"Hand sanitizer?" Nightwing asks, pulling out the small bottle from Dal's pocket.
"Is it not allowed?" Dal asks. Nightwing would have thought he was being snarky and belligerent had the man not proven himself to be one of the most mild tempered people he has ever talked to. Without a word, Nightwing tosses the sanitizer at Cyborg to analyze and continues to pat Dal down.
After the team had asked Dal to go home, it took them approximately two hours to run his face through facial recognition and review his police records which could probably be fit onto two pages. The man has a total of two speeding tickets paid on time in full. From what they could gather Park yi-dal is a widowed Korean-American who owns a popular but small bakery on East Main street. Much to Nightwing's chagrin, Garfield periodically interrupted his report to read out the bakery's reviews on Yelp and express enthusiasm over items on the menu. People in Jump City loved Dal. It was Starfire who pointed out that he was actually the one who catered their foster kid event this year, completely free of charge. Most of the reviews shared similar stories of Dal's community involvement.
Dal's parents were deported when he was fifteen after twenty-five years in the United States. Whether Dal remained in contact afterwards is uncertain but he definitely didn't return to South Korea with them. Having no other relatives in America, Dal jumped between foster care homes which is how he eventually crossed paths with Jacob who had been abandoned by his mother after she realized who exactly had impregnated her. The team was able to find out that Dal and Jacob spent two years in the same foster home. Dal was there from the ages of sixteen to eighteen. Jacob remained in that foster home for a year after Dal had left for New York University to study engineering on a full ride. He was there from the ages of eleven to thirteen. It was not until Jacob turned nineteen that he could be traced to anywhere near New York City himself, spending, from what the team could gather, at least five years in Connecticut. They agreed that they must have met up during those years.
The rest of the time was spent arguing over whether Dal should be allowed to talk to Jacob. Nightwing believed that it might give them some info on the elusive half demon. Raven was adamant that it was the dumbest idea their leader had ever had.
"They're playing with us from inside of the Tower,"she had insisted.
"How so, friend?" Starfire had asked, blinking a few times and all of Raven's protests had burned on her tongue. It was decided that Dal would be heavily armored with charms and supervised by Nightwing.
So here they are, preparing Dal to enter into Jacob's holding cell with Nightwing. Starfire and Cyborg would wait outside the doors in case something happened. Garfield and Raven would be watching from the security room.
"Sanitizer bottle's clean," Cyborg says, tossing the bottle in the direction of Nightwing and Dal. Dal reaches out to catch it but Nigthwing catches it with one hand just when it is two inches away from Dal's face. He wiggles it in the air.
"Remember, don't try anything funny," Nightwing says. Dal narrows his eyes for only a second, top lip twitching momentarily. Then it's as if cool water washes over him as his face relaxes back into its unenthused expression. In the few hours the team had known him in total, he did this often. He seemed constantly on the precipice of an emotion. Like kinetic energy. He'd seem like he was about to be happy, and then his smile would kind of melt into a deadpan. Weirdly enough, his eyes were the most expressive thing on him. They were very large and always glossy, surrounded by thick dark lashes. His face and body belonged to the thirty-one year old man but his eyes were twelve. Dal reaches for the sanitizer bottle and takes it out of Nightwing's hands but doesn't respond.
"Let's go in," Nightwing finally says, clapping the man on the shoulder a little harder than necessary. Dal places his hands in his pockets, looking at the door that separates him from Jacob. He shuffles his feet a little bit. Nightwing looks Dal up and down before moving his hand on the hand scanner next to the first door.
"What are you thinking about?" Garfield asks, leaning against the console. Even though he can only see her side profile, lit up by the colorful controls before them, he knows by the way she's breathing out of her mouth that she's nervous. She doesn't respond at first, looking at the screen and waiting for Dal to enter the room with Jacob.
"I'm worried," Raven finally says, shifting forward but not taking her eyes off the screen.
"About Dal?"
Raven finally turns to Garfield, taking in a deep breath. He can see the question tossing back and forth in her head behind her eyes.
"Amongst everything else."
Garfield nods, then shifts his eyes towards the screen again. He leans his chair back so that it is balanced on the back two legs.
"Did you get a good read on him?"
"He's a torrent of emotions," she says monotonously.
Garfield laughs, thinking this was Raven's signature dry humor. He's so amused he almost loses his balance, until he realizes that she isn't laughing with him. Garfield feels his chair snap back into place.
"Dal?" Garfield asks, snapping his head at Raven. She doesn't say anything. "Really? Dal?"
"There was anger in him. Some relief. And a whole lot of fear and anxiety. It almost masked everything else. I got twitchy just sitting near him."
"That...can't be healthy."
Raven hums, returning her eyes to the screen.
"Are you worried he'll try something?" Garfield asks. Raven purses her lips then pushes them to one side of her face.
"No, frankly, I'm not."
"He could be anxious because he's hiding something," Garfield says.
"It doesn't feel like that kind of anxiety."
"Can you tell?" Garfield asks and Raven turns to him again. "When people are lying I mean?"
"Sometimes. But I think most people can tell when someone is lying to them. They either choose not to believe it or not to address it."
Garfield sits with that thought for a while.
"So you know?" Garfield asks, starring Raven in the eyes. He doesn't blink, doesn't smile. His eyes run over her face. She feels herself disconnect from her body a little as she looks at him. The silence knocks all the air out of the security room. What is he talking about? She blindly reaches for the hood of her cloak, intent on hiding her face but her hand stills on her collar. Shrinking isn't exactly in her character and she's not about to make it a habit. Her hand slips to her chest where she opens up her cloak to let a little air in. "That I ate the brownie Cyborg called dibs on yesterday?"
Garfield's face breaks out into a grin that almost splits his face in two. Raven takes advantage of the fact that his smile is so huge his eyes squint up. She lets out a long breath.
"He's coming in," Raven says quickly when she notices movement on the screen.
When Nightwing walks into his cell, Jacob is picking at something underneath his nails, legs propped up on the table. He doesn't look up although the Titan's leader is sure that Jacob heard him. Dal follows Nightwing silently; he doesn't make any attempts to make his presence known. In fact, from Raven's perspective, it seems like he's hiding behind Nightwing's body, hunching his shoulders in to make his body look smaller. It works for five seconds; Jacob doesn't sense anything different.
But then something in the air shifts. Dal takes only two small steps into the room, right on Nightwing's heels. Suddenly Jacob's sitting upright, hands on his knees. He looks crazed when he snaps his head towards Nightwing. There's no way he can see much of Dal as his body is almost completely eclipsed by Nightwing. Still, Jacob recognizes him. His reaction is only a second. Raven barely notices it. His lips part and he lets out a long breath. He blinks once. Twice. Deep, meaningful blinks.
And just as quickly his head is tilted back and his laughter is reverberating through the speakers in the console room. Raven watches as his chest moves up and down, almost as if he's throwing his whole body into the laugh. The pitch of his laughter is all wrong. It looks like an exorcism.
Dal, who had been tiptoeing before, steps out from behind Nightwing and takes a seat across from Jacob. He keeps his head down, bangs covering his eyes. Jacob's laughter stops shaking his body. He takes a look at Dal's downturned head and starts laughing again. Dal sits still. Hands flat against his quads, back straight and shoulders sharp.
"Park yi-dal, you found me," Jacob says, when his laughter dies down, propping his legs on the table that separates him and Dal once more. Dal looks up, his mouth is open and his eyes are wide. Raven can almost see his tongue moving behind his lips, like he's trying to string together some words.
"If you didn't want to be found, maybe ending up on the news wasn't your best plan of action," Dal finally says. Jacob folds his hands in his lap.
"Was New York not all you dreamed of, Dal?" Jacob asks, smirking. The question sounds innocent but it comes out of Jacob's mouth in a tone that reminds Raven of thick brown syrup. Dal doesn't react to the saccharine lilt of Jacob's words.
"I haven't lived in New York for years."
Jacob's smirk falters a little.
"No, you've been baking cookies in sunny California," Jacob says, tilting his head towards Nightwing who has been standing silently in the corner of the room. Dal follows Jacob's eyes and makes eye contact with Nightwing before dropping his eyes to his lap again. Once again, Jacob's reaction is quick, he frowns almost imperceptibly. If Raven wasn't watching like a hawk she'd miss it. Just as quickly Jacob smirks again.
"Why are you here Dal?" Jacob asks, curling his body forward in an attempt to capture Dal's downturned eyes. Dal looks up, not blinking, his wide eyes are shifting all over Jacob's face. Raven can see the top row of his teeth between his parted lips. Jacob chuckles through his closed lips when Dal doesn't say anything for a couple of minutes. He finally breaks eye contact and leans back in his seat again, picking under his fingernail again.
Dal stands up abruptly, causing Nightwing to stir from his position against the wall. The visitor takes two small but direct steps to Jacob's side of the table. Jacob looks up, and his breath hitches, at least that's what Raven thinks when his chest stops moving on an inhale. The smirk is gone from his face as if it never existed. His chest isn't moving; Raven thinks he might be holding his breath. He pulls his legs down from the table at the same time Dal takes his third step and Raven can't help but think it looks like they're doing a little synchronized dance. Dal steps in between the small gap the table makes with Jacob's legs and Jacob shifts to accommodate him. Dal sits on the table with Jacob's knees on either side of his.
Raven didn't grow up with her brothers but she knew of their existence. When she was younger, Trigon would slip them into her nightmares. Attacking her the only time she let her guard down. Showing her all the dirty things they did to remind her of her fate. Occasionally she would look up cases they were tied to and try to track them using CCTV footage but she was never successful. She only knew her brothers through the footprints they didn't cover.
Yet, she knows she had never seen Jacob's eyes so open and alert. He always carried himself with a slight swagger, like his joints were made of jello. His eyes were always half lidded as if he'd just woken up or smoked something. Now the only thing that is breaking the full-eyed eye contact he is making with Dal is his own eye lids. Raven wishes she could read his emotions through the walls.
Jacob watches as Dal takes the hand sanitizer out of his pocket. His eyebrows crinkle as he looks down at Dal's hands and back at his expressionless face. Dal hooks his fingers around the power canceling cuff bound on Jacob's left wrist and yanks his hand forward. He moves Jacob's palm up. Jacob looks at the top of Dal's head. Dal focuses intently on opening up the hand sanitizer bottle. Jacob watches as he pours a generous dollop on his palm. The half demon moves to pull away his hand presumably so he can rub in the hand sanitizer when Dal stops him, sandwiching his hand with both of his own and gently massaging the sanitizer for him. Jacob's mouth falls open and he gasps.
Raven sits back in her chair.
It takes Jacob a couple of seconds to snatch his hand back, leaning as far away from Dal as possible. Dal leans forward, going to grab Jacob's hand again. Jacob moves it away before he can.
"I played with you once. You can stop following me around like a displaced bitch," Jacob says, and his voice sounds thicker and deeper than usual. He immediately shoots a look at Nightwing who watches the pair intently. Dal regains Jacob's attention as he leans forward some more so that his knees are pressing against the half demon's seat.
"Are you playing with me now?" Dal asks, resting his hands on his thighs. Jacob lets out a shaky breath. Dal squeezes another dollop of hand sanitizer on Jacob's other hand, closes the bottles and leans back. He looks at Jacob for one beat. Two beats. And then returns to his seat at the other side of the table.
Jacob follows him with his eyes, straight faced, absently rubbing the hand sanitizer in. When Dal takes a seat, Jacob plasters his smirk on again but Raven thinks he kind of looks like the Joker.
"Bird boy," Jacob calls out to Nightwing but keeps his eyes on Dal. "Most inmates have to approve a visitors list before the visitor can come in. Surely you, the mighty leader of the noble and righteous Teen Tyrants, wouldn't let your thirst to do reconnaissance infringe on someone's inalienable rights?"
Jacob turns to Nightwing blinking innocently. When Nightwing doesn't respond Jacob grins widely.
"I think we're done here Dal," Jacob says, propping his legs up on the table and focusing on his nails again. Dal gives Jacob one last meaningful look before brushing his hands on his jeans and moving to the door without so much as a look behind him. Jacob doesn't watch him leave but Raven notices how his entire body stills when the door closes behind Dal.
Dal leaves soon after, seemingly ignoring the questions in the team's eyes, reminding them that he has to relieve Cris' babysitter.
"What do you think was going on between them?" Logic asks, shifting her glasses up the bridge of her nose, when Raven finds herself in Nevermore later that night.
"What do you mean? Clearly they slept together," Lust says, arms crossed. Raven shakes her head, opening her mouth to respond before Logic interrupts.
"You always act as though that's the peak of all human interaction. There has to be more to it than that," Logic says, clutching her book to her chest.
"Well I have to, if I don't sell it Rae Rae's only partner will be the dragon," Lust says. Anger suddenly manifests.
"Fucking serpent. Going out of his way to rob us of joy. I'd like to kill him again. Death is too ki-" Anger rambles on like a low hum behind everyone else.
"I could be celibate the rest of my life and it would change nothing about me," Raven tells Lust who crosses her over her chest. Affection presses her fingers to her lips.
"He thought I'd be his plaything forever. A trophy. The-" Anger continues.
"Yes. But is that what you want?" Logic asks, taking a step towards Raven.
"Well I certainly don't plan on forcing it with someone I don't care for," Raven asks.
"I could have been with someone who loved me. The deceptive little-"
"You care for Garfield," Timid says in such a small voice that Raven almost can't hear over Anger. Raven and Anger turn to her in the same instance.
"Garfield's just a friend," they snap. Timid shrinks away behind her hood.
"He wasn't 'just a friend' in your dream," Lust sings, almost cackling.
"Jacob was playing with me," Raven says. Logic purses her lips.
"What?" Raven asks, taking a few purposeful steps towards her. Timid shrinks behind Lust.
"That room was built so that Trigon himself couldn't break through it. Jacob has a fraction of his power," Logic says. "And either way, you and I both know that Jacob can only play with what is already there."
Raven pauses.
"What are you insinua-"
"You think Garfield's hot," Bravery shouts, linking her arms with Lust.
"Shut up," Anger bites out through clenched teeth.
"I don't-"
"Although the other emoticons are being quite tactless about it. What would be so bad about thinking Garfield is attractive?"
Timid wails.
"Are you so different from the hundreds of other women who recognize that the man has objectively handsome facial features? High cheekbones, strong jaw-"
"Full lips, thick hair, the sharp canines that would probably feel amazing against-"
"Lust!" Anger and Raven snap at her.
"Garfield has a very beautiful girlfriend," Timid mumbles, stepping in front of Lust and Bravery. "They have history. She's your friend."
"Well she's certainly an acquaintance with history-" Logic starts.
"With her first stipend on the team, Terra bought everyone gifts. She bought you the second book in the series you were reading. You never told the team anything about it. She must have seen you reading it and dotted it down," Affection says. Logic seals her lips.
"Garfield is a sweet guy but how would he feel about our thoughts?" Timid asks, clutching the inside of her cloak.
"He can't see our thoughts-" Lust starts.
"Sometimes it feels like he can," Affection says. Raven sighs.
"He wouldn't want us to think about him like that. He's happy. We'd make things weird. We're too dark. We'd ruin his happiness. He deserves better. He's our friend and we're thinking about him like that? He doesn't deserve that," As Timid continues to speak the other emoticons get further and further away. "That's sick. We're sick. We're going to darken this pure relationship. We'll be an ink stain on his life-"
Raven brushes a strand of hair behind her ear. She pulls her hood over her head, her throat getting increasingly clogged the more Timid speaks.