Chapter 7

Unto the Breach

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or anything related to Teen Titans. Unfortunately.

Raven loosed a humid sigh as Jinx worked her way from her lips to one side of her jaw and then down to her neck, biting down just the way she had before—although perhaps a bit harder this time, more impassioned, more sure. The same guttural groan worked its way up from somewhere deep inside the empath, but this time, rather than shy away, she gave herself fully to the urge that grew in scope and urgency.

One hand beside her head, pinned down at the wrist by her pink-haired partner, the other came to rest on the back of Jinx's head, holding her where she was, pulling her down, encouraging her to bite harder. She did, and Raven seethed approval. As Jinx allowed herself to be more forceful, Raven let her hand feel its way down her neck, her side, her back to below her waist and squeezed without any thought at all, acting wholly on impulse as she succumbed to that urge and cut its leash completely.

Raven threw them over, putting herself on top and wasting no time in repaying Jinx's attentions. She kissed, reveling in the sensation of Jinx's hands freely exploring her form, feeling and touching, grabbing and groping wherever she pleased. The urge pulsed, as hard as it ever had, Raven's vision briefly fuzzy and unfocused even though her eyes remained closed. One arm slid up behind Jinx's head, taking a handful of hair roughly and drawing her head back with a quick, quiet cry.

A moan accompanied Raven's mouth finding her neck in reciprocation, her body shivering and twisting beneath the empath as Raven latched on and bit down. The act, something about it—the suction, the taste of the flesh, the physical, dominant satisfaction the harder down she clamped her jaws—stoked a warmth in Raven's chest that quickly ignited into a fire that had her breathing heavily through her nose and losing herself in the cocktail of emotions swirling and reacting between them.

Jinx groaned with a pained grimace, squirming some in an attempt to loosen Raven's grip, who tightened her hold on the girl's hair in response.

Without a thought and before Jinx could struggle further, Raven asserted her ownership of the soul in question and banished the unwelcomed emotion that had so intruded on her snowballing passion: no more hurting. Pain, pleasure, both the same—and she bit harder, rolling them back again, dragging Jinx on top and locking her arms over her shoulders to hold her there.

Jinx's expression changed, eyes alternating between worry and blurry ecstasy, at once keenly aware that something was wrong and too bombarded by impossible sensations at the utter and instantaneous conversion to focus. Her mouth hung open, her brow knit and tense, as she fell into an unthinking haze, unable and unwilling to resist.

As her partner spiraled into a pleasurable abyss, Raven drank in the emotional waves that rolled off and into her, spurring her on. From moans to groans to growls, she ramped up in intensity, raking her nails down Jinx's back with zero restraint and every modicum of force her urges desired.

Blue-white light flickered and roiled against the ceiling from the gashes left behind, Jinx's jaw quivering in wonder and horror. Her throat choked closed several times as if in drowning, and she relaxed, shivering, against Raven's body.

Suddenly and thoroughly wrenched from her nirvana at the realization of what she'd done, Raven sobered in an instant; she set about in a trembling panic to undo the damage she had done, but for all her desperation, Jinx's form continued to destabilize and deteriorate. She twitched, her eyes glassing over as she evaporated slowly into that blue-white light, and, with a ghostly sigh, was gone.

Raven shot up in bed with a start, panting and sweating, her heart pounding frantically in her chest.

Jinx sprang up beside her out of reflex, groggy and incoherent. She looked around and found Raven. "Huh…?"

After a few moments, Raven allowed herself to relax back down. "Sorry. Nightmare."

"No kiddin'…" Jinx lay back down as well, never having been totally awake to begin with. Seconds later, she was out again.

Raven, however, took somewhat longer to nod off.

When she woke next, Raven found herself unexpectedly alone. Propping herself up on one arm, she found Jinx at the mirror—not her portal, but her actual wall mirror—idly passing one hand through it and pulling it out again.

Jinx glanced over when Raven moved. "Hey."

"Hey…" Raven sat up in earnest. "What, uh…?"

"Oh, y'know. Just…doin' the ghost thing, bein' bored…"

"You could've stayed sleeping," Raven pointed out. "Or gone—I don't know—spy on someone while I was sleeping."

Jinx shrugged. "Spy on what? Bird Boy makin' coffee? Cyborg snorin'? Ya realize it's, like…way-too-friggin'-early o'clock. Right?"

Raven swiveled to sit alongside the bed, stretching lightly. "Which brings me back to, 'You could've stayed sleeping.'"

"Eh. Not as nice when ya don't dream. Kinda sucks the fun out of it." Jinx paused in toying with the mirror. "Speakin' of, sounded like you had enough dream for both of us. Care to share?"

"Not really," Raven declined.

"Pff, lame. Wake me up with your midnight freak-out, the least ya could do is spill the juicy details," Jinx complained.

"I'd really rather not."

"But, Mom!" Jinx whined in her most childlike fashion, stamping her foot.

Raven scrunched her lips in annoyance, but looked down regardless in consideration. Even if not thrilled with the notion, she found herself forced to admit that divulging the contents of her nightmare might have gone a long way in explaining her insistence on a lack of intimacy. Still, not before she was properly awake.

"Maybe later," Raven decided. "So, about last night. You seemed…affected…when you got back. Care to share?" she mimicked Jinx's words in her monotone.

"Just…talkin'," Jinx said.

"And how'd that go?" Raven asked, mostly idly, as she brushed her hair, much less a chore than Starfire's.

Jinx considered, weighing her options about where to start. One didn't have much to ask about. Another she would worry about later. That left two. Finally, she chose. "Who's Terra?"

Raven's hand paused in its work. "Beast Boy?"

"Had a picture," Jinx affirmed.

Raven set down her brush, planning her words carefully. "Terra was…a friend."

"Uh-huh, yeah. Got that, thanks. Little more than a friend, I'm guessin'. To him, anyway."

Somewhat reluctant—not due to any great secrecy surrounding the matter, but more a general dislike toward talking about it—Raven recounted Terra's story, brief but sincere. "When we found her, she had no memory of her old life. Repressed or removed, I can't be certain, but that she wasn't lying when she said she couldn't remember, I am sure."

"So?" Jinx asked, almost irked by the lousy ending to the tale. "Haul her in for some kinda brain probe or mind meld or whatever and find out."

Raven's only response was a look, as if to indicate that even Jinx knew for how many reasons kidnapping a person and forcefully poking around in her brain wasn't an option. "Even if she could remember. Would you want to? Used by Slade. Not only betrayed her new family but led an army against us. Destroyed Beast Boy." A few seconds ticked by. "She's happy. That's enough."

"Her, maybe. But what about him?" Jinx argued.

Raven thought about it, about the options, the possibilities; then, her shoulders fell slightly. "I think…he wouldn't be happy either way. I've felt it before, when he looks at that picture. It isn't Terra he misses. It's the memory of her. Not just who she was, but who she could've been. What they could've been. Bringing her back now wouldn't fix that. If she showed up today, I think it would be an awkward conversation, maybe a desperate attempt to pick up where they left off, but…it would always be damaged. It would never be what he remembered, and once he let himself realize that, it wouldn't last. That's what I think."

"That's stupid." Jinx sat down on the bed with a petulant huff.

"Maybe. Sometimes…sadness isn't something broken that can be fixed. Sometimes it's just…a recipe that went wrong. You can dress up the result, add salt or spices to try to make it work, but…well…sometimes it's not so bad. Other times I cook breakfast."

"Still stupid," Jinx said, then spared a glance at Raven. "Story behind that, I bet."

Raven chuckled softly, and then stood up and left for the bathroom. A quick shower and morning routine later, and she returned. When she left for her morning tea, Jinx followed. In the kitchen section of the common area, they found Robin alone with his coffee and the paper.

"Good morning," Raven greeted, floating over to prepare her tea.

"Raven," Robin greeted with a quick glance in Jinx's direction. "Jinx."

Jinx grumbled.

"Problem?" Raven asked.

"Did that last night, too," Jinx said. "Knew I was there before I even set off the stupid bell."

Wheels turned in Raven's mind. "Robin and I share a particularly powerful psychic connection. It's possible he's learned to tap into it and sense your presence. Although, to accomplish that in less than a day is…impressive, even for him." She eyed Robin curiously.

The boy wonder merely sipped his coffee, hiding his smirk behind the cup.

Jinx narrowed her eyes at him. "Smug little… Seriously, who reads the paper anymore? You have a T.V. bigger than a bed! Use it!"

"Have a good night?" Robin asked.

"Serviceable," Raven replied. "You?"

Jinx scoffed, recalling both the end to her wanderings the night before and the old H.I.V.E. data that had indicated Starfire was usually an early riser. "Red's still asleep. Ain't she?"

"Not bad," Robin concurred. "Jinx and I had a nice conversation."

"Oh?"

Robin nodded. "About your powers, your emotions, how they operate. The basics."

"Prudent," Raven said.

"I thought so," Robin agreed.

"Sleep well?" Raven asked as more of a jab at, as Jinx had noted, the fact that Starfire hadn't yet awoken.

Robin nodded again. "For the most part. I had the weirdest dream," he said.

Raven's cup split in half. "Did you?" she asked, betraying nothing with her tone.

"You're running out of cups," Robin observed.

"I buy in bulk." Raven swept the pieces into the trash and retrieved a new one.

"What about you?" Robin asked, putting the ball back into play. "Sleep well?"

Raven removed the teapot when it whistled, pouring it into her cup. "For the most part."

Robin put down his paper, quitting the game. "Is everything all right?"

"I had a nightmare," Raven said. "I'm fine. It's understandable, given what happened and what's on my mind."

"What is on your mind?" Robin asked, more genuine than accusatory.

Raven held her hands near her cup, enjoying the heat as it steeped. For a fleeting moment, she considered making a pass at lying, glossing over the truth and just letting it be. But although he possessed no empathic abilities himself, Robin easily rivaled her ability to discern the truth, perhaps even surpassed it.

"I've never…considered…starting a relationship before," Raven said. "Most of the feelings involved, I…haven't explored. I don't know how to handle them, or the extent of what dangers they might represent. Like I said: I'm fine. It was just on my mind."

Robin held his gaze a few moments more, whether in legitimate scrutiny or some psychological tactic only he could be certain. Then, he took another sip of coffee. "You need to set limits," he offered honestly. "When I started seeing Starfire, she was much more comfortable with certain things than I was. We talked. Set limits. Moved slowly."

"We have," Raven assured him.

"Good," Robin said. "And you're…satisfied with them?"

"I am," Raven affirmed.

"All right, then." Robin picked up the paper again, and an early-morning quiet settled in between them.

"Jesus," Jinx said from the sidelines. "Are your mornings always this tense?"

His cup seemingly emptied by the next sip, Robin got up to pour himself another.

Jinx sneered. "Cream and sugar?" she mocked sweetly.

"Black," Robin said casually.

Both Jinx and Raven stopped cold.

As Jinx's brow furrowed in disbelief and her mouth drew open to speak, the door opened.

"Mornin', ya'll." Cyborg walked in with a yawn.

"Coffee?" Robin asked him.

"Yeah, been a long night," Cyborg said.

With a lingering look at their leader, Raven raised her cup to her mouth and blew lightly.

"How do you live with that?" Jinx asked her, incredulous.

Raven sipped her tea.

"Hear me, ya spikey little traffic light?" Jinx practically shouted at him. "If I wanted head games, I'd listen to the song!"

"Any progress?" Robin asked.

"Yeah, actually," Cyborg said. "More than I thought. I was in a hurry last time, so I spent most of the night reinforcin' the casings for the wiring and the heat dissipation system. Won't fry itself the next time we flip the switch. Once I got it online, I found traces of Raven's energy still present wherever they were."

"The creatures," Robin surmised.

"I'm guessin'," Cyborg agreed. "They're fadin' quick, but thanks to them, I could get a lock on where we need to be. I figure we wait 'em out till their energy runs dry and they disappear. Then we get in and get it done. Today."

In many ways, Raven had found emotions in other people to function similarly to chemistry, or alchemy: two parts this, one part that, in this order and prepared in that way. This case, in particular, she had come to understand very well: one part shock, four parts surprise, two parts doubt and one part fear, blended smoothly until skeptical. A very common mixture among people.

"That's a good thing, in case you missed it," Raven pointed out to Jinx.

"I know that!" she snapped indignantly. "I'm just—"

"Skeptical because you aren't used to things going well without some kind of karmic reprisal or punchline, making it difficult for you to accept good news at face value until you find out what's going to 'go wrong,'" Raven said. She sipped her tea.

Jinx let out a breath, thoroughly deflated. "Yeah."

As if rehearsed, Raven raised a single finger, very pointedly, and then pointed it at Cyborg, who smiled broadly.

"Well, ain't nothin' to worry about this time. Ya got me in your corner. And when I say it's gonna work, it's gonna work—and, oh yeah, it's gonna work." Cyborg took his coffee and headed for the door, back to work. "So get you're ghostin' in now, little lady, 'cause assumin' Raven can put ya back as quick as I got ya back, we'll have ya home in time for dinner."

"I'll get Star," Robin said, leaving his cup on the counter. "Cyborg, get Beast Boy."

Cyborg chuckled as they parted ways in the hallway; his voice carried back into the common area. "Aw, yeah. Gonna enjoy this…"

"Well," Jinx pondered aloud, left alone with Raven and her tea, "that escalated quickly."

"In a good way," Raven noted.

"Guess…so, yeah…" Jinx was forced to admit. "So much for a week, or whatever."

"Give it time. You'll get used to your plans working out, now that you've switched sides."

"Hero thing?" Jinx asked.

"Hero thing," Raven said.

"Cool perk."

"It is." Finishing her tea more quickly than she normally would have, Raven washed her cup and put it away. "If you'll excuse me, I need to meditate. I'll need to focus a lot of energy to put you back."

"Sure— Hey, wait."

Raven paused.

"I, uh… That nightmare…"

"Yes?" Raven asked.

"It's just…with the tea cup, I've only ever seen ya do that when I was bein', y'know… So what was your nightmare…about?"

Raven considered her options.

She could minimalize, probably the safest route but also the most condescending and, if she was honest, disrespectful.

She could explain.

Or…

"Do you really want to know?" she asked.

"Uh…yeah?" Jinx replied, like she'd missed the joke somewhere.

"Okay." Raven sat down on the floor, gesturing for Jinx to do the same.

She complied, sitting directly across from the empath.

"Robin said he told you the basics, which means you know that my emotions don't control my powers. They fuel them. Here's what he probably didn't tell you."

Over the next few minutes, Raven explained the total compartmentalization of her emotions: how, until only recently in her life, her default state had been to feel nothing at all, for anyone, out of necessity, and how she had made an effort to change that following her father's defeat and her subsequent freedom.

"Some of my emotions are more easily experimented with than others," Raven continued, "taken in bite-sized pieces, shallow waters into which I can dip my foot a little at a time. Others aren't. Others are more powerful, amplified by what I am into enormous reservoirs not only ignored but repressed, for a lifetime. These cannot be experimented with in increments. To allow myself to experience them at all is to be submerged in a deluge of urges and desires I don't know how to process, manage, or control. That…brings us to my nightmare."

"Okay…" Jinx bade Raven to go on.

Raven took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I'm going to show you. Everything you think, everything you feel, will be what I thought, what I felt. You will experience the dream, the thoughts and the feelings it evoked exactly as I did. When it's over, don't say anything. Give yourself a minute to digest what you're about to experience in the context of what I just said. Are you ready?"

"I…guess?"

Raven touched her hands to either side of Jinx's head. "I apologize. This will be a little…graphic."

After a few seconds of preparation, Raven recalled her dream, in every vivid detail, and allowed Jinx to experience it herself. Even as she let it play through, Raven again found herself disturbed by it and its myriad implications.

Fortunately, for as much as they sometimes encompassed, dreams acted much like compressed information: they took, in reality, much less time than the dreamer seemed to experience. In a matter of seconds, the dream concluded; Jinx flinched back a bit, visibly shaken.

"Holy sh—"

Raven cut her off with a raised hand.

Jinx's eyes darted briefly about, back and forth, processing. Then, they locked on Raven. "All right… Not…exactly what I expected…" she prompted the empath, uncertain but willing to listen.

Raven didn't blink, but spoke very clearly. "What you just saw was a nightmare. Not a fact. Not an event. A frightening tapestry woven from the darkest what-ifs of my mind. None of that is a guarantee, but it is my fear. Apart from abusing my power over you, the danger you just witnessed—the realization of it as a possibility—was what brought me back to my senses in the cave."

"We have to stop," Jinx said absentmindedly, remembering that night.

Raven gave a nod. "I…lost control. Lost myself. As an empath, I was feeding off your emotions. When you felt good, I felt good. When I hurt you, it hurt me, so I…used my dominion over you to alter the way you perceived pain, so that everything felt good. After that, the path of least resistance was… Pleasure is complicated. Pain is…easy, and powerful… I sundered your soul, which would have been excruciating, except you didn't feel it that way…"

Jinx said nothing, replaying the dream in her mind, the same flurry of passion that had overtaken them that first night—except different this time. Stronger. Her heart fluttered at the memory, the ecstasy, like a drug teetering her just at the edge, right on the brink, clouding out all sense of judgment or consideration in the single-minded pursuit of more.

"Normally…hurting you would hurt me, which would keep me grounded even if I wasn't thinking clearly. But your situation puts me in a unique position to abuse my power and remove that limiter."

Jinx let herself marvel at the memory, of being so completely eclipsed: the manifestation, the avatar of pure, undiluted emotion to whom rationality, thought and care of any kind were foreign languages and whose only native tongue was raw feeling. A body acting entirely on impulse, chasing greater and greater highs with reckless abandon and utter disregard for cost or consequence.

Jinx swallowed. "What you're sayin' is…you're so into me you're afraid ya might lose your mind."

In what she believed had been a serious moment, Raven smiled, then failed to hold in a snicker. "That…is possibly the best thing you could've taken from that."

Jinx smirked. "So…the neck-bitin' thing… Pretty into it, huh?"

Raven flicked her eyes away, pulling up her hood to hide her blush.

Jinx's grin widened. "Nice. All in all, pretty hot. Y'know, up to that one part."

"Glad you think so." Raven stood up.

"Hey," Jinx said from the floor, halting Raven again. "Thanks. For showin' me that. I know ya didn't have to. Coulda just told me, or whatever. Probably wasn't the easiest thing to let me, y'know…see it. To let me in like that."

"I…need to meditate." Raven resumed her exit.

Jinxed swiveled on the floor, hands holding her ankles to keep her legs folded while she craned her neck back and her smile stared upside-down at the empath; she giggled. "Aw! She does do embarrassed!"

As Raven hung a left through the door, from the right hallway came the distant sound of blaring warning sirens, followed by the startled cries of a stable of animals.

An hour later, the entire group, save Raven, had convened in Cyborg's workshop; the bell jingled, talisman wafting idly as Jinx watched.

"Okay," Cyborg said, fiddling with calibrations. "It looks like the energy traces are gone."

"Then…the creatures are no longer there?" Starfire asked.

"Hopefully," Cyborg replied.

Beast Boy gulped. "So, uh…I don't mean to be a downer or anything, but what if they're…y'know…not."

"We avoid," Robin said, very deliberately. "Raven said they're slow. Probably can't fly. You take Cyborg and Star'll take me. We'll keep airborne, get where we need to go, get Jinx and get out. And remember: don't touch them."

"Right…" Beast Boy fidgeted nervously.

"The portal should be stable this time," Cyborg told them. "I'll be keepin' a miniature wormhole open to communicate with the terminal remotely. When we're ready to go, I should be able to trigger it myself. Give us five hours. Should be enough time to get where we're goin', assumin' we show up somewhere near where ya'll left. If we're not back by then, get Raven and tell her to hit the big, red button."

Jinx jingled the yes bell.

"Everyone ready?" Robin asked.

The team assembled alongside him in response.

"Here goes nothin'." Cyborg opened the control panel on one arm, pressed a few keys and then one more.

The portal snapped to life in response, blue and with its foreboding hum.

Cyborg first and Robin last, the group stepped through.

"Bird Boy," Jinx said.

Robin lingered.

"Be careful."

With a sharp nod over his shoulder, Robin joined the others, and the portal closed behind him.