A/N: Total pointless crack!fic of the utmost crack!fic kind. It can be blamed entirely on chapped lips and Blistex Herbal Answer. And Puck being a weird little muse with a special kind of sense of humor.

That said, I hate the title of it and I'm not too happy with the quotes. (should I go slightly romantic or should I go comedic? I wasn't thrilled about either choice, so what the hey, why not both?) My brain seemed to shut down whenever I tried to come up with a title, so go ahead: sue me. I know I am the Title Killer.

Also, did I mention this was crack!fic? Yeah. Rae is probably slightly out of character. Bear with me, kay? I just had to get this out of my head, and rather than let it wither away in obscurity on my hard drive, I figured I'd subject you to the madness imposed by too much (or not enough?) studying for the EoD, Part Deux.

Uh, I think that's it. I can't think of any further excuses.

Disclaimer: I'm going to do some research on the adverse possesionary rules on copyright in my copious amounts of free time. Until I do, however, I don't own them. And if I thought I could make money off of any of my writing, let alone my fanfiction writing, you think I would've gone through three years of law school? Tch-yeah, sure.

Tie Breaker
by Em

"A kiss that is never tasted / forever and ever is wasted."
- For All We Know, Billie Holliday

"Kissing originates from animals sniffing each other."
- Ingelore Ebberfeld

"Friend Raven!"

Never afraid of anything, but having a rather keen self-preservation instinct just the same, Raven paused in the doorway.

Starfire advanced, unperturbed, extending something tube-like and green toward Raven, who was uncertain if to recoil or attack.

"What?" Raven asked, feet firmly planted on the ground, wary eyebrow cocked. It was hard to tell with Starfire when she was excited in such a way if it brooked troublesome outings to the mall or if she was simply excited as a natural state of being. Even for an empath like Raven.

"Does this not taste like your tea that is green?"

Raven finally narrowed her focus on what Starfire was holding out. "What is it?" Raven asked.

"It is the gloss of lips," Starfire answered. "I purchased it at the mall of shopping this morning and I tell Bumble Bee that it tastes of your tea that is green, but she insists it tastes otherwise, and so we require the knowledgeable decider."

Raven internally sighed in relief. Lip gloss. Okay. She physically relaxed and let Starfire hand her the green tube of lip gloss. She looked at it and brought it up to her nose to smell it tentatively. "It smells like my tea, a little," Raven confirmed.

"No, you must taste it," Starfire insisted.

"Yeah, Rae," Bumble Bee spoke up. "It tastes like lemonade to me."

Raven raised a brow, first at Starfire, then at Bumble Bee who mimed putting it on her lips. Raven sighed, incredibly put upon, and did as she was asked, running the gloss part of the tube along her bottom and top lips, then pressing them together and tentatively licking her lips. She grew pensive for a moment as her taste buds worked with her memory. "Hm," Raven thought.

"Hm?" Bumble Bee prompted.

"I don't know..." Raven said. "It tastes somewhat like lemonade..."

"See? Told you," Bumble Bee gloated at Starfire.

"But not really just like lemonade..." Raven added.

Bumble Bee groaned and fell back onto the couch while Starfire giggled.

"What tastes like lemonade?" Speedy asked coming into the common room.

"Star's lipgloss," Bumble Bee answered, pointing to where Raven showed him the tube still in her hand. "I think it tastes like lemonade and Star thinks it tastes like Raven's Green Tea and Raven can't seem to decide."

"Oh, I'm good at this kind of stuff," Speedy said, grinning. "Here, let me see." He walked toward Raven who held the gloss out to him. "I'll be the tie breaker."

"Are you going to put it on?" Raven teased, raising a brow.

Speedy grinned and she should've been warned by that look, but he managed to take hold of her wrist before she could. "Not exactly," he said, nearing her.

"Speedy…" Raven warned.

"What?" Speedy asked innocently, before nearing her lips enough to smell them.

When Raven realized what he intended, she held perfectly still, knowing that if she pushed him away it would be two steps back on her 'Allow more casual touching among her friends' initiative and she might have to subject herself to a girl talk with Starfire to gain ground again.

Speedy's face neared her own, his head dipping down so that he could smell her lips. "Hmm…" Speedy said thoughtfully, sniffing delicately. "It smells like lemonade," he spoke, his breath ghosting across the underside of her chin.

"Yeah," Bumble Bee said, "but you have to taste it."

"Oh yeah?" Speedy asked, raising his gaze to hers. Raven had a split second to guess his intention before his arm snaked around her waist barring any possible escape and his lips captured her own.

Even if Raven had not been surprised by the sheer fact that Speedy was essentially tasting her lips, she would probably have been shocked still by his unexpected gentleness.

The soft pressure of his lips as they pressed against hers was a startling contrast to the firm, strong arm holding her close to his body and when with the same gentleness one might use to suck the juice out of a ripe plumb, his tongue grazed her lips, they parted because what other option did she have?

She didn't hear the gasp of surprise from her friends or the choked laughter that followed, she was too stunned (yes, stunned, that was it). She was certainly far too startled to be paying much attention to anything except to the strange and not altogether unpleasant sensations of Speedy's tasting of the lip gloss.

When he finally pulled away, Raven was dazed for all of three seconds before pushing at his chest so that he was forced to let her go. She narrowed her eyes dangerously at him and was glad that her voice cooperated as she hissed, "Try that again and you'll be sucking your food through a straw."

He grinned at her (actually grinned at her) and turned to where Bumble Bee and Starfire were looking at them with a mix of glee, shock, and amusement. "To me, it tastes like a Margarita," he decided. "But maybe that's just Raven?" he wondered, shrugging and walking away before anyone could think of much to say or do.

"Thanks for your help!" Bumble Bee called out after him, erupting into laughter at Raven's glare.

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A/N: So, go ahead, what'd you think? Was it as cracky as I promised? If you really want to make me feel that this was crap, you might just ignore it altogether and not review at all.