Chapter 4: Love Hurts
The first rays of sunlight jarred Raven awake. She squinted, wondering why she had left her curtains open. Then she remembered her bedroom didn't face the morning sun. When her eyes adapted to the light, it all came back to her.
Then she noticed Starfire's arm draped over her.
Raven's first reaction was to look under the blanket. They were both full clothed, no phallic objects lying about. The night had been thankfully tame.
They had gone far enough, though. She remember kissing Starfire. Soft, but still had just the right amount of firmness, somehow. A minty taste lingered from the mint frost she had earlier that night. A surge of warmth had passed through her, accompanied by a sudden light headed feeling...
Raven snapped to attention. She wasn't that sort of girl. She didn't need- want- anyone, female or otherwise. She was a cold, unmovable rock in a sea of unstable emotions. It was the way it had to be, and it was the way she wanted it.
When she wriggled out of Starfire's grasp, she muttered something in Tamaranean, throwing Raven's name into whatever she was saying. She had a vague idea of what she must have said.
Raven had hoped to slip out without attracting any attention to herself. That wasn't about to happen, though. Just as she turned to head to her room, she saw a mesmerized Beast Boy staring at her.
"What?" she muttered irately.
"Dude...you...and Starfire...you really-"
He recoiled as Raven gave him a hard, angry stare.
"Uh...your cloak's missing..."
Just as she turned back to retrieve her cloak, which she had neglected to put back on before leaving, she heard Beast Boy's immature giggling.
"Good lord!" she moaned, "Just shut up, already! Nothing happened, you sick little freak!"
In a few seconds, she was in and out, her hood pulled over her head.
It was unusually quiet around the breakfast table this morning. Raven gloomily stared down into her herbal tea (which wasn't a hardy breakfast, as Starfire pointed out), and Beast Boy looked like he was trying his darnedest not to laugh about something.
"What's with you two?" asked Robin.
"Nothing." Raven muttered absent mindedly.
Beast Boy just snorted a little as he struggled to keep from screaming "Raven likes boobies".
"Raven, what is wrong?" Starfire asked in a concerned tone, "Is it about the kiss we shared?"
And that was the straw that broke the camel's back. Beast Boy laughed and leaped around excitedly.
"I KNEW IT!" he yelled as he looked up to the heavens, "Thank you, O Lord!"
Robin just stared in silent disbelief. Not so much that the girls had shared a kiss, but that Raven would make such intimate physical contact with anyone, female or otherwise.
"Do not be troubled! Your kiss was very pleasurable! I would very much like to share another kiss with you!"
Raven just sunk in her seat, Beast Boy cheering for her to do it again in the background.
"Mail call!" Cyborg yelled as he wheel barreled a pile of letters, topped off with a package.
"Fan mail!" Beast Boy yelped, leaping into the pile, "Dude, look at all this! People must be, like, giving us coupons for beating Roboto or something!"
"Perhaps we shall receive another AOL frisbee disk." said Starfire, "I found the 9.0 model to be most enjoyable!"
Cyborg shook his head just as Robin was about to correct her.
"Raven?" Beast Boy said as he examined the first letter he picked out, "Whoa. Dude. Raven got fan mail. Lemme see here..."
He stared rummaging around.
"Starfire...Raven...Raven...Starfire...Raven and Starfire? I'm starting to see a pattern here."
"Oh good lord." Robin muttered as he realized why the girls alone had received mail.
"Rejoice, Raven!" Starfire said cheerfully, "Reading mail from our devoted fans shall bring merriment to your day!"
She plucked up a letter addressed to the both of them and started reading.
"'I thought you were into chicks, Raven, but I didn't think Starfire was too. Plenty of people would pay good money for pictures of you two...' This is strange. Neither I nor Raven own felines. If we did, I would certainly not devour hers. And what is this about nursing?"
Robin quickly snatched the letter from her hands.
"You know, Star, maybe me and Cyborg should take at this mail. You never know when our enemies might try to send us...junk mail..."
"You are right. Our nemeses would take great pleasure in sending us unsolicited advertisements."
Wearily, he turned his attention to Beast Boy, who was eagerly volunteering his services.
"C'mon!" he whined, "I wanna help! I can, like, sniff for anthrax or something!"
"Fine." Robin sighed.
As Cyborg wheeled the mail to the hazmat disposal chamber, Beast Boy's eyes were fixated on the package.
"What do you suppose is in that?" he said, all sorts of dirty little images dancing through his mind.
Just as he reached for it, Cyborg caught his hand in a vice-like grip.
"Don't touch it, BB."
"Dude, we're gonna check it anyway, right? Probably just cookies. Cookies shaped like little boobies."
"Scanned it a second ago." Cyborg said, his tone plain and flat. "It's a pipe bomb."
Beast Boy stared at the package. He highly doubted he was kidding.
Raven wasn't the sunny day sort, but she went up to the roof for meditation anyway. The fresh air might help to clear her head.
"Raven?"
Honestly, though, she just wanted to get away from Starfire.
"Yes?" Raven said, keeping her eyes closed.
"What is wrong?"
"Nothing."
Starfire bit her lip, reluctant to press the issue.
"Raven-"
Raven quickly retreated to the sanctity of her room. She didn't want to be out in the sun, anyway.
She tried to calm herself and return to her former meditative state, but she found her mind too flustered to concentrate. It wasn't just the mail or the kiss. It was her diary. All last night, thoughts floated around in her head. She recalled what she had read, but there something just out of her grasp, something hiding away in some deep, dark corner of her mind.
She opened her diary. She had nearly finished it. Whether it was cynicism or realistic thinking, she knew there wasn't a happy ending in this book.
"September 15th. Edgar died. I tried..."
The rest was too smudged to read clearly.
"September 21st. Vince was never in juvie. His dad told me the truth. He ran away with this girl a few years older than me. Vince's dad said he probably lost interest in me because I wouldn't put out. Maybe I would have, if he wanted. I don't know. But not everything's bad. I keep getting these love letters in my locker. Summer says she knows who it is, and she'll tell me tomorrow. I guess I'll end this entry early tonight. Big day ahead of me."
"September 22nd. This is the worst day of my life. It started when I saw Maria's luggage in the living room. She told Bill she was leaving him. She wasn't taking me with her. She called me his 'little jerk off doll'. She knew what was going on the whole time. At school, Summer took me into a restroom stall. She pulled me close and whispered that she was the one who gave me those letters. She took my hand and put it on her hip. I didn't know what to think, so I just let her do it. My body felt so numb. She pulled me closer, like she was going to kiss me. Then she suddenly broken away from me and swung the door open. Her friends were their on the other side, pretending they didn't know we were in there. She said I had tried to feel her up, and they all laughed at me. The rest of the day, I could feel everyone staring at me and laughing. As I left, some kid slapped a piece of paper with 'dyke' written on it on my back. It took all my concentration to hold my powers back. I shouldn't have, though. I hate this place so much. They all deserve to die."
The last entry didn't have a date.
"They called me a monster. They called me a freak. Maybe they're right. I don't really care. All I ever wanted was a normal life, parents who loved me, friends who cared about me. All that stuff. I can't, though, can I? Even when I held my powers back, it didn't change anything. Everyone treated me like trash. I-"
Raven threw the diary against a wall.
It was all a lie. None of that ever happened. She had spent most of her life in Azarath, safe and secure. Her life hadn't been this chaotic mess she had read about. That was the work of a weak, powerless little girl who didn't have control over anything. That wasn't her. That wasn't Raven.
But as she pulled her hood tightly over her head, as she muttered her chant again and again under her breath, as she fell to her knees, trying to suppress and control, she gave in to the truth. That diary wasn't a lie. She was. All this time she had fancied herself to be a pillar of emotion strength for the team. She was always the cool, calm one. She would always pick up on clues the others would miss in the heat of passion. She was always out on the fringes, quietly observing while everyone else scurried around. She was quiet, cold little Raven.
The truth was she was scared. Deep down, beneath all the defenses she built for herself, she was so fragile. She wanted their attention and sympathy, being the poor, emotionally scarred thing she was. They would watch her so carefully with concerned eyes, fearful that she was secretly crying inside and might try and kill herself. They had been right to worry. Their quiet, cold little Raven wasn't a pillar of strength, she wasn't the calm and collected one. She was a frail, miserable shell of a girl who was starved for affection.
She looked down at her hands. They were shaking. When was the last time she shook uncontrollably?
On weak legs, she stood back up, only to crash down on her bed. She gazed over at her mirror, lying on the nightstand. In all her trips into her own inner workings, she had never found what she read in that accursed diary. Then again, she hadn't looked that far. She always stayed away from the darker places, from the doors that lead to places she had intentionally locked away.
Her eyes drifted to that sizable chunk of glass that had cut her, dried blood still lingering on it's surface. Just fit it back into place and the mirror, though cracked, would be usable. She had no intention of using it, though. She had seen well enough into her soul without the aid of a magic mirror.
"So...maybe I could love Starfire." she quietly said to herself, "So what? What kind of relationship could we have? She's so naive, so...so innocent, so beautiful. She's not a bitter, used up bitch like me. I'm not going to make her happy. I've never made anyone happy."
She slowly rose again and gently picked up the shard.
"Especially not myself."
"Dear Raven, what does Star's...sex pile."
Beast Boy finished the last letter, tossing it into one of two piles: The hate mail pile, and the sex mail pile.
"Dude, this is one messed up city." he said gloomily.
"And it's just this city." Cyborg added solemnly.
Robin, unlike present company, wasn't depressed by the backlash the fair citizens had gave the girls.
"What the hell is this shit!"
He was livid, pacing around back and forth like a caged tiger.
"I don't believe this! Those two put their lives on the line for this city so many times, and this is the thanks they get! They don't deserve this!"
"They got a few good letters." Beast Boy shyly pointed out, gesturing to the scant few letters that didn't fit into either of the dominate piles.
Robin took a deep breath and shook his head.
"Suddenly, I'm starting to understand those madmen who try to take over the world. Just look at this."
He made a gesture to the hate mail pile.
"Every day, we're saving the lives of bigots like these. Is this world really worth saving all the time?"
"Sorry, man," said Cyborg, "But doing the right thing won't always leave you a warm, fuzzy feeling inside."
For a while, they just stared at those two large piles, occasionally glancing at the few non-sex, non-hate letters.
"Beast Boy," Robin finally spoke up, "Take those letters to the girls. Cyborg, help me throw the trash into the incinerator."
Just then, Starfire's scream echoed down the hallway. They ran out, looking for the origin point of her scream. They found her, and what- deep down- they all knew they would would find sooner or later.
Raven lowered herself into the steamy water. The soft light of scented candles, the quiet classical piece playing on the small, waterproof radio sitting on the counter, the warm of the bath water. It all helped ease her soul for what she was about to do.
She looked at the shard of glass in her hand. Certainly not as fine a cutting tool as a razor, but it was part of her, in a sense. It only seemed appropriate that it should end her life.
"Why me, Star?" she thought, staring at her own reflection in the mirror shard, "Of all the people on this planet, why did you choose the worst possible person to be with? I can't be with you. I can't be with anyone. Even if I knew anything of love or intimacy, how am I supposed to allow myself to feel it? How are we supposed to sustain a relationship? You knew I can't fall in love, Starfire...but you just refused to listen to me. I can't do this. Even if not for these damned powers, I'm different enough as it is. Why me? Why did it have to be me? Why is it that this is the only thing I really have control of?"
She dragged the glass along her wrist. She remembered this old familiar feeling so well. When she cut herself, she would stare at the blood slowly trickling down her arm. It was such a dark shade of red, much darker than commonly portrayed in TV and movies. Darker than the color of her eyes when she lost control. She had always found it morbidly interesting.
"Come on. Quit with the foreplay and get it over with."
She winced at the penetration. She had never gone this far before. After the pain subsided, there was a sense of pleasure as adrenaline and endorphins started coursing through her veins. She let out a small moan when she pulled the shard out.
As she lost blood, her head grew lighter. The warmth of her bath of loosing it's effect, but that didn't matter. She still felt at ease, perhaps more so than before. She had finally found the strength to escape from this chain of suffering she put herself through. No more control and suppression. That need to keep herself under control flowed out of her wounded wrist.
She opened her eyes briefly to see her blood painting the water. A cloud of red mist was growing from her wound.
"Never liked red." she quietly mused, "The color of love. Or pain? Whatever. Same thing."
As her conscious mind slipped away, she heard someone scream her name.
Raven laid lifelessly in the medbay, clinging to a thread of life. Beast Boy and Starfire had the grim task of scowering her room for any sharp, bladed objects.
Beast Boy sat on the bed, looking at a group photo they had taken ages ago. Raven, of course, had been off to the side, hiding in the shadow of a tree.
"We always saw the signs, but we didn't a thing."
Starfire didn't say a word. She didn't know what to say. This sort of thing never happened on her planet.
"She hated her life, and...and I only made her more miserable."
"Beast Boy?"
Starfire abruptly stopped her work and sat next to him.
"I knew how Raven's powers worked. She told me half a million times. But I just kept bugging her. I wanted her to just crack a smile, and...I didn't think about what I was doing to her. I...I'm responsible...oh God..."
Starfire held him as he struggled to hold back the tears.
"It is not your fault." she softly said, "Raven has endured much. As we would say on my planet, even the mightiest of warriors bear scars. But if any one of us is to blame, it is I."
Beast Boy pulled away and looked at her with glassy eyes.
"Don't say that, Star. You care about her so much. Love isn't supposed to driving people to suicide, right?"
After a few quiet, awkward moments, they went back to what they were doing.
Starfire took notice of the mirror on the nightstand. Or rather, the sizable piece missing from it. She gently ran her finger along the edges of the hole, a small chill echoing throughout her body as she recalled herself being cut.
"The missing piece." she thought, "Why did she use it instead of her razors?"
"Starfire! Don't!"
Her thoughts were interrupted as Beast Boy tackled her and dragged her half away across the room.
"Star, stay away from that mirror!"
"Why?"
"Me and Cyborg...sorta...came into Raven's room this one time...when she wasn't here...and we got sucked into it! It's this freaky portal into Raven's head, and...and there was this big red dude there, and Raven said it was her father, but-"
Beast Boy's ramblings were tuned out as Starfire stared at the mirror. Perhaps if she could get her hands on that missing shard of glass...
"Dude, Raven kept a diary?"
At some point, Beast Boy's attention must have been diverted to the book poking out of the bookshelf, Raven's name written on a piece of tape on the cover.
"A diary?" Starfire asked, "What is that?"
Half way through flipping through the pages, he abruptly stopped.
"Uh...it's this book that people sometimes write down thoughts and stuff in."
Just as he was about to put it back where he found it, Starfire asked to see it.
There she was. Cold, unconscious, and half exsangulated, but doing fine, all things considered.
Raven was laying there on a bed in the medbay. Raven the teammate. Raven the friend. Raven the rival for Starfire's affections. Right now, though, she was supposed to be Raven the victim. The other things still crept into Robin's mind.
After all the scorching energy blasts, superhuman punches, and diamond hard claws Raven had fended off during her duties, it seemed pretty ironic that a simple piece of glass almost did what a host of villians couldn't. And she had been the one to be her own undoing.
Tragic, yes, but an open opportunity, wasn't it? The rival had been removed from the game, for the time being. Poor Starfire would lament over her fallen love, and Robin would be right there. He would hold her, wipe away her tears, and he would eventually reclaim that place in her heart he once thought he had.
Why did she fall for Raven, anyway? She was...she was Raven. She hadn't put in any emotional investment. Robin had been the one to take Starfire to her first trip to the fair, to the movies, to...well, he had been there for a lot of her firsts. He had always been there for her. Not like Raven. She was content keeping a nice, healthy distance between anyone and everyone. She didn't have any interest in Starfire. She didn't care about her, not like he did. But she still chose her. Why? He and Starfire seemed to click with each other so naturally. Rumors had been they were going out for weeks now, until that whole debacle started yesterday. They seemed so right for each other before. Before a few days ago, when everything fell apart. Everything was fine and dandy until this bitch in front of him took it all away.
Was that what it boiled down to? Winning and losing? He was jealous of Raven because she had won over Starfire. As much as he tried to be the best, he lost her. He was the hero, the leader of the team. He wasn't supposed to loose. But he did loose, and he lost hard.
Robin ended his watch early.
An unfathomably cold feeling crept over Starfire. She had almost recoiled from that damned book a couple times. Suddenly, it all made sense. Raven wasn't merely a curiosity to her. She felt as if she was part of her. The puzzle that was Raven had been put together, and what a tragic picture it had created.
She stared at the piece of mirror that had been in Raven's wrist, her own reflection staring back through a filter of red. In theory, she could simply slip it back in place and the portal into Raven's mind would be open. Beast Boy didn't know how it had activated, but to simply sit back and do nothing was out of the question.
Starfire gently fit the shard back into place and stood back, waiting for something to happen.
Nothing happened. No hand reaching out and grabbing her, no vortex sucking her into another world, nothing. All that was in the mirror was a helpless little alien girl. There wasn't anything she could do to save Raven.
After that failed effort, she went to the medbay to continue her quiet vigil over another helpless girl.
With all the romantic stories she had heard over the course of her short life, she really did expect a miracle to happen. This typically was when miracles were supposed to happen. The hour was dark, she felt defeated, and now was the time when some major revelation would take place, some small hope that she would suddenly take notice of and make her realize she could still rescue Raven from the pit of despair that had entrapped her for so long.
But that didn't happen. Starfire was stuck in that pit with her, and all she could do is watch over her broken friend.
Her eyes tracked along her prone form. She watched her chest raise and fall ever so slightly. As tough as Raven always appeared to be, she looked so fragile now. Starfire carefully took her hand. It was so cold.
"Raven...how..."
Raven's fingers gently curled around her hand. She moaned softly as she returned to the land of the living.
"HOW DARE YOU!" Starfire suddenly screamed as loud as she could.
Raven, too weak to hide her shock, cringed.
"S...Star?"
"You had us all so frightened! Why!"
Before Raven could find the words, Starfire embraced her, resting her sobbing face on her shoulder.
"If you...even think...of...of doing something like again...I will never forgive you!"
With shaky hands, Raven returned her friend's hug.
"Starfire...it won't work out..."
Starfire pulled away and looked her straight in the eyes.
"Would you ever hurt me?"
"No." Raven said, bewildered, "Not intentionally."
"And you know I would never hurt you?"
"Of course."
"Then why?"
She was too weak to suppress and control. She leaned in, pulling Starfire closer.
"I'm scared." she whispered, "I just keep getting hurt."
"Then I will protect you."
She just didn't get. For some reason, that made Raven smile.
It was a sweet little scene. That is, until, Cyborg's hushed voice was heard.
"You're crying!"
Robin straightened his mask, as if that would somehow do something.
"No, I just-"
Then he noticed something everyone else had missed out on.
"Realized Raven wasn't wearing anything under that blanket!"
Indeed, she was naked. When Starfire had pulled her up into her arms, she had inadvertently yanked off what little had covered up Raven's breasts. And when the door slammed shut by itself, everyone knew Raven was going to be just fine.
The morning was one of firsts. Raven was smiling, for one thing. She was uncharacteristly happy, which could be because this was the first day of her new, non-single life with Starfire. Her mood returned to normal when she found the special breakfast the boys had prepared for the new couple.
"Lesbian boobies?" Starfire read in her Alpha-bits.
"Speaking of which..." Raven said as she stared down at her plate.
"The eggs are boobs!" Cyborg said triumphantly.
"And check out the creative use of bacon!" Beast Boy squealed, his personal ethics as a vegetarian taking a back seat to the warped sense of humor that seemed ever prevalent this morning.
"C'mon, Robin!" Cyborg said as he jabbed poor, embarrassed Robin in the ribs, "Show 'em the toaster strudel!"
Robin feinted innocence as the girls looked in his direction. Then Beast Boy whipped out said strudel, which had crudely drawn stick figures with breasts.
"I'm going back to my room." said Raven, "Starfire?"
Girlfriend in tow, Raven headed back to her room, ignoring Cyborg and Beast Boy's offer to make "little boobie cookies".
As Raven looked over at Starfire- sweet, beautiful Starfire- she remembered something she knew very well. Love hurts. That was a definite truth. It was worth it, though. She could see that now.
author's notes: Well, hot damn! Got this done on Valentine's Day. I wasn't able to post it then, I'm afraid, but still, pretty nice time.
Now it's time to address the last batch of reviewers.
Godzillafreak: Febuary 14th. aprox. 3:37 pm, PST. On a side note, being a smart ass is fun.
Wolfkcing: Thank you, thank you. Writing isn't easy, but it's nice to know I'm doing things right.
It's weird how I ended up handling Raven's past. At first, I had no intention of turning Raven's "real" past into a lie she created for herself. I was just gonna have her break down and try to steer clear of Azarath all togther, but then it dawned on me. I was making up a complete and utter lie. As a fanfic writer, I have a certain degree of flexiblity to exercise, but I realized I could fit in the official storyline, despite what was written Raven's diary, and it would work.
OzZ Cometh: I seen but a handful of truly talented, memorable writers in the world of fanfiction. Fewer still have the potential for growth and...well, aren't cynical little jerkoffs with no real personality. You're one of the latter, Jacko. Your review means a lot to me. Oh, and read Jacko's works or go to Hell! You can also find material by him at the Tenchi Muyo Fanfic Archive finally, the person who has to be my favorite fan to date...
Saint Raven: WOW! I just invented crack fic! I rock out loud, baby! Read Saint Raven's stuff or go to Hell and- and I'm throwing this in for my extra special addict- be raped by the Devil!
By the way, Sai-Rae, just so you know, I have some older stuff over at the TMFFA and I'll be working on fics for Silent Hill, FLCL, and Neon Genesis Evangelion. Keep an eye out.
Many, many thanks to all my reviewers! You are all beautiful people solely for giving me praise.
Well, until next time, dear readers, seeya later! And if anyone out there is inspired to make little boobie cookies, I'd love to hear about it.