Sting
)O(
Raven let Robin's words slide over her, and they burned and bubbled on her skin like acid. It was ungodly painful. But in the end, she needed to hear them. It was her penance for what she had done. Her punishment for taking something that clearly not hers to take. Robin's lips moved through words so brutal, and made accusations so harsh, that Raven felt as though she had been punched mangled. She felt small and insignificant, but at least her conscience was clear. She folded her hands into her lap and waited until he asked the inevitable question:
"So, what are you going to do?"
"I've made plans." Her voice was small and soft, barely audible over the tension in the room. "I've arranged for Jinx and Kid Flash to take my place on the team. It seemed a logical decision to recruit Jinx as her powers are similar to my own. With a little training, she'll fit right into the rest of the team seamlessly. And, unfortunately, you can't have Jinx without Kid Flash. They come as a matched set."
Her joke was lost on her leader, and he continued to stare at her.
"And you?" His eyes burned into her. "What will you do?"
"I'm taking an educational hiatus." She dropped her communicator on his desk, and the "thunk" that resounded through the room sounded strangely like a gavel on an executioner's podium. She swallowed her fear, and looked into his eyes, face void of emotion. "Consider this my letter of sabbatical."
"How long will you be gone?"
"Long enough to atone for what I've done."
He looked at her, letting the silence fall over them. "You're running away."
Raven gave a half-hearted shrug, feeling her pain rise up into her chest. It bubbled and fizzled just below her lungs, and it burned worse than anything he could have said to her. "What choice do I have?" She motioned to the door, feeling the emotions of some of her teammates listening outside Robin's office. "Look at what I've done. I've broken the dynamic between the team, I forced myself on a teammate. I took what wasn't mine. I am no better than the criminals we fight. I cannot stay on this team and not be a burden to the rest of the team and our friends. I have to go."
"I wish you would reconsider."
"Reconsider what?" she spat. "Counseling? What's the point? Beast Boy is never going to forgive me for what I've done, and I don't blame him. I don't blame him in the slightest. Had the positions been reversed, I don't know if I would have the ability to forgive him. I don't think I would have the strength to let it go either." She shrugged. "So, I'll go. I'll leave. It's what's expected of me and it's what I morally should do."
"Run away?"
"I'm giving him the opportunity at a new start." She stared at her communicator on her leader's desk. "I'm giving him the opportunity to forget what I've done."
"No, you're running away from your problems."
Raven's eyes finally met his. "Maybe, but that's something I'll have to live with. Not you." She moved toward the door, her hand touching the handle. Was she really going to do this? Was she just going to walk away from her problems and hope that they'd fix themselves? It felt more like she was trying to just give up than actually fix anything.
"How will I get a hold of you?"
She turned opened the door and glanced into the two other pairs of eyes staring at her before glancing over her shoulder at her leader. "That's the point. You won't."
With that she stepped into the hallway and disappeared into the darkness.
)O(
Beast Boy found the first few months of her absence surprisingly easy. Raven had never been very social anyway, and with Kid Flash and Jinx around (both who were unusually social people), he found himself enjoying more company from his teammates than he ever had. Sure, there were times when everyone else was busy, but Beast Boy found himself keeping busy with videogames and comic books. And if the silence became too heavy, he would find another friend. It was a comfortable, happy life.
It was known.
It was expected.
It was… lonely.
Or course, he would never admit that to anyone outside of his own head. To his friends and teammates, he was perfectly healthy. He had dates, he even kept a girlfriend for a month or two, but that didn't lead anywhere, and she wasn't all that interesting anyway. Without realizing what he had done, he had fallen into his normal routine of finding a fangirl for some service when he was too stressed out. Fangirls were easy, there were no ties, no rules. They just wanted their stupid dream of sleeping with a celebrity fulfilled. One night and he could walk away as if nothing had happened. He didn't call them, they didn't call him.
It made him sick to think he used people like that.
But then again, hadn't Raven used him in the same way?
Or was there something more to what had happened between them?
He didn't know.
After a while, he found himself wishing for the comfortable silence of one friend in particular. He found himself wishing that maybe one day he would walk into the living room and she would be sitting on the sofa with a book in hand. She would look up at him and give that nonexistent "Raven Smile" and look back at the pages, moving just slightly to invite him to sit with her on the sofa.
But more months passed, and there was never the sudden surprise of her placid face.
And Beast Boy just continued with his pointless outings with girls.
And then it happened, one night when booze was involved and he hung around Kid Flash and Jinx, giggling and joking around. They were making idle conversation about movies and tv and comic books, but there had been an unusual lull in the conversation. Jinx took the opportunity of the silence, and finally let her words free.
"You know that your memories are just sealed, right?"
Through the vodka haze, Beast Boy couldn't quite grasp what Jinx was trying to tell him. His memories were sealed? What memories? What the hell was she talking about? He stared at her, frowning. "What do you mean?"
"The memories!" She waved him off. "You know, the ones you made when Raven cashed in your V-card."
"Jinx!" Kid Flash nudged her shoulder, trying to glare at her through his own drunken stupor. "Can't you at least try to be tactful? That's a sensitive subject."
It wasn't really, not anymore.
"No. Of course not. Duh." She waved off her boyfriend and poured herself another drink, pointing over the counter at her green teammate. "What I'm trying to say, is that your body and your mind still make memories even when you are under the thrall of a spell. Just because a spell had power over you doesn't mean that your body has the ability to wipe the memories and impressions it made. So, you have the memories, you just don't have the ability to access them. Because of the spell."
"Jinx, stop pestering him." Kid Flash patted his friend on the back as he glared at his girlfriend. "He's already gone through enough trauma without having you stir up bad blood. Just let it go."
"All I'm saying is that I can unseal those memories for you." Jinx tapped her fingers on the counter and stared at him.
Beast Boy sobered up almost instantly. He could see and feel his time with Raven? The memories that simultaneously frightened and excited him? He swallowed hard and watched her move around the kitchen. "You can do that?"
"Of course. You know, Raven wasn't the only talented sorceress in the world." She rolled her eyes and leaned against the counter with a small smile on her face. "I've got a few tricks up my sleeve too…" There was a long pause and her smile turned sly. "For a price."
"Name it." Beast Boy didn't hesitate. He knew he shouldn't have been so eager to relive the moment that destroyed a friendship between him and a teammate, but he wanted to see. He needed to know exactly what had happened that night, and if there was anyway to salvage some kind of relationship with the girl who used to be his best friend.
"My dish duties for the next three months." She picked at her nails, pretending to be bored. "And my patrol this weekend. I've got a concert I want to go to."
"Done." He stood up and stumbled over to her, extending his hand. "Shake on it."
Jinx chuckled and pressed her hand to his forehead, a small zap of power releasing from her palm and into his skin. Beast Boy stumbled back a bit, feeling like someone had just tried to shake his forehead with one of those gag handshake zappers. He wiped at the spot on his forehead and glared at his teammate, but she just smiled back, giggling at him.
"Tonight you'll dream all about them." There was a short pause and she gave a one shouldered shrug. "I might have a clean set of sheets ready just in case though."
Color flooded his face, and behind him he could hear Kid Flash mumble something about having to learn how to keep her under control, or invest in a shorter leash.
It took Beast Boy an extra-long time to fall asleep that night. He tossed and turned, both eager for sleep and frightened by it. What if he didn't see what he wanted to? What if the memories were just as terrible as he had made them out in his own imagination?
Or, even worse, what if they were so amazing that he wanted to live in them forever?
He winced at that thought. He had been so caught up in the idea that he was betrayed by Raven, that he had forgotten about the feelings he once held for her. The emotions that brought him to his knees every time he saw her. He didn't think he would ever be able to forget about all the things that she once was to him, both good and bad.
Minutes turned to hours, and eventually darkness surrounded his body as he drifted off, his mind releasing the memories that had been trapped under the thrall of the spell.
What he saw was so beautiful it nearly shocked him awake. Her hands trailing over his body, her soft cries and whimpers as he mouth teased her in every way possible. The sound of her muffled moan against his neck as he entered her body. And eventually the feeling of her mouth sealed against his in a kiss. It was an impromptu moment between the two of them that ended in a mixture of lust and love so strong and volatile that it threatened to tear apart every known boundary between him and Raven.
That morning, after the dream had faded away into memories again, Beast Boy woke up feeling strangely bereft.
It was after that dream and the reality of what happened that night, that little things started to add up. The missed scent of tea. The comforting shadows at night. Quiet moments between cases and callings. The almost inaudible chuckle when he told a joke that was actually funny. All the little things that he had thought didn't matter about Raven or her presence in the tower.
And then it happened. The straw that broke the camel's back.
He had been helping Kid Flash hunt for the TV remote and pulled up a sofa cushion. There, under the upholstery was a battered, worn paperback book with frayed edges. He reached down and picked it up, paging through the old thing with a mild curiosity, until he came upon the first sentence:
"There was once a young man who wished to gain his Heart's Desire."
It was the book Raven had read to him that night.
Something painful rose up into his chest and he threw it at the wall, ignoring the shocked stare from Kid Flash. Cursing, he stormed out of the living room, knowing he had probably made a fool of himself. He didn't care.
He had to find Raven.
)O(
So, I was super sick when I was writing this, so I'm not sure if it's up to par with what I normally write.
Anyway, let me know what you think! Thanks for reading.