Hello again dudes and dudettes! Nope, it's not yet over (I still have got more ideas in mind), they still will suffer, Muahahah…. Still don't own them, just having fun
Oh, and for all those who don't like Terra (I know I'm not the only one) come over and check out my forum, I want to discuss how she should have died, but currently I'm rather lonely… So, yeah, this is kind of publicity for my forum My two pennys and your thoughts with its first topic How Terra should have died. If you want to, join into the glorious slaughtering of the Terra!
But seriously, back to the story: Enjoy and SMILE!
Chapter 9: Inquisition
When she entered her bedroom this night, he already laid in her bed, apparently asleep, but as the door closed behind her, he sat up with a sleepy grin.
"How was your girls-night, Rae?" he asked while he rubbed the back of his head. She let herself fall onto the mattress, smashing on it with her face first.
"Don't ask. The same horrors as always…" she mumbled muffed.
He laughed: "That bad?"
She turned herself on her back, feeling extremely exhausted.
"You have no idea…"
"Spill! How long has this gone on now without you telling me?" Jess said with crossed arms in fake annoyance.
Karen and Kori had dragged Raven out of the tower into a fancy but discrete Italian restaurant, where Jess was already waiting impatiently, nibbling on mini-ciabatta bread. She didn't take the time to greet them properly but came directly to the main topic, considering it would just be the four of them because the others couldn't make it this near-term.
Raven blushed as she sat down in her casual outfit – a black hoodie and boyfriend-cut jeans. The waitress brought their usual drinks and took the orders for their meal.
"Not that long."
"I want a precise number, Rae! No excuses!" the pink haired witch huffed.
"Who are you? The Spanish Inquisition?" the dark empath retorted while she crossed her arms equally.
"No, I am the only official mother belonging to the Titans, so I made it my job to mother all those who have theirs no more!"
Raven turned. It was still a sensitive subject for her, it wasn't that long ago, she still had had a mother, even if she hadn't gotten much "mothering" of her.
Jess' expression grew softer as she reached over the table to lay her hand on her friends shoulder.
"I'm just trying to protect you, now that Arella can't do it anymore. But I've sworn you won't be left alone, no matter what."
They exchanged a smile before Kori squealed in delight: "Oh, how lovely of you, friend Jess! I agree that the best way to protect friend Raven from the dangers of loneliness or hurt will be sharing everything!"
Ravens smile disappeared. She didn't like how this night was going on…
Even Karen chimed in: "Come on, how long, girl?"
"Since I came back from Azarath," she admitted defeated. Maybe if she answered them fast enough, she maybe could get it over sooner.
"What? But that's two months ago, and you didn't tell?" Karen exclaimed in disbelieve.
"You didn't tell us for five months that you and Vic are doing it, and you still wouldn't have told us if Gar wouldn't have caught you in the act in the kitchen when you thought you were alone in the tower…" Raven replied in a huff.
Karen covered her reddening face saying: "Don't remember of that scene…"
"So I am the only one of us not having experienced the earthly way of 'making the love'?" Kori asked timidly.
"Don't worry, Kor', one day even bird-boy will grow some and be ready to do it, I'm sure," Jess consoled her, "but before we'll help Kori losing her virginity, I need to know one thing for certain: what about birth control, Rae?"
She hadn't thought that she could blush even more, but apparently she could…
"That… was actually the reason why I had gone to Azarath. So, you don't have to worry, there won't be other spawns of demons in this dimension out of my blood line!"
Kori pouted: "Ohh, but I wanted to do the baby-sitting for your little bumgorvs! They surely would be too cute!"
"Listen, maybe one day if I'll ever have… uhm… bumgorves, you'll be the first to baby-sit them. But it's still too early for me."
"Oh, glorious! I can't wait for the day! I wonder if they'll have green or grey skin!" Kori squealed in delight.
Karen impatiently tapped with her well manicured nails on the table and stated: "What I really want to know is: how is the green bean in bed?"
Raven chocked on the sip of her rooibos tea. "I beg your pardon?" she coughed.
"Don't play dumb with me, girl! He's well built as much as I know and he used to be called 'Beast Boy'. I bet he's quiet the hot stuff," the black haired heroine smirked.
How red could your face get before you die out of embarrassment, Raven asked herself in silence without any reply.
Karen just took out her communicator grinning viciously: "You know, I just can call Vic to check out Gars' back. I've heard that really good sex always displays on the back of the male…"
Kori sat there listening attentively, taking in as much information about the matter of her interest. Jess just smirked along as Raven turned pale in mere seconds and added: "You only know that because Wally bragged about his scratched back the other day on the beach…"
"You swore you wouldn't tell him or Dick anything!" Raven whispered in disbelieve.
"Oh, I won't tell them! I'll just ask a simple question, they will put the rest together on their own… Unless you can tell me how bad his back looks."
Raven gulped. She wanted to tell her two brotherly friends about the 'change' in her relationship with Gar with the adequate prudence. Especially Richard would be hard to convince that Gar should stay in the team even if this would make him the last virgin male…
"Alright. He has some rather… deep scratches on his back he won't let me heal, that idiot. And two or three bite marks on his shoulder, but nothing more…"
Karen's jaw dropped. "Bite marks?!"
"You make me jealous. Wally never caused me to give him bite marks… Maybe I'll have to tell him about this, so he'll make a bigger effort…" Jess mused thoughtful.
"Please, friends, is it an earthly custom to hurt the other during the making of the love?" Kori asked confused turning her head from one to another.
Raven just crouched down in her chair as far as she could and pulled up her hood. This was a nightmare. To her luck, the waitress brought their meals so the embarrassing inquisition was interrupted for a moment.
But right after she had left, Karen had recovered from the surprise. "Soooo, he's that good, huh? And he won't let you heal your… marks?"
"He insists that he gets reminded by them that our relationship isn't a dream or something…" Raven mumbled staring at her plate, "Can we change the subject now?"
She hadn't taken the first bite of the delicious cannelloni's she had ordered, when she heard a familiar squealing behind her.
"Is that… RAVEN? So nice to meet you again!" A twiggy middle aged woman with short – now blue – hair and a grey ladies suit walked up to them.
"An outing with some fellow Titan women?"
Raven groaned: "What are you doing here?" while the others asked her quizzically: "You know this woman?"
"Oh, I'm so sorry! My name is Cane, Candy Cane, but please just calls me Candy! I once tried to interview your friend and her – adorable – boyfriend! I wasn't really successful, but fortunately Nightwing was less, well, uptight in the matter…"
"YOU are the information trader?" Kori glared at the woman. She hadn't liked the information exchange of her boyfriend at all.
Slightly taken aback by the repellent reaction Candy said: "Uhm, yeah, that was me. But you know, this interview really helped me with my career: I'm working for the Jump City Tribunal now! Responsible for the boulevard press, rather though, but I love it! And I'm so grateful! If I can ever return the favor, just call me, here is my card!" Due to the lack of attention she got from Raven who hadn't looked at her once since the woman had approached their table and because of the cold looks on the faces of the other three women, Candy just put her card on the table and left with a quick wave and a: "Nice evening!"
Candy Cane maybe was an extraordinary curious person, who would sell her soul for a really good story, but she knew when it was better to back down, and this was such a moment.
Karen huffed and shoved the card into the pocket of her skinny jeans. "Who knows, when this thing gets useful…" than she did the fastest mood change Raven had ever witnessed, grinning widely, "I forgot to ask you why you got this angry from the interview. Had it something to do with Candy thinking Gar is adorable?"
Oh, Azar, couldn't any villain attack them right now? They usually interrupted when it wasn't useful, couldn't they be of any help, just this once? Raven prayed in silence, but no villain came to her rescue, they were useless as always and she was trapped…
"Poor love… I'm glad you survived the interrogation of the others… At least you got it over. I still don't know how to tell Vic and Dick about it…" he sighed.
She looked at him with a warm smile and said: "Don't worry, Gar. I'd like to tell them together. What do you think about?"
"That would be great. I like it when we do things together," he yawned and pulled her into a hug so they were lying closely on her bed. She felt her eyes getting heavier.
"So let's fall asleep together. I can't keep my eyes open any longer," she mumbled snuggling even closer.
He placed a kiss on her head and whispered: "Great idea."
No ten minutes after, they both were sound asleep.
"How many times have I told you to not use my books as coaster for your damn beverages?" the Titans could hear an infuriated empath shout in the hallways the morning after the girls-night.
But an equally angry changeling shot right back: "Well, first, it wasn't my beverage, it was your tea, I was kind enough to bring to you because you were meditating so long today, and second, I didn't use them as coaster, there was simply no more place without books I could put your mug!"
"Oh, now I should thank you for the tea that ruined the cover of the book of Azar?" she replied sarcastically.
"Don't worry, Rae! I'm already used to get no appreciation for the nice things I do for you! It's not like such kindness is normal in a relationship!" came his retort.
In the meantime the other Titans got on with their daily morning routine; Dick read his newspapers, Kori ate some tamaranean food no one could exactly define with some sips of her mustard, Karen answered the countless Titans' fan-e-mails sitting on the kitchen counter and waiting for her boyfriend Vic to finish the breakfast preparations. They were used to the bickering of the uneven couple in the tower. It seemed that every two or three days they had a need of shouting at each other like in the good old teenage-days… and today was no exception.
"Thank you very much, Gar! It's really kind of you to ruin one of my most important possessions! Should I really return the favor?"
"It's not ruined, it just got a little wet! If you'd make a tiny little bit of the minimum of space for anything besides books in your room, then maybe this wouldn't have happened! And why the hell are you running away from me?"
They were still fighting when they entered the common room, too occupied with themselves to greet the others. Raven rushed through the room apparently searching something while Gar followed her around keeping the argument alive.
"I am not running away, I am trying to find a scroll with a spell to repair your damage! Why the hell are you trailing me down like a deer?"
"I just want to finish our discussion from which you ran away! If you wouldn't have such a mess with all your books and documents…" but before he could go on with his sentence, Raven immediately turned and glared at him.
"YOU aren't LECTURING me about tidiness, are you? You lived in a damn pig stall for years, and you still would, if it wouldn't have been for Dick's order a few weeks ago!"
"At least I always knew where to find what in my pig stall!"
"Oh yeah, I remember that, you even could find the leftovers from the meals from three months ago! So are you helping me to find that damn roll or not?"
They both stood there with crossed arms and frowned fronts, glaring each other into the ground. For the remaining Titans it was rather entertaining, they even used to make bets on who would give in first or what the next argument would be about. And like most of times, today it was Gar who gave in.
He gave a deep sigh, rolled his eyes with a look upwards towards the sky: "Fine! How does this stupid thingy look like?"
"Well, it's a heavy parchment rolled together into a scroll, a yellow ribbon holding it together. But you probably haven't seen it anyways, it's…" Raven started with an equally annoyed voice.
"You mean the one that lay next to the pile of books beside the door you yelled at me for tripping over last night?"
"Oh. Yeah. Be right back." And she disappeared in a black portal.
As Garfield turned to his friends, he lifted an eyebrow at the sight: Richard, Victor and Karen were in a heated but whispered discussion about something concerning the dollars they had laid on the table.
"Told ya, green bean backs off first!" Vic claimed, putting a metal hand on top of the small pile of money.
"Yeah, Sparky, but he still won the argument!" Karen objected while she copied his movement.
Richard did the same, arguing: "But I was right about the day and time, you know!"
"Guys, are you holding bets about Ravens and my discussions?" he asked in disbelieve.
They all turned towards him at once, sheepishly staring at the floor with their hands on their backs, exhaling guilt like toddlers who had been caught by their parents stealing cookies from the cookie jar.
Richard was the first to speak up, maybe he felt obliged by the fact that he was the leader of the team: "You see, it's not what you think, Gar! It's just… uhm… Vic?" he turned to the slightly older young man. So much for the leaders' responsibility.
"Just, uh… you know, some kind of… well, between friends, you know? Just…"
That was when Gar had heard enough. He walked over to the kitchen table, took the money and shoved it in his pockets.
"You know, guys, you have a sick way of being friends…" he started, then his gaze randomly fell on the open newspaper, Dick had previously read in and he frowned: "What the heck is that?"
That's where Kori had finished her meal and decided to answer: "This is a paper of the news, friend Garfield. You surely know them, although you usually don't read them, but boyfriend Richard does every morning…"
"No, Kori, I know that! I mean this article: 'Is the antichrist among us?' with a picture of Raven next to it!" the green man stated grabbing the paper and pointing out the article.
The other four started to read over Gar's shoulder along with him, apparently Richard hadn't seen it yet or he would have had an anger fit on his own. Like this, they all could share the experiment in the same time…
After reading the whole thing, they first just stood there in shock, then Kori shouted: "That galbernag chlorbag! I shall smash her into the core of the planet so she never will have the infamous idea of doing the badmouthing of my friends again. Grebnax , Zolworg Tubeck Plixing…" rummaging around like she had done before as Raven had been insulted. Karen immediately joined her, shouting earthly insults on her own: "Bitch! Why can't she just eat the dirt she writes and rot in hell out of the poisoning? If I ever get my hands…"
Victor sounded pretty much the same, but tried to stop his friend and his girlfriend trashing the living room while Dick gritted his teeth and punched the fridge hard enough to cause a dent in it. He swore under his breath, trying to regain control.
Gar still stood there like a statue holding on to the newspaper and glaring at the filthy thing with venom. Apparently his anger was too deep to be expressed in an accurate way.
At the very moment Vic had finally convinced Karen and Kori to leave the furniture alone, Raven entered.
"You are lucky, Gar, I repaired your damage, and you were right about the scroll. Maybe you could come and help me tidy up… But I am still waiting for your apology!" She looked around, saw the angry faces of her friends who didn't dare to look into her eyes.
"O-kay, what's going on here?"
Suddenly Gar turned with a determined expression, tossed the news paper on the floor and hissed: "This time I'll kill her, that disgusting, rotten journalist."
As he was about to leave fuming, Raven held him back with a spell, freezing him into a statue. She bent down to pick up the paper and stated: "You're not going to kill anyone without my permission. I don't want to visit you in prison not knowing that you got there with a good reason."
"Raven…" Richard tried, but she just shushed him with the movement of her hand. The others just stood there waiting for the explosion, while Garfield growled still unable to move because of the spell. This surely wouldn't leave her indifferent.
Apparently, Lois Lane had not attained Martian Manhunters' classes about the danger of interstellar racism or she already had forgotten. Nonetheless she hadn't forgotten her grudge towards Raven and Gar. In an article that took over two thirds of the news paper page Miss Lane had written a torrent of hate concerning the half-demon sorceress and the danger that she presented. Raven didn't care about that, there had been a period in her life where she had believed the same. But what really made her frown was the way that woman spoke about her green lover. Superman's girlfriend deciphered him as Ravens "hideous green pet, which displayed aggressive and menacing behavior towards his environment, just like his mistress". She could deal with the reporter insulting her, but with slandering Garfield this woman had taken it one step too far. An evil grin grew on her lips as a plan took forms on her mind.
"Richard, you'll have to cover for me and Gar this afternoon, we'll have to call a press conference."
Everyone looked at her in shock, except Gar, who still couldn't move and just groaned loudly.
"Say what?!" Vic was the first to regain his voice.
Raven released her boyfriend with a snap of her fingers, smirking: "Just you wait. We'll give this woman what she deserves! Karen, you still have the number of Candy Cane, right? Time that she returns me this favor…"
Gar had hit the floor as she had taken off the spell of him, as he stood up and heard her ask for his nightmare-interview-partner he groaned again.
"What do you want with HER?"
Ravens grin grew even more wicked. "She will help us paying everything back to Lois Lane. I'll fill you in after a few calls."
"But you two literary teared me apart into bits as I gave her a making up interview last time after you blew yours. My entrails never were in the same place ever since…" Richard objected with a lifted eyebrow. He still was a bit prickly about the matter.
"Well, because you sold our relationship for useless information about Slade! We caught him, remember?" Gar huffed angered at the thought of facing not only one but a whole bunch of horrible journalists later this day.
But their leader objected: "They weren't useless! We need to be prepared for the worst! Officer Miller told me today, that Slade stopped his thumb sucking for five minutes this morning!"
They all gave him incredulous looks and Kori asked carefully: "Boyfriend Richard, didn't we agree that you would only call the jail once a week? Every Friday? Which would mean the yesterday?"
"Uhmmm… just… making sure…" he stuttered gazing at the floor as if it was particular interesting.
Vic crossed his arms over his chest. "You know, if you can't keep it down, it's therapy-time."
There was a long pause, then suddenly Kori grabbed her boyfriends wrist and dragged him towards her room saying: "First, we will try something else. I heard that a certain earthly custom can make you forget things if you do it long and excessive enough!"
They disappeared and Gar asked in disbelieve with a lifted eyebrow: "Is she really trying what I think she is?"
"Either this, or she'll hit his head until he gets amnesia…"