Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans. They are the property of DC Comics and Cartoon Network.
: Night : Raven :
It was quiet and I wanted to change. My breath quivered in my chest. The ground seemed to vibrate ever so slightly with me on the edge of the world. And I was afraid to change.
There was the boy, sleeping on the bed--vulnerable--with a bed sheet tangled around his legs. He no longer wore the uniform in his sleep. He no longer wore the mask. He no longer wore the gel. Instead he lay in only a pair of boxers and a cotton sheet with closed eyes and dark lashes and messy, ebony tangles against the pillow. Vulnerable.
And here I was, standing very still in the shadows of his room and watching his very still breathing on the bed bathed in moonlight. And I felt very awake and alive and nervous and I swear I could feel every molecule in my body pulsing, waiting, hoping, and fearing. I knew that his stillness was very different from my own. He used to be a shuddering string like me, but for some time now, he has been truly still.
I want that.
I inhale slowly. The first, perhaps, of an ocean swell instead of the twittering splash of rapids I have been until this moment of this night of my life.
He told me I could come. He told me he would be a refuge for me. He told me he would be a stillness and a safety from the tremors of the night.
Slowly, I strip. Out of the cape, carefully unfastening the broach so as not to prick my fingers. Out of the belt, careful not to jangle it, not to break the silence. Out of the boots, careful to set them side-by-side next to the neat little pile of my things. And then, in one careless tug, out of the leotard.
Now is the time to be daring, to be vulnerable, to change.
Clad in only my underwear and my bra and my short violet hair and large violet eyes, I step into the light. I step up to the bed. I slide onto it. The bedsprings creak ever so slightly. And the boy opens his eyes.
I am startled by purest blue. I shiver for a second, my breath hitching, before the tidewater pulls me back out to sea. His eyes are still and crystalline as a lake. And he offers me a slow smile, riding on the ocean rhythm of his breathing.
I offer a slight, grateful quirk of my lips. Perhaps in time, when I am truly still too, I will smile at him, and it will be sunlight instead of moonbeams. But for now, this will do.
I settle down next to him on the bed, undisturbed by the sound of the coils, close to him, facing him, but not touching. Gently, he lays his hand over mine. His eyes are questioning, and a cloud racing over the moon outside gives the impression of a wave cresting in his irises.
Now is the time to be daring, to be vulnerable, to change.
I turn my hand over in his, our fingers interlacing in the most chaste and significant of ways. Still smiling, he closes his eyes, dark lashes fluttering down against a pale cheek. And as my eyelids mimic his, I feel that cool calm sweep over me.
Now is the time to change.
