Chapter 16: Truths and Lies
Jerikai laughed at them while Cyborg and Beastboy tried to move. Cyborg's body stiffened as Beastboy sniffled out tears. Robin's eyes were drowning in tears. He neither sobbed nor whimpered, he only watched as Jerikai stepped on her neck. As if his life came rushing back to him, he stole Raven's body from his foot and hugged it. Tears drenched her shoulders as her head and limps only wobbled from the shaking.
"Robin looked at her, she's dead. You can only tell by her motionless face!" Jerikai sneered. Those words cut open his insides. He tried to ignore it as best as he could and hugged Raven tighter. He laughed one more time and kicked Robin in the face. "Do you know why she married me? She loved me! And she was also forced. It's sad to say, I love her too, but she's a bitch who deserves to die. and look! She already did! Isn't that splendid? I guess I full-filled my mission to kill her. I mean, she ran away from me, three years ago, and just months before, Slade ordered me to kill Raven." His icy breathe brushed Robin's ear as Jerikai leaned down. He chuckled evilly at them and kicked Robin in the head, bidding him good bye. Jerikai flew off.
Robin stared at Raven, face to face. Blood was running down his face, red was all he could see. Before passing out for a whole week, he indolently lifted his hand so that he could hold her hands. His shut eyes and his body began to as well.
After that whole entire week, Robin woke up lazily. He looked around him, seeing Raven in a glass container.
"Robin. help me." he heard her again. It sounded so much like Raven, but it couldn't be, she was dead. He was having doubts. He got up and walked over to her and put a hand on top, shadowing her face. He then folded his arms on the shield and buried his face into the crook of his elbows. Sobbing loudly, Cyborg and Beastboy walked in. A few seconds later, Starfire walked in and hugged Robin.
"We have to bury her soon, or she'll be rotting, and this whole place will sti-" Beastboy almost darkened the mood by trying to lift spirits. Cyborg elbowed him in the stomach. Beastboy growled at him and just patter Robin's back. Starfire clung to him like a wet t-shirt. Robin nodded and pushed them all away, heading into her room. He sat at the edge of her bed and laid down, sniffing the fresh smell of her shampoo hair. He took off his boots and gloves and crawled under her blankets. He felt something hard thrown into the pillow case and removed a diary, he sat up and hesitated to open it.
'This is Raven's after all. and she'll never be coming back to life,' he shook his head in reconsidering but placed his hand on it again and opened it to the latest diary entry.
January 13
Everything has gone wrong. I never knew that Starfire would know about my feelings. I said I didn't care about him. In truth, I do. I really do.
I don't want him to think I hate him. I wanted Robin to know that I love him.
That was where it ended. 'This was today!' he thought. How couldn't he have known that her feelings weren't jokes? How couldn't he have known? He placed the diaries under the pillow and had the exact same corner sticking out. He got up and looked through her closet. There were two dresses. One he already saw. the white one which was gorgeous when only she put it on. He touched the dress. Robin glided his fingers over the smooth polyester fabric. He shivered at the memory of when she walked down the stairs when she came home after he yelled at her. There were glitters cluttered on the bottom. Scattering one by one as it edged its way up. It slowly vanished as it reached the top of the white dress. He had just noticed this feature and smiled. This is the first dress he had ever seen Raven wore. He picked up the second dress and laid it out on the bed, examining each and every detail.
It was a crimson dress, matching the jewel on her forehead. Like the other one, it had glitter, but this one was strapless. The glitter started across the top this time. The dress had a slanted slit, starting from the left. It folded in each time it slid its way up. He kneeled on the ground; his body crouched before the bed as his arms folded underneath his head. More tears came forth, making him call Raven's name quietly.
"Raven." he repeated. Each sorrow filled tear landed on the ground with ever step towards her vanity. He looked at her desk where the mirror was. He stared long enough to see something flash a couple of times. It looked like a suffering girl. He couldn't make out her face. She had short dark hair and a red jewel. "Raven!" He could see her hand reaching out, calling his name in a whisper.
"Help me... Robin." She tried screaming but nothing more than a mist of her voice was allowed. She stopped. Robin clutched the handle of the mirror and threw it on the bed, angry at letting his mind play tricks on him.
But he looked around again, this was Raven's room. His heart fluttered at the essence of incense that Raven always burned up. He remembered that one week when Raven set hundreds of it in her room because Beastboy's tofu blew up everywhere in the kitchen and living room making the whole tower smell like burned plants. Every time he walked past Raven's room that week, he'd sniff the air. It smelled like lavender. Such a sweet scent for a sweet girl.
He looked around again. Everything was in place and that was how it should be. Robin crept onto the bed and closed his eyes. Once again, he absorbed his surroundings, Raven's surroundings. Everything was in place and that was how it should be.
For a week and a half, Robin slept only in Raven's room. He never came out of it. He never spoke to the Teen Titans. He never even thought about them. All he could think about was Raven.
Cyborg couldn't take it anymore. Depressed as they all were, Robin had taken the full weight. No matter how many times they pleaded him to come out and eat, he wouldn't say a word. Cyborg, Starfire and Beastboy all tried to persuade him to come out by leaving trays of food outside his door but he wouldn't walk out or even talk. They tried blasting the door off, but Raven enchanted it by putting an endurance spell so it couldn't get knocked down or opened by force or scratched for that matter.
As Cyborg walked up to the door and pounded it, Robin still wouldn't come out. Cyborg gritted his teeth.
"ALRIGHT! IF YOU DON'T COME OUT RIGHT NOW I'LL BURN ALL OF RAVEN'S-"
"'Crap and throw them away'," Robin finished. He was out of the door. He was clean, his breathe was minty and he was basically hygiene efficient. He had bags under his eye mask. He wiped the last tear away and held an empty bow. Cyborg followed him as Robin collected everything that Raven had owned. The book that she never finished was lying on the table with a book marker in it. He read the cover and put it in the box. That was the last the Raven owned outside of her room so he headed back there but Cyborg walked into her room too.
"Brings back memories," as he was about to touch the handle of her mirror. Robin slapped his hand away.
"Everything should remain the way it should be," he growled. He lit more lavender candles and tried to force Cyborg out of the room.
"Nuh-uh, you're coming with me. You gotta eat!" Cyborg protested. Cyborg picked Robin up and squeezed him so that Robin wouldn't slip through. The half robot sat him the chair and held on to him. "Ok Starfire! Start feeding him. this is going to take a while."
Starfire plunged down with a bowl of cereal and milk and stuffed it in his mouth, making him swallow.
"You're up Beastboy!" Cyborg yelled. Beastboy who was sitting across the table with a plate full of sandwiches stuffed them down his mouth. And for the last tid-bit they shoved a bowl of rice, veggies and pot-roast and loaves of bread down his throat.
"I think you made me full enough to last the rest of my lifetime," Robin groaned. Starfire clapped her hands.
"You have eaten! And you have spoken to us! Oh Robin!" Starfire cheerfully hugged Robin. Robin hugged her back. "We will create amends now, and we will always be together, okay?" Robin kept silent, his eyes cast down. "Ok! It is settled! We are now officially, as they say in earth ways, boyfriend and girlfriend!" She snuggled closer and kissed him on the forehead.
"I don-" Robin began. But he stopped there. Starfire only sat next to him discussing her depression caused by his depression and was also caused by Raven's death.
"I wish not to see you harmed by the deaths of others," Starfire began. Robin nodded. "It's just that you spent all that time in Raven's room that I am beginning to think that you in love with her, not me, Robin. Robin?" Starfire waved a hand in front of him. Robin shook his head.
"Well, I'm not in love. she was my- c-closest- fr-friend..." he trailed off in silence.
Why did he always lie? And why did he have to lie about Raven?
"Oh. then we shall be happy together?"
"Sure."
Robin froze and thought a while more. How come he lied too much? He didn't want to be a liar. But he didn't want Starfire to get hurt. Raven was his first and only. No one could replace her.
"Raven," he whispered, looking down at his lap. Starfire looked up.
"Have you said something?" Starfire asked him. He shook his head and clenched his fist together in a tight ball like he always did when he was angry. "Oh, alright then. We shall. all be sad for Raven's death. I shall. quietly go make sad pudding for us to share as one." Before she reached the kitchen Robin said something.
"People come, people go. it's-all-t-the same." he quoted from when Cyborg was dismissed.
"Huh?" Starfire said. It was a murmur, but she'd still like to hear what he said.
"That was what Raven said." he silently cried. Starfire still looked at him. "Starfire, I don't-" He stopped; he didn't want to say anything else to upset anyone.
"Is there something you wish to say to me?" Starfire smiled in a gloomy way. He shook his head again.
'Starfire, I don't love you. I don't even like you .' Robin thought bitterly.
'Robin.?' That voice belonged to Raven's voice. Robin shot his head up.
'It has to be her!'' Robin jumped up and ran, making the chair fall and the objects on the table clatter.
As he was running to the medical center of the tower he wished that Raven would be waiting for him. He finally reached the entrance.
Search.
He looked in the glass coffin.
Examination.
She was still in there. She was still dead.
Dreams vanished.
Robin slumped against it and slid down so that he crouched. Everything about the appearances of Raven had only been illusions. He thought he saw her when he was in her room but she disappeared the moment he blinked. There had also been several different cases when he thought she was reading her horror books on the couch like when she was living.
"Why isn't she alive!? Why!" Robin took a fist and beat it against the floor. He pushed his palm against his eyes, trying to reduce the tears from falling out.
There was a knock at the door. Robin answered it.
"Good afternoon my dear friend." Starfire looked longingly at Raven's coffin and put a scoop of her pudding in Robin's mouth. That reminded him when he shoved sickness pudding down Raven's throat when she was sick. He held out two hands, in reach of the bowl. Starfire walked out and he followed, hands outstretched. She turned to him and slipped the bowl into it. He held onto it and looked at it. Tears crawled down his face in shots of anger, but he ate the pudding anyways.
Beastboy and Cyborg walked into the room where Raven was laid out. Beastboy knocked on the glass. Cyborg elbowed him, making Beastboy noticed that his latest gesture towards Raven was pretty . rude.
"Hey there. You okay?" Beastboy smiled. He squished his nose against the covering. Cyborg pulled him back up by grabbing his shoulders.
"Look Raven. we know it's kind of late, but." Cyborg began. Beastboy bit his lip.
"We wanted to tell you-"
"We wanted to tell you that-" Beastboy repeated.
"Hey! I was gonna say it!"
"Not on your shiny techno ass, Tin-man," Beastboy joked. Cyborg punched him on the head and Beastboy glared, "Why does everyone like to hurt me?"
"Cause you got a big mouth, fur-boy," Cyborg injected. "Besides, we can sure use money selling your leathery hide around town." It was Cyborg's turn to joke. Beastboy glared again. "Okay, okay, I was just playing. Don't take it serious." Beastboy ignored him.
"Well, like I was saying-" Cyborg was cut off once again. He was getting really annoyed.
"Robin's in love with you." Beastboy blurted out to her deceased body. Cyborg knocked him on the head again. Another glower reappeared on the shape-shifting boy's face.
"Yeah, he's been in love with you for the longest time," Cyborg added.
"And we know you love him too, and we aren't talking about crushes. Me and Cy, here, think that you should at least get together. C'mon, we knew you guys 'loved' each other for months now! You guys should propose!" Beastboy yelled. Cyborg had to keep a hand over Beastboy's mouth so no one could hear them from the outside walls.
"You want them to hear?!" Cyborg angrily whispered to Beastboy. He shook his head. "Good, then shut-up!"
"Ok, geez, fine," he implied.
"Well, ain't it cute? You two in love with each other, not admitting it. It's like Romeo and Juliet, except different," Cyborg informed. Beastboy looked at him oddly.
"Uhh. way different, dude," he said.
"That don't matter, they're still cute together, short little teenagers. Should be in a movie," Cyborg added.
"Too bad Robin doesn't know Raven loves him though."
"Yeah. Too bad."
The two teens looked at her coffin one last time before walking out the door.
"It's too bad you're. not living," Beastboy supplemented. Cyborg nodded his head.
"Cause if you were, Robin wouldn't cry every night."
"And we wouldn't miss you so much."
"At least you two are still in love." They both said at the same time.
'They're still in love.' Thoughts whirled in their minds. 'They're still in love.'
Jerikai laughed at them while Cyborg and Beastboy tried to move. Cyborg's body stiffened as Beastboy sniffled out tears. Robin's eyes were drowning in tears. He neither sobbed nor whimpered, he only watched as Jerikai stepped on her neck. As if his life came rushing back to him, he stole Raven's body from his foot and hugged it. Tears drenched her shoulders as her head and limps only wobbled from the shaking.
"Robin looked at her, she's dead. You can only tell by her motionless face!" Jerikai sneered. Those words cut open his insides. He tried to ignore it as best as he could and hugged Raven tighter. He laughed one more time and kicked Robin in the face. "Do you know why she married me? She loved me! And she was also forced. It's sad to say, I love her too, but she's a bitch who deserves to die. and look! She already did! Isn't that splendid? I guess I full-filled my mission to kill her. I mean, she ran away from me, three years ago, and just months before, Slade ordered me to kill Raven." His icy breathe brushed Robin's ear as Jerikai leaned down. He chuckled evilly at them and kicked Robin in the head, bidding him good bye. Jerikai flew off.
Robin stared at Raven, face to face. Blood was running down his face, red was all he could see. Before passing out for a whole week, he indolently lifted his hand so that he could hold her hands. His shut eyes and his body began to as well.
After that whole entire week, Robin woke up lazily. He looked around him, seeing Raven in a glass container.
"Robin. help me." he heard her again. It sounded so much like Raven, but it couldn't be, she was dead. He was having doubts. He got up and walked over to her and put a hand on top, shadowing her face. He then folded his arms on the shield and buried his face into the crook of his elbows. Sobbing loudly, Cyborg and Beastboy walked in. A few seconds later, Starfire walked in and hugged Robin.
"We have to bury her soon, or she'll be rotting, and this whole place will sti-" Beastboy almost darkened the mood by trying to lift spirits. Cyborg elbowed him in the stomach. Beastboy growled at him and just patter Robin's back. Starfire clung to him like a wet t-shirt. Robin nodded and pushed them all away, heading into her room. He sat at the edge of her bed and laid down, sniffing the fresh smell of her shampoo hair. He took off his boots and gloves and crawled under her blankets. He felt something hard thrown into the pillow case and removed a diary, he sat up and hesitated to open it.
'This is Raven's after all. and she'll never be coming back to life,' he shook his head in reconsidering but placed his hand on it again and opened it to the latest diary entry.
January 13
Everything has gone wrong. I never knew that Starfire would know about my feelings. I said I didn't care about him. In truth, I do. I really do.
I don't want him to think I hate him. I wanted Robin to know that I love him.
That was where it ended. 'This was today!' he thought. How couldn't he have known that her feelings weren't jokes? How couldn't he have known? He placed the diaries under the pillow and had the exact same corner sticking out. He got up and looked through her closet. There were two dresses. One he already saw. the white one which was gorgeous when only she put it on. He touched the dress. Robin glided his fingers over the smooth polyester fabric. He shivered at the memory of when she walked down the stairs when she came home after he yelled at her. There were glitters cluttered on the bottom. Scattering one by one as it edged its way up. It slowly vanished as it reached the top of the white dress. He had just noticed this feature and smiled. This is the first dress he had ever seen Raven wore. He picked up the second dress and laid it out on the bed, examining each and every detail.
It was a crimson dress, matching the jewel on her forehead. Like the other one, it had glitter, but this one was strapless. The glitter started across the top this time. The dress had a slanted slit, starting from the left. It folded in each time it slid its way up. He kneeled on the ground; his body crouched before the bed as his arms folded underneath his head. More tears came forth, making him call Raven's name quietly.
"Raven." he repeated. Each sorrow filled tear landed on the ground with ever step towards her vanity. He looked at her desk where the mirror was. He stared long enough to see something flash a couple of times. It looked like a suffering girl. He couldn't make out her face. She had short dark hair and a red jewel. "Raven!" He could see her hand reaching out, calling his name in a whisper.
"Help me... Robin." She tried screaming but nothing more than a mist of her voice was allowed. She stopped. Robin clutched the handle of the mirror and threw it on the bed, angry at letting his mind play tricks on him.
But he looked around again, this was Raven's room. His heart fluttered at the essence of incense that Raven always burned up. He remembered that one week when Raven set hundreds of it in her room because Beastboy's tofu blew up everywhere in the kitchen and living room making the whole tower smell like burned plants. Every time he walked past Raven's room that week, he'd sniff the air. It smelled like lavender. Such a sweet scent for a sweet girl.
He looked around again. Everything was in place and that was how it should be. Robin crept onto the bed and closed his eyes. Once again, he absorbed his surroundings, Raven's surroundings. Everything was in place and that was how it should be.
For a week and a half, Robin slept only in Raven's room. He never came out of it. He never spoke to the Teen Titans. He never even thought about them. All he could think about was Raven.
Cyborg couldn't take it anymore. Depressed as they all were, Robin had taken the full weight. No matter how many times they pleaded him to come out and eat, he wouldn't say a word. Cyborg, Starfire and Beastboy all tried to persuade him to come out by leaving trays of food outside his door but he wouldn't walk out or even talk. They tried blasting the door off, but Raven enchanted it by putting an endurance spell so it couldn't get knocked down or opened by force or scratched for that matter.
As Cyborg walked up to the door and pounded it, Robin still wouldn't come out. Cyborg gritted his teeth.
"ALRIGHT! IF YOU DON'T COME OUT RIGHT NOW I'LL BURN ALL OF RAVEN'S-"
"'Crap and throw them away'," Robin finished. He was out of the door. He was clean, his breathe was minty and he was basically hygiene efficient. He had bags under his eye mask. He wiped the last tear away and held an empty bow. Cyborg followed him as Robin collected everything that Raven had owned. The book that she never finished was lying on the table with a book marker in it. He read the cover and put it in the box. That was the last the Raven owned outside of her room so he headed back there but Cyborg walked into her room too.
"Brings back memories," as he was about to touch the handle of her mirror. Robin slapped his hand away.
"Everything should remain the way it should be," he growled. He lit more lavender candles and tried to force Cyborg out of the room.
"Nuh-uh, you're coming with me. You gotta eat!" Cyborg protested. Cyborg picked Robin up and squeezed him so that Robin wouldn't slip through. The half robot sat him the chair and held on to him. "Ok Starfire! Start feeding him. this is going to take a while."
Starfire plunged down with a bowl of cereal and milk and stuffed it in his mouth, making him swallow.
"You're up Beastboy!" Cyborg yelled. Beastboy who was sitting across the table with a plate full of sandwiches stuffed them down his mouth. And for the last tid-bit they shoved a bowl of rice, veggies and pot-roast and loaves of bread down his throat.
"I think you made me full enough to last the rest of my lifetime," Robin groaned. Starfire clapped her hands.
"You have eaten! And you have spoken to us! Oh Robin!" Starfire cheerfully hugged Robin. Robin hugged her back. "We will create amends now, and we will always be together, okay?" Robin kept silent, his eyes cast down. "Ok! It is settled! We are now officially, as they say in earth ways, boyfriend and girlfriend!" She snuggled closer and kissed him on the forehead.
"I don-" Robin began. But he stopped there. Starfire only sat next to him discussing her depression caused by his depression and was also caused by Raven's death.
"I wish not to see you harmed by the deaths of others," Starfire began. Robin nodded. "It's just that you spent all that time in Raven's room that I am beginning to think that you in love with her, not me, Robin. Robin?" Starfire waved a hand in front of him. Robin shook his head.
"Well, I'm not in love. she was my- c-closest- fr-friend..." he trailed off in silence.
Why did he always lie? And why did he have to lie about Raven?
"Oh. then we shall be happy together?"
"Sure."
Robin froze and thought a while more. How come he lied too much? He didn't want to be a liar. But he didn't want Starfire to get hurt. Raven was his first and only. No one could replace her.
"Raven," he whispered, looking down at his lap. Starfire looked up.
"Have you said something?" Starfire asked him. He shook his head and clenched his fist together in a tight ball like he always did when he was angry. "Oh, alright then. We shall. all be sad for Raven's death. I shall. quietly go make sad pudding for us to share as one." Before she reached the kitchen Robin said something.
"People come, people go. it's-all-t-the same." he quoted from when Cyborg was dismissed.
"Huh?" Starfire said. It was a murmur, but she'd still like to hear what he said.
"That was what Raven said." he silently cried. Starfire still looked at him. "Starfire, I don't-" He stopped; he didn't want to say anything else to upset anyone.
"Is there something you wish to say to me?" Starfire smiled in a gloomy way. He shook his head again.
'Starfire, I don't love you. I don't even like you .' Robin thought bitterly.
'Robin.?' That voice belonged to Raven's voice. Robin shot his head up.
'It has to be her!'' Robin jumped up and ran, making the chair fall and the objects on the table clatter.
As he was running to the medical center of the tower he wished that Raven would be waiting for him. He finally reached the entrance.
Search.
He looked in the glass coffin.
Examination.
She was still in there. She was still dead.
Dreams vanished.
Robin slumped against it and slid down so that he crouched. Everything about the appearances of Raven had only been illusions. He thought he saw her when he was in her room but she disappeared the moment he blinked. There had also been several different cases when he thought she was reading her horror books on the couch like when she was living.
"Why isn't she alive!? Why!" Robin took a fist and beat it against the floor. He pushed his palm against his eyes, trying to reduce the tears from falling out.
There was a knock at the door. Robin answered it.
"Good afternoon my dear friend." Starfire looked longingly at Raven's coffin and put a scoop of her pudding in Robin's mouth. That reminded him when he shoved sickness pudding down Raven's throat when she was sick. He held out two hands, in reach of the bowl. Starfire walked out and he followed, hands outstretched. She turned to him and slipped the bowl into it. He held onto it and looked at it. Tears crawled down his face in shots of anger, but he ate the pudding anyways.
Beastboy and Cyborg walked into the room where Raven was laid out. Beastboy knocked on the glass. Cyborg elbowed him, making Beastboy noticed that his latest gesture towards Raven was pretty . rude.
"Hey there. You okay?" Beastboy smiled. He squished his nose against the covering. Cyborg pulled him back up by grabbing his shoulders.
"Look Raven. we know it's kind of late, but." Cyborg began. Beastboy bit his lip.
"We wanted to tell you-"
"We wanted to tell you that-" Beastboy repeated.
"Hey! I was gonna say it!"
"Not on your shiny techno ass, Tin-man," Beastboy joked. Cyborg punched him on the head and Beastboy glared, "Why does everyone like to hurt me?"
"Cause you got a big mouth, fur-boy," Cyborg injected. "Besides, we can sure use money selling your leathery hide around town." It was Cyborg's turn to joke. Beastboy glared again. "Okay, okay, I was just playing. Don't take it serious." Beastboy ignored him.
"Well, like I was saying-" Cyborg was cut off once again. He was getting really annoyed.
"Robin's in love with you." Beastboy blurted out to her deceased body. Cyborg knocked him on the head again. Another glower reappeared on the shape-shifting boy's face.
"Yeah, he's been in love with you for the longest time," Cyborg added.
"And we know you love him too, and we aren't talking about crushes. Me and Cy, here, think that you should at least get together. C'mon, we knew you guys 'loved' each other for months now! You guys should propose!" Beastboy yelled. Cyborg had to keep a hand over Beastboy's mouth so no one could hear them from the outside walls.
"You want them to hear?!" Cyborg angrily whispered to Beastboy. He shook his head. "Good, then shut-up!"
"Ok, geez, fine," he implied.
"Well, ain't it cute? You two in love with each other, not admitting it. It's like Romeo and Juliet, except different," Cyborg informed. Beastboy looked at him oddly.
"Uhh. way different, dude," he said.
"That don't matter, they're still cute together, short little teenagers. Should be in a movie," Cyborg added.
"Too bad Robin doesn't know Raven loves him though."
"Yeah. Too bad."
The two teens looked at her coffin one last time before walking out the door.
"It's too bad you're. not living," Beastboy supplemented. Cyborg nodded his head.
"Cause if you were, Robin wouldn't cry every night."
"And we wouldn't miss you so much."
"At least you two are still in love." They both said at the same time.
'They're still in love.' Thoughts whirled in their minds. 'They're still in love.'