Disclaimer: If I owned TT, the show would be a bit fun Nor do I own Slipknot or their lyrics to 'Virus of Life'

-

I can see you but you can't see me
I could touch you and you wouldn't even feel me
Wait a second and you'll settle down
I'm just waiting, 'til you really let your guard down
Your relaxed, your sublime, your amazing
You don't even know the danger you're facing
If I'm quiet, I'll slide up behind you
And if you hear me I'll enjoy trying to find you

-

He still had blood on his hands. The people around him were too immersed in their own pointless lives to notice though, the blood, the scabs, the scars.

Sometimes, he believed that they didn't see anything they didn't want to.

Didn't matter much though, he had something more important on his mind.

Six inch fuck-me-heels clicked soundly on the pavement, shirt too tight to leave room for imagination and a skirt too short to hide the point. Wrong…All wrong.

But her body, it was near perfection.

Hair swinging over her shoulders, hoops of gold glinting through her dark locks. A slow, decadent smile on her lips as she passed him.

No poise, hips swaying wildly, ringlets bouncing over bare arms.

Her body was the only thing that mattered, at least to him.

Feeding the addiction with so many nameless girls every night.

Dreaming of the one he could never have.

Raven.

Smiling, he fell into step behind the girl, effects long forgotten, he blended into the chaotic masses well.

It was only a matter of time, her stoic front would flounder, Raven would give in.

He watched the girl before him, so similar to the body he needed, wanting to hear her scream, to beg for it.

Plead for her life.

And he would hear it, that last desperate cry, all in time.

Brushing back a few strands of pitch black hair, he disappeared into the shadows.

Tonight was their one-year anniversary,

And X planned to make it a night Raven would never forget.

-

She was back in her head, a captive of her own imagination again. Raven's world, her mind's vision had become so perverted since X, where once a mirror of her home, it had now become a wasteland mimicking her visions of Armageddon. It seemed she was always confined to the other-world equivalent of her own room, still furnished, yet withered with the passing age. It was here she had once found solace, meditating in the company of her personified emotions. Those emotions had long ago fractured from her true self, seeming to take on lives of their own, running wild over the infinite reaches of her universe, slowly polarizing as time passed. The innocence had left her once-sanctuary, leaving Raven desolate and confused.

"Oh...no.." Raven moaned, her hands pulling the skin on her face downward nearly comically as her eyes rolled over the creature before her. "No, no, no. What, what? Why?" Incomprehensible words bubbled from her lips as she shook her head slowly back and forth, eyes wide and unbelieving.

"I am you. I am everything you hate about who you are. From the wastes of your mind, your hatred, your anger, I was born out of desperation. You needed a way to suppress what you were feeling, darling" The skin on its faces was pale beyond life, stretching horribly as the creature smiled. "I gave you that. You created me to keep them quiet, I think I've done a brilliant job, if I do say so myself." Her voice was nearly mocking, permeated with a sickly sweet droll. "And you can call me Id, sweety." 'Id' twisted the belt around her slim, dark waist, pulling a new face into view.

"H…Happiness?" Raven cried. The eyes of the disembodied head began to open as it was twisted to face the cowering girl.

But where once the eyes of a personified emotion watched so merrily the world, there were only two dark sockets, still caked with young blood.

"Hello!" Happiness chimed, her eyelids squinting over empty hollows, a wistful smile plastered over the dead flesh. Tendons in her neck grasped wetly and wriggled where once they would have linked her head to her shoulders.

"Shit!" Raven screeched, once more recoiling violently against the wall and away from the creature before her. "Oh…Oh god…" She retched, trying to take her eyes away. Her hair fell in long sweaty strings in her eyes, sweat stinging her face as fear threatened to consume her.

"Fear not!" Happiness proclaimed, her hollowed eye sockets beamed malevolently at her. "I'm better this way! We all are!"

"What…what the hell is going on?" Raven pulled her knees to her chest, clinging desperately to whatever sanity she could find, tears flooded down her cheeks as she choked back a scream, her eyes locked onto the empty sockets of the head.

"Keep your voice down," Id demanded, conjuring a cloak to cover the heads on her belt. It draped loosely, vaguely outlining the domed heads and bladed noses "We don't want that priss coming 'round. That bitch always ruins my fun." Her sinuous tongue slipped from her lips, beckoning to the terrified girl. Behind her, the red clouds rolled violently over one another as they raced toward the city. The scream of the wind through the cracks in the walls roared as the tattered linens of her room swayed, casting crimson shadows over the walls.

Raven shook her head from side to side, biting her lip.

'Please, please god, let me wake up!' Words filled her mind, fighting their way towards her mouth

"God please make this st-"

Id's hand enveloped her face, crushing her cheeks and pressing her tongue into her teeth.

Blood filled the inside of Ravens mouth as she felt the crushing grip begin to lift her from the floor with supernatural ease.

"God? Ha! There ain't no god here, hon" Id cackled madly, "Only you, me and the peanut gallery."

---

"Cyborg…"

The long open room stood silently as the early morning light began to filter in, seeming to coat the room in blood as the sun crawled over the horizon. The low hum of appliances and computers rumbled dully as the flicked on automatically. Robin stood, leaning on one elbow against the counter near the kitchen, his posture was lax, fatigue seeming to seep through and possess him as he watched the silhouette of his friend against the morning light.

The behemoth stood, looking quietly out over the city, his back turned to the Boy Wonder.

'Why didn't she tell me?' Voices in his head screamed, outraged and troubled.

"I always thought…You know, that things like this, they…They couldn't happen to us." Cyborg said, then laughed. It was a cold, hollow sound. "I mean, those things happen to real people, right? When we put on these suits,"

He paused, looking down at his metal hands.

"Well, when we go out to save the day, we're…God, I don't know… Different…Special… Invincible..." Another pause as his words sunk into the quiet room.

"Every day we go out there and fight things most people don't even dream of…I guess I just wanted to believe that it meant we didn't have to worry about that mundane shit…" He looked over his shoulder for a moment, seeking something in Robin's eyes, but he only saw the white blanks as Robin's mask stared apathetically back.

"That's why we do it, Cy." Robin said after a painful pause. The air seemed so heavy, he could hardly breath as he felt the weight of the meta-humans eyes fall upon him. "Every one of us has been through some shit that we can't forget, but…What ever doesn't kill us only makes us-"

"No, Robin," Cyborg turned violently, pacing up to the Boy Wonder, "Don't you get it? Pull your head out of your self-righteous ass and look around you! Whatever doesn't kill us fucks us over later!"

Cyborg stood before Robin, eye screwed shut,

(Just keep the violence down)

time crept forward with an aching slowness. The anger that had thundered through his heart slowed, leaving only an empty sorrow.

"I…Need some time to breathe…" Cyborg concluded after a moment.

"No." Robin nearly shouted, his hand coming down sharply against the counter. "You aren't going to leave me here with all this shit. You're the only other Sane person who knows what's going on, and I'll be damned if I let you get out of fixing this!"

'I will not be their fucking whipping boy' Sour words echoed in Robin's head. "Beast Boy's lost it," His voice cracked as he began to lose control "Raven is the fucking problem…and Starfire--"

"Friend Robin, why are you shouting?"

Robin stopped, his face hardening as Star walked into the dining hall. She surveyed the broken table with a vague recognition, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

"Star, leave, now." Robin ran his hand through his hair, trying to calm down. This was getting out of control fast, he couldn't let that happen.

She stopped, her arms curling around her stomach as she tried to keep tears back.

Cyborg touched his arm,

"She didn't do nothing, man."

Robin threw the metallic mans' hand off his arm, glaring darkly at him.

"Don't pull that pompous shit with me. I know you, you're just trying to make up where you fucked up with Raven." The Boy Wonder was snarling now, as he watched Cyborg stare with disbelief.

Starfire began to cry softly, hiding just out of sight, fueling his anger.

"Yeah, you heard me." He pressed his hands on Cyborgs' shoulders. This was the control he needed, "Come on, fucker!"

"Robin, please stop," Starfire pleaded, coming out from behind the counter, clutching the hem of her long night-shirt. "Please Friend Robin, you are frightening me."

Her eyes were red and puffy as tears ran over her cheeks and down her neck. Robin glanced away from Cyborg's blank face, and caught sight of Star.

The wind fell out of him.

His arms that had shook with rage now trembled with fatigue as he looked pleadingly from Star to Cyborg.

Robin pulled his shuddering hands to his face, trying to hide the tears and shame.

"I'm sorry, oh god…I'm so sorry."

---

Choking, Raven wheeled her legs, trying to free herself from Id's grasp. The monster had lifted her from the floor, watching mirthfully as Raven struggled to breathe. Shadows played at random over her face, carving deep holes under her bladed nose and into Id's hollowed eyes, the red hues complimented by her pallid skin.

Id was smiling as she watched Raven clawing away at her arm, her violet eyes slowly hazing over. Ravens' thrashing had begun to slow, taking on a sleepy quality. Her fingernails dug into the flesh of Id's arms once more, pulling weakly as blood spurted and dribbled down her bare arms.

"Stop!"

Id cringed, dropping Raven unceremoniously onto the ground, where she lay no more than a shaking heap, clutching her throat and panting.

"What the…Hell….was that…for?" Rolling to her back, she watched the burnt holes in her vision starting to recede. Debris from the ancient wares of the room dug into her back, sticking to her sweaty skin.

Across the room, there was the faintest groan as a new figure stepped into the blood-light.

A faint white aura surrounded her deep purple cloak, her faced hidden beneath the long shadow of her hood. Red shadows played over her dark visage, seeming a nearly benevolent figure as it began to mimic Id and circle around one another.

Raven watched silently as the two approached each other contemptuously, fingures different, but so distinctly similar. From one, the undenyable sense of malice, a hunger for destruction. From the other, a sort of hurried virture, timidly filling the room with a hopeful calm.

"Id…" The new figure spoke, the voice soft and feminen.

"That all you got to say?" Id hissed, smiling bitterly as locks of her unnatural hair seemed to raise like the hackles of a dog.

"Really Id, if you don't have anything intelligent to say then don't--"Id lashed out, ripping the hood away from the face of the figure. Blood tricked slowly down the ivory cheek Id had grazed with its nails. Its face and head was devoid of hair, save for a long, thick brade that hung at the nape of its neck, its deep color unmistakably purple in the violet light, making its skin seem all the paler. Everything about the creature excuded an air of feminine beauty, delicate and frosty as she paced slowly before Id.

Raven felt strangely invisible as she watched the two creatures circle around each other.

"Shut up, Bitch." Id snapped, "Why are you here?"

The other one put a tentative hand to its face, staring blankly at the wall. The blood slid over fingertips as pale as snow and dripped onto its neck.

Id twitched, fingers splayed silently around a dark object concealed in the folds of its cloak.

"You're here to warn her, aren't you?" Id glared darkly at her, the long tendrils of purple hair shifting as she lifted something beneath her cloak.

"Well, Fuck that." In one fluid motion, Id pulled a short dagger from its belt, snarling as it wrapped an arm around the purple-cloaked girls neck, "I'm the one who calls the shots around here, and you…My friend," It licked one ivory cheek. "Are a nosy little bitch, who never learned to keep her nose in her own business."

Smiling, Id thrust the dagger into the hollow of one of the other creatures shoulder. Blood spurted into the room, showering both creatures in a light spray.

The girl let out a soft groan, clutching the knifes hilt with her good hand and falling quietly to her knees.

Raven shrieked as white hot pain filled her mind, searing her thoughts and blinding her.

"Well Fuck you Nova," Id cried triumphantly, "I've got plans and I'm not going to let a little shit like you mess it up."

Blood trickled down through Nova's cloak, sucking it to her skin.

Yet she looked up, smiling as she wiped the blood that had landed on her face away..

"I-I…I might not be strong or vicious like you, Id…But I have hope, and I have a message for your Raven." Her eyes fell upon the girl who was crouched in the corner, and Raven screamed as she realized that the eyes themselves were no more than sightless white orbs.

---

His hands were shaking with anticipation, he could hear her breathing. The morning light was rising and he knew that he didn't have much time. her room was cluttered, but he moved effortlessly through the maze, a long trained grace flowing through his thin limbs.

The rough gloves he wore for his job were shed, replaced with simple latex, with trace amounts of nightshade dusted over them, just in case.

X smiled beneath his mask, he had waited a year for this night.

Licking his lips, he slid from shadows, eyeing Raven as she hovered over her bed, sheets still wrapped in her fingers. Setting a small kit next to him, he flicked a lock and pulled it open slowly.

He pressed her hand to his face, her chilled flesh sweet against his feverish cheek.

"I couldn't forget you Raven…"

He pried the blankets from her grip, smoothing them back onto the bed.

"I couldn't move on…"

X ran a gloved hand through her hair, pulling the stringy locks from her face.

"I still can't get you out of my head,"

He tied a band around her arm, stroking the veins that began to swell in her arm.

"So I'm going to make you mine,"

Uncapping a syringe with his teeth, he slipped the needle under her skin, relishing the shiver that traced up her skin as the alien fluid raced through her.

"Even if I have to kill,"

He pulled the needle out, setting it aside and pressing cotton over the hole.

"Because remember, Raven…

I always get what I want…."

-
Just keep the violence down
Not yet - don't make a sound
Oh God I'm feeling it
It's reaching fever pitch
My skin is caving in
My heart is driving out
No mercy, no remorse
Let nature take its course
-

Z