Fat droplets of water fall off the ends of her hair, onto her shoulders, trailing down the tops of her breasts to the edge of her towel. She grabs a smaller towel from the edge of her bed absently rubbing it into her scalp. Her towel, which was once held by her bicep pressed tightly against her torso, falls clumsily to the floor. She doesn't question it in the safety of her own room, kicking the towel to the side. In fact welcomes it as she assesses her new scars.
She looks at the small scar she has on her cheek bone which is quickly fading only two days after their scramble against her brothers. Her eyes trail down to the sickly green patches on her arms- healing bruises from where Malchior had pinned her to the ground. Finally, her fingers land gently on the three wrinkled stripes on her side. Her chest brightens to a candy red as images of Garfield's long, knobby fingers against her skin pop up in her mind's eye. She lets her hand drop from the suddenly warm skin of her taut stomach. The muscles of her abs flex underneath her skin. She puts her hand around the edge of her mirror, suddenly out of breath. She shuts her eyes tightly.
What the hell am I thinking?
She screams when she opens her eyes and notices someone standing behind her.
"What the-Changeling? Are you out of your mind?" she asks, scrambling to pick up the towel at her feet. Her lips fall open when Garfield doesn't flinch at his intrusion. He's grown into the habit of tiptoeing around her. It hurts her a little more than she'd admit but then she remembers the number of times the sheer shock of this or that situation has caused her to inadvertently knock her teammates off of their feet and she isn't too proud to admit that it's a justifiable hesitance. Speaking of which, why haven't her powers knocked out the lights? At least her body won't be so exposed if her lamp wasn't on.
Garfield's face remains straight as he walks forward deliberately. She keeps fumbling with her towel but it keeps falling through her fingers like sand. She can't keep her eyes off his in the mirror. In the low lighting of her bedroom they look black as they fix on her own eyes. Her breasts are completely bared and he hasn't once looked down. She almost wants him to so she can escape his heavy gaze.
"Changeling?" she asks, but he doesn't stop moving closer to her. She gets the towel around her just in time for him to press himself firmly against her back. She steps forward trying to put some space between them, parting her lips. He steps forward again, and she can feel the ridges of him through her towel. She gasps, her breath fogging the glass of her mirror.
"Gar-" her voice cuts off when Garfield places his hand over the knot she made to hold up her towel. He pauses, asking for permission. It's the shock, she tells herself, that causes her to nod absently. He doesn't rush to unravel the knot, opening her up like a gift, the edge of his hand brushing against her nipple as he removes the layer of fabric separating her bare ass from the fabric of his uniform. Her nipple hardens immediately at the contact. His eyes finally move down to watch the spectacle. She immediately realizes that this gaze isn't any less intense. She tightens her thighs together.
She groans when his fingers touch the scars he left again, burning her skin even more intensely than they did before. Her forehead presses against the mirror; her breath fogging it up.
"What are you doing?" She attempts to protest but her ass is already rubbing against the hard ridges of his hips. She feels a hot tug at her core as Garfield moves his fingertips over the outermost edge of the last of the scars he left, the one closest to her belly button. And he doesn't stop, moving his fingers over her belly button. Lower. Right above her mons pubis.
She groans, dropping her head against his shoulder. His lips enthusiastically meet the juncture where her shoulders meet her neck. She whimpers as one of his fingers dips between her labia.
"Azar...Garfield, what are we doing?" she mumbles, rubbing herself against his finger. The warmth in her stomach makes her toes curl. He pushes himself against her harder until her nipples are pressed against the cold glass of the mirror. The space between her thighs is wet and hot.
A feeling that doesn't go away when she wakes up, alone, in the middle of her bed. She's tangled up in her sweaty sheets and Cyborg's oversized t-shirt. Her eyes open so widely that she's afraid the skin at the corners of her eyeballs will split.
What in the world?
She runs a hand over her face, swollen from sleep and wet with drool.
What in the world?
She sits up in her bed.
There was no way she just dreamt that.
With Garfield?
Imposs-
Jacob.
She hurries out of bed.
Not even bothering to put on socks as she heads out of her room.
Ignoring the sticky feeling between her legs.
Jacob was fucking with her.
She knows it.
She has to get him out of this tower.
She reaches the doors of his cell, seconds from barging into the room.
She will do anything so that he doesn't manipulate her teammates like he had just manipulated her. She doesn't know where she will put him or how she will get him out but he has to leave. She will figure it out when she is in front of him.
"Raven!" Nightwing calls out, jogging towards her. Garfield is trailing after him, much less rushed. He looks over her body with crinkled eyebrows, probably surprised she hadn't changed last night.
Damnit.
"We need to get them out of this tower, Nightwing. Now!"
Nightwing finally reaches her, wrapping his arms around his torso.
"And where do you propose we put them?" Nightwing asks. His patronizing tone causes the skin of her back to tighten. She steps towards him, shooting a glance at Garfield. She immediately averts her eyes to the ground, her face growing so hot it hurts. Looking at Garfield again through her lashes, Raven wishes he could be anywhere else right now.
Raven puts a hand on Nightwing's arm, wedging herself between him and Garfield. Her current position, with her back to Garfield, is almost exactly like in her dream. Give or take a few inches, a few articles of clothes, and a Nightwing. Her face grows even hotter as she hopes that Garfield will get the hint and leave.
"They are playing with us from inside the tower," she whispers through the sliver her lips make, feeling Garfield's looming presence behind her. She looks back at him frantically. Nervously. Then looks back at Nightwing who leans closer to her.
"What did you say?" Nightwing asks. She feels like melting through the cracks in the ground.
"They're playing with us from inside of the tower," she hisses through her teeth, clenching her fists at her side.
"What do you mean they're playing with us inside of the tower? How do you know?" Nightwing asks in a normal tone, his face crinkled with irritation like he had just tasted something sour. To Raven, he might as well be yelling. She resists the urge to look back at Garfield again.
"Azar," Raven mumbles, placing a cool hand over her face that's now sore with the intensity of her blush.
She can't look back at him.
She can't answer Nightwing's question.
She can't remove her hand out of fear that Nightwing will comment on how red she is.
He's not going to let her in to remove her brothers.
And she still feels like she wants to melt through the ground.
So she does.
Garfield usually informs his teammates about most of his abilities. How long he can stay in certain forms. Which forms he can turn into. How many times he can transform in an hour. The team needs to know all of these things in order to come up with the best battle strategies.
In his teens his ability to smell the hormonal shift when the women in the Tower were on their monthly cycles was not something he felt he needed to share. In fact, he was sure that Raven would murder him in his sleep if he even brought it up.
He also did not feel the need to bring it up when, years later, he was able to smell when Starfire and Nightwing had just had sex. And he was sure as hell not going to bring up the fact that his nose could detect which of the pair had, to put it elegantly, reached.
No, he just kept his head down, chewing quietly on whatever meal was in front of him, reminding himself that sex was natural. Most animals mated in front of their animal friends so what did it matter if he knew when his friends had sex. It wasn't like he could control it and he wasn't about to tell his friends to stop and deny them their happiness.
When he sees Raven, still dressed in the shirt Cyborg had given her, looking frantic in front of her brothers' cell, his confusion replaces the immediate panic he feels at seeing her so soon after laying his hands on the bare skin of her stomach.
Then he gets closer.
"They are playing with us from inside of the tower," she whispers. Why whisper? He doesn't understand. Did she forget that his hearing is sensitive enough to hear her anyways?
They're playing with us from inside the tower? What?
He looks at the door of the cell in which they are keeping her brothers.
Her brothers are playing with us? How?
Then he smells it.
Sweet and musky.
He sucks his lips into his mouth.
Oh. Oh!
He looks up, suddenly entranced by the ceiling.
He should move.
Why isn't he moving?
Don't smell her. Don't smell her, you creep.
He interlocks his fingers behind his back, closing his eyes.
"What the hell was that?" Nightwing asks.
Garfield opens his eyes. Raven is gone, he had missed the tail end of the conversation.
Her scent is still all around him though. Curling up around his nostrils.
Jesus Christ.
"No idea man," Garfield says absently. Nightwing presses his lips together. He raises an eyebrow Garfield feels like he's shrinking beneath his gaze.
"Okay," Nightwing draws out. "I think it's time you and I talk about this Beast situation."