It was a relief when Raven finally left.
Terra knew she was trying to help, but that still didn't make it less annoying. She had been drilling her almost all day, and even when Terra had finally gotten the hang of controlling ten different stones at the same time—with perfect accuracy, mind you—Raven still wouldn't give her a break. Stress was starting to bubble on the surface of her conscious, and Raven had stopped at last, her empathic powers unable to handle the nature of stress.
Especially from someone else.
And so, when Raven left to answer the beeping call on the Titans communicator to go fight whatever the latest foe was, Terra felt relief.
She paced barefoot across the floor, and shed her gloves and shirt, finally being able to relax and cool down. When they had been training, Terra had crushed some of the rocks to dust, and the fine debris clung to the bottoms of her feet. It made her feel better, to feel some form of earth upon her skin instead of being locked up here.
Terra knew that she could leave whenever she wanted.
The door to the outside world stood open and ready for her. All she needed to do was step into the tunnel that filtered in and out of this place, press the button to ascend, and she would be free once more. She could take the food, and the medicine and soaps, and the fresh clothes Raven had given her.
But she didn't. She stayed.
Maybe, if Terra had felt more trapped, she would have left.
But she didn't feel trapped. She felt safe, secure. Raven gave her stress, to an extent, but she never tried to overpower her or make her feel bad. Terra knew that if she left, Raven would let her. If she screamed at her, Raven wouldn't attack her. Raven wanted to help her, and Terra was actually…thankful…
Sighing, Terra ran a hand through her blonde hair and wiggled her toes on the gritty floor. It was still comforting, but she thought that messing up the safe house wasn't something that she should do. After all, when was the last time this place was cleaned?
The thought didn't disturb her; she had slept in worse places.
A thought of a shower ran through her mind, and she found herself walking into the small bathroom, stripping herself of what little clothes she was left wearing, and turning the water on. The faucet spurted and made a sound like a choking animals as brown water spilled onto the plastic basin. Terra waited, watching, and the brown water soon turned clear. Sticking a hand under the steady stream, she concluded that the water was warm enough, and stepped in.
Immediately, dirt and mud and sand started flowing down the drain. Terra watched the swirling water with a blank expression. Her skin was becoming clean and smooth once more, and the debris tangled within her hair were forced out of her strands.
The steam of the shower relaxed her, let her muscles loosen. Days spent in hard beds or in a sleeping bag had tensed her up, made her sore in places that she hadn't even realized, and the shower water pounded upon her back and hips and arms, relieving all her tension. Terra poured more of the liquid soap onto her hands, spreading it around her body and scratching with her nails.
She dipped her fingers lower, coming to the thin strands of light hair between her legs.
Delicately, as if she hadn't been expecting to do it, she slid her fingers in between her thighs, and let her fingers roam around. The place where she was warm and wet almost all the time. Her eyes closed as she explored herself, her head tilted back slightly while the shower water removed the last grainy bits of sand.
With precision, she slid a single finger up inside of herself, thrusting it in and out slowly, taking herself only carefully. The shower water was to blame, or so Terra thought, as well as the aroma of the soaps. Sliding her finger back out of her, she traced it from her opening to her clit, where she made soft little circles around it.
It felt so good, and rarely had she explored her body.
Terra had had orgasms before, but they were rare. Something like a treat within the harshness that was her runaway life. But now, in this place she could call shelter, she needed to feel that once more.
It budded up within her and demanded that she look into it.
Pleasure herself.
She felt the need to establish something intimate in this shower, even if the thoughts were strange to her. As she let her fingers explore, she thought back to her friends—former friends—of Titans Tower. She remembered Beast Boy, and the silly jokes her told. She remembered Starfire, desperate to be her friend and hugs that would crush the air from her lungs. And Robin and Cyborg, who pushed her to be better, yet always offered a helping hand.
And Raven. Stoic, cold Raven.
She still seemed cold to her. Terra thought of her like a marble statue, unmoving, unseeing, unfeeling. Cold to the touch with eyes that forever cast outwards away from her, seeing something that the rest of the world couldn't. Still and quiet and observant.
Terra didn't know why, but the thought of Raven aroused her. She imagined Raven's intense eyes upon her while she masturbated, drinking in the sight of her. Terra grew hotter at that thought, and without warning her orgasm took over her body. Her legs began to shake, but she rubbed herself till the very last end of it, till she could squeeze no more pleasure from her body.
Not a lot of time had passed.
Terra shut off the shower, ceasing the pleasant stream above her head, and stepped out onto the small little rug that covered the—what was either tile or concrete—floor. White towels were folded and piled within the cupboard, and she wrapped one around herself to hide her nakedness. Rubbing the steam from the mirror, she cleared away just enough to look at herself.
Dirty wasn't the way to describe her before, but Terra did look much cleaner now. Felt cleaner as well. She indulged in the feeling; it was so wonderful to be clean.
White towel flying around her body, Terra dried herself quickly before opening the door. All the steam rushed out of the bathroom and into the main room, where all was empty. Dropping the towel to the floor, she reached for her clothes.
Among Raven's gifts to her, she had included a small package of new underwear.
Gingerly, Terra picked them up, still wrapped within their container, untouched and seemingly innocent. Clean underwear was so important, and it could make a girl feel good too, but Terra felt a blush rise to her cheeks as she though of Raven buying her panties.
There were nine in all, without daring cuts or racy fabrics. Three white cotton ones, three gray cotton ones, three black cotton ones. Terra chose the gray first, since it was right in the middle of the packaging. Soft, supple cotton hugged her skin. She shook her hips, and took a few steps around the place.
New underwear was wonderful, she concluded.
Her eyes finally caught upon a piece of red light. Glowing red numbers that read 9:05. It was late at night, for her at least, since she normally slept whenever the sun went down. Within the autumn season of Jump City, the sun was down fast, and normally she was curled up near some form of shelter, bundled up in her sleeping bag and drifting off to sleep.
Yet she didn't feel tired right now.
A feeling of ecstasy still lingered between her legs, with a warm tingling afterglow that made the world seem as a dream.
Not really knowing what else to do, she turned down the sheets of the bed and crawled into them, flicking off the small light placed upon the wall. The darkness greeted her back, and she hated it. It wasn't dark as in late at night, where she could still see the stars glowing at her, or the round face of the changing moon protecting her. It was completely pitch black.
Her hand sprung out and she clicked on the bedside light again.
Everything swam back into place with the light.
Putting a hand to her head, she thought hard. How was she to make it through the night? Sleeping this way was unnatural; underground felt like a prison suddenly, and she wanted to leave.
But Raven would be back, and if she saw that she wasn't here, she would think Terra an untrustworthy runaway once more. It was then that she realized that she was trapped. She had been trapped the whole time and she had not known it. Sure, she was free to leave, for nothing held her here, but if she wanted to remain on Raven's good side, she couldn't go anywhere.
Twisting her head around, she spied the Titans alert signal resting nearby. Terra could go somewhere else, and inform Raven of where she had gone. That would work, wouldn't it?
Terra kept debating the thoughts in her mind, wondering what she should do. She could brave it out down here, if she needed to, but she wasn't sleepy enough to brave the complete and total blackness. But that was normally an option reserved for a desperate panic or a sleep so thick and consuming she didn't even know her own name.
As she thought, the Titans device found its way into her palm. She held it in front of her, gazing down at the circular machine in her hand. It was pretty much the same as the Titans communicators, except it didn't have a T on the front, nor as many buttons. And when she tapped the screen, the blackness slid away only to be replaced by an option of three buttons.
Help!
Message.
Nevermind.
The Help! button was the biggest button out of them all, for it was a distress signal after all. Nevermind would put the machine to sleep once more. But the message button…Terra clicked on that, and a black text box swarmed up to meet her.
Pressing the small little letters below, she typed out a few lines:
'Raven, I am leaving the safe house. Will be outside.'
The words glowed back at her, and she read them again before backspacing and deleting what she had wrote. Trying again proved no better, for each time she tried she felt the raw sting of her words and felt the glare of Raven's eyes upon the back of her neck. No matter how she phrased it, no matter how she tried to justify it, she felt Raven's cold eyes bearing into her.
With a groan of defeat, she turned the machine off and slammed it down into her pillow.
Stress was bubbling up inside of her, about to spill out and burn her. The only thing she knew about how to relieve stress was the same way she'd had herself in the shower. With a mind blank and raging, she slid her hand underneath her thin panties, not bothering to remove them. Her fingers started circling her clit once more, and the intense build came even faster to her. Her fingers flew over her, and the intense burn that consumed her nerves was finally released with a groan and a pillow thrown over her head.
Coming back down, Terra felt better.
Still not well enough to sleep.
Hours ticked by as Terra's eyes fixed onto the ceiling, an orange-yellow color in the lamplight. The texture became moving patterns to her eyes, and she saw bits of colors and obscure shapes dance around upon the ceiling. She stared for the ceiling for a long time, and did not notice that she was drifting off to sleep.
Eventually, though, she nodded off, her mind finally getting some piece and her eyes finally closing.
