Please review if you have time and yeah, I'm surprised this chapter's out already too...who saw that one coming?
Dedicated to all who have been so kind as to read, and especially to those who have both read and reviewed supportively for me as requested...
But especially, ESPECIALLY, for: sekai no yakusoku, The Writer you Fools, Gray Dove, alena-chan and Cherry Jade
Accidental
Chapter Four: daytime drama
Stop! Stop! Stop you fool! Her mind relatively screeched at her.
But for some reason she was finding it unusually difficult to pull herself away from the pressure of Richard Grayson's lips on hers. It mattered little though because he broke away from her shortly, both in need of air and he flashed a grin as he said, "I'm more than willing to take daily installments."
Okay, that did it.
Raven pushed at his chest to get him away but he'd somehow managed to loop his arms about her in a rather inhibiting fashion.
This realization only caused her to squirm more of course as she felt the after-effects of the very passionate, very spontaneous, very unexpected lip-lock: flustered was a word that could go here...that and pissed...really pissed.
Whispers crashed down around her and she took a quick peripheral scope of the ridiculously thick audience around them.
Make that flustered, pissed and embarrassed beyond all reason.
She felt his lips begin to press against her own again and withdrew...just slightly.
If he wanted to play, then play they would.
And Raven didn't like to lose.
"Dick," she paused, and he kept on grinning that damn stupid grin of his as he persisted in leaning down yet again, lips almost brushing hers again.
Damn tease, she intoned mentally.
"Yes, Raven?" he intoned, almost conspiratorially.
She graced him with a smile that should have warned him of her intent before she said more loudly, "First: screw you."
And she pushed really hard this time with far better results.
He fell from the unexpected force—Raven thanked her training and other life as a vigilante for the strength—but his expression never wavered from bemused, to dear Raven's chagrin.
And the silence?
That was slightly marred by girlish gasps and things being dropped.
Raven rubbed the bridge of her nose as one might do with a particularly unpleasant headache, not failing to note the increasingly soap-opera reminiscent quality of this entire ridiculous fiasco.
Her peers, it seemed, were on key with that too.
The show just keeps getting better!—thought the students around the class representative and his final project partner.
That…that jerk just won't take a hint...—thought the Raven as young Richard scrambled to his feet in a way that some part of his fuming counterpart admitted was boyishly charming.
This girl is just a riot...a beautiful riot...—thought the class representative as he dusted his hands off on his slacks, lips not curving down for a second.
"I want my things," she said to him as if nothing had happened.
"I still want payment," he said as if conducting an everyday business transaction.
"You already...exacted that," she bit out forcibly.
"Just an advance paycheck," he dismissed the kiss with a wave of his hand.
She slapped him.
More gasps...but no more things dropped. (Everyone who had had something to drop had already dropped it around the midpoint of their kiss or the culminating result of Richard being floored.)
Raven spared him one more glower before she began to march stolidly away.
He followed, the first sign of worry that he'd maybe taken things a little too lightly, a little too far, a little too publicly seeping onto Richard Grayson's face as he just made it through the school's front doors right after the disconcerted girl.
"Raven, wait!" he called, standing on the steps.
"For what, Dick?" she asked, not turning to meet his gaze but stopping in her angry escape.
"Please don't call me that," he groaned.
"Fine, Mr. Grayson then," she said icily and he sighed.
Definitely too lightly, too far, too publicly...but damn...she could kiss...
Her footsteps snapped him back to reality.
"I'm sorry; I just...you were avoiding me! And you left your locker open and it seemed like a harmless way to finally get your attention, not that you'd give it to me anyway and—"
"Get my attention?" Raven had stopped walking again and asked this question now, in spite of all her insistence on loving solitude and despising the mere idea of extended human contact. In spite of it...and maybe a little because of it.
"Yeah," he said lamely. She turned.
"Why does it matter to you so much?" And now she was suspicious because her nature could not help it.
"Because," he paused as one might pause before taking a blind plunge into a pool with no visible bottom. "Because you're my partner for the project," he faltered at the look in her eyes but then steeled himself. Richard Grayson wasn't near perfect for nothing after all and he finished as grandly as a high-school student experiencing the grips of what some might call first love could, "...and because I like you."
Credit given, Raven did not express any sign of care or compassion or character break at this confession. Credit given, she did in fact feel something inside in response: wonder, confusion, and something like joy. Credit given, she met his stare now, full on.
"You," she divided each word carefully, as though translating a foreign language, "like," she pointed too, finger switching directions at appropriate times, "me?" She finished. He nodded. "I knew you were an idiot," she said after he said nothing in response to her question aloud and he had the good spirit to laugh at this.
It was so very like her to say something like that and she didn't know it but it gave away a lot more about her personality to Richard than she would have liked. Her phrasing told him she was insecure, for all her tough exterior; it told him she scarcely believed him and only by the bare threads of being unable to deny pure honesty; and it told him somehow, somewhere in that well guarded heart of hers, she might like him too.
He hopped down the steps and Raven had the fleeting image of a puppy dog doing the same thing.
"An idiot who knows what he wants," he corrected her as he closed the distance and crossed his arms across his chest in a loose manner, not defensively like hers were, but lighter and just a tad mocking. She scowled and uncrossed her arms. "I am sorry though; it wasn't planned, the kiss," he admitted sheepishly and something inside Raven felt distinctly dismayed at this, but held her peace. Some parts of her, even Raven wasn't ready to come to terms with yet.
"I believe you," was her automatic response, dry and cynical as always. He arched a brow.
"So bad, then?" he queried cheekily, drawing a lazy finger down the side of her cheek like a lover might. He noted that she did not flinch away even as her stare darkened.
"I didn't say that." It was the truth, if a terribly reluctant one.
"Well then," he smirked.
"Don't get cocky...oh wait...guess it's too late for that one," Raven said, resigned.
"Go out with me," he said and she sputtered.
"What? Me? You? Out? Go? You and me go out? Like..." she tried to move her mouth around the word with a garbled and dissatisfied success, "...dating?"
He tried to contain his mirth at her reaction. She hadn't said yes yet after all.
"Yes, you, go out, with me," he said gently and cupped her face. "I want to." And he took the pivotal moment to lock eyes with her for a few genuine seconds of emotion, so she could see he was not being a manipulative adolescent bastard or the like, that he really just wanted a chance, and asked, "Don't you?"
To her muted horror, Raven felt herself nod and she had the brief realization of how much harder it was going to be to keep her secret from the wily rep now that he'd somehow snared her—she'd never be able to bring herself to analyze how, since it got under her skin so very much.
She would have thought longer on the problematic situation fleshing itself out before her too.
But such thinking would have to wait.
"Dude!" Garfield Logan barreled out the school's front doors, Victor Stone on his heels.
"'Dude' what?" Raven asked blandly.
"Someone just told me you," he gestured wildly at Richard, "and you," he gestured even more wildly at Raven, "you know!" He flung his arms around now in something beyond a wild manner and Richard laughed and Raven groaned, grouchy again at the prospect of explaining such a thing.
But she had a good answer for it anyway.
"So?" she challenged, frostbite threatening Gar at the very well punctuated question mark's notation. He made an 'eep' noise and shrugged nervously. Richard noted in vague admiration that the young jokester hadn't lied; he did know when to quit.
"Rae," Victor greeted, acting diplomatically as if a certain current event had not even happened, much less been brought up, and Raven threw him a grateful smile.
Richard's breath caught.
Now, he wasn't the mamsy pamsy type, not the flouncy romantic type or even the roguish romantic type a lot of his female admirers painted him into being.
But Raven's smile made him reconsider his nonexistent status as such.
This wasn't the wry twist of her lips or the sarcastic 'I know so much more than you do' smirk or even the grudging 'I give up, but only for now' upward turn. This was a real smile and while not all smiles were beautiful, Richard admitted that Raven's quite actually was.
And that was the first indication of something in his heart that stirred in larger strokes than mere 'like' would, but he didn't know it enough to recognize it for what it was, so he chalked it up to pure wonder.
"Vic," she returned and the bigger man stepped down to stand nearer to the two.
"What are you up to?" he asked casually.
"Homework," she responded immediately. It was always her answer.
"I see," Victor said and remembered well that this was always her answer but did not mention it.
"And what about you, Rich?" Gar clapped him on the back in a way that suggested he'd won something or other and this puzzled Richard until the shorter man said in low tones only he could hear: "Don't know how you did it, but congrats. She may be an ice queen but our Rae's a looker, no doubt about it!" And just as quick as the remark was made, Logan was standing upright and babbling about going to the arcade with amazing verbal speed.
Raven, for actual care of the sometimes intolerable Garfield, did her best to listen—if with no greatly disguised look of suffering.
"Hurt her and I'll break you like a toothpick," Victor said calmly, standing next to Richard. Richard did well enough to keep from losing his composure and simply nodded.
Thoughts? Reviews? Comments?
Haha...I need sleep...
Anyway, sorry about 'Waste Not, Want Not'...I really am at a positively stupendous road-block with that story. Of course there's the problem that I didn't take it seriously when I first started it, kind of thinking it was just a way for me to feed my own theories on what-ifs, not knowing others would be interested too!
IT WILL BE FINISHED...just not that soon I think...unless fate makes a hypocrite out of me like she so enjoys doing and then it'll be out in an hour of course.
Stupid fate.
-that castle in the air