He found her after following her trail through five more neighborhoods, two malls, and three coffee shops. He lost her trail more times than he cared to count. He found her after following her scent behind a dumpster, through a tunnel, and then had to turn into a roach to climb the wall and slip through a crack almost too small for him to squeeze through. She was crying. He never thought he would ever see her cry. But her she was, crying her eyes out, with random objects flying about her head. His heart broke. Every fiber of his being was aching to hold her, to make everything better. He changed back to normal. Before he could utter a word he was thrown against the wall and held there.
"What are you doing here? Why did you follow me? How did you find me? Who do you think you are?" She growled at me with all four eyes glowing with an ominous glow.
"Um…. which one do you want me to answer first?" He asked shakily. "That's a lot of questions to answer all at once."
"ANSWER THEM NOW." She growled through clenched teeth.
"I'm here to help you for one, B. I didn't follow you exactly, three, I found your trail, and last, but not least, I'm pretty sure I'm an attractive, green, good looking, smart, funny, and did I mention green dude." he said with a huge grin and wiggling his eyebrows.
She looked at him like he had just grown three more heads. Slowly the glow from her eyes faded and the spare set (as he liked to think of them) disappeared after a few minutes. She lowered him to the ground but didn't release him from her magic, but just stood there, staring at him, with the look he knew all too well. It was the look that said, "is he really that stupid?" Yup, he knew that look. The minutes seemed to drag on, but he didn't want to upset her again, so he just stayed there, silent. But he was looking around at the room. There was a shabby bed against one wall, there was books, lots of them, and candles. Just ordinary candles. The last thing he noticed was how cold it was in here, it felt like a freezer, and smelt of fish. He couldn't hold back anymore and was about to ask about the fish when to his surprise, she spoke first.
"What makes you think I need or even want your help? I did fine by myself up to this point."
He thought about his response for a long minute before responding.
"Want? you never want my help, doesn't stop me from trying to give it when you need it, like the time that dragon broke your heart, or the time that you wanted to get back at Cy for pranking you with the pink dye in your laundry, or the time….."
"What are you talking about? I've always been alone, nobody ever wants to help me, and they just want to use me and what I can do."
He winced at the venom in her voice. He knew some of her past, but like all of them, they didn't like sharing all the horrors they have had to endure.
"You're never alone. Not ever. You can always come to me, no matter what; you know that, don't you?"
"What do you know about living through horrors and being alone? You are the jokester of your little group. Everybody knows that. You don't know anything about my life, so again, I ask, why do you think I want your help?"
He gulped, hoping he would survive to see the daylight again.
"Um, because I know more about what you have been through than just about anybody else in any dimension that I know of, and I have been used before too, because of my abilities, and what I can do." he said as he lowered his head.
"Can you release my arms, please? Then I will show you what happened when I refused or didn't do exactly what they wanted."
She released her hold on his arms, but he felt the black tendrils around his legs tighten.
"This isn't something everybody knows, so please don't tell the others. Cy knows, but he knows I don't want anybody else to know." he didn't even look at her as he pulled his shirt over his head. He knew that his whole torso, including his back, was covered in scars. From small ones less than a half-inch long, to the one that went from his left shoulder to his right hip on his back and almost two inches wide.
What he wasn't expecting was her response. She gasped and released the hold on his legs, which he wasn't expecting, causing him to fall flat on his face.
"Ow." he said climbing to his feet.
He looked up at her and saw concern in her eyes, which wasn't like her. Maybe she has amnesia? He thought.
"So yeah, I'm not without pain in my past. But I know you have had it worse than me. Will you tell me about the scars on your arms now? that is the main reason I came after you, not to scare you, or to attack you, but just to make sure you were ok, and that, I don't know, I'm not good at these kinds of things. I just knew I had to find you. Had to find my dark angel." He slapped his hand over his mouth at that last part, which was not meant to slip out.
He looked to her to see her sitting on the shabby bed, holding her knees to her chest, with a far off look in her eyes, like she wasn't paying attention to what he was doing. He was about to wave his arms in front of her to see if she fell asleep with her eyes open or not when she spoke, barely above a whisper, but she was paying such close attention to her, he heard every word.
"I did this to myself."
"Can I ask why?" he asked, his voice no louder than the yawn of a mouse.
"To punish myself, every time I hurt someone, especially with my… abilities as you put it, I do it to remind myself not to try to make things better for others, since I just make it worse."
He had slowly been moving closer to her, and now he was close enough to sit on the bed next to her. He reached a hand towards her to try and comfort her, but she flinched as soon as he got close, so he dropped his hand to the mattress.
"You are half demon, with very powerful abilities, you have to keep your emotions separate from you, in a way, so you don't lose control, and you read books to be able to know more to be able to help others better. What makes you think you need to be punished?"
"H-How did you know I'm half demon?" She asked as she was trying to slide away from him without him noticing.
"You told me, years ago when we first met. In fact, you even said I was kind of funny too, but that was the last time you said so. So since then, I have done everything I could to make you laugh, or at least smile, but I'm not very good at it….."
He was going to go on for a while, but his communicator went off and opening it, he saw Robin's stern face on the screen.
Thanks for hanging in there guys. Had a glitch last week which erased everything I had. But here you go, the next chapter. Again I don't own anything. Although, I wish I did, but I don't. enjoy, let me know what you think, and I'm out of here.
