It's been a month of writer's block, and I finally squirted something out. :)
It's totally pointless. And a little sad. And a little fluffy. And I'm late for swim team - and I have two projects due tomorrow - and science fair - and I haven't done my homework yet. So, it's rushed.
But I kinda like it.
Speedy/Rae fluff. Excuse the roughness...I didn't run this by anyone.
(Oh, and I'm fourteen now!!)
Love and cupcakes,
--Phina
--
After the fourth night of careful planning, Speedy found Raven on the roof.
She probably didn't realize how angular her posture was, he mused – all bent knees and elbows, all right angles. The moonlight threw fractured shadows across her cheekbones, turning skin silver and silhouette black.
She looked up when he sat down beside her, but didn't say anything. It was too quiet for words. Waves slapped against the side of the Tower, and Speedy could just barely see the glimmer of frothy water from their seat near the edge of the roof.
He leaned forward a little, resting elbows on his knees. "A little too stuffy for you inside?"
Raven turned back to look at the fading horizon line, shivered briefly in the chill night air. "A little."
Titans East had flown over for the weekend. Suffice to say, it was like a day in the psych ward – fun, fun, fun.
He glanced over at the pinks and yellows and oranges of the sunset, trying to figure her out, trying to figure out why she would come up here, of all places.
"Is it the light you like?"
Her eyebrows crinkled a little, and he clarified, "You know…the light at this time of day. The sunset. Whatever."
She shrugged, letting the silence stretch on until it almost breathed. He was just about to give up on her saying anything when she finally leaned back a little, relaxing the sharp angles of her posture. "Sort of. Mostly it's just quiet." She flexed her fingers – pop pop pop – and sighed. "No one really likes it up here anymore. Not since Terra…left."
Speedy could see the remains of a tattered volleyball net; abandoned sporting equipment; put two and two together. "You guys hung out here a lot with her? Played volleyball and stuff?"
Raven nodded and rested her chin on top of her knees. Her expression was wistful, soft-edged. Speedy wondered if she knew how lushly attractive she was, or if she was just immune.
He had been kept mostly in the dark about the whole Terra deal, but it was most definitely a Bad Thing, and most likely Dangerous Territory, so he hurried to change the subject. Leaning back on his hands, Speedy remarked, "You know, people always romanticize this whole idea about sunsets and it being the end of a day, the start of a new beginning, whatever. 'Oh, look at this fabulous sunset, it's so gorgeous, so romantic.'" He grinned at her profile and nodded with his chin at the pinkish, orangeish sky. "You know what that sky looks like to me? Cat vomit. The fishy kind."
Raven laughed – actual, real laughter – the kind that tilted her lips up, lit up her whole face.
Speedy grinned. Success. "You see that color pink? Right up by that airplane? That's honest-to-God Friskies Canned Tuna, right there."
She crossed her legs, pointed up at the sky. "You know what causes the sunset?" He looked at her sideways, out of the corner of his eye. "Pollution. From hundreds of years of camp fires and factories and technology." His expression must have been skeptical, because she added, "Yeah, I didn't believe it at first either. So, once again, we've made something gorgeous by killing the earth. Whoopee."
There was a pause.
"That is…incredibly depressing," Speedy pointed out.
"Mm-hmm."
"And…" he paused, thinking. "You just referred to yourself as a human."
Oh, good God. He could kick himself. Right in the groin.
Raven's eyes darkened. "I'm a half-demon, Speedy. I have enough human in me to appreciate the environmental crisis on this planet."
"Right, right." He was going to have to do Heimlich on himself to get the foot out of his mouth.
They sat in silence for a while, Speedy simmering in mild humiliation. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye – her legs bare to the chill night air, her cheeks stung slightly pink by the breeze. His fingers itched. He wanted to trace patterns on her skin. Glowing, glimmering patterns.
The silence was so loud, it was deafening.
He was about to make an excuse and leave her to her thoughts when she stirred, just slightly.
"Do you really believe that, Speedy?"
"Hmm?"
"About the sunset being the end of a day. And sunrise being the beginning."
Speedy uncrossed his legs and leaned all the way back, the metal roof cold against his spine. "Oh, I don't know. I guess it used to be. You know, in the old days, when people went to bed with the moon and were up with the sun. It was the end of the line for them." He stretched his arms, feeling the flex and flow of the muscles, voice going hazy. "But we've got all this wonderful new technology now, the stuff that's ruining the environment –" he grinned slowly at her, "– and we've all kind of turned into night owls. So…no. I believe that the day starts again when you let it."
Raven flipped onto her side, cheek resting on her palm – a beautiful S of a girl. Her hair was star-dusted, her skin silvery-smooth in the dark. The urge to trail his fingers along her forearms – to touch her – snapped its jaws again, impatient. It wasn't used to being denied, and it hung, dominant and demanding, in the night air.
"What about you?" he asked, turning onto his side so he could watch her expression. "Beginnings or ends? Yesterdays or tomorrows? Which one would you choose?"
She shifted slightly. "You should know that," she said softly. "I'll always choose yesterdays. I'll always want to fix what I broke."
He heard the whisper beneath the whisper. She would always want to fix herself – she was, in essence, a broken thing.
"Did you ever think that maybe some things are more beautiful when they're not whole?" he asked her, quietly – wanting to know the answer. "Did you ever think that maybe you'll never get a chance to go back? That maybe you were broken for a reason – and it's up to you to fix yourself?"
He didn't want the words to sound harsh, and, instinctively, she understood that.
Her eyes flickered up for a second. "Will you help me?" she whispered. "Will you help me fix myself?"
Speedy reached across the gap that separated them and took her hand – spanned the gap. "Of course I will."
They leaned forward, hesitantly – so close that Raven's eyelashes dusted his cheek.
His heart gave one hard thump.
"Which one do you want, Speedy?" Raven asked, almost soundlessly, so close to him that he could feel her breath tickling his cheek, feel her heartbeat, close to his. "Tomorrow? Yesterday?"
Speedy pressed his lips to her forehead, just once – feeling the coolness of the focus stone leave a ghost on his mouth. "I would choose this," he breathed. "This second. This moment in time."
He twined fingers in her hair, spider-webs of silk strands – and even when the alarms sounded, even when the perfect stillness of the night was shattered by fire alarms and ambulances, neither of them looked away.