give her a real kiss. A black portal yawned on the floor and she sank into it, leaving him hugging air.
The grin never left his face. "Awww, she's playing hard to get?" he chuckled softly to himself. "I like that!"
-=oOo=-
Raven's portal deposited her in the middle of the Ops room. It was an unusual choice, to be sure, but then again she was not in her finest, most rational state at the moment. Right now there was only one non-conflicting thought in the chaos of her mind, and she seized it like a drowning man clutches a piece of driftwood.
Tea.
Thank Azar for cloaks and hoods. The former covered her trembling knees and the latter hid the fierce blush on her face. She had to float over to the counter, because her legs were declaring in no uncertain terms that they were refusing to support her body for the time being.
She ignored the good-morning greetings from her friends and busied herself filling the electric kettle with water and turning it on. She was focusing so hard on calming her panicked thoughts and forcing her hands to stop shaking that she didn't hear the side door open and Garfield walk in, making a beeline for her.
She closed her eyes and tried to breathe deeply and slowly, using the exercise to calm down and restore her inner balance. But she wasn't able to take more than a couple of breaths before gentle hands seized her shoulders and turned her around.
Her eyes widened and she tried to shove him back, but instead of pushing him away her hands pressed on his chest and closed into fists, crumpling the uniform. His head bent closer and his lips found hers again.
If the previous kiss was a shocking surprise, this one was terrifying bliss. Raven's eyes rolled up and closed and she felt herself melting in his arms, her whole world concentrating and focusing on the feeling of his soft, warm lips and his tongue probing gently, begging to be let in, and his fang scraping ever so lightly against her lower lip –
An explosion of black power shattered the huge panoramic window, annihilated all the light fixtures and crushed the large TV screen into an object of avant-garde art. It also launched Beast Boy away, making him spin head over heels before it slammed him upside-down against the far wall.
"Garfield!" she shouted in consternation. His legs peeled off the wall slowly, followed by the rest of his body, until he plopped face-down on the floor. She took a step towards him, anxious to help, but it didn't appear to be necessary. He lifted and shook his head to clear it, then turned and propped himself on an elbow while looking at her. The grin that was still strung all the way from one pointy ear to the other was now almost predatory. Raven's face lost what little color it had and she whirled around to run away through the side door.
Beast Boy heaved himself up, bent his neck to a sickening chorus of small cracks and rotated his left arm until the shoulder joint snapped back into its socket.
"My kinda woman!" he groaned happily to himself through a painful but satisfied wince, then limped off after her, leaving their friends slack-jawed and paralyzed by what they had just witnessed.
-=oOo=-
Raven locked herself in her room and sat in lotus position on the floor, trying to gasp out her mantra and drown herself in the soothing, comforting calmness of her meditative trance. Her breathing quieted and her heart stopped racing as the familiar peace seeped back into her. She welcomed it with relief, attempting to sink into it completely, needing it almost as much as she needed him to kiss her again –
She shook her head and growled to herself, herding her thoughts and feelings back to where they were supposed to be. This was not good, and it should not be allowed to happen again. What in the Nine Hells got into Garfield to behave like that? He of all people should know; it's not like she was normal, she couldn't just indulge. She had to put an immediate stop to it.
She felt herself growing calmer as she made the decision. Yes, she would finish her meditation and then seek him out. She would face him, and speak to him seriously, without getting angry or shouting or hurting his feelings. Gar was impulsive, but he would understand. He would be a little unhappy, but she would explain to him that it wasn't his fault; he was a sweet and dear friend, someone that she treasured as a teammate and crime-fighting companion, not as a… not like that.
It's not like she loved him; loved those preposterous ears and that goofy grin and those playful eyes and that enticing fang and those strong, gentle hands whose touch she could still feel on her shoulders, just before they slid down to clasp her closely. Her eyes still firmly shut, she could easily recall his kiss and imagine the feeling of his lips burning her skin wherever they touched, leaving a trail of shivering need behind them as they glided over ear and neck and cheek to end up on her mouth, as her own lips parted shyly to allow him to play inside. The passion he kindled in her roared heavenwards in a blinding blaze that burned away her denial and her self-deception and laid her own soul bare for her to see what she kept so carefully hidden even from herself. Azar help her, she did love him, love him deeply and dearly and unconditionally. Her mind lost itself in the fulfilment of the newly discovered feelings and she wrapped her arm around him and pulled him closer and her hand buried its fingers in his hair and she kissed him back hungrily, breathing deeply and filling her lungs with his bewitching essence, and she –
– opened her eyes and saw it was all real.
She shrieked. A bolt of black lightning burst out and hurled him back, crashing through the door, wrenching it out of its mountings and carrying it flying before him as both he and the door slammed against the far wall of the hallway with a deafening clang.
"Garfield!" she screamed again, this time in horror. She leapt up and ran over, sinking to her knees beside him and cradling his head. Blood trickled from his nose and ears and his breathing was pained and irregular. She yanked out the communicator from a pocket in her cloak and flipped it open with a trembling hand.
"Cyborg!" she forced her voice to be clear, if not calm. "Medical emergency. My room."
She tossed the now-useless device aside and her hands began glowing with healing magic as she bent to save the life of the boy she loved, the boy she almost killed.
-=oOo=-
Cyborg skidded to a stop, bewildered by the incongruous scene. His 'little sis' was kneeling beside the sprawled form of his best friend, cradling his head in her lap, holding his face in her hands and covering it with kisses while she growled an extensive selection of derogatory terms obviously aimed at the green changeling. Some of the words he recognized; words like 'idiot', 'imbecile' and 'cretin', but he was ashamed to admit that most of the others he had to look up in his built-in dictionary. Trust Raven to have an awesome vocabulary.
He picked up Garfield gently and carried him to the infirmary. Raven trailed anxiously behind, her constant drone of invective not showing any indication of stopping soon, but rather expanding into other languages. The big half-robot recognized some words as German, assumed some to be Romanian, detected a decidedly Tamaranean lilt to several others and shuddered at the guttural ones that he supposed were demonic. A few days later, and on a whim, Cyborg analyzed the audio recording. Raven never once repeated herself.
They arrived at the infirmary and Cyborg placed Garfield's unconscious body in the scanner. A few minutes later he pulled him out and deposited him carefully on an infirmary bed, fixing electrodes for several monitors onto the green skin.
"He'll be fine, Rae," he tried to comfort the distraught half-demon. "You treated the worst, and his own healing factor should take quick care of whatever's left."
Raven let out a long, relieved breath. "I'll stay here and watch," she said tonelessly. The unsaid but implied "Get out and leave us alone" was as sharp and clear as crystal. Cyborg chuckled, careful to do it soundlessly, then turned to leave. Raven didn't even glance after him, her gaze was glued to Beast Boy's prone body.
"I'll explain later," Cyborg waved his arms, shooing away Robin and Starfire who were clustered at the entrance to the infirmary. "Let's leave the lovebirds to their privacy," he smirked.
There was no indication from Raven if she heard him, but Cyborg was pretty certain she had. He chuckled quietly to himself again, left and closed the door.
-=oOo=-
Garfield slowly regained consciousness, releasing a long groan of pain. He felt like he'd been hit by a bus, and he should know, because he had been hit by a bus before, one thrown by Mammoth. But he was morphed into a dinosaur then, and his bones were much thicker and stronger and –
His eyes opened and the sensation of déjà vu intensified. Just like that time, he was greeted by the anxious gaze of two breathtakingly beautiful amethyst eyes. The sight itself made all the pain and discomfort worthwhile.
Raven gave him a small smile when she saw he was coming to. His heart leapt and soared, and a grin spread again over his face. She pursed her lips and her hand caressed his cheek.
"Gar," she spoke in a croon, failing in her attempt to be angry at him. "What kind of lunacy came over you to act like you did? You know how unpredictable my power can be."
He groaned, but his eyes sparkled. "I wanted… to kiss you."
"I realize that," she huffed. "What I want to know is why didn't you try using a more conventional method, like asking me out on a date first?"
"I was… afraid… you'd say no."
Raven frowned. "And that 'no' would've hurt more than broken ribs, cracked skull, shattered pelvis and a dislocated shoulder?"
He closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. "A lot more," he whispered.
Raven sighed. "You are an idiot, Garfield Mark Logan." She bent and kissed him tenderly. "Don't ever change."