Chapter Two

Disclaimer: I still don't own Teen Titans.

Thoughts.

Raven had a whole box of them, a black box, tucked in the corner of a big black shelf in her mind. The ones she didn't want anymore—the ones that wouldn't go away. Some of them fantasies; some of them feelings that she didn't know how to deal with and just wished she never felt at all.

This was a day for…both. She remembered. No one else did—or they didn't want to. They didn't want to think about the world ending, or Slade, or any of that stuff. "Stuff" was quickly becoming Raven's new favorite word.

"Stuff" didn't hurt people. "Stuff" was just a word, a silly little word that one could use instead of saying what really happened to you, something non-committal that didn't betray anyone. "Stuff" happened that month. "Stuff" happened that first day, when she had been horror-struck to find Slade prancing around with her father's mark.

And "stuff" happened all those times she liked it.

No, Raven reasoned with herself, she didn't like it—but the demon half of her did. At this she began idly thinking back to those times, tickling her fancy, or perhaps mollifying "Demon Raven" with some "Good" memories.

She was a living contradiction. She would always be.

Raven could remember being on the rooftop.

"It's so beautiful!" She wanted to scream, staring out, out forever at the ruined wreckage of the planet, out at the wondrous red moon and the blackened buildings and how she was just alone now, with no pathetic humans wallowing around. She was alone, until Slade squeezed her wrist-a strange comfort to the human half; an annoyance to the demon half.

"This is just a vision…" Raven seethed, and HIS demon half laughed at her.

"All these things will come to pass—I will make sure of it."

She wanted to laugh too—laugh with him as they looked over lakes of magma and skies of blood and stood together in that moment.

But she didn't. She didn't laugh and she didn't cry, she just held everything in check like she always did, and silenced her demon blood. But the chase! Ah, when time stopped—literally, and he had to hunt her down through the streets…

"YES!" She wanted to howl, flying faster, faster, feeling the cold air whip her hair around and around, and the pair of them wove in and out of buildings and trees until finally—

She let him catch her. Raven couldn't and didn't suppress her urge to let him that time, when she floated there and they both went soaring into the building.

Her demon half wanted to see, and her human half was tired of running.

But Raven had shuddered at that memory: That was all theirs, all for "Raven" and "Slade" and none for the people they really were beyond the demons that relished pain and misery and the adrenaline rush.

And on some level, the real Raven missed him. She would never tell the others of course, because they wouldn't understand what she meant. Of course Slade had all the powers Trigon saw fit to give him—which included sneaking into her meditation time.

"You again?" She would say irritably, worming out his presence in her mind before she closed her eyes and went into limbo.

"Me again," he would sneer, both of them pretending he was always there to do a job and not because they both just felt like talking or taunting each other.

And then they would sit in midair across from each other. The routine was about the same every time: She would gripe about him ruining her meditation, and he would know, and she would tell him to get out, and he would say he didn't "feel" like it…

And in some ways she wanted him in her mind—when the messenger was there, her father wouldn't be. In some perverted, dismal way, Slade was a comfort to both sides—for he was the only other human that knew what she was going through, and the only other "demon" high enough to entertain demonic Raven.

Damn him to hell for it.

Author's note: WOO! Another chapter down. What do you guys think of it? It could be interpreted a few different ways…but I don't know if I'll write more or not. Come on, people. I do love reviews you know. Please? I might write more…Anyway, my muse just came to call, so I figured I'd let you see.