Struggled with this for a while. Had three false starts: a Rob/Star fluff, ending with him having the dramatic unmasking scene; a KF/Jinx introspection piece about Flash's eyes; and then an idea I adored, which was Raven and Speedy going to a blues café and dancing the night away. Finally came up with this, though. On a side note, X is a total jerk when you're writing for him. He makes things sooooooooo hard.

I kinda like this finished piece, though. :)

Mad props go to Sylver, for more reasons than I can name, such as how we IM for hours and she gives me the best ideas, and like how she's pretty much my soul buddy in every sense of the word. She's had a really rough time lately, so…go shower her with love. Seriously. :D

Raven/Red X. Because it kicks major ass. It just does. And also because I like the idea of a very convoluted X.

--

Prompt # 12: Blue

I wonder if she knows how much I want her.

But that's not true, really. I don't just want her.

I love her.

I hate her.

I desire her.

I admire her.

I watch her.

I find her—

—and then I lose her.

I see her face, her perfect crystal face, and I wonder what it would take to crack the perfect surface; to see what's frozen beneath the gemstone veil. I see her hair, gleaming amethyst strands of silk, and wonder if I could snip a lock from her scalp and save it somewhere, so that crisp shade of purplish-blue could haunt me forever. I see her lips, the pale, understated plumpness of them more extraordinary than any other girl's, and wonder if she'd hurt me if I kissed them. I see her cloak, soft and clinging, and I wonder if I'd shame her if I ripped the blue cloth from her shoulders and crushed her body to mine.

When we fight, I imagine we're dancing, two sinuous coils of smoke: entwined, but never mingled. We fling ourselves around each other, ever-graceful, locked in our make-believe cages that brand us as Good and Evil. Taut skin is a hairsbreadth from touching, and then our momentum whirls us away and I find myself wondering if tasting her flesh once would cure me of the longing altogether.

I see her, amongst her friends, her teammates, and I hear them joke with her. Tiny things. The way she can't cook. The time she accidentally walked in on Robin in the shower. The window she broke when she threw Beast Boy out of the Tower. Silly things. Things I should know.

I've learned the names of everyone she cares for—even when she doesn't make it plain—hoping it's enough.

It will never be enough.

Now and then I hit her in battle, just to steal the tiniest feeling of her flesh. Sometimes it's harder than I wanted to and I see her gasp in surprise. Pleasure mingles with pain when I realize I've just hurt her, and even though she's expecting it, even though she's anticipating the wound, I get a vindictive sort of agony when I realize she doesn't trust me at all. So I smile, because she shouldn't, and then I ache, because I wonder what would happen if she did.

She's clever, too clever for her own good, and stronger than she will ever realize. She knows something of grief and I wish she never had to. She's too thin and I'm not happy with the length of her hair. I can't stop thinking about her.

She pains me. She inflames me. She is everything I want and everything I can never have.

She's alluring. Impossibly alluring.

I want to catch her, keep her, pin her to the wall like a dead butterfly so I can finally, finally understand her, but she would writhe from her bonds and fly forever. She would never let me.

I want to hate her: for being oblivious, for being alluring, for being her. I want to feel a surge of rage in my veins every time I see her. I want to despise her face, her body, her mind, her soul.

And in a way, I do.

But in a bigger way, I don't.

She's the embodiment of everything I gave up when I reconciled myself to crime. She's a demon. She's a hero. She fights to be better than she is. She does good things for good reasons, even when it would be easier to do the opposite. She's surrounded by people who want her—she's loneliness at its best.

She's my forbidden drug, my impossible love.

Her blue eyes are everything I want. Everything I need. I am nothing more than a phantom—disappearing at will, always moving, pausing no longer than the glint of light on water. I wonder sometimes if I even exist.

She anchors me to this day and time, and when I look at her, I remember myself.

I've always liked being invisible—the one you never see, unless I choose it. But now, in the face of this all, I realize that I want her to see me…Because I know, I just know, that if she saw me once, pierced me through and through with those excruciatingly blue eyes, I'd wake up—

And until she does, I am nothing more than a dream.