Summary: "Come on. You've never kissed a guy before, have you?" ONESHOT

Pairing: Ambiguous

Rating: T for, well… a-hem­… you'll see…

AN: Eight pages of fluff. Random fluff. PWP (plot what plot) fluff. I totally blame Emania for all of this. It's all her fault. I hereby direct all resulting riots and angry mobs to her. It's her fault I'm such a Speedy fan now. Argh. I suggest listening to the playlist provided below while reading for maximum enjoyment.

I warn you now, this is total crap and horribly out of character… but it was awful fun to write.

Disclaimer: I don't own shit. Although, if DC wants to make a present of Teen Titans for my birthday (10/02)… :) And it's pretty obvious where I got the title. I call it lack of imagination.

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Playlist:

Barenaked Ladies – Falling for the First Time

Rick Springfield – Jesse's Girl

Reel Big Fish – Kiss Me Deadly

Blue October – Fairy Tale

The Ataris - Boys of Summer

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"Come on. You've never kissed a guy before, have you?" Speedy's teasing grin achieved the desired result, and Raven glowered at him sourly.

"Yes, thank you, I have." Her words were prim and clipped. Discussing these sorts of things with Speedy was always a win-lose situation. He was almost always helpful, if at least sympathetic, but the sheer irritation he caused…

The redhead scoffed lightly and chucked his chin at her, blue eyes twinkling merrily. "I don't believe it. You're virgin in every way."

Raven did not do him the service of blushing at his proclamation, simply tipped her nose into the air and stared calmly at the horizon. "I had my first kiss two years ago. I was sort of seeing a guy named Eric."

Speedy's look was incredulous, and he bumped his shoulder against hers to make her look him in the face. "You dated a guy named Eric? Eric? And kissed him?"

At this, she did color, if only a little. Eric had not been the most exciting of boyfriends, after all, and she'd been very… novice at relationships at the time. "Yes. I did." There was a moment of increasingly uncomfortable silence while Speedy stared at her. "It was four years ago, all right? You know how I was… emotionally crippled and no outlook beyond the doom and gloom of everything. He was caught in that emo-Goth-everything's-pointless phase of modern adolescence, and he was the first guy of any standard of 'normal' to show interest."

"Uh huh… Was it good?" His grin returned as he went back to ribbing her.

Her color increased and she went back to staring out at the sun-dazzled water. "…I couldn't really say."

Speedy was puzzled. How could she not know whether the kissing had been good? If Raven and this Eric guy had gone together long enough for it to be called "seeing each other", surely there'd been more than one kiss. "How could you not know? It wasn't a first-and-only-kiss thing, was it?"

"No."

He waited a moment for her to elaborate, until it became clear she was feeling stubborn and wasn't going to oblige without prodding. "Well?"

She sighed, aggravated. "We kissed two other times." He opened his mouth, but she leveled a stern look at him and spoke over him. "But, seeing how young I was at the time, and the fact that I've nothing to compare it with, I couldn't really say whether or not he was a good kisser."

The archer's eyes bugged wide and his jaw fell open a little. "You haven't kissed anyone in four years? You've only been kissed three times in your whole life?" he was dumbstruck a moment—a lamentably brief moment. "Why?"

Raven's look told him plain as words what she thought of his boorishly male question. "Oddly enough, that whole-end-of-the-world-destiny-changing can of worms that utterly changed my emotional situation had a little to do with it. Oh, and that little matter of unrequited silent love."

He smiled sheepishly. "Er, yeah, I suppose that's a valid reason."

She sighed again, expressing her long-suffering grace this time.

However, Speedy was nothing if not persistent. "But, well… do you think it was good?"

Raven rolled her eyes and tossed her hands up, letting them fall back into her lap with an audible smack. "I don't know, Speedy. I don't even know if I'm a good kisser; how could I possibly judge?"

The expression of supreme disbelief made a reappearance. "You don't even know about your own kissing ability?"

Raven was beyond exasperated with him. "How could I, Speedy? That's not even something you can really test, not without a second party, and I've already said I've only kissed one guy."

He still wore that dubious look, now spiced by that tilt of his mouth that annoyed her most, the one that always seemed to say he knew better. "That's… sad, Rae honey. Sad. What happens if you're presented with a chance to lay a big one on Robin? You're not going to land 'im with inadequate technique, I promise you."

"I—aggh. Speedy, the likeliness of that opportunity ever presenting itself I so slim as to be negligent, as is the chance that I would even take advantage of such a situation. It's just, just irrelevant, okay?" She looked away from him, and her voice dropped an octave, but her friend and confidante heard her anyways. "Besides, I'm more than certain that the inadequacy of my technique would fail to impress."

Guilt splashed over Speedy like a breaking wave, and he shoved it away uncomfortably, trying to goad her back into higher spirits. "Aw, come on—you can't be that bad."

Raven looked back over at him, her face expressed in wry tones. "I wouldn't doubt it. Inexperience, plus my general bad luck, and then there's Murphy's Law—"

"Bullshit." She scowled at him. She hated to be interrupted, much less contradicted. "Stow the pessimism, sweetheart. You're luck's never gonna change if you won't let it. And to hell with Murphy; that's just an excuse."

Her lips tightened. "Murphy's Law is a law for a reason, and I don't choose to—"

He interrupted her again, and was rewarded with the pleasure of watching her flush in quiet anger. "Bullshit again. You talk yourself into this crap, Raven, you know it. You can't be that bad if the guy kissed you more than once, alright?"

She rolled her eyes dismissively. "I—"

He made a sound that was half laugh, half scoff, all instigative mockery. "Oh, come on. If you're so damn sure of your pathetic kissing, prove it. Lay one on me." He spread his hands expansively, daring her, sure she'd she concede defeat without a fight.

However, it seemed Speedy had pushed Raven too far on a sensitive subject; her pride was on the line, and she was too irritated to stick to her usual method of passive aggressive inaction.

"Fine then, if you're so eager—" and she leaned over and into his space, never losing her scowl but for the short moment where she pressed her mouth against his, and it was back as soon as she pulled away and resettled into her own spot.

"There. See? I told you."

Speedy made no reply. He was frozen still with shock, his eyebrows nearly to his hairline and mouth still forming that pursed little "oh" it had shaped in response to the pressure of her mouth.

"Uh…"

"Well?" She raised her brows back, only a little pink in her cheeks, her self-righteous anger preserving her, though she would surely feel embarrassment at the audacity of her bold move later.

"Well…" Giving himself a little mental shake, Speedy recovered and blinked several times rapidly, finally focusing a considering gaze on the small, expectant young woman beside him. "Well… just a quick judgement on a quick kiss, but, uh, you weren't bad."

She looked at him as if waiting for the punchline. "But?"

Reluctantly, he continued. "But… not great, either. Pretty perfunctory, actually." She stared at him, and he breathed in deeply to gather the patience to explain. "You kiss with absolutely no passion, Raven. You were angry, even, and it was like you were a politician dropping a fast one on the ugly baby."

Her mouth pursed and her shoulders hunched stiffly. "I told you I'm no good at it."

"Hey, hey. I said you weren't bad. You just need practice—and to loosen up. You gotta feel the kiss, Rae."

She exhaled hugely, deflating a little. "Well, then, we're arguing a moot point. Now I know how I kiss, and were that extremely unlikely situation with Robin to ever occur, I certainly wouldn't inflict a passionless kiss on him. I'd only muddy the waters without managing to either get my point across or present a valid reason for consideration."

Speedy's heart hurt for his favorite witch. She had it so hopelessly bad for the Boy Wonder, and he was as oblivious as it was possible for a disciple of the Batman to be. "Well—how bout we work on that, then?"

Raven turned away from the ocean to look at him in utter confusion. "I don't catch your meaning."

He shifted his weight towards her, gesturing with his hands to illustrate his words. "Like I said, you need practice. You don't wanna give Bird Boy one of those lame little smooches, do you?" She looked about to say something, so he forged on. "No—you want to kiss him so it burns him. You gotta make him sit up and pay attention."

Her mouth made a wry twist. "And how exactly am I going to do that? I've demonstrated that I know next to nothing about kissing."

"But that's it! See, I know all about kissing. I can show you what to do, how to do it so he's on his knees begging for more as soon as you come up for air." His smile was wide and eager, and she noticed he was bouncing a little where he sat, the way he always did when he got really excited about something.

Raven's expression, however, was less than encouraging. "Uh… right. This sounds like it's going to be something humiliating and degrading involving a mirror and awkward uses of fruit."

Speedy stared at her a moment, chuckled, and shook his head. "Rae-Rae, you watch too many movies. No, look—not that look—and listen to what I'm saying here." He placed a hand on his chest, spreading the other one towards her. "I'm offering to share my own experience and expertise with you. Think of it like a tutoring session."

"O…kay." Her face was mired in confusion.

He could see she still wasn't grasping his proposition. "For such a smart chick, you can be amazingly dense sometimes. I'm saying I'll teach you how to kiss." She stared at him; he stared back. "You don't get it."

She shook her head.

He rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically. "Okay. Allow me to demonstrate." Shifting his weight on his haunches, he leaned in close towards her, and she only drew back a little so as to keep her wary gaze focused on his face. "First of all, you don't want to leap into it. You wanna start it off slow."

He was close enough to see the light finally click on in her eyes. "Wait, you mean you're going to show me how to—"

"Yes," he nodded, patiently. "I will teach you how to kiss a guy. You need practice, so we're going to practice until you're confident of your ability."

She turned scarlet in varying degrees of heat from her neck to her forehead, and he grinned in amusement. "Oh. Uh—I mean, Speedy… are you sure this is the only way…?"

"Well," he began reasonably, still very close, "you could just kiss random guys till you thought you had it right, which just doesn't strike me as a thing you'd do. Or, you can kiss me."

There was a moment of silence, awkward on one part and calm on the other.

"But… you… and I… I mean, Speedy…"

He smiled, and she was startled by the degree of sincerity ad openness in it. "Look, if you're kissing me, you know who you're kissing. And besides, we're friends. What's a little swapping of spit between buddies?" Once again he did not allow her to interject her two cents. "And you can count on me to be honest about your progress. If it were anybody else, you couldn't be sure they wouldn't just keep it going to take advantage of you." He smiled charmingly, batting his fair lashes in an imitation of innocence. "You know I wouldn't do that to you, don't you Rae."

She tilted her face and stared at him long and hard from the corner of her eyes, considering. After a pregnant pause, she exhaled gently through her nose. "All right. Okay. But only because I know, as things stand, that I suck at kissing, and I would really prefer not to."

He grinned brightly. "Great! Okay, so let's get started."

"Uh, now? Isn't—isn't that kind of sudden?" Raven, despite her decision, became flustered at the prospect of actually kissing Speedy—of kissing Speedy more than once, probably a few different ways, until he deemed she'd gotten it right.

"No time like the present, Raven. Now, shh. No talking. Just feel it, and listen to what I tell you." He inched even closer, so that his breath fluttered over her mouth and mixed with her own.

"Um… okay…"

"Now… you want to start it slow, like I said…move in very close, like this," he moved in closer, "so that your lips just brush, but don't quite touch. Let him anticipate it before you seal the deal."

She nodded slowly to indicate she understood, her pulse hammering erratically as her lips brushed up and down, feather light, over his with the movement.

"Good… now, you'll wet your lips, like this," his tongue pressed between his lips, and she jumped a little as a little moisture transferred to her bottom lip. "Then… you move in… you'll only press your lips lightly at first. Now, after this, you'll have to pay attention and remember my example." She felt his lips stretch in a smile. "I can't exactly keep up the lecture for the next part."

She nodded again, a shock streaking from her mouth to the pit of her stomach at that light-as-air touch again.

"Okay…you move in… and press light… and let the rest follow… like… so…"

His mouth met hers with the softest of pressure, and he gently moved his mouth against hers, coaxing her lips to move in response. He pressed his mouth more firmly to hers, then, and she followed in turn.

He pulled back, only a little, so that he could speak, and if his breathing was only a little steadier than hers was, she failed to notice. "Okay… good… after you do that, you'll take it just a little further… you go back in for another closed kiss like that one, but after a second, you open your mouth, just a little." She felt him grin again. "And see, he's a guy, so he'll follow suit… he won't be able to help it, if you do it right."

She nodded.

"Okay… now, when you do that, you'll move your mouths together, just that little bit open—but no tongues, not right away. That'll come next; you gotta tease him about it first… set up the anticipation."

"And," her voice was a rough croak, and she cleared her throat, "and the tongues…?"

"That comes next, after a little of the open-mouth kissing."

"And what do I do then?"

He made another small smile. "I'll show you when we get there. Do you have the rest?"

She nodded.

"Good, let's see it then."

He closed that little distance again, this time foregoing the softness. His lips pressed hard against hers, so that when his lips parted, hers came apart with them. He tilted his head a little more to the left to form their mouths into a seal. It was warm, and moist, as he taught her how to move her mouth with and against his.

After a few lost, long moments, he reached up with one hand to tilt her head a little more to the other side. Then, tentatively, almost like asking permission, the tip of his tongue slipped out to brush her lower lip, seeking entrance.

Raven's eyes, which had closed without her knowing, fluttered open as she startled and went still a moment. Then, deliberately closing her eyes again, she opened her mouth a little wider against his. His right hand stayed cupping her jaw, and the left went out to steady himself against the curve of her waist.

His tongue slipped into her mouth gently, and he used it to nudge her teeth wider apart, then gave the roof of her mouth a slow lick. His tongue withdrew, but returned a second later to find hers. He nudged the tip of his tongue underneath hers, urging her tongue to activity. They tangled, then he drew her tongue towards his mouth. Catching his direction, she leaned forward on her hands and returned his gesture, tentatively sliding her tongue between his mouth. She discovered a sensitive spot behind his front teeth, and he pulled back with a little gasp, his hands rocking back onto the cement to catch his weight..

Blinking muzzily, she drew in a shuddering breath and shook herself a little, drawing a bit of sense and reason back into her head. "Uh…um."

"…Wow." Speedy was a little breathless himself, and his voice had acquired a rough edge. "Hm-mm. Wow. That… was better than I was expecting." He grinned a little slyly at her. "You're a fast learner, Rae. Very good."

"Ah… thanks. You're, uh, a good teacher." Raven was flushed and confused by the fluttering in her stomach, and the strangely evaluating appreciative look Speedy was giving her only threw her head into more of a mess. "So… do I pass?"

"Well…" He sounded reluctant, almost like he didn't want to answer. "For today. But we'll try it again later, see if you retain what you've learned."

"Er…Sure."

"Heh… well," he hoisted himself to his feet, brushing his hands off on his pants legs. "I'm gonna go take a cold shower."

Raven felt the heat suffuse her face as he turned and started across the roof, and she turned her face towards the ocean, hoping to hide it from him.

"Hey, Raven?"

"Ah, yes?" Uselessly willing her face to cool, she turned to look at him over her shoulder.

Speedy leaned around the doorframe, the steel door caught in his grip. His grin was lazy, with that familiar edge of teasing she knew so well, but the look in his eyes was a new one to her. "If you ever feel like you need some practice… you know where to find me."

The door clanged shut behind him, and Raven allowed a groan to escape her swollen lips as she buried her burning face in her hands.

What above and below had she gotten herself into?

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AN: Oh dear god, you don't know the fright I had while writing this. I was nearing the last bit when my computer went schizo and rebooted for kicks. And I hadn't saved at all. Christ on a cracker, I about had kittens. I probably would've cried if it hadn't showed up as a recovered document when I pulled up Word after the reboot. I think that shaved ten years off my life.

The lesson: ALWAYS SAVE. And OFTEN.

So yeah… er. Hope you like it? Ambiguous Speedy/Rae or Robin/Rae pairing. Little bit of both, I guess. Consider this odd little turd of a fic as my birthday present to you all. ( I'm two decades old as of Monday!)

And ah! This story has an accompanying little comic strip thing (penciled by yours truly) that you can find on my deviantart page: www inabsentia deviantart com. Exchange spaces for "."s

Or if you don't care at all about my other art and just wanna see this one, follow the link below!

http / www . deviantart . com / deviation / 40914063 / (remove the spaces)