Chapter 12
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Raven was only given a few hours of relative normalcy before Depravity was at it again.
It started off slow. She could feel the darkness reawaken from its gratified slumber, the emotion growing slowly inside her mindscape. Within minutes she could feel the beginnings of a headache forming, and when noon came around she was already fighting to stay in control and keep calm. Inside of her Depravity was grating against Raven's other emotions, clashing with her more dominate personas of Bravery and Rage while oppressing her passive personalities, like Timid and Knowledge. Their arguing voices began to resonate within her tender skull, making it hard for her to control her powers.
The stove ignited while she was in the kitchen.
A sharp pain blazed behind her eyes and a potted plant in the hallway cracked and fell apart.
The entire contents of the medicine cabinet spilled out when she coughed in the bathroom.
The printer imploded when she passed by the conference room.
They were little things, considering, but they succeeded in making Raven nervous. Little things were predecessors to big things, and she was adamant on keeping the big things at bay.
To her disappointment Beast Boy was absent for nearly the entire morning. She figured he was still in the thralls of sleep, (he so rarely ever woke up before the afternoon), and even though she craved the calming affect of his presence she was unwilling to seek him out voluntarily. Her earlier conversation with Robin had her walking on eggshells, and she didn't want to tip his hand.
And that left Raven with nothing else to do but to sit in the main room in complete silence, her eyes closed and her cloak drawn around her as she tried her hardest to meditate. In the background she could hear Cyborg playing video games and Starfire eating at the table, and she used their white noise as her pathway to stillness.
So it was exceptionally aggravating when the alert went off in the Tower and Robin came striding into the room, ready for action. His aura of leadership was strong enough to make Raven wince, and she broke out of her meditative state, too bombarded by his determination to feel any sort of peace. Depravity immediately latched onto her thoughts of annoyance and twisted them into shameful things.
Stop him before he speaks, you know you want to, she hissed, her tone manipulative and sinister. Just raise your hand, a twist of the wrist, feel his windpipe crumble, silence him for a day…
Raven shook her head and stood up, anxious and unhappy. Spending her time with Beast Boy had satisfied the lusty and desired-filled side of Depravity, but the impulsivity, cruelty and degenerate actions she also thirsted for had gone unheeded. Raven breathed in deeply and concentrated harder.
If Beast Boy had become the target of her lust, then she didn't want the others to become the target of her other unmentionable compulsions.
"Fire at the nuclear power plant ten clicks north of the pier," Robin announced, whipping out his communicator. "Alert came from the fire department." Cyborg paused his game, opening the control dock in his arm and tapping furiously at the keys.
"A little over six miles away isn't far enough. If anything leaks-,"
"The currents will take it directly into the city," Starfire finished off, rising from her seat at the table and looking out the vast windows towards the coastline. "And if it is nuclear, then there is the possibility of the fallout." Robin nodded in agreement.
"Good news is that the fire is still small. Nothing fatal yet. But-,"
"Is anyone injured?" the alien asked, her expression foreboding. Robin shook his head.
"Not that I've heard. It's still a containable disaster, but with the sensitivity of the location the fire department doesn't want to take any chances."
"Starfire should probably stay behind," Cyborg suggested, getting up from the couch. "No offense Star, but your bolts are too dangerous to be around those kind of chemicals."
"That's perfect, actually," Robin agreed. "There's another alert about a vehicle heading out of the city that's possibly carrying contraband. It needs to be intercepted, quickly and carefully."
"I will go," Star said, determined.
"Better take BB with you," Cyborg suggested, snapping his control dock closed. "The guy seriously needs to wake up and do something productive. Not to mention how useful he is in a chase." Robin nodded, offering Starfire a smile of approval. A wave of understanding and affection emanated from the two, and Raven swayed on her feet, too full of her own emotions to feel theirs.
Petty feelings and you people are drowning in them. Rip them away, let it all bleed out.
"Sounds like a plan," Robin announced, his voice overpowering Depravity's. "Cyborg, Raven, and I will head to the plant while Starfire and Beast Boy take care of the smugglers."
"Let's go then," Raven said, wanting any excuse to separate Robin and Star before she involuntarily separated them herself. "The sooner we get going the sooner we cut the possibility of fatality. At both locations." The boys nodded and gathered around her, both of them breathing in deeply as she teleported them across the bay and to their hazardous destination.
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When Beast Boy and Starfire returned to the Tower they were both completely covered in mud. Some of Star's hair had been singed off and Beast Boy's right leg had a nasty looking burn on his calf, but they were fine for the most part. They tried their best to keep their mess minimal as they entered the Tower, but to no avail.
"Our friends will not be pleased with this," Starfire said, just as a huge glob of muck fell off her boot and onto the floor. She sighed at the offensive glob. "This is most unfortunate."
"At least they'll get to suffer this smell just like us," Beast Boy griped, trying to blink past his mud-caked bangs. "And we stopped the smugglers, so there's that."
"We also succeeded in dumping the entire vehicle into a very large and very muddy puddle," Starfire pointed out, distressed.
"Yeah, well…whatever." Beast Boy made a face, too unhappy with his current state of being to care very much about specifics. "I can't believe I woke up to do this."
"I am glad you did," Starfire offered, feebly shrugging. Beast Boy looked at her and couldn't help but smile at her attempt at optimism. "Even though it was you who pushed the vehicle into-,"
"Ah, right, let's just keep that between us, okay? No one…the others don't have to know that."
Starfire laughed. "I will not tell the others."
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"Woah! Steady it up there, Rae," Cyborg called out. Raven quickly adjusted her position in the air and splayed her fingers even farther, trying to focus her mind on the pipeline that she was in the process of levitating. "You all right?"
"Fine," she called back, pushing the steel pipe through the air and leveling it against the stone wall. She squinted her eyes as she tried to line it up properly, but her clogged mentality was messing with her concentration. "All set," she cried out, gritting her teeth to keep the pipe still. "You're good to weld."
"I'm working at a low setting, so this will take a few minutes," Cyborg told her.
"How long is a few?"
"Five to six for each end."
"Perfect," Raven grumbled, sweat dampening her brow. "Ready when you are." She glanced below as Cyborg aimed his cannon and then took the first shot, streaming a continual beam at the steel pipe. Metal began to melt and fuse the pipe into place, and Raven fought the pressure from Cyborg's cannon, forcing the steel to remain motionless.
She opened her mouth and heaved a breath. Her heart was racing, her blood pressure was rising, her vision was going in and out of focus. She wanted to drop the pipe or else rip it apart like tissue paper, but Cyborg was watching. And even though she couldn't see him, she knew Robin was watching too.
So she resigned to silently bracing herself and hiding her distress.
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He didn't want to go into the city.
It had taken a good hour and a half for Beast Boy to clean himself of the mud and the grime, and by the time he was done he was exhausted and hungry and very much wanting to sit in front of the television and finish the game Cyborg had left behind. But Starfire had said there was little food left in the kitchen, and so one of them needed to make a trip to the store.
Apparently, Starfire had already decided it was going to be Beast Boy.
"Do you really need it, Star? Think about it for a minute. I want to make sure that leaving this Tower will be worth it, because honestly, I really don't want to."
"Yes, Beast Boy. If no one is going to partake in my traditional Tamaranean dishes, then I must prepare something everyone can enjoy. Unfortunately, the ingredients we have left here will not make a complete meal, so I require more."
"But I'm not picky! Just, you know, as long as it's vegan-friendly."
"We have nothing left that is of vegan friendliness."
"Well all right, fine. I'm okay with that. And I'm pretty sure the others would be perfectly satisfied with whatever we already have."
"I may have made the understatement to what we already have."
"What do you mean?"
"We are nearly completely out of food."
"Ah."
"I think there is a tub of yogurt in the fridge."
"Awesome."
"Oh, I am mistaken. It is not a whole tub. It is only half."
"Still fantastic."
"Oh dear. Beast Boy, I think this is old milk."
"Okay, that's disgusting."
"So you will go to the store then?"
"Why do I have to be the one to go?"
"Because one of us must stay here in case there is an alert. Protocol, Beast Boy."
"So why did we decide you would be the one to stay and I would be the one running errands? I don't remember volunteering."
"You must go because you are a very sweet gentleman and it took me much longer to wash my hair than it did for you. And because I asked you politely, and because you are my very good friend. And because I have promised not to tell the others about what happened today. With the mud. When you changed into a mammoth and got frightened by the smugglers gunshot and went on the rampage that knocked the van off the road and into the mud pit where the policemen cannot retrieve the stolen goods."
"…"
"Thank you, Beast Boy!"
"I regret telling you what 'blackmail' is."
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"We need to write out that report for city hall," Robin said the moment the trio had teleported back into the Tower. Raven had deposited them in the garage, at Cyborg's request, and he had broke from the group immediately, heading for his workstation. "So they can upgrade their systems at the plant. The supervisor will be sending us his file in the next fifteen minutes, and the zoning office is going to need the documents in less than three hours."
"When did being a superhero require so much paperwork?" Cyborg complained, grabbing one of his pinpoint lasers and shifting his arm back to his sonic cannon. "Because seriously, writing a report wasn't why I signed up for this."
"I know," Robin agreed, rubbing at his forehead. "But we were the ones who actually inspected the pipeline and repaired it, so of course we'd have to make the report."
"Well, if you want me to do it then it's going to have to wait," Cyborg said, shaking his head and squinting at his cannon. "I had to do some quick reconfiguring to change my sonic blaster into a freaking welding machine, so my energy conversion is out of sync right now." He frowned visibly. "Melting steel and fighting supervillians require different energies, you know."
Robin sighed. "Yeah, I know." He glanced sidelong at Raven. "Could you help me write the report then? It needs to get done right away, and I doubt three hours is going to be ample time with just one person."
She really didn't want to. Chemical to metal comparisons weren't her forte, and Robin's voice was getting increasingly irritating. She felt like drilling a hole in her temple and dumping the entire contents of her brain out on the floor.
Drag him into the field and see how loud the songbird can cry. Take his words and curl them into your darkness. Break the cyborg; scatter his parts across the room. Build them a monster, and let them be destroyed…
An entire shelf of engine parts collapsed off the wall, dumping brass, iron, and steel onto the floor. Cyborg cried out and jumped away from his worktable in surprise. Robin turned his head sharply, his hand automatically hovering to the discs on his belt.
"What the hell?" Cyborg exclaimed, staring at the mess in utter shock. Raven clasped her hands together tightly, frantic to find her composure. "Wow. That was weird. Didn't know I overloaded that shelf."
"Yeah," Robin murmured, and Raven kept her head bowed, avoiding the stare she knew he was giving her. "Weird."
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Beast Boy waited for the elevator in the main entryway, his hands laden with canvas bags brimming with groceries. Starfire's list had been extensive, and shopping for five people on his own had been a battle unto itself. He dropped five of his bags on the floor, shaking out his hand and checking his communicator for the time.
It was nearly six.
He had woken up so late, but the day seemed to have lasted forever.
He wondered how Raven was doing.
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The elevator ride with Robin was incredibly awkward. Instead of the silence being a welcome comfort for her, Raven found it to be laden with judgment and scrutiny. He didn't look at her once, but his skepticism was like a pulsating wave. Usually Robin's intensity was like jet fuel for her, giving her energy. Now it felt more like arsenic.
She gripped the inside of her cloak, eyes closed. She felt the lift stutter to a stop and heard the doors slide open.
"Oh. Hey Beast Boy," Robin said, and Raven's eyes snapped open.
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"Hey," the changeling replied, perking up when the elevator doors opened. His eyes immediately looked past Robin, to where Raven was leaning against the back wall. She looked up when he spoke and they locked eyes.
He smiled at her.
She just nodded.
"Grocery shopping?" Robin asked, reaching out to help with the bags. Beast Boy nodded gratefully, stepping onto the lift and letting the doors close behind him.
"Star's request. We were running low on supplies."
"That was nice of you. She messaged me about the mission. Heard it was a rough run, although it ended in relative success. I figured you'd be too tired to run errands, especially on your own."
"Well, you know me. I'm a sucker for the ladies." He shrugged nonchalantly. Robin rolled his eyes, unable to stop the grin that crossed his face.
"Right. Sure you are." Beast Boy watched as he glanced over at Raven, his grin suddenly and instantaneously looking plastered on. "Are you okay?" he asked. She nodded pointedly and shrugged, and Beast Boy noticed how hard she was trying to appear normal.
"Light-headed from the plant. I just need some caffeine in my system."
"You sure?"
"Yes."
"All right." Robin turned back around, directing his attention to his communicator. An uncomfortable silence filled the elevator then, and Beast Boy felt himself get anxious from it. He wanted to ask Raven what was wrong, but he had a feeling that any unprecedented intimacy between them wouldn't be in either of their best interests.
When they reached the floor of the main room Robin strode out purposefully, slinging the bags over one shoulder while he continued to scrutinize the screen of his comm. He trekked down the hallway like he always did, his steel-toed boots making a dull thud on the floor. Beast Boy hung back, holding open the doors for Raven to slowly pass through. She seemed heavy on her feet; a trait she had never been guilty of before.
"You're not okay," he said to her, letting the elevator close. He walked at her side, noticing how slow her pace was.
"I had trouble concentrating today," Raven replied quietly. "Pressure's already building." Beast Boy frowned.
"Already?"
"Yes." She glanced down the hall at their distant leader and recoiled farther beneath her hood. "Robin can tell. And he doesn't like it."
"Of course he wouldn't. He's worried about you. I'm worried about you."
"He talked to me this morning."
"About?"
"My uncharacteristic behavior."
"Did you…did you tell him?"
"Of course not," she hissed, quietly outraged. "I would never, ever talk about something so personal and-,"
"I didn't mean that, you perv," he said, poking her shoulder. Raven glared at him but he waved her agitation off. "I meant the parts that concern your powers and your emotions. You didn't tell him that you're possibly unstable?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Why would I?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. You just never keep secrets from Robin. You tell him everything." She stopped walking, frowning at him.
"I do not," she said, sounding defensive. He stopped as well, adjusting the canvas bags in his hands.
"Yes, you do," he told her, frowning at the weird way she was looking at him. "You always have." She looked dumbfounded at that, her gaze drifting down to the floor. "Rae?" he prompted, craning his neck to catch her eyes. "What's wrong?"
"I didn't tell him," she said. "I could have. This morning. But I didn't. I couldn't. This isn't…." She trailed off and looked directly at him. "This isn't something I can tell him about, Gar."
She didn't sound sad or scared or worried or regretful. She didn't sound surprised by her own actions or ashamed of them either. She sounded completely and utterly detached from the situation, and even though he was used to Raven's aloof approach to most things, this was different.
"Okay," he said, nodding.
"This isn't something I can tell any of them."
"Okay. Yeah, I know. You're right." They stared at each other, silent, unmoving. And then, in beautiful synchronization, they both began to walk again. She didn't need to explain anything to him. He understood.
Because it wasn't about revealing the newfound intimacy between them.
It was about her reluctance to reveal yet another fault in herself; another weakness in the way she was.
"So how was the mission?" he asked, shifting the bags in his arms and reverting the conversation back to the 'now'. "Difficult?"
"It was tolerable," she answered sullenly. "But it's slowly becoming less so."
"Then rest."
"Can't. Robin needs help filing a report."
"Tell him you'll help later. Or I'll do it in your place. You need to meditate or take an aspirin or whatever you need to do to-,"
"No. I was the one on the mission so I need to be the one who files the report."
"What does it matter as long as it gets done?"
"I can't let this get in the way of my duties," she said, pushing her hair from her face. "I have to prove to the team that I'm capable of being a hero, despite the setbacks I was born with."
Beast Boy hung his head. "You don't have to prove anything to any of us."
"Just because that sounds like the right thing to say doesn't make it true," she said offhandedly. She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Tonight," she sighed. "I can fix this tonight. With you." She paused. "If you're willing."
"Of course I am," he said with absolutely no hesitation. "But will you be okay until then?"
They reached the main room doors and they automatically slid open with a sigh of moving air. The rush blew back Raven's hood, exposing her grim features and the tense way she was clenching her jaw. Her skin looked pale, her eyes looked wild, and her chest heaved despite the leisure of their walk. A thin veil of sweat glistened along her hairline, and she stood as if she were ready to keel over.
"I'll manage," she said. But she didn't look like she was managing.
Beast Boy thought a moment, an idea sparking, and then swiftly set down his canvas bags.
He didn't really think it would work—he didn't fully understand the mechanics of his part in all of it—but maybe he could give Raven something for a momentary release.
Just a crack in the mountainside, enough to ventilate the ash and heat of her emotions.
Just a stolen moment, before everything came surging outward in a volcanic eruption of telekinetic turmoil.
Before she could walk in, Beast Boy reached out and held her arm, stopping her. She stared at him, and when the doors glided closed again he pulled her back, firmly pressing his mouth down to hers.
They had shared so many kisses in the past few days that he had wondered when the time would come that the simple act would cease to be completely thrilling.
Because it didn't seem to be happening any time soon.
A part of him savored in the sheer enjoyment of being able to kiss her in broad daylight, in the middle of the hallway, and just a few yards from their teammates; but another part of him made sure the kiss meant something, that it was passionate enough that her emotions could use it as an out and Raven's congested psyche could find some room to breathe.
She was surprised at the sudden action, her body going limp in his hold. He held her around the waist to keep her standing, his arms wrapping her possessively. He lingered a little longer than he thought was prudent; he didn't know if Robin or Starfire would come bounding into the hallway looking for them, and he didn't really want to risk it. But she felt so genuinely good in his arms that he couldn't resist prolonging it for a second longer.
Because in that extra second, Raven felt like she was his.
A horrendously soppy notion, to be sure, but Beast Boy had always been a fan of the soppy. And the cheesy.
There was a cracking noise from somewhere in the corridor, followed by the definitive sound of a light bulb shattering. Raven's chest hitched and she hummed a little against his mouth.
When he finally pulled away he did so slowly, exhaling against her face, his eyes just barely opening. At the back of his mind he vaguely wished he could do this sort of thing more often.
"Does that help-," he started to ask, but was abruptly cut off by her mouth once more.
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She tugged and pulled at him, dragging him a little down the hallway yet still trying to keep her lips in constant contact with his. She hauled him around the nearest corner, a good ways away from the main room, and clutched his head in her hands, rising on her toes to fully claim him. He groaned in undeniable delight and Raven's body shivered. There was another cracking sound, another light bulb shattered, and a vent above their heads dented itself.
She wondered how his touch was still so electric, even after the hundreds of times he had pressed his skin against hers.
When she broke the contact she did so with a gasp, her heels dropping heavily onto the floor as she gazed up at him. He looked flushed and glassy-eyed and very much turned-on by her aggressive response, and for the first time Raven wanted to throw privacy out the window and give herself to him right then and there. And she couldn't be certain that such a thought completely belonged to Depravity alone.
The dented vent above them folded into itself, the metal shrieking its protest. They both moved aside as one as it dropped to the floor and warped.
"Come to my room tonight, after everyone's gone to sleep," she whispered, laying her hands against his chest. A pounding heartbeat thumped beneath her palms. All of Beast Boy's yearning flowed through her hands and mixed with her own itching desire. It both fed Depravity and appeased her, and in that contradictory compromise Raven felt her headache lift. Not a lot, but enough. Enough for a few hours. Enough that she could feign proficiency.
"Okay," he said, trying to mask the enthusiasm in his voice. He gripped her elbows in a mixed action of reassurance and need. She made herself push his hands away, drawing her hood back over her hair.
"Let's go. I don't want Robin asking anymore questions." She headed back towards the main room with determined strides, Beast Boy following sporadically behind her.
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Although writing the report with Robin had been a challenge of its own accord, (the Boy Wonder could be singularly irritating when his overly analytical mind was turning a short report into a seventeen page dissertation), Raven was still not ready to meet with Beast Boy by the time they finished. She still had energy to spare, but using her failsafe room for a second night in a row would throw up too many red flags.
So, when Robin had left to send the report to city hall, Raven had promptly teleported thirty-five miles out into the middle of the ocean. Not too far that she couldn't get back to the Tower when running on zero, but far enough that the team wouldn't notice anything unnatural.
Like an unprecedented shockwave.
And the tsunami that would evolve in its wake.
All it took was a good minute to gather her energy, building it in her chakra core with fierce concentration, and then releasing it with absolute abandon to the west, against the wind currents that would fight against it and nuke the reaction. It used to be hard for her to do such a thing, to let go and allow energy to surge forth from her soul self, but she had learned.
There was that moment of numb silence, when the sound barrier broke, and then the resonating boom as the water around her hovering figure was forcibly displaced. The rush of power leaving her was bone chilling, and her body shuddered violently.
In her mind Depravity chuckled.
Not quite, she hummed. Almost, but not quite.
Raven ground her teeth together, hating that she was right. There was still power left in her; too much to risk if she was going to be spending the night with Beast Boy.
She flexed her fingers and started again, all the while ignoring the searing cries from her ruptured soul.
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Beast Boy waited till midnight before he left his room. He was far too nervous to leave a second earlier, even though the Tower had gone dark over an hour before the clock struck twelve. Still, Beast Boy waited, wanting to make sure there could be no chance of running into anyone on his way to Raven's room.
When he did finally emerge he hurried through the halls to her door, skidding to a halt outside the metal and forcing himself to knock calmly. There was a miniscule pause that felt like an eternity, and then the door slid away to reveal his unspoken paramour, still fully clad in her uniform, the fabric giving off a strong musk of sea salt. His gut twisted at the sight of her and he realized he was short of breath.
He moved to cross the threshold, her head tilted to the side just a bit, and the scarce light in her room fell over her left eye. Beast Boy's mouth fell open and he pushed her farther towards the light, sliding the door closed behind him.
"What are you doing-," she started to protest, but he cut her off. His hands cupped her face and gently but purposefully tilted it upward. "There's no need to be so rough," she said in a deadpan tone. She started to rise on her toes to kiss him but he held her fast, shaking his head.
"Raven…Raven what happened to you?"
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He was looking at her with such a horrified expression that it made her skin crawl. She twisted out of his grasp and backed away, suddenly self-conscious.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"How did that happen? Did you just come back from a fight?"
"No. Why?"
"Wh—you can't feel it?" He grabbed her shoulders, pushing her towards the mirror. She didn't appreciate his rough handling of her, and she shoved his hands away before looking at her own face. "Rae, look!"
She did. And she understood his immediate alarm.
The team wasn't unfamiliar with burst blood vessels, especially with as many blows as they took to the face; but Raven's eye looked ghastly. She had felt the pain there, but she had chocked it up to something trivial. She hadn't realized that her shockwaves had burst almost every vessel in her left eye, leaving it to be nothing but a blanket of blood red where it should have been white.
"I hadn't realized," she said offhandedly, faking indifference. She laid her hand over her face and closed her eyes, concentrating. She mumbled her mantra under her breath, digging in a supernatural well that she had forced to run dry.
"What are you doing?"
"Healing it."
"I thought…. I thought you called me here because-,"
"I did."
"Then shouldn't you be empty?"
"I am." She breathed deeply. "Now please, be quiet. This'll be hard." She went back to reciting her mantra, focusing, concentrating, directing whatever remnants of power was in her body to fix her vessels. There was only the smallest response, the minutest amount that came to her aid. She took it in a mental death grip and brought it to her eye, healing herself.
It was agony on her soul, but she could feel the fibers mending and the tissue regenerate. It was slow, but it was working.
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Beast Boy really had no choice but to let her finish. When she did she let out a choked gasp and dropped to her knees, her head lolling back limply. He quickly swooped in, gathering her in his arms and easily carrying her to the bed. He laid her down, unclasped her cloak and sat down next to her, letting her breathe.
He felt like he should have said something, but nothing came to his mind. His fingertips touched the inside of her wrist, and he was surprised to find her pulse thundering against the thin layer of skin.
"Keep doing that," she muttered, her free hand rubbing at her closed eyes. "It helps." He continued to caress her skin, watching as she accepted the action. He gently lifted her arm in his hands, bending low and experimentally touching his lips to it. Her breath hitched—a reaction that was repeatedly pleasing to hear—and she reached for him, desperate. She tugged and he obliged, lying down so she could fit her body to his like they had done so many times before.
"Rae, we can't just ignore what happened," he heard himself say, even though he had no problem reaching around her to unzip her uniform. "If getting to this point every night requires something like-,"
"It doesn't," she said confidently, although he couldn't be sure she wasn't lying. "But I don't want to discuss that right now," and she sidled up against him, letting him tug her sleeve off her shoulder. "Right now I want you, so you better take advantage of that." He looked her in the eye and she dragged him on top of her.
"Tonight it's you?" he asked, distracted by her whispers and caresses. He couldn't hide the eagerness that made its way into his tone, and he couldn't deny that the way she was looking at him was incredibly enticing. She nodded and unbuckled her belt, and Beast Boy was once again manipulated into silence.
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It was completely different when Raven wanted it. The night before she had been so self-conscious and nervous and worried that the sensations were lost to her. She had felt embarrassed and shameful of her body and of her actions, and the only thing that had comforted her had been Beast Boy himself.
But when she wanted it Beast Boy's presence became more than just a comfort. He became the anchor for her senses, the only thing preventing her from rising too high. Their bodies matched in perfect rhythm, their breath matched in a perfect melody. Her skin was so much more responsive to his, and it drummed in her a steady beat of lust. Sweat formed between their bodies, and it glistened on his chest and dotted the skin near his ears.
She was aware of how gentle he was with her, how he always found a way to run his fingers through her hair or breathe the scent of her skin. When she looked up into his face she was astounded with how much he had changed over the years, yet there was still the definitive look that told her he was still the same Beast Boy. She realized that she had grown fond of his face, of the way it so readily expressed every thought he had or every emotion he experienced. She used to envy his easy way of expression, used to deplore how simple it was for him to laugh or frown, to be surprised or disappointed. Now she relished it, fully appreciating how delighted she was making him.
She rolled on top of him and bent low against his neck, inhaling his musk and coaxing from him throaty groans.
Easy, easy, easy, Depravity cooed in her skull. So obliviously easy. Soon it will be easy enough to crumble.
Raven squeezed Beast Boy's shoulders, pulling a sharp hiss from him as she took him deeper into her core. She closed her eyes and let the ambiance take over her body to keep from getting angry.
Depravity could chant whatever callously cryptic intonations she wanted, so long as she kept her place and left Beast Boy alone.
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"I can't always wait for the night," she said, staring at her ceiling. "This arrangement won't work. Not the way it is now."
They were lying next to each other, in her bed, in a rare moment of peace after their union. Raven lay on her back, her hair gathered to one side of her head and the sheets tucked around her naked shoulders. Beast Boy lay next to her on his stomach, hugging a pillow under his chin as he watched her. It was odd, lying there. Together.
After.
Raven would have thought herself much too embarrassed to hold a conversation afterwards, but it seemed that with every progressive night she spent with Beast Boy her initial discomfitures lessened. Things she would have thought herself incapable of doing started to manifest of their own accord.
Like the way they were now.
Before she wouldn't have wanted him to be so close, to feel his breath against her temple as he watched her. Before she might have insisted they dress themselves before they engage in conversation instead of sharing their body heat beneath a conjugal blanket. And before she would have been too wrapped up in the intimacy of the situation to actually appreciate the solemnity of their position. Because there was a good sense of peace to be had, lying next to Beast Boy. His presence still made her skin tingle, and she had to force herself to stare at the ceiling to prevent Depravity from getting riled up again at the sight of his naked torso, but the way they were…
It just seemed to fit.
In its own way.
"We stop when you want to stop," he replied, adjusting his position. "You know how I feel about this-,"
"Yes. I know. But I never said anything about stopping."
"Maybe you should." He brushed a hand across her face and she automatically swatted it aside. She immediately regretted her action, her muscles stiffening at the habitual rudeness she couldn't seem to stop showing him. But her initial fears disappeared when he just gave an agitated grunt and moved her arm aside, proceeding with sweeping a few wayward strands of hair from her brow. "You nearly blew out a good layer of your cerebral cortex to have me here. And yes, I know what the cerebral cortex is, so you can save your sarcasm for later."
"It's not as dramatic as all that," she said, ignoring his attempt at humor. "It was just a few vessels. We've all had those before."
"Not to that extent."
"It was only a matter of time."
"That's not a good enough argument."
"Why?" she suddenly asked, turning to look at him. "Do you want this to stop?"
She knew it was unfair of her to ask, for the circumstances were not at all normal. But she wanted to move the subject away from any mentioning of intentioned injury. It was not a discussion she wanted to have with him any time soon.
"That's not…" he started to answer, making a face. "That's not an easy question to answer."
"Exactly. Nothing about any of this is easy." Her eyes inadvertently looked down and noticed how little of his body was covered in the sheets. She could see the narrow angle of his waist, and how the shadows from her candles made his lean muscles stand out in stark definition. "You seem much more cooperative than you were last night, anyway," she added, looking back at the ceiling quickly. "Much less resistant. That could mean you don't want it to stop."
"It makes a difference when it's mutual," he said, and she involuntarily trembled at his words. Because she agreed with him. It was different. So much more.
"It does," she conceded.
.
.
.
"It sounds so demeaning and impersonal, but I need you to do what you did today. Again."
She was sitting upright at the edge of the bed, her back to him as she bent down and picked his uniform up off the floor. Beast Boy watched her in distracted contentment, his eyes roving over the curve of her spine, the shallow indentations at the small of her back, and the tiny camber of her hips.
"That sounds completely unappealing," he said, restraining himself from reaching out and touching the skin along her shoulders. "Especially since you used 'demeaning' and 'impersonal' in the same sentence as 'you'."
"You're not listening to me."
"I'm really not." He knew she was fighting the need to glare at him, so instead she just threw his suit onto his face. He started to tug it off but she pushed it back over his eyes.
"Don't look."
"Why?"
"Because I need to get dressed."
"And?"
"And don't look."
He groaned, but kept the fabric over his eyes. "Don't you think we're a little passed this?" he asked. She gave no answer so he submitted to silence, patiently waiting for the all clear.
"It's not an issue of embarrassment," she said, and he tugged his suit off his face. She had donned a black v-neck and grey bottoms, and she had tied her hair at the nape of her neck to keep it out of the way. The simplicity of the ensemble only helped accentuate the fact that Raven didn't need much to look beautiful. "It's a matter of control."
"Uh-huh."
"You're still not listening."
"What?"
She closed her eyes and sat back down on the bed. "What you did earlier today helped," she said solemnly, looking down at her hands. Beast Boy rolled onto his back, his gaze never leaving her face. "Even though I did break a few things while it happened."
"It could have been worse," he offered. "I was afraid it would have been worse. I wasn't sure if it would work in the way that it did. It was a gamble."
"It was. And it was dangerous for you to have tried without knowing what the consequences were." She crossed her legs beneath her and wrapped the edge of the sheet around her shoulders. "I want you to do it again."
"Now?"
"No. There would be no point."
"Well yeah, there would be. But not the point that you want."
"If I came to you during the day, at random times, unplanned and unprecedented, would you let me?" She stared at him and he stared back. He felt even more naked with her violet eyes looking down on him, made all the more apparent by the reality that he still was.
"You would come to me?"
"When things would get difficult."
"When you would need momentary release?"
"Yes."
"For her?"
"For." She hesitated. "For both of us."
He folded his hands behind his head and looked into her dark ceiling. Thinking. Discerning. Weighing out the outcomes. Wondering what the ratio between good results and bad results would be. Wondering if 'random' had a set number in a day.
"And will you want it all those times?" he asked, unable to pull the gloom from his tone. Silence followed his words, and when he glanced over at her she was looking down at her hands again. She didn't answer him, and she didn't look at him.
From that alone Beast Boy knew her answer.
And it excited him.
.
.
.
It probably wasn't the most secure agreement, and nor was it the most prudent. Neither of them thought it would last very long, and they never said it, but every time they met up they waited for it to backfire.
But it didn't.
For ten days.
For ten surprisingly unhindered days they each led a secret existence separate from their time as Titans and their time as friends. In the privacy of one another's company, after their heroic duties and beyond their publicly social interactions, Garfield and Raven would find each other, lock doors, draw drapes, and close their eyes. When no one was looking they became something else completely, and despite everything they were pretty much content.
Pretty much.
.
.
.