two chapters in one update? what more can a reader ask for...
How To Heal Your Burns
Chapter 5: To Those That Are Trusted…
"Doubting Thomas".
I know why he comes back here. I know why he makes himself a silent shadow.
He has lost trust.
He hovers over Cyborg at every minute, thinking that he could keep something from him. He hovers over me thinking that I have kept something from him. Well, you are right Boy Wonder, I have my secret. Cyborg though, that is the man you should trust and not hover in my room over his back while he checks my frailty, the mortality of my body. I know why you come here Robin; you have to see for yourself that I am getting better, that I don't make my own secret pacts. You doubt, Robin.
"What?" Hm, don't know who Thomas is?
I guess I was wrong. I can picture you growing up on a busy urban street, mass on the weekends with your mother or some grandmother figure. Praying to your faceless god, hoping with unconceivable hope and then losing your faith…
"In the Bible, Thomas would not believe Jesus was alive until he saw him, felt the holes in his hands… you lack the same faith Robin."
"I don't believe in that stuff."
"Neither do I." I stand to straighten my cloak, straighten my hair. It has become a nervous habit, making sure they lie on my body. Security.
"But you don't believe until you see… that's a dangerous trait to have." I shouldn't continue with this, it can only lead to another argument. I can feel the emotions flowing off him, he is angry, he is tired. He is ready to fight.
"Sometimes trusting too easily is just as dangerous, but I guess that isn't something we have to worry about." We? I turn towards his mask, the white orbs.
We, Robin? I guess you are right, we don't trust, do we?
That is how this whole mess started. Trust. A lack of trust. No, I trust him. I trust them. It's I, I can't trust myself. The danger is so apparent everyday I am awake. Everyday I breathe. In fiery gasps and torching beats of my heart, everyday I am alive I am dangerous.
No, Robin, we don't trust.
"Um… how are you sleeping?" He's uncomfortable; I can feel it swirling around him. He's trying to change the subject.
Why doesn't he just leave me in peace? He has done his job, I am better, I am trapped in a glass box, he has done his job well.
What's left to do?
I allow an inward sigh and turn towards the now opened window.
The moon, it's almost full, only a few more days and it will be a bright beacon in the sky again. It will make the ocean sparkle again.
I know what you want from me Robin. You want what is left from my scattered mind. You want Slade, and you want to know what keeps me awake at night…
You're not getting it.
"No more dreams?" I turn from the frosted window to his figure. He's standing against the wall. Arms folded, head nodded towards the ground, hair a mess.
Dreams?
Dreams!
There are no dreams! There are only night terrors and scenes of my room set ablaze during the day. There are only visions of death that circle my mind, there are only moments of unmitigated fear and despair that become ten times more unbearable because I can't feel them, act out on them. Only empty emotions for your deaths at my hands.
No Robin, there are no dreams. Dreams are left for the young and for the foolish.
"….Raven…." His voice quakes in his own over encompassing humanity. I had forgotten how able he is to read my eyes, to read the slightest twitches of my face, my hands. Our souls are connected in that fashion…
No! Raven stay strong. Don't let that quaking voice break you down. Don't let his soul break you. Stay strong. Remember that night? The night you let your head be cradled by his chest, don't you remember Raven?
The hours you spent keeping the tears at bay, the emotions in their gilded cages. Do you remember the way it felt when you let his voice take hold of your mind… your heart…
Don't do it again Raven! Their lives are too important. Trigon, Slade…they are getting stronger…don't give in just yet.
You can not feel. YOU CAN NOT FEEL.
"…what…just say it and leave. I really don't feel like going five rounds tonight." In truth I didn't. I was tired. The visions, the flaming symbols had come more and more frequently.
I look up in the hopes that his silence had meant a retreat. Instead his eyes merely came in tune with my body, sweeping over my figure.
"…robin…" why does he stare at me like that. I hate it.
"Cyborg thinks you are strong enough to join the team in missions." He is still starring at me.
What are you thinking in your mind little bird? There is something you left un-said…
"Fantastic. I'll go meditate then." That was a lie. Meditations were not something I enjoyed anymore. They were merely a replaying of my visions. I would go to the roof and think. Ever vigilant in my task of thoughts, trying to find some way to stop… sigh… what is unstoppable.
"I… I don't think you should." I fold my arms after his statement. What game are you playing Robin?
"Fine, I'll meditate later."
"You know what I meant." His tone is forceful, his eyes still wandering about my body.
"Yea. I did, you prick." Oh crap! Not out loud, that wasn't meant to be heard a loud…
"What!" Shit. Okay, don't back down. Don't apologize. Put him in his place. Remember Raven, distance….always distance.
"You heard me!" God, he is doing that thing with his fists again. I can almost make out a pale smoke coming from his ears, his cheeks flushing red.
His anger… every day… it grows larger….
I'm sorry Robin, but this is the way it has to be.
"Robin, your tantrums are starting to get on my nerves", I glide past him, making sure to keep my eyes glued to the door, as it opens, closes, as I make my way down the hallway to the steps leading to the roof, to the concrete of the floor, to the night sky, to the stars, to the swollen moon.
There has to be an answer.
And the answer is….
Nothing…
All night, into morning, into another night fall I spent in my room pondering. I spent my time on a discouraging journey through my mind.
My emotions have failed me once again. They gave no answers. They didn't know what I could do.
'Doomed to failure', that is what knowledge remarked when I became so desperate I fell to my knees begging for an answer; when I kissed the dirt ground of my mind, pleading with them to show me the way.
I was doomed to failure…but there had to be a way. To end him. To end this…
Suicide.
With a blade, sweet and sharp…
It floated through my mind every morning I awoke. If only my own death would mean the end of Trigon, the end of this prophecy. Life would be too simple then, wouldn't it?
No, if I killed myself, just a moment before the last trickle of life's blood left my veins; he could claim complete control over me. I would only bring about his passage sooner.
And it was a coward's way to die.
I haven't lived this long to give up.
Flames
Not again…
Burn
Pain
Sear
Skin turning cold
Breathe held tight
Death
Oh god… oh god… breathe Raven…breathe.
'Skin will turn to stone'
'Meet your destiny'
Flame
Flame
That was quick, usually they last much longer…my hands… the marks… it still burns…
Breathe Raven.
Okay, it's leaving now, the pain. I can inhale all the way, I can taste sweet oxygen.
It's over for now.
I look about my room. There are trickles of daylight that seem to find a home on the floor, along the walls. The room is no longer the mine field it was once. I can control my actions during the visions…
Funny… how numbing this has all become. Their faces no longer induce shock in me. Its like clouds, their faces are like clouds. I acknowledge them, and know they are always there, but their message is lost. Clouds are clouds and their faces are still faces of terror and death.
Death is now a familiar partner to my mind.
But their smiles… its breaks the soul, it breaks the complacency of my heart.
When they smile at me I want to tear out my own soul, I want to tear off my skin.
When they smile I know what I have to do.
There has to be a way to stop this…
If nothing else, if nothing else I have to find a way on my own to keep them ignorant and pure.
Even if Robin does smell the fear that lingers about me, even if he does know that there is a secret burning in my chest, he is still ignorant, he still sees a future that allows him to grow to a man, a blissful man… he stills sees a future where love and pain and joy all mix together to form some kind of perverted cocktail we call life. He stills sees a future where he can die in his bed an old, aged man, shrouded in memories of life and love… surrounded by elderly faces, young faces, all loving him, all mourning him as he passes onto the next plane.
I do this nothing more than for their ignorance.
But my control is fading. It seems the more I distance myself from them, the closer I have to be.
I crave their presence; it allows me to think easier. Their smiles, their lively passions, even their annoying, petty arguments make it easier for me to think.
I don't know why, I really don't ask.
I feel the necessity even now, an unsettling pang.
They should be in the living room, playing their games.
Robin will be in there.
He's been acting even stranger than normal.
His hyper-protectiveness is beyond any fathomable amount of annoyance. He's always with Cyborg, always about my room, always looking over his shoulder during missions. I've never had that type of attention before. Never known those types of stares.
It's flattering sometimes…
What? No! What the fuck am I thinking? Those looks aren't of worry or concern. He doesn't trust me. He doesn't trust anyone anymore. What a fool, what a pathetic fool. His thoughts never seem to falter, always of Slade…
Robin…
He'll never forget Slade; it will be in his mind till the day he dies.
Like me…like now... in some perverse manner it bonds us…our obsession with our own secrets, our own past, our own thoughts, our own vengeance, our own hates.
We are joined by a common soul.
A companion on so many levels… and that is why him above all I have to keep a distance from.
And now, here I am, sitting with my legs crossed, facing the giant window of our Tower. A hushed card game calls my friends attentions, while an old book tries to do the same with me.
I don't read the words; I don't even really look at the book. The sentences morph to form a fuzzed image of black and white. This is not my time for reading, or peace. This is the time for replaying fears, building internal walls…
But something draws my eyes attention upward.
It's nothing, just the blueness of the sky I guess. The first day of spring and everything outside seems so fresh. As if cerulean blue and Kelly green was all the world has ever known.
But, why is there still a tightening of my chest…a pressure against my throat… numbness to my limbs…
A vision? Now? So soon after the last one… in front of everyone… but I don't burn…what is happ...en…ing?
The sun sets quickly behind the distant horizon of the city's ocean edge. Shadows fill the room, encompassing the floor, the couch, Raven's legs, and face. The sky is now dark, all colors fade to black. The Moon is cast with a yellow hue, a fullness never known, sitting low in the sky, almost touching the oceans stilled surface.
What… is… this…? A full moon... the city is whole… where are the flames... where is the destruction?
The moon illuminates brighter, its rays touching the now rolling waves.
A red flame etches a form with in the center of the moon, a form taking the symbol of…
Trigon.
Its Trigon's symbol! But what does it mean? A full moon? But the next full moon is in… oh my god… two days.
"Friend Robin, are you okay?"
I am knocked from my vision, hands shaking, and mouth dry
"Yea… um…sorry. Was it my turn?"
"No way, man. I won!"
I catch only the swift movement of his hair, the cranking of his neck.
Robin was starring at me.
Did he see… did he see the symbols? Did he see something in my eyes?
My entire body is shaking now. Oh God? Two days? Two nights. No, maybe it was a different full moon, maybe it was a different night… but this feeling…
"I'm tired guys. I think I'm gonna head back to my room." Robin pushes the chair back from the table, and my answer is found in his hunched shoulders. He saw something, he saw my marks…
"Tired? Robin it is merely three in the afternoon of day." Starfire grips tightly to his arm.
"I'm tired guys. If the game is over I think I'm gonna head back to my room." A smile? No, a half hearted grin. His next move will be to call me out into the hallway, like none of the others will notice. And then, I'll have to tell him… everything...no, think of a lie… come on Raven, a good lie.
But Robin does nothing but glance at the blue sky and then retreat out into the hallway.
What? But… how could not have seen? He must have been looking right at me… Maybe, maybe the symbols didn't show this time….
"What the hell is his problem?" Beastboys voice is nothing more than an undertone in the back of my head.
Maybe… maybe… he saw them…and now, he can't even look me in the face… he might think I am Slade's apprentice…
No. He trusts me.
"He's just cranky BB."
He doesn't trust me.
"Friend Cyborg, are you sure. Robin has been acting most out of normal lately."
He does trust me.
"Yo, Rae!"
He doesn't trust me.
"Rae!"
I break my trance with my hands and turn towards the table of titans.
"What?" I speak quietly, trying to hide the quake in my throat.
"Do you know what is wrong with Robin?" I flash my eyes towards Cyborg. He has crossed his arms in front of the table, and cast the same knowing stare at me.
"No."
"Maybe someone should talk to him. He's being a real pain in the butt being all moody all the time… he's turning into Raven!"
"Takes a pain in the ass to know a pain in the ass." Beastboy begins his retort but I just pick up my book and head for the door.
Before I leave I hear Cyborg's voice calling out that he would talk to Robin later.
So will I.
God knows how long we all have left…
I know I know, my loyal reviewers are thinking… I waited so long for that! But don't worry, I know what you want… a little action, a little amore, maybe some Slade? Hmm… I actually have finished the story but there are two endings and I need to decide which one I want to post. The next chapter will be coming very soon…but I just wanted to set up the emotional and mental mind set of our heroes… so these chapters did have a point!
And as a final note… thank you so so so so much to all those people that did review, it was so sweet and nice what you said… made me smile!
So anyways… see you at the next update alert!
Oh and I did keep my promise... click the 'submit review' button and I click the 'edit story' button
