A/N: Been awhile, I know, but fortunately no where near as long as the last time. Thank you all so very much for sticking with this one. It's a much shorter chapter than what I'd planned, but the content is imperative to the development of character relations and everything that happens from this point on. So...yeah. Hope you guys enjoy! Peace.
Chapter Six: A Doubting Thomas
"Can I be used to help others find truth, when I'm scared I'll find proof that it's a lie? Can I be lead down a trail dropping bread crumbs that prove I'm not ready to die?"—Nickel Creek, Doubting Thomas
Raven was a creature that appreciated the value of silence. It was an uncommon truth found in the space between heartbeats—the gift of complete clarity. She felt it once in a great while at the tower when the sun broke upon the horizon and the stretch of its golden fingers caressed her face in the gentle breeze of dawn. She could think there in that utter quiet, letting her breath drag on into the pulse of the world around her, and her senses would sharpen into sudden, stark awareness.
And she could feel it—that worldly synchronous thrum of life. It was the only time she was ever truly and wholly a part of anything.
She exhaled softly, the sound of it breaking the oppressive stillness within the dark. So different from the hush she longed for at home; his was the quiet of the tomb.
He'd not spoken or moved since their brief altercation upon entering the sanctuary some hours before. If not for the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest, she'd have been concerned considering the number of injuries the thief had sustained. It was a strange thing when she really stopped to think on it. For all they'd been through, aside from the painful symbols burned deep into the cusp of her palms, Raven had only minor scrapes and bruises. Red-X had, thus far, taken the brunt of everything.
She buried the part of her psyche that wondered how much of it had been in her stead.
Raven scowled, suddenly irritated though she couldn't exactly say why or why she should be. She must be going stir crazy—it seemed as though they'd been there forever.
Heaving a sigh, the sorceress got to her feet, brushing the dirt from her leotard as she stood. She'd forgone what was left of her cloak; not much point in it, now.
He was angry with her, Raven could tell. It was misdirected anger, of course, but it was there nonetheless.
Not that she cared, because she shouldn't and she didn't. But still, they needed to move. Raven was uncertain just how much time had passed on the plane of reality they knew, and while she had done well to remain calm on the matter, she couldn't stop the anxiousness from creeping in on her.
What would they find when they returned?
Perhaps everything. Perhaps nothing, which would redefine everything.
"Look, I know you're tired," she spoke, the lonely echo bouncing back upon her as though he did not exist there beside her. "I am too. But we're going to have to move soon."
He said nothing. Red-X was as still and cold as the grave.
Raven shuffled uncomfortably, wanting to approach and surprised at herself for it. This place was doing something to her; the Titan was certain of it. For once, she wasn't going to over-think it.
The dark sorceress willed her feet to bring her forward, stepping softly in the dirt until she came within but a few feet of him. He sat, precisely as he had, with his back to the wall and his knees drawn so that his forearms rested casually atop. His head relaxed against the granite wall behind him, tilted up toward the unending black. She knew he saw her, though he made no physical indication or recognition. Cautiously, she knelt before him, as though reaching out to a wild dog, though she made no move to touch.
She wouldn't consider the part of her that said she wanted to.
"X?" she inquired, somewhat more hopefully than her standard monotone might allow. "Let's go."
"No one's stopping you," he whispered finally, voice drained and empty even through the distorter. "Go."
Raven pursued her lips and narrowed her eyes to scrutinize him fully. While she couldn't claim to know him well, she knew enough that it wasn't like Red-X to give in so easily. Something in his overall demeanor was off, and Raven couldn't quite pin it down. Intuition told her it had something to do with the apparition they'd encountered before, and she supposed she could understand.
She recalled the soul-chilling scream that erupted from his mouth in the midst of his invasion and shuddered. The invasion of his mind had been brutal; she'd felt it within him. Raven was decidedly smart enough to realize that even with her empathic ability, she'd never fully know how vicious the attack had been.
Still, she couldn't help but feel there was more to it than the rape of his mind and a haunting memory. He was surprisingly good at keeping the majority of his emotions cloaked from her senses. Only in moments of dire vulnerability had she detected what truly went on below the surface of his skin. Perhaps she was reading too much into it, but looking at him now, she knew there was something else that stayed his movement.
However, they couldn't just stay here forever, and she had no intention of doing so.
"I'm not kidding," she said quietly.
"Neither am I," came his droll reply.
She sighed, trying not to let her frayed nerves frustrate her unnecessarily. "I can't do this without you," she admitted more freely than she might have normally done. "I can't activate the gate without the other half of the key," she said, lifting her palms to illustrate her point more clearly.
"Then stay," he said. "It makes no difference to me."
"Don't give me that crap, X!" she snapped, irritated. "We can't just stay here forever."
He remained impassive; the soulless black sockets of his eyes betrayed nothing of his expression behind the mask. "We may choose not to stay here forever, but I can do as I please," he responded dryly. "For the moment, I elect remain precisely as I am. You may do as you wish."
"Listen here," Raven ground out harshly, "you might not give a damn about getting home but I do. While you may not have anything more waiting than your next five-finger discount, I have people counting on me. I have a job to do!"
He snatched her wrist so quickly she couldn't stop the startled gasp from escaping her lips. "A job?" he hissed angrily, jerking her forward to meet him. "Your job is nothing but a joke."
The comment stung more than it should have, and Raven snatched her hand back with a decided scowl etched into her delicate features. "That's precisely the sort of thing I'd expect someone like you to say," came her terse reply.
The thief exhaled sharply in a breathy almost-laugh that left her somewhat perplexed. "Someone like me," he repeated slowly, letting the words roll through the metallic ring of the distorter in morbid amusement. "Wow," Red-X said, disbelieving. "And here I thought you were the smart one."
"Excuse me?" she snipped, irritated and confused.
X leaned in closely, and Raven bit down on the urge to flinch as he gripped her chin firmly. He whispered: "The only reason I'm a 'someone like me' is because of someones like you."
She could feel him smirking through the mask, and Raven choked back the ball of anger swelling like a cherry bomb in her chest. He was treading on dangerous ground with an outlandish remark like that one. It was unfathomable—ridiculous even—if he was honestly implying what she thought he might be. 'Breathe in, breathe out…don't let him get to you Raven.'
"Tell me, Pretty Bird: When was the last time you fought anyone that wasn't dressed up for Halloween?"
Raven's breath hitched inadvertently, and she could no longer tolerate the feel of his eyes, boring into her own through the deep black veil of soulless sockets in the skull-face, so she snapped them shut. She'd wanted to command him, to stand before him assertively and deny that he'd tapped into the crypt of her heart and unearthed the tiny pocket of guilt and uncertainty she kept there, and say it, though it came out as little more than a whispered plea. "Stop it, X."
He would not. "What was that, Princess?" he mocked condescendingly. "Were you just about to tell me who the last rapist you collared was? The last murderer? The last fucking pedophile?"
It was as though he'd knocked the wind straight from her body. "We," she tried, "we fight—"
"You fight the very creatures you create," he said coolly, though she'd rather have him screaming than the quiet judgment he passed on her now. For the first time, Raven was able to pinpoint just what it was that had crept under her skin from the moment he set her under the weight of his scrutiny. Perhaps from the moment she'd met him. It radiated from him in palpable waves now, and her skin prickled as her mind reeled in the knowledge of it. Why hadn't she ever seen it before?
He was…angry. But it was more than a misdirected emotion, she knew. It was rage, old and festering beneath the surface of his heart like a malevolent thundercloud of devastation. She felt it as sharp as a razor blade across her smooth, pale skin, felt it and knew somehow, that he'd harbored this dark agony for longer than she could ever fathom, nestled within the core of his soul and buried below the blankets of falsity and dead emotion.
He was angry with her simply for being what she was. Somehow, she couldn't help but feel like she deserved it.
"There is no dark without light," he continued, voice a strained whisper that told Raven he was exercising the limits of his control, "and the common criminal has only the common man to contend with."
She could feel the eyes upon her face as he ran the silk of her hair through his gloved fingertips. "And then there's you," he spoke, voice growing even quieter—colder, if it was possible, "and your friends and all the other freaks with an abnormality pretending to have the good of the human race at heart when they crawl out of the woodwork. And what do you think is going to happen then, Pretty Bird?"
"That's not true," she denied, knocking his hand away as she shook her head
"Isn't it?" His voice was becoming a sinister whisper, worming its way through the fabric of her thoughts like some sort of parasite that threatened to consume her soul from the inside out. "Am I not the perfect example? Your criminals grow; they evolve to meet the challenge set before them. Like flies to shit. It's natural selection at its finest, really."
"You know nothing," she hissed, at the end of her ability to handle the situation at more than face value. "We fight for the good of the innocent, for the good of their cities and homes and children." Her throat was suddenly tight, and the air in her chest grew stale and oppressive. "We fight so that all which is good and precious and right in the world will keep its place in it. We fight because somebody has to."
"And while you're off fighting the good fight of things that are larger than life—the life you want so badly to improve that you lose sight of it—the real monsters creep in like a plague," X countered, undeterred, though the rage that had colored his tone before had been replaced with something far worse in Raven's mind.
Pity.
He sighed heavily and took a step back. "So, forgive me if I'm not so eager to step back into the mess you've made, Sunshine," he breathed, sliding back down against the wall, weary and hollow from his conquest—an empty victory, though he'd expected nothing more. "This time is mine. I'll leave when I'm damn good and ready."
She staggered back as though physically struck and said nothing. Red-X wondered if she yet realized she was crying.
Something told him he'd never forget it.
He flinched at the scrape of her boots on the rooftop, and Starfire couldn't help the overwhelming surge of sympathy in her veins at the sight of him. Half nude, snot-nosed and trembling, Pinky Dickerson looked more like a terrified child than the ruthless thug he was known to be as he scuttled back further into the corner of the ledge at her approach.
Poor bastard. Someone had worked him over good.
The alien princess shifted uncomfortably at the uneasy twist of her stomachs. She had a fairly good idea who.
Sighing, the pretty red-head knelt, choking down the ball of ice in her throat when he cried out at the movement. "Please," she ventured, attempting to meet his yellow, tear-stained gaze. "Do not be frightened…"
He lashed out with a dirty fist, and Starfire jerked back just in time to miss the brunt of his assault, angry at the situation they had been placed in. It had been one glofnar, 14 wreknogs and 67 gleebnaks, more than a full week by Earth standards, since Raven had disappeared. And already Starfire knew, knew in the way she often knew without being able to explain or even acknowledge the perception, that there were things set into motion that would forever change them all, regardless of the outcome.
It was already starting. Pinky Dickerson, it seemed, was but one of the initial casualties. After all, no matter what Cyborg thought, she knew Robin's handiwork when she saw it. Starfire wasn't stupid, and she did not think her friends believed she was, but it frustrated her when they would try to coddle her out of some ridiculous sense of preservation. Just because she lacked their eloquence in communication did not make her any less mature or capable than they.
He meant well, she knew, but Cyborg was the worst. Robin had been gone for the last four days, and the older teen had yet to actually tell them. His absence hurt, for more reasons than the hollow it left behind. He was warmth and air and all that was good and righteous in the world, and Starfire knew no other absolute good that that which he was in the light of his heart.
She'd tried to tell him, so many times, what he meant to them, to her, but never quite managed to get her meaning across. Still, she had never worried, for she knew if she could just be there with him—show him each and every day with her unwavering loyalty and unquestioning trust, the interpretation would present itself. There would be no need for words or explanations or misunderstanding.
How very wrong she'd been. Perhaps, she had not shown him enough? Had she not been as good as she could have been? Didn't he know they—she—needed him?
And now, when the circumstances were most dire and they needed him most…
…He left them behind.
The notion ached in Starfire's chest as no other had before or since. Rejection, betrayal…jealousy; unworthy as they were, the fog of mistrust was worming its way into her heart like a disease, and the little alien girl so very far from home felt as that which she was for the first time. She missed her home, and she missed her friends.
She missed her heart.
Looking at Pinky Dickerson, she couldn't help but wonder if he felt much the same way. She sighed, bringing a quick hand to the back of his neck and watching the scruffy head flop forward into unconsciousness.
She swallowed past the ash in her mouth and flipped her communicator open with trembling hands. "Friend, Cyborg," she said with more buoyancy than she actually felt. "The anonymous caller has spoken true. The Pinky is here, awaiting apprehension."
"Good work, Star." She couldn't help but notice the grim undertone of his voice that suggested no cause for celebration in an arrest this time. "Take him down to Central Booking."
She paused, uncertainty roiling up like tar, hot and sticky in her throat. She couldn't bring herself to say it, but Starfire couldn't help but wonder if he was the criminal she should be seeking this time. "On…on what charges?"
He appeared to be mulling it over when the thought crossed her mind that perhaps the hospital would have been a better place for Dickerson this time. She opened her mouth to say so, when he broke in with something more pressing.
"Conspiracy to commit fraud …and murder."
Her abdomen locked up like Fort Knox, and Starfire felt the urge to be sick on the ground at the implication. "That is not true," she whispered, tears pooling in the sparkling green sea of her eyes. "Raven has merely lost her way, she is not—"
"We don't know what she is, Star," he spoke, subdued though rational. "It's—"
"Do not tell me it is 'complicated' again," she interrupted, speaking through the painful vice in her throat. "You protect no one by omitting the truth. Perhaps, friend, you will pass the message on to Robin, when you see him."
He sighed, looking guilty and far too old for his years as he ran the large cup of his palm across his head and down the length of his face and jaw line, a gesture he often made when nervous or under stress. "Look, we need to talk," he conceded. "Stop by the north post and grab B.B. when you finish up. We'll go over everything we've got when you guys get back to the tower."
A/N: I know, woefully short. But better than nothing, right? In truth, this chapter was about twice this long, but I wasn't terribly happy with my transition, and I know it's going to be at least a couple of weeks until I can work on it (I've just started graduate school, and I have finals and papers that take precedence), and I thought you guys deserved something out of me. That, and the conversation between X and Raven is a pivotal moment in their relationship, so I can get by with having it as sort of a stand-alone. Things are going to change from this point on to more than just fun sexual tension.
At any rate, thank you all so much for sticking with this fic after my painfully long absence between chapters four and five. I never dreamed so many of you would be so receptive to this little project of mine. Thank you all so much! You are sincerely appreciated.
Hope everyone enjoyed. Please feed the author, if you are so inclined.
