A/N: Hey, all. I'm skipping ahead to the night of the dance. Why? Cuz I can't think of a single thing to write that's before it. Also, I think I write best as Raven, so she's gonna become the main character. By the way, Jinx lives across the street from Raven. Enjoy.
And to any CyxJinx shippers reading this: I am not one of you. Sorry. Please do not send me hate mail (although you will get a nice polite email back from me saying that I am sorry my mind doesn't work the same way yours does -wink-), and please do not flame my story. If you do, all those flames will go to burn Terra and Malchior(although you probably don't care about that).
My updating has finally caught up with me; this is the last chapter I have saved on the computer. The rest is all in my head and sometimes I wish I could just zap all my ideas into story format on Word. That sure would make life easier. So I most likely will not be updating soon. Sorry.
And you know it already: I don't own the Teen Titans. But I do own a closet door full of pictures of them!
"I still don't understand why you had to make your own dress," Jinx said over the phone. "Half of the fun is finding the right one."
Raven sighed into the receiver. She was lying on her bed talking to Jinx while staring in awe at the dress she had completed only the day before. She had hung it in the front of her closet and left the door wide open.
"Trust me, this is the right one," Raven said. Her dress was made of a silky purple fabric that had a faint sheen to it. It was floor length with long sleeves and a modest neckline. Her mother had bought her a pair of high heeled shoes, but Raven was seriously considering wearing her bright blue converse instead; her dress was so long that nobody would see her feet anyway.
"Well, please tell me you're at least doing something special to your hair," Jinx pleaded with her, seeming to want to find something that Raven was doing like everyone else.
"Um, no," Raven twirled a lock of her now short black hair. "But I got it cut yesterday."
"What?" Jinx yelled. Raven held the phone at an arms length for a full minute, then deemed it safe to put it next to her ear again.
"Are you done?" Raven asked politely.
"Yes," came the rather breathless answer. "As soon as my mom finishes curling my hair, I'm coming over to your house to do yours. And that would be now." Raven heard a click as Jinx put the phone down.
Raven sighed as she hung up her own phone. She walked over to her mirror and looked at her reflection. Her hair looked rather stringy this length, and her pale complexion did nothing to help this.
'What can Jinx possibly do to make my hair look nice?' Raven found herself wondering as she pulled on a lock of hair.
She heard the doorbell, and rushed down the stairs to answer the front door before her father could.
"I got it!" she yelled as she was halfway down the stairs, seeing her father approaching the door. She vaulted over the banister, landing catlike three paces in front of her father. She then sprang to open the door.
Jinx stood in the doorway clutching a duffel bag. She wore an old T-shirt and athletic shorts, which gave her a casual look, but her hair belonged at the other end of the fashion spectrum. Her pink hair had been curled and pinned up at the back of her head with little white roses placed almost randomly in her curls.
"Up to my room," Raven grabbed her friend by the arm and pulling her up the stairs as her father gave both of them dirty looks.
"Your hair looks beautiful," Raven said as she shoved her friend inside her room and closed the door. "How long did it take your mom to do that?"
"A while," Jinx said absently, staring open-mouthed at Raven's dress. "Are you sure you made that?" She turned to face Raven, looking in awe at her friend.
"Yeah," Raven rolled her eyes. "If you need the proof, I have all the sketches and measurements over there." She pointed to her desk, on which a sewing machine rested.
"Well, I certainly have my work cut out for me," Jinx turned back to the dress, "if I'm supposed to make your hair gorgeous enough to fit with that dress." She pushed Raven into a chair, and turned it away from the mirror.
"Jinx, I don't want you doing anything crazy that I'll kill you for," Raven said warningly.
"Stop worrying so much, Rae. I just want it to be a surprise."
Jinx unzipped her duffel bag, and began brushing Raven's hair. She then curled it and brushed it again.
"How long will this take?" Raven asked, looking at her watch. Almost fifteen minutes had gone by since Jinx had arrived.
"Not much longer," Jinx assured her. "Close your eyes; I don't want any hairspray to get in them." Raven obediently shut her eyes, feeling a sudden pang of foreboding.
"Can I open them now?" Raven asked as the spraying sound stopped.
"Not yet," Jinx said. Raven felt individual locks of her hair being pulled on slightly, and mentally counted all the pins she felt being placed in her hair.
"Done," Jinx said. Raven opened her eyes and checked her watch. It had taken Jinx a full forty five minutes to fix her hair.
"I'd better like it," Raven said as she turned to face the mirror.
She screamed.
"What did you do to my head?" Jinx had dyed her hair purple.
"It's not all like that," Jinx assured her as Raven raised a fist. "Go closer and see."
Deciding to give Jinx a chance to explain herself before pummeling her, Raven stepped closer to the mirror. Now that she could see clearer, she noticed that only part of her hair had been colored purple. The purple part had been pinned back into a half-ponytail, and the black part had been curled and left down.
"Why did you do that?" Raven asked, for although she had admitted to herself that she almost liked it, she was not about to tell Jinx that.
"It looks good, Rae," Jinx put her hand on her hips. "You should've colored your hair a long time ago. Besides, it matches your eyes and your dress."
"What made you think you could get away with this?" Raven raised a fist and advanced on her friend.
"Look, I'm sorry," Jinx said, looking frightened. "I thought you might like it. Well, don't worry, I can fix it."
"Fix it?" Raven backed her friend into a corner, her mind laughing insanely at the frightened look on Jinx's face. "You think you can fix it? Well, you can't. Want to know why?" Jinx gave a frightened nod. "Because I like it!" Raven flung her arms around her friend.
When she released Jinx, her friend gave a shaky laugh.
"I thought I was gonna get it," Jinx said in a faltering voice. "You really scared me, Rae." Raven smiled.
"All in good fun," she laughed.
"Now, let's see you in this dress," Jinx walked over to Raven's closet and took the dress of its hanger. She handed it to Raven, and began leading her out the door of her room and into the bathroom.
"Jinx, the dance isn't for another hour," Raven protested as she was shoved into her family's messy bathroom.
"So?" Jinx asked. "We have pictures to take and a dinner to eat. I'm changing into my dress as soon as I go back home, and I want to see you in yours." She closed the blue bathroom door.
Raven carefully placed her dress on the toilet and extracted herself from her T-shirt and jeans. She then carefully stepped into her dress and zipped it up at the back.
She looked at herself in the small mirror placed above the sink.
'Jinx was right,' she thought. 'My hair does match my dress.' She took a step closer. 'And my eyes.' She smiled at her reflection before turning away and opening the door.
She heard Jinx's squeal, and felt the pressure of a hug as her eyes were covered by Jinx's curly pink hair. She hugged her excited friend back, and joined in as Jinx began jumping up and down.
"You look gorgeous, Raven!" Jinx said as she released her friend.
"Thanks," Raven said, suddenly feeling self conscious. "Um, why don't I get my shoes and I can come over to see your dress?"
"Yeah!" Jinx grabbed Raven's arm and pulled her back to her room. "Get your mom to come so we can get an early start on the pictures."
"I hate pictures," Raven said as she closed the door to her room.
"Rae, it's your first formal dance," Jinx sighed. "Like it or not, there's going to be a lot of picture taking." Raven rolled her eyes, and proceeded to her closet, where two unopened shoeboxes lay. Inside one was a pair of high heeled shoes; the other housed a pair of converse. Raven picked up both of them.
"Think I should wear the converse or the high heels?" she asked.
"Seriously?" Jinx asked, raising her eyebrows and smiling.
"Yeah," Raven nodded, a sly grin forming on her face.
"Wear the converse," Jinx had an equally sly grin growing on her face. "I'll wear mine too. This'll be awesome. You'll be wearing bright blue converse, and I'll be wearing bright pink ones."
Raven put the high heeled shoes back in her closet, and took out her converse. After pulling on a pair of socks, she tugged her feet into her new pair of high tops. She laced them up with double knots at the top, then stood up to face her friend.
"Ready," she smiled.
"Awesome," Jinx smiled, her hand closing on Raven's wrist. "C'mon, let's go get your mom so we can go over to my house." The two girls ran downstairs, their tennis-shoed feet coming down hard on the wood steps.
"Mom?" Raven called out as she made a 180 degree turn to walk into the kitchen, Jinx close behind. "You in the kitchen?" The two girls walked into the brightly-lit kitchen as Raven's mother, Angela, looked up from the pan she was holding in oven-mitted hands.
"Raven, you look gorgeous," she said, putting the pan down on the stove and walking over to hug her daughter. "And just look at your hair, the both of you." She released Raven and pulled Jinx into a short hug. Jinx was like a second daughter to Angela, seeing as how the two girls were neighbors and one was almost always at the other's house.
"Mom, we're gonna head over to Jinx's house now, okay?" Raven told her mother.
"Hold on," Angela took her oven mitts off and placed them on the kitchen counter. "Let me get the camera and put this lasagna in a bag, and I'll come with you."
"You made lasagna, Mom?" Jinx asked. "Awesome." Jinx was so much like Angela's daughter that sometimes she even called her 'Mom.'
The two girls helped Angela place the steaming pan of lasagna into a bag, then helped her locate her camera, which was 'hiding' inside Raven's sewing kit. Angela gave Raven 'the look,' then grabbed the bag's handles and headed for the door.
Raven and Jinx followed, and the party of three had almost reached the door when Raven's father stepped in front of it, blocking their way.
Ravens' father, Talmon, was a large person, both in height and width, though any size on him was muscle, not fat. His hair was long, graying, and pulled back into a ponytail, and his job as a construction worker gave him a permanent farmer's sunburn. (Talmon is Hebrew, and it means to injure or to oppress.)
"Talmon, please move," Angela said in a firm voice. "The girls and I are just going over to Jennifer's house for dinner."
"Move, Angela," Talmon said in his deep, almost frightening voice. Angela stood her ground and looked him in the eye defiantly. He raised a hand and slapped her across the face.
"Mom!" Raven cried as her mother cried out and sank to the ground. She made to help her mother up, but Talmon stepped in her way.
"Where are you going?" he asked, seeming to have forgotten that Jinx was in the house.
"I'm going over to Jin– I mean, Jen's house for dinner. Then I'm going to my school dance," She looked her father straight in the eye, her purple orbs locked on his reddish-brown ones.
"You are to be home at nine o'clock," her father told her, his eyes boring a hole in her face.
"The dance ends at eleven," Raven said coldly. "Then Jen is having party. I will be sleeping over her house, and will be back at nine o'clock tomorrow morning."
"No," her father said, his hands clenching into fists. "You will be back home at the end of the dance. No parties."
Raven stood her ground, not dropping her gaze once. She knew that this was just like haggling with a street vendor. She had to stand her ground. Or else.
"No," Raven said, her temper rising. "I am going to Jen's party."
"You will be home at eleven o'clock tonight!" her father roared. Raven felt herself shrink, but she knew she could not back down.
"I will sleep over Jen's house and will be back home at nine in the morning!" she exclaimed. "I can and I will, and there's nothing you can do to stop me!" She gave Talmon the dirtiest look she could, then grabbed Jinx by the arm, helped her mother up, and walked out the door, slamming it in her father's scowling face.
"You're gonna get in trouble for that one," Angela said as the faint outline of a handprint began to form on her cheek.
"I really don't care anymore," Raven said determinedly. "He's stopped me from having fun for the last time." She stopped their progress to Jinx's house as they reached the sidewalk and inspected her mother's face. "How're you gonna explain that one away?" Raven asked, fingering the outline delicately, seeing if it would sting. Her mother recoiled slightly.
"A burn," Angela said shortly, although Raven knew that this 'burn' would attract attention. Angela turned to Jinx. "I'm sorry you had to see that, sweetheart." She put an arm around Jinx's shoulders.
"I had no idea," Jinx said in a shaky voice. "All those times you couldn't come to those mother-daughter baking parties or the craft parties, and I gave you a hard time because I thought you were doing other things. I'm so sorry."
"Don't think on it, bud," Raven said. "We've learned to deal. Besides, tonight we have fun." She and Angela smiled weakly at Jinx, who managed a small one in return. "Just don't tell anyone." Jinx nodded, almost as if she had expected this.
"Mom, I'm back!" Jinx yelled as the three of them entered her house.
"I'm in the kitchen!" Jinx's mother's voice boomed through the hallway connecting the entranceway to the kitchen. Angela wordlessly began to walk into the kitchen with her bag of lasagna, while Jinx and Raven ran up to Jinx's room.
As the two entered Jinx's pink room, Raven plopped down in an armchair by the window while Jinx opened her closet and extracted her dress. Like Raven's, it was floor length, but it had thin straps to hold it up, and it was white.
Jinx crossed into the bathroom that was connected to her room and changed quickly, coming back out wearing the dress and a stunning silver pendant.
Raven let her mouth hang open for s few second before exclaiming, "You look beautiful!" Jinx smiled modestly as Raven stood up from the chair to inspect Jinx's pendant. A silver flower lay gracefully above the dress's neckline with a single diamond in the center.
"Beautiful necklace," Raven's smile widened so that the tension in her cheeks was almost overwhelming.
"That reminds me," Jinx turned to walk over to her jewelry box. "I have something for you." She opened the dark brown box, and took two things out of it. She closed it gently, then turned to Raven, her right hand clenched in a fist. She opened it and held it out to her.
"Pick one," She said.
In her hand were two rings. They both were silver and looked two small vines twisted together. One had a blue stone set in it, the other a purple stone.
"Are they real?" Raven asked, taken aback by the beauty of the rings.
"Real silver," Jinx shrugged. "Not sure about the gems though. Pick one. I want us to wear them tonight."
"But –" Raven began.
"I don't want to hear you saying that it must have cost too much and that you couldn't possibly accept it," Jinx said, a playful frown on her face. "I spend my money on things that are special, and it would make my year if you would take one as an early Christmas gift or something. Anything to get you to wear one."
"Can't really argue with that, can I?" Raven asked, laughing. She picked up the ring with the purple stone carefully and slipped it on the middle finger of her left hand. Jinx slid the other ring on the same finger.
"Thanks Jinx," Raven said, admiring her ring. "I don't think I'll ever take this thing off."
"Good," Jinx smiled. "Now, come on downstairs. I want to get pictures of the two of us before everyone else gets here!" She grabbed Raven's wrist and pulled her downstairs and into the kitchen, where their moms were sitting and talking.
Jinx's mom jumped up when the two girls entered the room, and pulled both of them into a giant hug.
"You two are the prettiest girls I've ever seen!" she said while she squeezed them.
"Mom, let's go get started on the pictures," Jinx said as her mom released her.
"Right away," Her mother grabbed her camera off the table, and led the way into the family room. Jinx followed right behind her mother, while Raven and Angela took up the rear. Raven turned around to look at her mom before entering the family room.
"He got you good," she said sadly, looking at the giant red mark now on Angela's left cheek. The two entered the family room wordlessly, to see a giant white curtain covering the entirety of what had been the left wall.
"Jen, you go first, then Angela can get some pictures of Raven," Jinx's mom turned her camera on and began adjusting the zoom. Jinx stepped into the center of the white curtain, and smiled.
The camera flashed away as Jinx's mother began snapping pictures madly. Jinx was hardly in front of the curtain for a minute when her mom was waving at her to step away and let Raven stand in her place.
Raven stood in front of the curtain, smiling in an almost exasperated way, dreading the camera flash that would soon blind her. She watched her mother set up her camera angle, then resisted the childish urge to stick out her tongue as the flash blinded her. To her relief, her mother finished quickly, but then Jinx skipped in front of the curtain, hugged Raven, and prompted their moms to take group pictures.
Raven hugged Jinx back and smiled, this time more genuinely, as their mothers clicked away at their 'take picture' buttons. This bout of picture-taking was cut short soon after the first stream of flashes by the doorbell.
"We'll get it," Raven and Jinx said together as the flashes stopped, and both girls rubbed their eyes as they walked the familiar route to Jinx's front door.