A/N: Hellooooo! :waves enthusiastically: How are you all? Not missing me too much, I hope!
:giggles:
So, anyway, I'm sorry I haven't updated in two million years (don't worr the story's not on hiatus) but I've just been enjoying the last days of my summer (a little TOO much, but if anyone's asking, I had a great time in Bali) and am now (begrudgingly) back at school for the 2nd week.
So, yes, I've finally updated and I hope you guys like it.
Read and review please!
Chapter 8
So...
A pale lacy grey bra.
Hmmmm…
With a matching pair of pale lacy gray panties.
Hmmmmmmmm…
Garfield picked up the bra in his hands and stretched it out a bit, pulling at the lace trimmings while his mind wandered around carelessly, imagining what Raven would look like in this particular bra; she wasn't that well endowed—he had to admit, and so did she…begrudgingly of course—but he thought that she was probably a knock out in this matching pair. He knew beforehand that she had a lot of plain underwear—mostly in black, white or beige-y colours—with no embellishments on them, so it was a surprise to find this particular pair. His mind created a vague image of his girlfriend in this getup, her skin pressed against his, her hair messed up and her perfectly shaped lips whispering his name in that really, really sexy way…
Suddenly his uniform felt really, really tight and uncomfortable down there…
Uh-oh.
Great…
He felt his cheeks redden in embarrassment and he hastily stuffed all her underwear back into her wardrobe, shutting it harshly. He leaned on the doors of the wardrobe for a while, his breathing heavy and his forehead damp with sweat.
Dude, he thought to himself sharply, so not cool! He was here to find Raven's book and nothing else…nothing else!
He tried to regain his rein on his mind, erasing the—he gulped to himself—impure thoughts and replacing them with…with…with—he scrambled his mind for anything else he could think of…anything!—meat and ended up feeling a bit nauseated by the choice of subject he chose to place in his mind.
He sucked at this!
Slowly, he moved his way to her bookshelf, steeling himself away from all the interesting looking trinkets that were bound to send him either to somewhere he really didn't want to go or would endanger his life even though his hands itched to poke at them randomly and to press buttons he knew that he shouldn't push. He paused for a while as a round gem with engravings in it seemed to glitter quite attractively but he thought better of it; better to ask Raven what the hell it was before he had his limbs torn off and he wasn't even sure whether it would be Raven or the pretty gem that would tear them off.
Sigh.
His fingers traced the spines of each book he found on her bookshelf, dragging his forefinger slowly against the different textures that the books gave him. There were a lot of books in her shelf and surprisingly—he mused as he read the titles carefully—a whole lot of different genres…and not all of them were dark and meaningful and just downright depressing…if he had a longer attention span, he thought that he might feel the need to read one of these books. There were some literary classics—Jane Eyre, Sherlock Holmes, Don Quixote, etc—but there were a couple of chick books—which Gar knew that she would be embarrassed by if he ever confronted her about them—amongst the more serious and dark dystopian—her favourite genre for God knows what reason!—and some seriously funny books—'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' being one of them. God bless Douglas Adams and his sheer genius—but the most surprising types were in comic book form.
Yes, you heard the man right; comic book form.
Comic books.
Comic books!
A grin formed on his lips as he carefully read the spines of each graphic novel, momentarily picking out the ones he knew and the ones that looked quite interesting to read. There were a lot and her collection made his mouth hurt from grinning too much but evidently her favourite graphic novel author was Alan Moore by the sheer fact that they were the most tattered and pages of the comics were practically falling out. Raven didn't seem to be someone who needed visual aid to help her unveil a story in her mind, she seemed to be someone who swallowed words by the dozens, but he was glad that he could see this more—he would've said light hearted but though Alan Moore's comics had their funny moments, there was nothing light hearted about them—unserious side of her in the form of her favourite media, conveyed in thin pieces of paper.
He shook his head; he was getting distracted again.
He licked his dry lips cautiously and looked slowly at each and every leather bound book that he found on the shelf, occasionally picking out the ones that had no titles on their spines to see if there was red fabric concealed beneath the covers. One by one, he inspected every book that he could find that may suit the descriptions given to him by her but not one of them fit; she had many bookshelves with many similar books but none—not one!—was the right one.
Sigh.
Maybe he wasn't looking as hard as he should be looking, or maybe she had been mistaken and that it didn't look like what she had said it looked like or maybe she had misplaced it. Another sigh escaped his chest and he realised that he was tired; crime slowed down a bit since Dick had come back but now it happened everyday and it was always one single major event that caused everyone's breath to speed up when the adrenaline had started pumping but when it faded away, the exhaustion kicked in like there was no tomorrow. Gar had always thought that the Titans needed a holiday but Dick was never one to listen to his advice and he probably wasn't going to start now.
Without a thought, he scrambled onto her bed with intentions to take a nap—what!? It wasn't like Raven would miss him too much!—and snuggled his head deeply into her incense-scented pillows. His eyelids felt heavy and eventually they fell closed and the comforting darkness that usually accompanied sleep was all that he was capable of seeing, though sometimes annoying purple dots would appear in front of him, causing him to squeeze his eyes shut until they disappeared. Her bed was soft and comforting, with her scent clearly still on it and it helped that it was an extremely wide bed—wider than his anyway—which allowed him to stretch out all he liked.
Life was good.
Well, as good as a cosy bed that smelled like Raven, anyway.
His fingers scrambled to grab the pillow from underneath, clawing at the spongy material of the pillow so that he had a firm grip on it. His fingers wriggled underneath idly as he tried to get some shut-eye and he was surprised when he felt a piece of card—no! Two pieces of card—where his fingers lay. Curiously, he slid them out to see what they were and to figure out why Raven of all people would have pieces of card under her pillow and also to see if this was something that he could tease her about.
He loved teasing her.
It was a fact, simple as that. He just loved getting under her skin when she least expected it. He loved the way that she would lose control of her facial expressions for that mere second that he had made fun of her and it would remind him that she was human too—well, partially anyway—and she too was prone to the little twitch at the corner of her mouth when she got really, really pissed.
As he slid the cards out, he felt the sleek, glossiness of the upper side of the card and the coarser texture of the lower, his mind stashing these details for him to guess what they were. When they were finally pulled out of its confinements in the most comfortable of all pillows, he felt like choking with laughter and astonishment at the very same time and he wasn't sure whether or not he was more surprised about the fact that she actually owned any of these or that she had actually kept them.
He felt the corner of his lips tug uncontrollably into a grin, a huge one at that.
They were photos of them…no, not of just him and her exclusively—though to be completely honest, he wouldn't have minded if he found photos of them two together…he had loads of those and she didn't seem to have any—but of the whole team. The first one was a quite recent photo of them without their uniforms and was set in the Common Room and they all looked quite…content and—well—grownup, in a sense. From what he remembered of their earlier days, it was quite different from how they were; they held themselves different—with more confidence, if his somewhat nonexistent analytical skills were anything to go by—and they seemed more settled in than before, as if they now knew how things worked around the place and what they're true purposes were. Of course there were the major, quite obvious changes that even he—the resident idiot, as they all perceived him to be—noticed; Dick's arm was firmly around Kori's shoulder and she had lain her head on his as they sat close to each other—practically glued to the hip—they had all grown physically both in muscle and in height—though, to be completely honest, Garfield doubted that Raven had grown since the team first got together, but he wasn't saying that in front of her face. No frickin' way—Vic's generous smiles never changed but Gar thought that he looked more comfortable with his mechanic self and he also noted that Raven was actually smiling even with him sitting next to her.
Not bad, Gar, not bad.
He turned to the other picture carelessly and found his chest sting numbly with reminisce; he liked this picture even better than the other picture. This photo was similar in the way that it was also a group photo of them but this time it was of them when they had just gotten together and boy was they young, he didn't even really remember looking like that. This time though, they were still in their uniforms—Nightwing still being Robin and Kori still in her…um…more modest uniform—and they all obviously lacked the height and build that they gained nowadays and they all lacked the comfort that they had now in each other's company and so everything looked a little bit stiff between them—especially Raven, she still had her mean face one. But both he and Kori looked quite comfortable though to be fair, Vic looked like he was warming up to the others too—and even all not sure whether or not they could trust each other.
The actual picture wasn't what made him like the photo though, it was Raven's annotations and side notes she had put on the actual photo, describing what she had thought of all of them back then. It was done in a dark blue marker and in her incredibly neat and cursive handwriting that was quite difficult to decipher but what he made out was pretty damn hilarious. There was a huge arrow pointing at Robin and writing next to it that said:
"The supposed leader of our team. A paranoid, neurotic, control freak. Probably not as bad as Batman but who is?"
Another arrow pointed at Cyborg that proclaimed:
"Insecure but very loud. Oldest out of everyone and thankfully someone who I'm able to hold a decent conversation with. Has a slight tendency to obsess over meat, though."
The one pointing Starfire said:
"Alien airhead, overly happy and overly nice. Also a foreigner to Earth and she seems to be eager to adopt a lot of Earth customs and introduce a lot of Tamaranian ones. Loves mustard…as a drink."
And last but not least, there was a humongous arrow around him with the words encircled in red pen:
"Idiot."
As much as he wanted to be offended by this word, he couldn't really sum up any feeling of insult, really, because—to be completely honest—he was glad that it wasn't anything worse.
He stared at the two pictures for a moment, comparing them with each other and laughing to himself as memories popped into his mind suddenly; their family was so unorthodox that nothing normal ever really came out of it, and he was glad that it didn't. Normality was never gonna come out of a group of people who paraded in spandex costumes day in and day out.
Suddenly he felt a bit wary of the pictures and stuck them back under the pillow. He didn't know why he suddenly felt bad looking at them but he knew that it had something to do with the current structure of their team; they were all comfortable with each other, alright, but there was something surging out of all the comfort and familiarity that reminded him all too well of the uncertainty and the distrust that were conveyed in the photo of their younger selves. It was all too vague for him to decipher and so he left it at that, in the back of his mind for later.
He sighed while he hopped off the bed hastily, rubbing down the front of his trousers subconsciously. There was no use trying to nap now with thoughts randomly coming into his mind, he needed to get out and get himself distracted somehow.
Yes, a distraction…that would do him some good.
He thought about taking another good look at her bookshelf but thought better of it and scrambled out of her room and into the bright corridors of the Tower. He considered the corridors for a moment as he walked through them, his feet pacing themselves evenly, there were many corridors in the Tower and only five of them actually living in this building and more often than not, they always found themselves walking through these halls alone. It would be different when they all left, they would all have their own little cosy places and then it would be like living in one huge corridor.
Now, that was not a pleasant thought.
He whistled a song—Your Body is a Wonderland by John Mayer…good song—casually as he found himself walking without a destination. Suddenly his ears perked up, twitching uncontrollably as they picked up a couple of voices coming from the rooms that were laid into the walls of the corridors. The voices, they were…familiar and at this distance, incomprehensible but…from what he could hear, they sounded quite heated.
With curiosity now grabbing onto the reins of his physical body, he walked towards where the sounds were coming from, his footsteps growing faster every second that the voices grew louder. He didn't know what possessed him to follow the voices, but deep down he knew that the pitch in the voices were too varied to be something unimportant or at least it told him that it was important to them, whoever them was.
Finally, he found himself slowing down as the voices became clearer, and he was actually able to understand whatever they were saying. The voices were coming from Dick's personal study in which he did all his research—cough: obsessing—on the villains they encountered, or even on unfamiliar heroes. Clearly, it was two people, and he was pretty sure that inside was Kori and Dick but…
His ears jerked towards the sound and he found himself unwillingly stopping at the door, even though he knew that…one, it was wrong to poke at other people's privacy and two, Dick would totally jump-kick his ass if he found out that he had listened at their conversation.
…the words that they spoke to each other, they sounded angry.
Kori and Dick were never angry with each other…OK…that was a lie but…they were never mutually angry with each other. It was always one or the other, never both and now…now the words that he was hearing were sharp and spiteful and he could imagine that if he was in the room right now, he'd be able to see them both glaring daggers at each other.
"…indecent? Indecent!?" Kori's already high-pitched voice screeched; you didn't need his sensitive hearing to be able to hear that through the thick walls, "I do not need someone who used to dress in the most vulgar colours to call me indecent!"
Gar couldn't help but snigger but then again, that coming from your girlfriend?
Ouch.
"You were wearing next to nothing! This was a shoot for the fucking spring issue and you were prancing around in a mini skirt and a tank top that hid nothing! For the love of God, Kori, I could see everything!" He could hear Dick grate his teeth together in frustration, "The photographer could fucking barely hold it together!"
Kori emitted a sound that sounded like a cross between a groan and a curse, "You did not have to punch the lights of day out of him! He did not do anything!" He heard her sigh, "Now he must think that I am such a klorbag and that he will be telling all his colleagues in this business that I am nothing but a worthless brol who is spoiled and cannot do her job right. I will not be able to get any jobs, Dick!"
"You don't need a job! You're a Titan!" He grunted, "Plus the guy had it coming anyway, I saw how he was touching you when he was 'showing you how to pose'."
"I will be needing a job when we separate, Dick! And I like this job; it makes me feel more human."
The stench of aggravation hit his nostrils sharply and he recoiled from the door a bit before continuing to listen to their argument.
"You don't have to 'feel more human'! You aren't human!"
There was a sound that sounded like someone had staggered and he wasn't sure who it was. Apart from that, no sound came from the room and it was as if they were both so shocked at what he had just said that they were both incapable of saying anything else.
Dick broke the silence, "I…I didn't mean to—"
A flash of green light shone was seen through the cracks in the door and the sounds of furniture breaking made Garfield jump; boy was she pissed.
"You tell me what to do and then you insult me!? I do not understand this course of action and I do not like it." He imagined her with her eyes glowing neon green, "I do not like it at all."
Garfield shuddered upon hearing her tone of voice…it was just so…cold. Kori's voice was never like that…there was always some sort of feeling her voice no matter how she was feeling and now that it was devoid of any feeling…it freaked him out.
Badly.
"You have no right to tell me what to do. You do not have any control over what I decide to do.And you have no right to punch someone just because they look at me."
"I have every right!" Oooh, bad move there Wonder Boy, "I am your boyfriend and if someone's getting a hard-on because he's checking out my girlfriend's ass then, yes, I have every right!"
Dick had a point, if he caught anyone checkin' out Raven, he'd probably punch the living daylights out of them too.
The smell of smouldering wood sent his head spinning and he moved to walk away from the room and to just go off and mind his own business, but a nagging feeling cemented his feet to the spot. It sometimes sucked to be so instinctive.
Kori's voice popped up again, "I am not a…a…thing that can be commanded!" A worrying crunch was heard almost simultaneously, "I…appreciate…" her voice had calmed down a bit, but not by much, "that you are trying to protect me," she said the word protect almost as if it was a disgrace, and Garfield figured that to her warrior-like culture, it might've been, "but I do not need you to be criticizing everything that I do that does not concern you. I am my own person, boyfriend Dick and I intend on continuing to be so; we Tamaranians do not rely on anyone and I do not intend to start now." Her words were slow, as if doubting her ability in the English language and doubting Dick's ability to comprehend what she was saying, "I did not say anything when you went to Gotham without telling us why you went."
"Raven told you that—"
"She lied." Even though Kori sounded angry, he had a strange inkling that she wasn't angry at Raven, more that she was angry that Dick had used Raven to cover up for him, more that she was angry that he didn't tell her the truth, "We are not all fools to believe that you would go back to Gotham because the Batman needed help against a villain there. We all know that he would not have you shirk your responsibilities for his own and that even if he needed help, he had the Batgirl to help him."
Garfield heard the sharp intake of breath that seemed to belong to Dick and though it was faint, the sound of his heart strummed quickly in some sort of panicked state and there was a moment of silence in which neither one of them dared to breathe. He understood why Kori was—metaphorically—holding her breath, she was waiting for him to answer her statement but Dick? What was he waiting for? Clearly Kori had struck a chord there—a really sensitive one, at that—but which chord? Dick was quick to anger, sure, but not when he consciously knew that he was at fault. If only he could get closer and take in his scent and listen to his heartbeat's pace, if only he had Raven's empathic powers to help him decipher the situation.
"Keep Gotham out of this." A hiss, definitely a hiss, hiss in the shape of Dick's voice, "It has nothing to do with what we were talking about."
"What?" There was her voice again, light and twinkly but at the same time, totally not, "You think that the Gotham does not have anything to do with…this?" A bone crunching fist-clench was heard, "Let me do the rephrasing. It is not that trip that causes concern but your reason and this…this reason…proves the point that I am trying to make. You cannot do the monopoly of my life if I am not allowed to do the monopoly of yours. I did not question your reasons even though I knew that you were doing the lying through your teeth and I did not even think to question it!" He could imagine her with her fists clenched, her shoulders quivering in anger and her auburn ringlets falling from side to side as she shook her head, "By x'hal, for all I know, you could've been with some flame of old, some…some…vorknih!"
Truthfully, Garfield had no idea what the Tamaranian word meant but by the tone of her voice, he was willing to bet that it ran along the lines of hussy, slut, whore…you know how it went. It couldn't be true though, it couldn't, right? This was Dick they were talking about after all, and Dick was never to stray away in that way, never was one to take anything for granted and throw it away for something that was worth less.
It couldn't be true…
There was a tense moment, so tense that he could feel it from where he was standing—which was in front of the door—and the hairs on his arms stood on their ends. If they weren't in a relationship, Garfield figured that they would be at each other's throats right now, trying to see who could rip the other ones' throat out faster.
…could it?
"Don't you dare—!" Dick warned, his voice becoming a guttural growl, "It's different. This is different!" The normally totally composed leader was going nuts…wacko, "It's not the same!"
Kori had always had the smooth and innocent sounding voice—in contrast with Raven's rough and sensual voice—but the anger had twisted it to become something entirely different, "Different? How is it different? Does this mean that I do not have to tell you about what I do in the midst of my job? Or that you do not need to follow me around to my jobs as if you were going to kill anyone who was looking at me!?" A perturbed grumble escaped her lips and once again, she sounded like she was grinding her perfectly white teeth against each other, "And don't I dare what!?" She mocked him—personally, he had never heard this tone of voice from her before—and there were footsteps that made it seem like she was walking towards him and towering over him in all her statuesquely fierce beauty, "Accuse you of lying to me? Or using Raven to lie to me? Or even accusing you of going off with a little vorknih?"
"You don't understand!"
"Of course I do not understand! I thought we were best friends, Dick, but now you do not tell me anything and ever since you've come back you still have not mentioned anything about your trip. It is like you do not want me to know about it and I cannot help but be jumping to the worst of conclusions!" Heavy breathing ensued, "So why, Dick Grayson, have you not told me the truth? Why?"
"As you stated before," Dick started slowly, "we have no right to intrude on each others' individual lives."
"You are putting my words back into my mouth." Kori replied with some degree of disgust, "So I am right, then? You have been seeing a vorknih behind my back in Gotham. Am I not good enough for you!?"
"Don'tcall her that—!" Garfield's mouth dropped open and he figured that Kori must be shocked too and Dick must be trying to compose, "I mean, it's not what you think. There is no her."
There was a tortured sounding shriek, almost inhumane but devoid of anything other than pain and anger. Another furniture crash was heard and a flash of neon green light sparked again through the gaps of in the door, the sound of struggle filling Garfield's painfully sensitive ears. He didn't know who he felt sorrier for; for Kori who just had confirmation that her boyfriend had cheated on her or for Dick who was probably getting the shit kicked out of him. Actually, maybe he should feel sorry for himself, just in case he was discovered, y'know.
"Tell me it is not true." Slow but sure, the words were sandpaper to Garfield's ears, "Tell me that you do not really insult me by doing this course of action, by doing what I had suspected you have done." A growl, "Do. Not. Insult. Me."
"I have done nothing wrong." Dick persisted, his face probably currently carved out of stone, his eyes empty and hard, "Nothing."
There must've been something, something in his face that only Kori could see that told her that he was lying because the next thing he knew, she was swearing in Tamaranian, or at least he guessed that she was swearing by the tone of her voice.
"You mean to insult me. You truly mean to insult me. I have done nothing but love you—!"
Cold, too cold, "It is not my business if you believe me or not but I'm telling the truth. You obviously are guilty of something if you insist on accusing me of cheating on you." Freezing, "Hooked up with one of your photographer friends, have you?" He leered.
"How dare you accuse me of such a thing!?" In contrast with Dick's voice, hers was all fire, all heat, "You know that I would never do such a thing! You know it!" Blazing, "And here you are treating me like I am a vorknih. Here you are treating me like a troq!"
"Well, if I truly knew what you would do then you would know that I have done no such thing but it doesn't seem like it, does it?"
"I trusted you and you—!"
The swearing started again, this time louder, harsher but then again, it sounded more desperate, like she didn't know what else she could do to mend the situation, like she wanted to hold on to whatever they shared. Garfield never thought that this would happen, that there would be a big bust up between the two…nothing this big, anyway. Kori and Dick were two halves of a whole; the diamond to his cufflinks, the butterfly to her flower, the ocean to his shore, the…the…radioactive berries to her Silkie. From the moment they had met, the rest of the team knew that despite all the dancing around each other, the miscommunications and the cultural misfit, Kori and Dick were meant for each other.
Dick cut her off, "I don't need this. I've said what I've said and it's the truth and if you don't believe me then it's your call." A forced sigh was heard, "Maybe we need a break from each other. Vic seemed to do a pretty good job before; nothing was too bad." Garfield didn't understand what he was getting at, but at the silence that Kori was emanating she either understood completely and was shocked into silence or she was still digesting the information just like he was, "I'm going."
That did it.
Garfield knew what Dick was getting at.
And he was pretty sure that she knew too; it was silent, but he knew it was one of shock and not of slow-mindedness.
It didn't make sense, Dick did not just give up and go…no…Dick always stayed and did the best he could…Dick never left his obligations—his responsibilities…his duties!—for something as petty as this.
Then again, it wasn't really petty—well, OK, the reason was petty enough that it seemed pathetic but still—it must've impacted both of them quite a bit. It must've! They had, after all, been dating since Japan, since their teen years and they had never, ever—at least not in his hearing anyway—argued like this, they had never separated from each other, never taken a break from their relationship. But now…now…
…Dick was going back to Gotham and for God knows how long this time.
He was no shrink—he didn't think he'd be smart enough or stupid enough to be a shrink—but he knew his friends well enough that he knew that seeing Dick's absence as just a mere hurdle. It would impact them one by one and like dominos they would fall. Oh, he was sure that Kori would take it the hardest but he also knew that everyone else would feel the strain of it; Vic would feel the strain of leadership and authority, Gar would feel the strain of friendship ties and brotherly bonds and Raven…God…Raven…
His eyes widened at the revelation that he had just worked out in his head.
Raven would feel everyone's strain and carry it as her own.
Damn those empathic powers!
Suddenly the door slid open to reveal a very pissed off looking Dick and everything about him just reeked of tension; his hands were clenched by his side so tightly that veins were literally popping out, the corners of his mouth pulled downwards uncomfortably and his scent was of an animal that had just gotten into a fight and lost. He took a swift look at Garfield—while Gar tried to look as casual and non-nosey as possible—and stopped; his crystal blue eyes hardening by the second.
"How long have you been standing there?" It was a single question but it sent shivers down his spine.
Garfield stepped back slowly, "What!? No…Dude, I would never listen to other people's private conversations. Me? No way…"
His lame excuse trailed off as Dick glared at him venomously. So, OK, it wasn't the best excuse in the world but it was still pretty believable right?
Dick's glare hardened even more and Garfield felt as if he would be better off being swallowed up by the ground right this minute.
Well, OK, it totally sucked.
Time for a different tactic, "Look, Dick, you can't really be serious bout goin' back to Gotham, can you?
"As serious as I can be, Gar." Dick sighed.
"No, dude, you and Kori can work it out. You don't need to go back to the Bats…you can't go back to the Bats." He screwed up his face in attempts to make him look more serious than his face let him, "What are we supposed to do without you, eh? The Titans don't work out well without you. What's Kori gonna do? Are you seriously gonna leave her like this?"
He shrugged and it almost looked casual if not for the tight knots in his shoulder, making them tense up quite threateningly, "The Titans will be fine without me, Vic's a good leader." There was no mention of Kori in that single sentence.
"I'm not sayin' that Vic isn't a good leader, Dick, but you're our leader, not Vic." He said lamely, knowing full well that none of this was getting to Dick, "And what about Kori? You didn't ask my question. She's goin' to be fuckin' miserable and you're goin' to leave her just like that? Dude, even I'm not that insensitive and I'm pretty much a screw up in that department."
A few tense moments passed between them, building already on the uneasy—but close—relationship they had with each other. Garfield found himself distracted by the rather quick beating of Dick's heart and he shifted uneasily, it was at these times that he found himself wishing he had normal human characteristics. Dick's dark brows furrowed briefly, causing waves of frown marks on his forehead and his dark—non-spiked; he had stopped spiking it as soon as he perceived himself as an adult and transformed into Nightwing—hair moved slightly downwards as the frown grew deeper. He took a whiff of the air and wrinkled his nose at the scent of distrust and anger and he found himself kinda—in a weird, really twisted way—in awe of the calm that Dick presented in his facial features and though some of the frustration escaped through the cracks, you really couldn't see by his face that he smelled really gross.
"If this is about Raven, then don't worry." He ignored the question about Kori again, "I'll keep everything under control, I promise."
Garfield gritted his teeth, wanting to protest that he couldn't possibly keep his emotions under check if his life depended on it. It wasn't a good idea to aggravate when he was in a good mood and it was even worse when he was in a bad one…way worse.
"This isn't about—" he paused, knowing that he'd be lying if he told Dick that this wasn't about Raven, it was partially about her but not fully, "Dude, we still need you to solve the fires. They've slowed, but they're still there." Another lame excuse for him to stay.
Garfield knew that Dick's mind was made up and nothing he said would change that. Kori would, but Dick was refusing to think about Kori and so there was nothing Gar could do about it. If there really was another girl then maybe even Kori would affect his decision, maybe whoever she was, was more important than Kori was, than the team was. But who would be such a person…?
"Dick, you don't really have another girl, do you?"
Silence greeted him but there was something about the silence that bothered him, it wasn't so much of a confirmation but…his expression was that of confusion and he smelt it too, "I…it's nothing like that, Gar. It's just a bit complicated." He shook his head sullenly, "Trust me on this, 'kay?"
There was something in that that made Garfield growl in distrust and though he had been completely keeping his cool for the last couple of minutes that he had been confronted by Dick, he felt that Dick's calm was infuriatingly unfeeling, even with all the emotions being smelt here and there. He knew he shouldn't feel so…bothered… about the situation, but he couldn't help it. Here, Dick was jeopardizing the team by leaving them for Gotham of all places! For some girl that he had an affair with while Kori had been worried sick about him! For something so petty that, really, it shouldn't affect them…but it did.
"Dude, you know what? You're bein' such a dick right now, it's not even funny." He ground his teeth together and felt his fangs conflicting with each other, "It's complicated? Trust me? That's all you can say? You're leaving your team mates…your friends…and that's all you can say? Man, I thought better of you when you were all weird and freaky and OCD bout Slade than I do now."
"Gar—"
Garfield cut him off before he could say anything that would disrupt his tirade, "Who the hell do you think you are!? So, OK, you're like the frickin' leader of the Teen Titans but you're not actin' like it. You're actin' like a kid with a frickin' tantrum, y'know that? I mean, yea, Raven might sympathise with you but that's coz you're in her frickin' head 24/7 and the rest of us aren't, OK? So we don't know what the fuck you're thinkin' and why the hell the world's second smartest detective would be leavin' us." He growled menacingly, "And do you know why? Because it's stupid, it's a stupid act and you know it."
The calm was still there and so was the smell of anger, but this time the scent of shock also accompanied his other bodily odours. It was so overpowering that Garfield felt like gagging, but he knew it wouldn't help if he was to stand his ground. Garfield was known to be melodramatic, but he didn't blow up a lot and this must've made Dick's complicated mind blank, as if he didn't know what to do with Garfield's outburst.
"As much as I appreciate your concern, Garfield, I'm still going to go." His voice was ice again, "I'll be seeing you in a few weeks."
And with that, Dick turned around and left, leaving a completely flabbergasted Garfield standing stock still while he watched his friend walk stiffly towards his own room. He couldn't believe it, Dick just did what Gar thought that he could never do; he just upped and left. Just like that, no hesitation, no ummmsss and aaaahhhss to change his mind, no thought for Kori. It was like his mind had been set that way from the moment the argument had started. All he had with Dick was respect and friendship and now he wasn't even sure if he had one or the other, or if both of them had vanished through his fingers.
Without a second thought on Dick, he turned and entered the study, curious and cautious to how Kori would be feeling, how she would look. The room looked horrible; there were scorch marks on the ground and on some of the furniture and there were also signs of struggle from the scattered papers around the room. If this wasn't caused by Kori, he would've totally found this hella funny.
But it wasn't.
Well it kinda was…
He suddenly spotted Kori.
…OK, no it wasn't.
"Kor?" He mumbled quietly, "Kor? Kori?" He was louder this time but she still didn't budge, "It's Gar."
This time she did move, if only a millimetre. Kori was kneeling lamely on the floor, her flaming red hair raggedly knotted, her hands in her lap and her skin had lost the golden sheen that it usually had…but that wasn't the worst, what was worse was her eyes. It was a cliché alright, but a precise one at that; her normally bright peridot eyes lost the awe and optimism that made it so mesmerising and instead her eyes drooped sadly at the corners and they weren't nearly as round as they usually were…these might seem petty to someone who didn't know her that well but Gar had known her for a long time and well, she was pretty much in shock.
He moved in closer, close enough to hear her murmur softly, "Gar?"
Even in this distressed state, she was beautiful, but in a way that was wrong. He wanted to make things right but he knew he couldn't, the only person that could make things right was Dick and he was off in God knows where.
"Yea, it's me Kor. You OK?" Stupid question, that was a totally stupid question.
"Where…where is Dick?" She choked and he saw that her cheeks were glistening prettily with tears, "I must…where is Dick, friend Garfield?"
He shook his head and knelt next to her, "I don't know Kor."
A shudder ran through her body and a sob escaped her lips. Her scent was strong but he didn't need to smell her to know that she felt angry, betrayed but then again, a little lost at the same time. He thought about doing The Face but thought better of it, even with his best jokes, he knew that she wouldn't laugh…he was probably right to say that Raven would laugh before Kori did in this state. That made him sad, he loved Kori to bits and would miss her laughter…it wasn't like she was gonna die but still…
"He is gone, is he not? He is gone." The last bit was a statement, not a question. Kori knew as well as he did that Dick's word was law.
He didn't answer and instead he let himself stretch out before he felt the strange sensations of fur growth, bone crunching and muscles adapting. He hissed and screeched as the process happened in as little as seconds but then finally mewed contently while moving his tail from side to side slowly. His whiskers touched her arms gently and he purred when she didn't respond. When she still didn't move, he nudged his nose at the crook of her arms and felt the warmth surge and concentrate at that one area. Finally, after what seemed like ages, she opened up her arms to let him sit on her lap and his purrs and mews encouraged her to stroke him, even if it was absently.
A tear dropped on his fur and he hissed shortly at the wetness of it, "He is gone…I cannot bear it. Gar, I do not know what I have done but…but he is gone…" She continued to mutter to herself, occasionally switching to Tamaranian, interrupted by fits of hiccups and sobs.
The cat mewed once again as he felt her fingers trace the skin of his back; this was the only way he knew how to comfort her and he hoped that she felt a little bit better because Garfield Mark Logan was no pro at fixing things.
He sucked at it.
A/N: So...howwas it? Did you like it? And do you REALLY think that Dick would cheat on Kori?
cheeky grin
Only I know the real answer to that!
teehee.
So thanks for reading and I hope to see you guys again real soon!
Ciao!