Tales of the Titans: The Truth, Part 2
I don't own the Teen Titans. If I did, it would probably have to have a mature audience rating or something.
This one's for you, Walkerjordan963!
The Awful Truth, Chapter 2
Garfield Logan and Raven halted just outside the door to his and Terra's room. "Ready?" he asked her. She nodded, wordlessly. "Good," he breathed. Wish I was. He pushed open the door.
Terra was sitting at the mirror, brushing her hair, wearing only her underwear. "Oh! Raven! Uhm, sorry! I don't usually greet guests like, like this," she said, embarrassed. She crossed her arms in front of herself. She didn't have a robe to put on.
"It's—it's alright, Terra. I won't be long, in any case." She looked at Gar.
"Terra, honey, uh, uhm, Raven and I have something to tell you.…..maybe you better sit down." Then, "Maybe we all better sit down."
"'Raven and I'?" Terra sat on the bed, one eyebrow cocked, with Garfield beside her. Raven sat in the overstuffed chair by the bed. Garfield wondered, to himself, if he'd be sleeping in that tonight. Or sleeping alone, one of the two. Most probably the latter.
Terra was still clearly a bit embarrassed at being only half-dressed in Raven's presence, but the sorceress reassured her that it really wasn't anything to be all that concerned about. She didn't tell her this, but when Starfire first came to live with them, she'd had the disconcerting habit of walking around the Tower's corridors completely nude, to the guilty pleasure of every male in the group. It had taken her a long time to understand that it was considered polite to wear clothes indoors as well as outdoors. Tameranean customs were very different, after all; clothes were primarily for protection from the elements, yes? Why wear them indoors and get them all dirty? And Raven had, in a pre-emptive strike, also instructed her that sexual matters were not to be discussed in the presence of the group, or where members of the group might hear. "Girl talk"—in private-was one thing, talking with your lover in private (and even way back then, Raven had had a pretty good idea who that would be)—but not in public.
Beast Boy turned, addressing Terra. "Well, it's…..y'see….I don't quite know how to put this, but it turns out that Raven and I, well….."
It might have been Raven's imagination, but it seemed that Terra tensed, somewhat, and the nervous smile on her face disappeared altogether. The temperature in the room seemed to drop ever so slightly. "Yes, Gar?"she prompted, but, to Raven's sensitive ears, it was in a totally different tone of voice.
A dangerous tone of voice.
Garfield didn't seem to notice, struggling as he was, with how to put what he was going to have to say. "Well, it's just, we've discovered something…."
"Have you, now?"
"Yeah, and it could be a…a problem…between you and I."
"Could it?" Raven was beginning to be alarmed. Something was wrong; the tension in the room was getting thicker, not lesser, as she'd supposed. "I….I mean, to say, we…."
Terra moved slightly away from him, crossing one leg up on the bed, propping her chin up on her fist, and giving him a very hard stare. "Yes, Garfield? Do continue. Please."
"I…we….and please understand, I just now found this out…"
"Mm-hmm?" The tension was thick enough by now that Raven was actually beginning to think it impeded her movements, as if the room were full of invisible molasses or something. What could be causing it? True, Garfield was fumbling around all over the place, trying the find the exact right words, but even so, just being able to detect the building tensions didn't necessarily mean she knew what was causing them….
"It's just that we're, I mean, she and I, well, what I'm trying to say is…." Terra was dangerously silent. Finally, there was just no more waiting. The words had to come. "We're siblings!" he blurted.
"Siblings?" Terra's face registered shock for a moment. But only for a moment. Then she did the one thing neither of the other two had foreseen.
She laughed.
Not just quiet chuckles, or even girly giggles, but great, hearty guffaws, that had her rolling around on the bed, holding her sides. "You, you…." Then she started laughing some more. Tears were running down the side of her face, as she rolled back and forth across the bed, holding her sides.
"It's true, Terra, we're, well, we're actually half-siblings, I mean, we had the same father, Trigon, but not the same mother…..Terra, I mean it! I'm not joking!"
By now, Terra had herself more under control. She was still quietly laughing to herself, unable to make a coherent reply. "You….you….and her…oh, hahahahaha!" She went back to laughing uncontrollably.
Garfield looked helplessly at Raven, who shrugged. She didn't know what was going on, either.
Finally, she seemed to have laughed herself out, and lay back on the bed, on her back, with her legs hanging from the knee down towards the floor, arms over her head. "Oh, my god. And here I thought….I mean, I thought you were gonna tell me….you were gonna tell me….that you and she…well, never mind what I thought you were gonna tell me. It isn't important."
"Well, I mean, it's true. I just found out, myself, that-*"
"I know."
"—that apparently, somehow, my father was….wait. What'd you say?
"I know, Gar. I've known for about a year now."
Both Raven and Garfield were staring at her in open-mouthed shock. "You know," said Garfield, "You knew?"
"Yeah." She sat up, flipping her hair back over her head. It had become somewhat tousled during her laughing fit.
"B-but how?"
Terra pulled one knee up to her chin, sobering. "Do you remember—and I know you do—about a year ago, the cops called us in on that missing girl report?"
It was amazing, thought Raven, how Gar's expression actually darkened. It was as if a cloud had come over his face, except there was nothing over his head to account for it. He sat on the side of the bed, leaning forward, hands clasped in front of him. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."
"I bet you do. I had the sniffles that day, and Cyborg thought I might be coming down with the flu, but it turned out it was just sinuses, remember? So I didn't go with the rest of you. But, Gar…..you guys didn't get to her in time, remember?"
Gar didn't say anything, but his expression spoke volumes.
"I'd never seen you so angry. It actually scared me a little. And you started pacing. Back and forth, back and forth. Just like that guy, Darth Maul, in that movie. Not saying anything, but just pacing. I think you were getting angrier by the minute. Remember? I didn't know what to say, what to do. I'd never seen anybody like that before." He nodded. "About the third or fourth pace, you turned around—and I almost jumped out of my skin. You didn't notice, 'cause you were too worked up. But that was the reason why: I saw the four-eye thing. Didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the rest, you know."
He looked at her. "And you've known…all this time?"
She turned around and clasped his body between her legs, drawing him in, her mouth close to his ear. Raven was beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable. "You remember that night, that special shower we had?"she purred. He stirred a bit, clearly remembering that, too.
"Uh, maybe I'd better go…."said Raven, starting to get up.
"You can stay, Raven. You're family now, anyway. No secrets." She bent her mouth towards her lover's ear again. "Third base, darling. It brought you back, didn't it? AND paid you back for that wonderful night you gave me just before you ran off to rescue Little Miss Suburban Princess Tara."
"But—but, I'm part demon!"
"Well, let's see," she said, drawing back just a little, "Two possibilities here: one, you have magic powers. The other: you were exposed to a treatment, when you were little more than a baby, that so scrambled your genes, that even they can't decide what you are. Which one do you think I'd prefer you have? Especially if you add the distinct possibility of children into the mix.
"And," she went on, "I wasn't here then, but I heard the others talking about it: that night Slade came for Raven with those fire demons: that 'beast' form of yours was tearing them up, right and left. Honey, nothing made of Earthly flesh can take on a thing made of fire or molten lava and come out on top. But you did. To save your own flesh and blood." She nodded with her head towards Raven, who was still sitting there, the remnants of a blush on her face. "And the only time you ever turned into that beast was: whenever you felt Raven was in danger. The only time. Then you go positively, well, primal." Raven started at bit at that. She'd never actually seen it that way. But now that she thought about it, it fit, it made sense.
"So you've known. All this time. And you never said anything?"
"What could I have said?"
"Uhm." He rubbed the side of his face. "Good point." Then, "Say. Waitaminnit. What was it you thought I was gonna say, back when you were giving me all those looks?"
"Oh, that." She shuddered. "I was afraid—no, I was terrified that you were gonna say that Raven had beat you in a game of tiddlywinks. I just couldn't have handled that. I mean, that would've been," and here she paused, hugging herself, an expression of anguish on her angelic face, "I mean, like, absolutely horrible."
Garfield and Raven looked at each other: what?
The End