Bloodlust
Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based.
Warning: Lots of violence / Abbreviated lemon at the end
Sebastian and Inertia slam into the ground, unnatural black flames slowly dissipating from their limp forms.
Unconscious to start, Inertia lays utterly still, blood caking his face and an ugly burn covering one of his legs through his green jumpsuit.
Sebastian, on the other hand, forces himself to roll on his back with a grunt.
The flames having left her energy inside of him, his body refuses to knit its many burnt patches and tears back together. His blood slowly begins coalescing in the cracked cement beneath him.
With a flourish, he is quick to put himself back on his feet, eyes glowing the dark red of old blood.
"That was not bad," he says before spitting blood to the ground.
"I'm so glad you decided to get back up," Raven muses, her eyes glowing in her eagerness.
He pauses at that, his smirk faltering somewhat.
"Didn't think you took so much of your familial tendencies to heart, Rachel," he laughs.
Her eyes gain a hellish, red glow to them, and her own lips curve into a sneer.
"You wouldn't dare to see what I can be if I really aligned myself that way."
She walks towards him, her soul-self rising in black smoke around her fists.
"The reason I'm pleased with your persistence, Sebastian, is that you pointed something out about my skills. I really should keep up with my short range skills. And who better to have as a sparring partner than a vampire who, theoretically, will keep coming back for more?"
He pales at that, her darkening eyes sending a chill through him.
Just as he begins debating charging or retreating as his best option, she moves.
In a flash, her body is in front of his, and she whips her right fist forward.
As the momentum collides with his jaw, her soul-self snaps out to follow the path.
Even as he begins moving backward from her fist's impact, the power slams down, and he grunts as several teeth are knocked completely free.
As he begins heading for the ground, she steps forward and sends a kick into his ribs, in the exact spot he'd hurt her.
More of her psychic power formed between her limb and the vampire's body.
This time, it explodes in a cloud of black sparks and ugly, acrid smoke on the top of her foot.
His pain is more audibly marked this time, his body going limp on the ground as pain wracks his chest.
Jinx watches on, both impressed and terrified of the display at the same time.
"That's not very fair, hero," he coughs. "Killing and maiming is our deal!"
"You talk still, so I clearly haven't crossed lines," Raven reasons, her voice coming out in a hiss.
"Villain or not, isn't your team of vigilantes always under close watch? Wonder what'll happen when someone in these buildings sees you calling down those oh, so dangerous powers of yours."
His grin cannot hide his pain, but he smirks nonetheless.
Raven stares with her glowing eyes straight ahead, making him think he has gained an upper hand over the demonling.
"You know nothing of my powers, vampire," she states just as he begins rising.
Snorting, he begins hobbling away, not seeing the grin that carves its way onto her face.
"You should know from father dearest what kind of skill we have at smear jobs. Consider yourself lucky I'm tactically retreating until I figure out just why in the 7th circle I'm not healing."
Raven silently moves towards the retreating figure, a pain in her skull going unnoticed as she approaches like wrath incarnate.
Jinx, however, has no such distraction.
Which is why, when her girlfriend's eyes suddenly become pure, blood-red, and a second pair rips its way into existence above them, she begins duly panicking.
The shadows on the street become alive as Raven's cloak flows in an unfelt wind, billowing around her and seeming to grow.
Dark tendrils begin slithering along the ground around her, seeming to originate in the cloak itself.
With vicious speed, the tendrils lash out and slam into Sebastian's ankle, sending him sprawling to the ground with a moan of pain.
Jinx's stomach turns at the sight of the odd angle of his ankle as he lands, terror wrapping around her brain in a primal warning.
Raven reaches the fallen vampire, her grin becoming even larger.
"You're correct, Brother Blood, I most certainly should not be doing what I'm doing. Attacking a weakened opponent while his back is turned is the least of my PR nightmares… But do you want to know a little secret?" she asks, stooping down near his head and forcing their eyes to lock.
Her eyes glow menacingly in the shadows her hood casts, her body darkened to the point of seeming like an abyss unto itself.
Images of his body being devoured flitter through the vampire's mind, and he begins gasping as panic speeds his heart up.
"Dr. Light taught me a lesson over the years. If I don't make you criminals understand the consequences of your actions, more than a posh little cell with fellows also dedicated to being nuisances, you will simply return to harm innocents."
A twinge of warning runs through Raven's mind, going ignored in the red haze covering her.
"With the Titans, or most hero organizations, such actions are rather important. But for me, this little outing has informed me of something."
"Wh-What?" he gasps, morbid curiosity talking for him.
"There is a limit to my tolerance for allowing repeat injuries," she replies, her voice beginning to get deeper with every word. "If we had not shown up, what would you have done with your mind-puppet? Robbed a bank? Gone on a killing spree? Attempted to use the goblet in some ritual to repeat the past mistakes of your cult? This is a limit I will happily break, to stop you from hurting innocents more."
At this, Sebastian's body vibrates with laughter, spit hitting her face as he does.
"We hurt no innocents! We hurt you, and you, Ms. Hellion, are certainly no one's idea of innocent! Your origins make you worse by nature than I could ever be!" he laughs.
Raven's eyes flare with power, and his amusement vanishes when a shadowy tendril wraps tightly around the middle of his undamaged leg, squeezing hard.
With a snap, his femur gives, a scream echoing in the air as he desperately rolls around, clutching at the damage.
The sound reaches through the fog of her rage and pulls something free.
Her consciousness returning, Raven tastes the emotions on the air. The absolute terror from the cultist doesn't bother her all that much.
The fear, worry, and growing anger coming from Jinx, however, is a painful cocktail which snaps her mind back into focus.
The red haze around her vision vanishes in a blink, and she falls to her feet on the ground.
The tentacles vanish in wisps of oily smoke, and her eyes return to their normal color.
"We will have words about what relaxed control means and does not mean, Rage. After I clean up your mess," she mentally swears, hearing a growl in response.
Her hands gain a blue glow, and she points at the vampire, watching as his broken legs slowly right themselves.
"I think I've established now how greatly your arrogance was misplaced, Sebastian."
He flinches at her words, and she decides to use her immense screw-up for at least some benefit.
"You're going to answer me, now. Where did you get your hands on the goblet?"
Something in his expression hardens as he stares up at her, his mouth opening to answer.
Something shifts in the air, and Raven's eyes snap up as the blur of Inertia makes itself known.
He reaches her with his fist raised out, almost snapping her neck as he hits her.
Grunting, Raven dances away from his continued attacks, her freshly healed wounds screaming at her.
The speedster gives her no time to counter him, never more than a second between each of his strikes and the target constantly changing.
Jinx violently shakes her head, forcing herself out of her stupor.
"We are having words," she mentally snarls. "The fuck'd I get myself into here?"
Seeing the goblet gleaming in the distance, flung away from the vampire in the struggle.
Pushing into action, she rushes past him and dives for the goblet, coming out of her roll with the object white-knuckled in her hand.
"Raven! Extraction, now!" she screams.
A bubble of soul-self forms around the empath, and Inertia is thrown far through the air when it violently expands.
In the next second, Raven's arm is around the meta and another bubble is surrounding them.
A moment later, the two fall gasping onto the floor of Jinx's apartment.
Slowly, Jinx sits up, glaring at the goblet in her hand before throwing it away in irritation.
"Well that didn't quite go to plan."
Under other circumstances, Raven would have laughed at the purposeful understatement.
At the moment, though, her possible soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend has no humor in her expression, eyes narrowed on the demonling.
"'Kay, couple little things I need to ask. You understand, I'm sure. Let's start with the easy stuff-"
"Jinx-"
"How about the whole torturer from the Circles bit. Care to share?"
Raven winces, slowly sitting up while pressing her hand to her forehead.
"Look, it ain't like I've got a moral high ground here, with the shit I saw with the Squad, or even what I've personally done since joining the D.M.A., but you scared the shit out of me out there. We've known each other for almost seven damn years. More than three months of that getting to know each other well, I'd like to think, and even fighting together. Not once have I seen you lose your shit like that," she states, her tone gradually becoming softer.
"Scared you, huh?" the psychic responds with a bitter laugh. "Something would be very wrong with you if you weren't scared. I'd like to say that it was all for the purpose of getting information from him, but I'm not that good a liar and you deserve far more credit than that…"
"So what in the hell?" Jinx responds, shocked at the sight of tears glimmering in the woman's eyes.
Raven takes a deep breath, meeting Jinx's gaze with determination.
"There are things about me, which will need to be aired if we continue. Partners, friends, girlfriends, lovers, it will eventually be a long discussion… But there is a right way of going about it, and in the heat of something like that is not the right time."
Jinx's eyes narrow, and Raven leans forward, grabbing her shoulders, only vaguely aware of the tremors working their way through her grasp.
"I'm not trying to avoid things. To properly explain what all of… that… was, I need to better grasp it myself. I have not lost control like that in a very long time… I would tell you I have no intention of letting such a slip-up happen ever again, but such a promise could not possibly be something I could make. I... I understand if this is enough to frighten you off," she adds, refusing to meet her eyes.
Jinx stares at the woman, the idea of suddenly cutting contact with her causing an inexplicable pain to shoot through her.
"Rae… Just talk to me. You don't need to explain everything until you're ready," she quickly adds to the woman's terrified expression, "but I need something. Out there… that was not the sweet and funny Raven that I asked out. I need to know if something's going wrong… Is it the artifacts in Nevermore?"
"It is, undoubtedly, in part due to them," Raven sighs.
She takes a hold of Jinx's hand, the meta shocked at the tremors running through her appendage.
"As I said, there are things about me you don't know. The items have made those things more volatile, and because of them, I lost control in the face of one of the few people in existence I can say I actually hate. Another aspect, surely, is that your line of work, which I've become more accustomed to working under since we began working together, affords more freedom in dealing with people like Sebastian."
Jinx tightens her hold on Raven's hand, making the psychic meet her gaze.
"If you'd just said you prefer the limitations set on how I can handle people over how you can as a Titan, I would've at least been prepared. But it came out of nowhere. One minute, we're just looking around, and the next, you go full sociopath on two guys who were just walkin' down the street. Sure, we knew they had the goblet, but that's a long way from suddenly throwing down with 'em. I mean, I get that you two know each other and do not get along, but that's a far way away from what you were almost doing."
Raven's internal battle is obvious, Jinx soothingly rubbing circles in the tops of her hands as she thinks.
"She isn't running screaming, or reviling me. Her handling of this is far better than others would be. She deserves answers," Raven muses, the image of a stone table taking up her mind.
"She's earned your trust," one of the figures pictured at the table adds. "If that had been one of the Titans with you, or any of the League members of repute, we would be unconscious or dead right now."
"The woman is willing to accept you enough to give you a fair chance to justify Rage's actions," yet another of the figures adds.
Nodding, Raven comes awake from her pseudo-trance, meeting Jinx's eyes unflinchingly.
"There is a reason I keep such close monitoring on the Church of Blood," she starts.
"Okay, that's a good place to start. Where the hell'd he get the idea you're married?"
"A few days into his role as the new Brother Blood, he got the idea into his head that my power would be useful to their goals. A prophecy apparently says I would become his wife and Armageddon would be a direct result. He believes that he can… sire a power great enough to affirm the Church's beliefs on the whole of the Earth. Whether I would ever agree to it or not."
Jinx pales at that, a lot of Raven's reaction making much more sense suddenly.
"Yeah, that's a pretty good reason to lose your shit."
"Holy shit. Okay… um… am I terrible for being glad I only met the creepy puppeteer old man, way past his urges? Wait, didn't you say you hadn't met before?"
"He sent some Church members to abduct me one night. I was shot with a tranquilizer. As you understand, such things don't work on me, but there was something mixed in that made it work. I still don't know what it was, but it worked, at least temporarily."
"They could've killed you mixing shit in," Jinx gasps.
"Either is a victorious conclusion for them. Not helping their cause is actively going against it, and all that, barring the fact that I am actively against them. Several men grabbed me up and gagged me while I was hazy. They had, unfortunately, used plastic zip strips to bind me. Strong on their own right, but against my power, barely a second's distraction."
"So the, uh… coronation present you mentioned...?"
"I freed myself and cast an illusion on them. They gave up all the information of his ambitions I just mentioned, but unfortunately their minds did not handle the strain. I decided to anonymously send them to Gotham, where they have a central base, as a message on what I thought of his plans."
"Okay, yeah, your reaction was pretty understandable," Jinx agrees.
"I should not have lost control as I did… though I will admit, even with the force driving it gone, I do not disparage against the freedoms of dealing with criminals your line of work affords you. I think at the very least, he'll be reconsidering doing business in a sizable range from my territory now."
Jinx smiles at that, the tension slowly fading from the women.
Accepting a promise for an explanation, and feeling as though she may not want the answers anyway, she decides that they both need relaxation.
"Think Giz'll be pissed when he finds out that nothing mentioned that guy… Inertia?"
"Blood had him under his psychokinesis. He may have just been committing petty theft or running an errand and had the misfortune of running into him."
"Something I don't wish on anyone," Jinx muses, dark memories rising unbidden to her gaze.
Seeing it, Raven pulls her into her arms, the meta pressing her head into her shoulder.
"Even with my screw up, there is one thing positive to come out of it all," Raven muses.
"Oh? What's that? We've confirmed that we need to work on communication only a month into dating?"
"Good to know those things quickly," Raven agrees. "But no."
Grinning, she points at the cup, looking very out of place on the worn carpeting.
"We just managed to keep the Church of Blood from getting another magic artifact."
At that, Jinx laughs, the bad mood vanishing under at least a temporary blanket of elation.
Unspent adrenaline rushes through the women, and before they're aware they find themselves on Jinx's bed, lips seeming welded together.
Gasps fill the air as the two press together, Raven's eyes slamming closed as Jinx pulls away only to suck hard on her neck, directly on the pulse point.
The adrenaline slowly begins working its way out of them, their kisses slowing and becoming deeper.
Raven doesn't realize her hand has moved until Jinx arcs into her palm with a gasp.
Looking down, her face turns red at finding her hand pressed firmly into the woman's breast.
Sensing her hesitation, Jinx gently grabs the back of her neck and tilts her head, pressing another kiss to her that drains them of air.
"If you're worried about something happening, we can stop," she offers, shocking Raven.
"It's not me who should be worried, Jinx. Although what fueled my actions before and now are separate… I will not hold it against you if you would prefer a situation that's less… terrifying… to do this."
"You kiddin'? We both need to unwind, and I think this would be a pretty good way to do that. I ain't exactly the take things slow type, y'know? Still, though, I gotta' ask. If you were angry while doing that, does that mean I have to get you angry to hear you growl for me? 'Cause I kinda' can't get the thought outta' my head now," Jinx purrs, gently licking the shell of her ear.
"I'm going to make talking unnecessary now, before I question your sanity," Raven remarks.
Before Jinx's witty remark forms, the psychic grabs her and rolls, putting herself on top of the meta. Her lips crash down hard on the woman's as her hand begins gradually brushing the hem of her shirt upward.
It doesn't take long before the two dissolve into liquid pleasure, their minds quickly forgetting the horrors of the day in favor of much more enjoyable memories made…
**********************
Author's Notes:
Have I mentioned Sebastian is creepy? Because I'll reiterate. That story Raven tells? That's a thing he does in the comics, if it went the other way and they don't manage to kidnap her.
I decided to keep the sexiness short, because this site doesn't allow for MA-rated elements. I'll find someplace to upload a full scene, should it be requested enough that I write it.
So, am I being too OOC with the characters? I'm basically taking a lot of traits from the various Raven incarnations over the years and trying to make them work in the context of the cartoon's universe. Don't know how well it's working. But you do. You, yes you, and you can feel free to inform me of how well it's working, the characters and story thus far both, which would be greatly appreciated.
And the above is what happens when I write until it's 8AM the next day, folks. Not recommended. See you next time!