A/N: See, I'm getting better at this whole updating business. Thanks so very much to all of you who have taken time to read and review. I never dreamed this little project of mine would be so popular. Hope you guys enjoy. Peace, all, and please feed the author.

Chapter Seven: Carousel

"In a house where regret is a carousel ride, we are spinning and spinning and spinning." –Counting Crows, St. Robinson and his Cadillac Dream

She wasn't speaking to him, and X found that after spending time on both sides of the fence, he preferred it that way. She could keep her nose in her own business, and when this whole mess was over he could finally sever all ties and be done with the lot of them.

It was for the best this way, and he did not feel guilty.

Really, he didn't.

After all, why should he? He'd spoken the truth and nothing more, and the truth was seldom kind. It was the most painful lesson he'd learned and one Red-X had carried most of his natural life.

It was time the dark sorceress learned it, too. If she couldn't handle it, that wasn't his problem. It shouldn't matter to him one way or another.

But he knew better than that, didn't he? He exhaled heavily, eyeing the back of her head and the stiff draw of the muscles in her neck and shoulders through the dim as they made their way down yet another in a series of rough stone stairwells, each looking slightly more ominous that the last. This one was so narrow, so steep it was virtually a straight drop into the nothing below. The thought made his stomach squirm.

And there was nowhere to go, which was decidedly worse than before. X had barely enough room to stand up straight, feeling claustrophobic as he extended his arms to either side and brushed ancient stone walls. His chest felt tight, squeezing and twisting his heart through a toothpaste tube, spilling the life of him in sticky globs onto the floor. The thief shuddered and glanced around into the darkness, studying their surroundings warily. Watching, waiting for the next ghoul to come…

God, he hated this fucking place.

"How far do you think it goes?" he sighed absently, unaware of how she tensed at the sound of his voice, though he nearly tripped when she stopped abruptly before him.

"How should I know?" she said in her customary monotone; he could feel the unvoiced sneer. It shouldn't bother him, that dry, empty space in her voice. It was all he'd ever known of her before. And yet…it had been so subtle, the minute familiarity in her tone, the way she'd seemed to ease around him. Funny how he hadn't noticed her barriers slipping until they were slammed so violently back into place. "You're so damned smart, you tell me."

Red-X swallowed past the knot of annoyance as she stepped forward once more, moving as a sheet of glass, the aloof precision with which she carried herself fluid and measured in decided condescension as she left him standing there. He blinked, taking in the oddness of her demeanor for a moment before falling into step.

Not that it was really all that odd, and not that he gave a damn, because he didn't. Really. Let her be snippy. X had more important things on his mind.

He shuddered, choking back the bile threatening to rise in his throat at the thought of it. Some things, he decided, no living creature should ever have to endure, and the thief shivered, chilled right down to the core. The ghoul had slipped into him so easily, snaked its way in through the windows of his mind, rummaging through the darkness of his most guarded moments, his fears—stealing away things most precious and leaving him naked and weak and screaming as a newborn child inside.

His heart twisted painfully, knowing that hadn't been the worst of it.

The whisper of a vision drifted into his mind's eye, that glimmering vapor of a little girl…

Raven cursed, and Red-X jerked back to the present just in time to snatch the Titan's wrist when she lurched forward, having apparently gotten tangled up in her own feet. A pronounced scowl etched its way onto her face, and the dark witch yanked her arm back as though scalded.

"Don't touch me," she hissed, the deep amethyst of her eyes sparkling with anger like lightning struck brambles. X brought both hands up swiftly in surrender, and she turned away with an unladylike snort. "And watch where your putting those big, stupid feet next time."

"What?" he asked, suddenly confused.

"You heard me," she snapped, annoyed.

"I didn't trip you," X defended. "It's not my fault you're a klutz, Sunshine."

She rounded on him, hands firmly on her hips and lips pressed in a thin line. Raven fairly radiated irritation, and X grimaced beneath the mask. Damn, but she was pissed.

"I think I can feel it when you—"

The sorceress drew a sharp breath as her feet were taken out from under her once more, and X made a grab for her waist, finding he was just a hair too late. He snagged the link of her golden belt with his fingertips, but the displacement of her weight took them both by surprise and both thief and titan went tumbling painfully into the dark.

X drew into himself, absorbing the blows into every other deep purple agony of his body as he plummeted down the ancient stone stairwell. He could hear swearing, and the thief couldn't decide at this point which one of them it was actually coming from.

They spilled out into the open like a pair of dice from a plastic cup, tumbling over and again until Raven hit the surface of what she could not see with a resounding crack and a whimper. She cried out as Red-X barreled into her a heartbeat later, wrapping around the Titan gracelessly in a clumsy heap as they stilled, groaning on the cavern floor.

He coughed, lungs seizing as the impact drove the breath from his body, and X winced at the movement. Fuck. Bound to be a couple of broken ribs in there.

"Get…off," Raven husked, anger lacing through the fabric of her voice like a spider's web.

"Chill out, sister," he grumbled, untangling his legs and arms from her prone form to push back and sit upright on his knees. He resisted the urge to let his hands linger at her waist, though he might have liked to play with her a little, he thought, scanning the smooth slope of her legs in the darkness; they were in the perfect position, after all. Had circumstances been a little more ideal and she not so inclined to gouge his eyes out, he would have.

Well, he would have tried, at any rate.

He cocked his head to the side as she eased up from the ground slowly, resting her weight on one elbow and cradling her head with the other hand. X could see the ugly bruise flowering beneath the spread of her fingers on her forehead, a steady stream of blood pooling at the base of her knuckles and slipping through the cracks of her perfect mask.

The thief hissed in sympathy, reaching out to take her hand and guide it away for a better look.

The look in her eyes was pure malice as Raven jerked her entire body back, and his fingers met the empty air to fall away, defeated. "I said, don't touch me."

Red-X gave an irritated snort. "Don't be an idiot," he stated, matter-of-factly. "A head injury could be serious. Let me see it."

She punched him. Straight up hauled back and delivered a solid right hook that could be described as nothing less than vicious. The blow caught him across the jaw and sent him sprawling back in utter shock.

"You think you know so Goddamned much, don't you?" she snarled, voice breaking around the ball of glass in her throat. Something had slipped loose inside her, and X knew that suddenly, this had nothing to do with potential head injuries. He'd pushed her just one centimeter too far.

Raven sat up fully, heedless of the blood streaming grotesquely down the length of her face as she hovered above the thief like a storm cloud, heavy with the rain and lightning. "Do you honestly think you've told me anything I haven't considered a million and one times over? Do you really believe I don't know where the gray begins? That I don't know the nature of our game? …You think you're the only one capable of seeing both sides of the mirror?"

X swallowed. Well…yes, if he was truthful with himself about it. That's exactly what he thought.

"You think because you've come to terms with the world around you—as you understand it—you're somehow superior to the rest of us," she said, anger slowly ebbing from her voice the longer she spoke. It had been replaced with something else; something X recognized all too well and suddenly hated himself for feeling. "And worse, you feel like life owes you something for it. Because you got a raw deal, you're entitled to pass judgment."

He clamped down on the denial that threatened to leap from his tongue. He would have just been lying, anyway. X could defend all he wanted to, but she was right.

She gave a short, whisper of laughter, and X winced inside at the slight ghost of a smile on her lips. "So, what…you thought you'd enlighten me? Knock me down to your level, and maybe we'd be equals, then?" She'd said it, though it wasn't really a question. "You pompous, self-righteous bastard."

And there it was, his assumption dropped into his lap like an atom bomb. It had never occurred to him that she was aware of the unique role she played—the protector, protecting the world from herself as much as anything else. It hadn't once crossed his mind that guilty though she felt about it, she was resigned to it anyway.

Her voice grew so quiet, then, he struggled to hear, the anger and mocking resentment bleeding over into the deadly calm of the justified.

"We might be of the same animal," she intoned, pinning him with a decidedly critical stare and exposing the thief beneath the surface of the skull face, "but we will never be equals."

His silence was his confession, his shame in knowing. Righteous and vindicated as X felt he was, Raven would always remain the better of them, because she knew she was not.

"You don't know anything about my friends.

"And you damn sure don't know anything about me."

The only sound left between them was the harshness of her breath as it whistled through her teeth, and her eyes searched him out in the dim, waiting for a response. He did not disappoint.

"Feel better?" Red-X asked quietly.

The Titan cleared her throat and sat a little straighter, taking a deep breath as she did. "Yes," she replied, surprised in the truth of her response. "Yes, actually, I do."

"Good," he nodded in acknowledgment, letting the tension between them dissipate like smoke. He stood, brushing the dirt from his cape as she, too, rose from the ground. X stopped short when she hissed in pain, peering at her bloodied face through the darkness. "How bad is it?"

She screwed one eye closed in disgust as she did her best to stem the flow of blood with her injured palm. "Aside from just being gross in general, I think I'll live."

"Here," he said, coming close enough to make Raven take a step back into the rough stone wall on reflex. Her eyes deliberately scanned the inky black, trying to assess their surroundings to little avail. The stairwell had opened into some sort of tunnel that reminded her distinctly walking into the catacombs of the old library in which Slade had been resurrected to find her once upon a time. She suppressed a shudder, feeling decidedly claustrophobic.

Or that might have been him; it was hard to decide. Raven swallowed hard, fighting down a blush when he moved closer still and cradled her face in his palm, tipping her chin up lightly as he brought the fabric of his cape up to press it firmly over the wound on her forehead. She struggled to maintain even breaths, hating herself for the turmoil brewing inside her chest.

The thief blew gently across her flesh, and Raven stiffened right down to her toes. "W…what are you doing?"

She could almost feel him smirking beneath the mask, though his voice gave no indication. "Just trying to stop the bleeding," he said absently. "That's a pretty nasty gash you've got there."

The wound. Right. Raven blinked, trying to keep focus. She sighed heavily, moving her gaze toward the stair in open speculation. "It almost felt like something reached out and grabbed my ankle."

He craned his neck to the side, his own suspicious stare following the path of hers. "That's not entirely out of the realm of possibility," X said thoughtfully, growing uneasy with their prolonged immobility. He turned, peeling back the titanium reinforced material of his cape to examine his handiwork; seemingly satisfied, the thief stepped back, giving Raven much welcomed space to breathe and turned his attention to their surroundings once more. "We should go. We've been here too long."

It was almost as though the shadow had been waiting for him to say it. He ducked, dropping to his knees to roll away on the ground as the darkness pulled together around him, the creature—a serpent, giant and vengeful—building itself from the gloom. Red-X could feel the weight of evil threatening to crush the air from his lungs as the great snake solidified, a hateful hiss springing from its bottomless black maw.

"Jesus," X whispered.

"X!" Raven cried, picking herself up from the cavern floor, the creature situated carefully between them. "Behind you!"

He jumped, sheltering his eyes from the shower of rock as the second creature struck the ground where he'd been standing. It shrieked, anger and despair calling forth a legion of asps from the shadows, and Red-X felt the blood run cold in his veins with every writhing, malevolent fury given birth in the night.

"X!" she called once more, eyes seeking him across the chasm.

"I'm fine," he yelled, meeting her gaze to nod affirmatively. "Just…" his head swiveled around, and the thief barely had time to miss another strike. He danced nimbly around the beast, looking up to find Raven fighting in much the same way. "Time to go, Sunshine!"

Instinctively, she knew what he meant, and she bolted, coming at him at a flat run as he did the same, a serpent on each trail. They passed one another without looking back, driving the two beasts into one another hard, the collision eliciting a painful squeal and hiss.

They had no time to celebrate, both moving at a breakneck pace, bobbing and weaving through one another as they pushed their way through the tunnel. It was a dance of beauty, really; fluid and measured, precise in the way that only a true fighter could appreciate. If one hadn't known better, it would have appeared as though they had fought and trained together for years as they dipped and dodged, playing off the motion of one another to reach the zenith of their journey.

They had only just breached the chamber at the end of the passage when X cried out as he twisted away from a well-timed assault, feeling the pull against the splintered ribs beneath his skin. A painful spasm rocked through his body, and the thief doubled over, hitting the ground hard.

Raven was there before he could meet the full impact, throwing his arm around her shoulder to haul him up from the earth.

"Come on, X," she urged, fear etching its way into her voice as she braced him against her body. "Keep moving; you've got to keep moving!"

Red-X wheezed but somehow willed his feet forward, gaining momentum in step with the Titan at his side. The serpents were swarming, coming in droves now, it seemed, and sucking the air void. The ground was shaking itself apart beneath them, and he could feel the deep vibration beneath the soles of his boots when the chamber shut itself off from each side. They kept running anyway, aimless and trapped though they were.

"Fuck," he snarled as they met another dead end, the circular paths they ran coming up short in the limited space of the pyramid tomb they found themselves in. "Where's the damned gate?"

"Just keep looking," Raven answered breathlessly, legs aching but too afraid to stop. "It's got to be here."

It was then she saw it, that ominous glow breaking the surface of the rock some 50 feet away. "There," she said excitedly, tugging at his sleeve to direct his attention. "It's—"

The force of the blow ripped them apart and sent both thief and Titan violently in different directions. Raven groaned from the impact, heart clenching in her chest when she heard X cry out in pain as he struck the ground. She spent no time dwelling, however, and the dark witch rolled into a ball to come to her feet as she skidded across the dirt, knees bloodied and bruised.

She couldn't stop, and she knew it. If she did, they would both die, and Raven simply wasn't prepared to meet her end in this place. She refused.

Unfortunately, it seemed she had little choice in the matter. Raven dug in her heels once more, making to run toward Red-X when she was forced to stop short at the creature in her path. She drew back instinctively, hoping to loop back around, but the malevolent hiss rolling across the back of her neck like a desert wind told her she wouldn't be going that way, either.

The Titan turned slightly, stomach rolling over at the sight of it; the massive serpent was nothing like the others. This one was more than a black fog, more than a mindless hate. This one was intelligent. She could see it in the penetrating red gaze, written in the shine of its terrifying white stretch of teeth. This one, she thought with no small amount of certainty, might just be a spiteful god.

It mattered not when the great albino asp set her under sharp scrutiny, venom slinking down from its open jaws like tar, hot and thick upon the earth. She backed away, feeling her knees go weak when her back met the rough scratch of granite.

Raven was cornered.

Time slowed for her, then. The sorceress swallowed past the heavy ball of lead in her throat, closed her eyes, and thought of her friends. They would bring her comfort now; she only hoped they would find their own.

A shrill whistle sang in her ears, and Raven opened her gaze just in time to see bright metallic streak pierce the night, sailing past the end of her nose, wind brushing her face gently as it went. The serpent wailed as its stomach split open, flesh tearing apart like paper under the sharp edge of the red shuriken.

"Weren't you the one that said we had to keep moving?" he called, jumping straight into the air when one of the snakes lashed out to take his feet out from under him with its powerful tail. He landed with a grunt but still on his feet. "And here you are sitting down on the job!"

She grinned, launching into a dead run at the distraction. "I prefer to think of it as supervising."

He gave a short bark of laughter as she met him and they fell into step with one another once more. "Is that what you call it? I thought you were just letting me do all the work."

"Well," she breathed. "There is that."

Whatever comment he might have made was cut off by the heinous shriek from behind them; the albino was in hot pursuit, muscle and meat oozing grotesquely from a wound it barely seemed to notice through the madness of rage. They pushed for the gate, but X knew the creature was faster and powerful. He gaped as he looked back to find it coiling directly behind them, preparing to strike.

What happened next came in disjointed fragments. They were there; they were almost there, standing before the gate when she felt his hands on her back, shoving her roughly to the side. The Titan cried out as she crashed down, into the dirt…

…Out of the way.

And Raven felt the blood drain from her face.

Red-X was screaming.