Tears Are For Lovers
V: The Slumbering Giants
Raven was alone.
Alone may be too simple of a word to describe her situation.
Raven was standing, perfectly solitary. In front of her stretched roiling purple waves. Behind her was lapping red. Up and down the length of her situation she regarded, and then all around. Up down, sideways, diagonal, straight, under, over--no one and nothing but the moving landscape. And the utter silence, the absence of noise, freaked her out.
And that's when the eyes opened.
They weren't beautiful eyes; they were much too narrow for that. What made them attractive was the reflection, the spikes and speckles of light in them, all silver and pale renditions of the base color, a passionate blue. Blue, that connected the violet of her foreground and the crimson of the land she stood with her back to. The lashes were too short, darkly singed, as if burned by a flame some time ago and only growing out now. The whites of the eyes were penciled with red capillaries; this was not the snowy white of the well rested and the careless. These eyes had character, personality, though they stood disembodied in front of the shocked empath.
The corners of these giant eyes crinkled up, as if in laughter. Then they blinked, and unconsciously, Raven blinked with them. When she looked again, they were gone.
So what was she to do now? Instinct told her to walk. She gazed at the floor, where a line separated the two whirling colors. It was blurring, and her feet covered the exact width of where the colors blurred. Should she take a step forward and condemn herself to being lost in the tide of purple? Or should she retreat and allow the red to conquer her? When she at last decided, she lifted her foot.
Or, at least, she tried to lift her foot.
It was mired into the floor, which had turned into a gooey, viscous substance the color of Beast Boy's face after stuffing his face with chili peppers. It was like quicksand, except she wasn't sinking. It trapped her, building up walls of rapidly crusting gunk that solidified into stone.
Raven cried out in fear, her fingers reaching to try to pry her legs away.
When her bare skin touched the substance, a heavy feeling settled in the back of her head. Warmth, embedded with slivers of pain, traveled up and out to envelope her entire head.
And a hand took her on the small of her back. And her lips were crushed, the dark scent of magic and masculinity shoved into her nostrils.
Raven fell unconscious in his arms.
-
Why? Human words were incapable of expressing the emotions churning Starfire's stomach as she watched Raven. If she had to describe it using her second language, she would say it was a mixture of frustration, concern, anger, and lastly, jealousy. Why was it that Raven seemed so tortured all the time, that she was the one frequently in trouble, that she was the one whose door was knocked down repeatedly by teammates in search of her?
Why did she always withdraw, even after the demon of herself had been uprooted and her father's influence cast out? Why was she the source of so much… so much spectacle?
Then and there, Starfire decided on a new name for her friend. She'd seen it on the television set once.
Drama Queen.
-
Beast Boy paused in the doorway after pushing and jostling the three dumbstruck teammates that stood before him. He scoured the room for trouble, his lips parting to demand from Raven why she was screaming. The words dropped from the tip of his tongue and he averted his eyes.
Raven was on the floor, bent over double, without a single shred of clothing on her. Nothing explicit, but the very sight of her skin shocked her friends. Vivid tattoos, blocky lines in elaborate patterns, adorned her back and spiraled down her arms and thighs. She was shaking silently, her hair falling forward to shield her face.
Beast Boy took charge. It wasn't his role, and he didn't frequently take it, but just the fact that Robin and Cyborg were unable to act, torn between walking away and rushing forward to help Raven, sealed his fate. He took their arms and pushed them so they faced the wall. His eyes met Starfire's, and he mouthed, "Go." When she didn't appear to understand, he cocked his head towards Raven and gestured for her to help. That being said, he places his hands on the backs of the two boys and led them away.
Sighing, he hoped Starfire would do her best.
-
"Come, my friend. Let us dress you," said the alien girl, wrapping a sheet around Raven's shoulders. Raven flinched at the touch, but otherwise, she did not move.
"Raven…"
The dark girl looked around the room, turning her head this way and that. "Where is he?" she said, her voice hoarse.
"Who?"
She rose to her feet, her hand gripping Starfire's fiercely. There was a flush in her face and a strange, far-off expression in her eyes. But the emotion radiating off her was most disconcerting—fury knotted her aura and Raven glowed red in Starfire's eyes.
"Him. Didn't you see him when you came in?"
"I do not believe I saw anyone," said Star, frowning. "But I will look in your room if you would like."
Raven shook her head. "He's gone."
The patterns had not faded into her skin. Instead, they stayed vivid and seemed to emit a shrill sort of cry. Starfire shook her head. Patterns did not make sound. She was dreaming, she must be. Raven looked up at Starfire, her fingers beginning to tremble. "I think I'm sick, Star," she whispered, a noise like the grate of wood across metal. She retched suddenly, and Starfire watched in horror as Raven doubled over, blood-laced vomit spraying over the carpet.
"Robin! Cyborg! Beast Boy!"
She suddenly started to wish the three hadn't left. What was a little nudity in comparison to the terrible health their good friend was in? Still, the back of her mind dwelled the thought: drama queen, throwing up blood…Starfire flinched, startled. She was annoyed with Raven for what could be cries for attention, but somehow, being angry with her for her sickness was too disgusting of a motive for that emotion. Frowning, she tried to bury the bitterness under another coating of concern.
"Please!"
Robin rushed into the room, wild with anxiety.
"Robin, help me! Raven, she has…"
Robin took one long look at the floor, and his face contorted into a grimace of distaste. Starfire hauled the other girl to her feet, wiping the residue of spew from where it dribbled onto her chin. Raven's eyes rolled into the back of her head, and their whites were inflamed. Irritation gnawed at her; why was Robin being so inactive, so useless?
Beast Boy and Cyborg entered on each other's tails. Cyborg had the strangest emotion emanating from off of him: relief. Why was he happy at Raven's condition. Her confusion and exasperation grilling itself into a burnt mix, Starfire glared at the ineffective boys.
And they turned to stone.
She almost dropped Raven's limp body from shock. Though it was not in the least way the first time she'd ever seen her teammates solidified, that it happened due to herself made Starfire cold to her bones. Which was more important, she debated—helping Raven out of her faint, or restoring her friends? Out of some deep feminism, she chose the girl she supported, and carried her to her bed. For some reason inexplicable (as many inexplicable things were happening), she did not worry about the stone figures.
"Raven, please…" she said, lightly pressing her lips to the forehead of her best friend. "Awake."
Raven's eyes widened suddenly, her pupils dilated as they reverted back to their original position. Starfire placed her hands on either sides of Raven's face, and the empath arched under her, the symbols glowing bluish. Warmth pooled at the points of contact between the two. Raven started to tremble, and her lips fell open. Words tumbled out, but Starfire lost track of them as she concentrated on the hope of Raven's well-being. After all, she couldn't understand them, except for the echo of reply stirring in the ends of her fingers.
And as strangely as the whole event had begun, with a scream, it ended. Raven's body, which had been taut as a strung bow, relaxed suddenly. She dropped back onto the bed, and the feeling under Starfire's hands became cold. Raven's eyes closed, and her erratic breathing stilled.
Starfire smiled suddenly. Then she turned back to the images of her male friends, brushing past them on her way out of Raven's room. As she opened the door into her bedroom, she heard their footsteps, clipping and thick, as they filed out of Raven's bedroom. Her job was completed; a primal force in her chest, one that had flared and expanded in the action of only moments before, faded away.
Starfire tumbled to the floor before she could reach her own bed.
Exhaustion.
-
"What in the world happened?"
Cyborg felt as if he had been walking underwater. His movements were sluggish, as were the speed of his usually quick thoughts. He had to steady himself with the wall of the hallway as he followed Robin and Beast Boy to an empty room. The others, from their less-than-graceful motions, didn't look as if they were faring any better. He couldn't remember anything of the last twenty minutes, up until he saw Raven (don't think about it too much, Cy) naked.
Oh, man. It wasn't that Cyborg wasn't attracted to Raven; he was, in the physical sense. Spending so many of his hours locked up in the garage with her developed a keen sense of physical chemistry between them. Raven, he knew from how uncomfortable she sometimes seemed when looking at him, felt it too. But it didn't go any farther than that.
Raven was his closest female friend. Starfire was infinitely more womanly, and more open with her feelings, but he didn't connect with her the way he did with Raven. And Bumblebee was, to him at least, one of the guys, able to hold her own and then some. With Raven though, he felt as if he knew her well, and vice versa. Seeing her without clothing, then, was a violation of their relationship almost. It was his body responding to the appearance of a helpless woman, but his mind repelling him from it. He didn't need romantic love from her; they already had their own form of caring. It was as awkward as walking in on his non-existent sister.
And worse still, he couldn't remember what he did about it. He couldn't remember if he had done the chivalrous thing, and covered her with a blanket, or if he had blushed and ran away like a madman. He couldn't remember if Raven had seen him staring or not. He couldn't remember if any of the others upbraided him for it. He couldn't even remember if he had simply not done anything at all0—the action of inaction.
He would never tell anyone about this, he decided, bracing himself as the other two entered the control room. He would not trust anyone with this information. He was too scared to.
Then setting his face into a rendition of apathy, Cyborg stepped through the entrance.
-
Robin frowned. Stoic Cyborg had just sat down at the couch. Nervous Beast Boy buried his face in his hands beside Cyborg. Raven was slumbering in her room. Where was Starfire?
-
There were tears in his eyes as the man who called himself Vyler stumbled back to his hotel room, which he now regarded as a holding cell until he can join his lover. First and foremost, they were from love. Then, as they fell from his absurdly beautiful (yes, he thought so too) face, they were for anguish and terror. Lastly, as his eyes drifted towards where the two he held in his heart remained, they were for hope.
Digging his face into his pillow, his shoulders shaking with the wracking sobs that crashed into his lungs, Vyler cried tears of the greatest emotion of all: joy.
-
Disclaimer: Nope, not mine. Never will be. Damn you, Marv Wolfman and DC comics!
Author's Notes: Oh god I'm so sorry for not updating earlier. X( That was really horrible of me, I know. I'd give you all these excuses about how busy I was, school and family life, etc, but the fact of it is, it was the writer's block that slowed this update. I really had NO idea how to continue with the fic until I waited a couple weeks and started anew. But now that I'm back, I hope to remain back! Yes! I'm planning on giving another chapter before Christmas pulls around puh-lease because if I don't, then I'm an idiot. That's right.
Ok. This chapter. I hope all of you understand this fic: this is the first chapter when Raven gets in touch with how she's going to be for the rest of this fiction, her new 'powers' and the consequences of having them. This is also when Star's latent abilities rise to the surface, and she's taken over by the 'Goddess' within her. (Damn, but I sound like that Venus razor commercial.) We get a bit of Cy here, and a bit of BB. Robin's dumb, by and by, (even though I love him!) and Vyler is a very emo, very in-touch-with-his-feminine-side old man. (Yes, he's old. He looks young.)
So I hope I haven't made a Gary-stu. He happens to be a (GASP) villain, and his weaknesses will be shown later on. He's more than human, but his feelings are all mortal, and like most people, handling more than one woman will take a toll on him.
This fic is very much about the relationship between two female best friends. I haven't had a lot of interaction between them; more will happen later.
IMPORTANT: If you don't understand this fic, please email me at selene (UNDERSCORE) light (AT) comcast (DOT) net. I will try to explain it to you. Otherwise, you can use my aol instant messenger, azothwings.
Thank yous and iced teas my reviewers: StargazerSarah (that's so cool; you're obsessive compulsive? I just hope it doesn't freak you out too much!) , Burning Children, Danica01, A lilmatchgirl, falyn anjel, Rose of the F.I.C., and ChocolateCurlz (there was no reason. you just didn't sign in:P).
Review, please. I really need constructive criticism for this fiction.