There were too many places this could have gone, but I wanted Raven and Damian and a broken bed, and this how it turned out. I hope it’s alright!
Prompt List
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"So... can you fix it or not?"
He shuffled his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose and stared down at the broken bed frame. But even through the lenses, it wasn't quite clear. Again, there were questions, too many questions - and not one of them good. "So, can you?" Raven asked, re-centering his focus upon the task at hand. Damian knelt low, assessing the extent of the damage. It wasn't just a loose screw or two, the whole frame, it had collapsed in on itself.
The way it looked. If the bed alone looked this way, he could only imagine.
No.
There had to be a reason, some sort of explanation.
Damian stroked the broken bit of bed post and gripped, springing up what little life it was clinging to. The wood let out an awful squeak and a groan, before surrendering in anguish, falling to the floor. His electric-emerald eyes flickered over to the sorceress whose expressionless stare gave nothing away. Though, her tone hadn't exactly been forthcoming. And so the questions hadn't ceased, they had become sentient and started to multiply. Taking up roots, they grew until even his questions had questions.
One edged itself to the forefront of his mind and Damian wondered if he could even pose it to Raven: was this real - was she for real? To come to him like this in the middle of the night, in need of his help with her bed - her broken bed. He rose slowly, and approached her with his jaw tight and steps measured.
What had she been doing in this bed to cause it to break?
Whatever...
Or
Whomever...
Damian pulled off the black framed glasses, and hastily folded them over his waistband, shoving them away along with his darker thoughts. How was he expected to proceed in such a case? What exactly was the due process here? Did the Titans handbook have a chapter about this, or even so much as a footnote? Damian began to formulate what he believed was a rudimentary follow-up. "How did this...even happen?"
It sounded safe, rational.
Surely, it was a reasonable thing to consider given the current situation.
Violet eyes glanced over the wreckage. There was a sprinkling of sawdust on the mattress laying jilted off to the side, the box spring was reduced to a heap of wooden boards, and the thick carved posts were snapped, propped uselessly against the corner of the room. Her cavernous eyes bored into the center of his bare chest, before at last, settling on his face. "Damian, I don't want to talk about it. I just... I need your help, okay?" Her voice wavered for a note. "So, if you can't give me that -"
"No - no. Of course, I want to help," Damian said immediately, standing taller. "I just...want to know what I'm dealing with here, so I can help you best." He motioned with his hand, hoping she would elaborate, or give any clue as to what had happened. And when she didn't speak, he spun up plausible theories.
But, nothing.
Raven didn't bite.
"Was it...your powers? Was it a lack of structural support? Maybe it was foul play - some prank of Garfield's gone wrong? Maybe the wood is old?"
Damian threw out suggestion after suggestion - and nothing. Any indication, even a simple nod, would have sufficed, anything would have been better than him filling in the blanks on his own.
"Or was it...?"
Anything to stop him from wondering about was just below the surface, the subtext: could it have been sexual?
Was it sexual?
He wanted to know. He needed to know. He had to know. She was his best friend. For all that was good in the world - he deserved an answer.
"Was it what?"
"Overuse?" Damian tried. "Or I don't know...misuse?"
"What exactly are you asking?" The mage returned a little less flatly, a little more angrily. "I'm the one with the broken bed and nowhere to sleep tonight. I knew you would be up... and so I came to you. I just needed some help - your help." Raven was resolute as she had been earlier, when she was standing at his door. But now, she seemed determined to answer as little as possible, to even redirect his inquiries back towards him.
What was she hiding from him?
Why was she hiding from him?
Damian glowered down at her. "I am trying to help -"
"So, help." Raven stood on her toes to glare back at him unblinkingly for what felt like hours. And anyone other than Damian would have backed down by now. "But, if you're going to make assumptions or continue to interrogate me, I'll just sleep on the couch."
This was going nowhere.
He sighed, a long drawn out exhale, he needed to breathe, to stay calm. But he could feel himself getting more and frustrated for each second this tennis match persisted. "Why don't you tell me what happened - from your perspective," Damian added quickly.
Raven was right to refer to it as an interrogation, a part of Damian had to give that to her.
This did feel rather like a deposition.
"It was late, I finished meditating, I thought I would try to get some sleep. I was laying in bed, and it broke." She rubbed her arm, trying to look impassive or unaffected and Damian didn't know what, only he couldn't believe this. It was the exact same story - if anything this was less than she had told him before.
His heartbeat pounded deafeningly in his eardrums, and his blood started to sear dangerously under his skin and Damian wanted to demand a sufficient answer from her.
But that wasn't the solution.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, breathing in more slowly. What bothered him the most wasn't the denial, it was Raven acting as though she couldn't trust him.
And if she couldn't trust him, he had far bigger problems.
"Just so I can understand you - so I'm not confused, tell me, how did it break?"
"You saw for yourself - it collapsed."
He shook his head, he just needed her to give him something. Maybe he was just desperate for an opening for the questions he was barely biting back on his tongue.
How was she laying? Was she on her back? Was she alone?
Was she clothed?
"Why?" He burst out. "Why did it break? There's always an explanation. Things don't just collapse."
"Well, my bed did."
Damian had crossed over the bridge of irritation into incredulousness. He was dumbfounded. "I didn't think you even needed one - a bed." He scoffed. "I was under the impression that you...floated above it."
"Where on Earth did you hear that?" Raven's purple eyes narrowed. "I don't float - I'm not a pixie." Damian's lips twitched. So said the petite girl from another land, named after a bird, who spent her days flying around in a leotard.
"Fine, you hover." Damian eyed her, practically insisting. "You definitely hover."
She could project manifestations of wings whenever she appeared. That and the obvious, she glowed.
So if it looked like a duck...
"Yes. I've been known to hover - on occasion - it's not a regular thing." A faint flush began to color her face cerise, much to Damian's satisfaction. "Is my interrogation over, then?" He noticed her expression was slightly less annoyed than before, but more anxious.
Maybe he had been going about this all wrong. What if it was about something else entirely?
He glanced at the little worry crease that indented itself above her left eyebrow. In the idle daydream, he fantasized about touching it, even kissing the muscle until it relaxed. Of course he cared, she didn't even know how much. Damian’s features softened slightly. "Raven, I'm...concerned about you. It's not everyday your best friend shows you her mysteriously broken bed. So, is everything okay? Are you stressed?"
"No, Damian." But Raven had deflated, looking somewhat defeated. "This, it's not at all what you think..."
"Alright, I won't press this anymore." He reached down and touched her shoulder. "Get your pillow and some blankets," Damian ordered. "You're not staying on the couch." The hero stood by Raven's door while she dissected the contents of the rubble. They waited wordlessly for the tell-tale mechanical whirl of the door sealing itself. He shuffled ahead of her to his room, expecting her to follow. "You'll take my bed."
"Oh..." Raven stopped short, staring oddly at the floor. "I didn't ask you for help to put you out."
"You're not putting me out. You couldn't possibly put me out." The corner of his mouth tugged upward for a second as he searched her pale face. "We're best friends, aren't we?" She nearly flinched. "Did I say something wrong?" Damian frowned, trying to level with her.
"Damian, it was my powers, though I'm sure you already knew." Raven bent her head, holding it against the pillow. Slowly, she dragged it down her face. "Do you really want to know what I was doing?" She sounded muffled, but her words were clearer than they had been all night.
"What?" Damian's heart lurched in his chest. Even though he still wasn't sure what to think. But if Raven wanted to tell him -
"Yes."
"In my bed - tonight, I was..." Her voice sounded frailer, even a little afraid. "My bed is broken because... I was alone and thinking of you..."
What?
"You were alone," Damian paused, rather nonplussed. "And thinking of me?"
That was it?
"It was late." Raven spoke slower, this time.
"Yes."
"I was up..."
"Naturally."
"Reading - one of my novels..." Her purple eyebrows arched. "Alone."
"So, you've said."
"...and thinking of you."
"Right..."
"I was thinking of you," Raven repeated. "Alone."
"Oh..." Damian started. He licked his lips thoughtfully. "Oh."
"Oh? That's it, that's all you have to say?" When Raven marched down the hall, her short legs were faster than usual. The other Titan couldn't catch up to her, despite his longer legs, she seemed determined enough to have lapped him.
Or slapped him by the murderous look in her eye.
"Raven, slow down..." Damian stretched out a hand, trying to keep up with her. Every time he thought he was getting closer, she slid further out of reach. He was still processing, he hadn't expected this, if she could give him just one minute -
"You didn't consider for one minute that maybe..." She stopped, strands of plum whipping her cheek, when she turned to him. "No, of course not. How could you? You don't see me that way," Raven swallowed hard. "Or anything."
"Raven. Don't, I -"
"I shouldn't have bothered you with this, you were busy then and clearly you're still elsewhere." Raven didn't meet his eye. "Please, forget I mentioned this - any of this. I'll wake Starfire and you can get back to deliberating, planning or coordinating... You can chalk this up to some insufferable late night psycho babble from a half-demon whose powers must have gone haywire for the second time tonight." She turned away. "Good night."
"But." His fingers brushed her shoulder. "You broke your bed because of me."
"Yes, we've established that. It doesn't mean anything." Raven shrugged him away. "My powers are out of control right now - that's all it really means."
"No." He caught her fingertips and clasped her hand, spinning her to face him. "I'm not going to - I can't let this go." He pulled her in his arms, her stiff, small form. "I can't let you go." Because even still, she was warm and soft and she was Raven. She smelled of honey and sage and soy candles left burning overnight - home.
This was scent he inhaled whenever his mind registered that he was home. It was like he was home at last, and he wanted to hold her close to him for hours. He stared down at her, marveling at the words as they revealed themselves in a new light that was vibrant, bright and multi-hued. "You broke your bed because of me."
"Let go of me." Raven's cheeks were aflame. Her eyes were wide, her lips were wavering.
"No."
No more rash assumptions tonight, or not acting rashly enough.
All he needed to be certain of was this. And he was not going to let Raven go again.
"I...need to masturbate - meditate." Raven let out a frustrated sob, struggling in his arms. "I need to meditate and -" Damian's fingers swept up the nape of her neck and he pressed the seam of his lips onto her own. The pillows and blankets slid out of her hand, her body had gone pliant. A sweet mewl rose up from her throat and neither of them gave any more thought to the finicky state of her powers, this was more important.
This needed to be communicated, he needed her to understand that he did understand.
"You broke your bed because of me..." He mumbled against her lips, tasting hints of jasmine tea. "You were thinking of me when your bed broke." Damian repeated her words back to her with an understanding that was always there. Just below the surface, it was waiting for him, calling out for Raven. He brushed her hair back from her cheeks. Tucking it behind her ears. "This beautiful mind - here." His thumbs rising to massage that worry muscle above her eyebrow. "I want it on me." And he smoothed his lips over it, kissing it repeatedly. "I want to fill it with thoughts of me. Only me."
"Wait - wait." Raven trembled, her eyes were wild. "What does this mean?"
"What do you think it means?"
He could feel her forehead moving, veins ticking, the brain below it working itself up into a frenzy. She couldn't quite process what was happening. The possibility that he might feel just as strongly, just as intensely. Perhaps even to a greater degree than she.
"Damian... Aren't we - friends?"
"Aren't we past that?" Damian cupped her chin and captured her mouth again. Pressing back against her lips tighter and harder, clutching her - tighter, harder. Running his hands up and down her back, feeling barely any layers to separate what was happening between them. But really, how could something as insignificant as layers keep them apart? Even without his chest bare and Raven's strappy pajama top so tiny there was no way she was wearing a bra.
How could anything now?
Damian growled low in his throat. "Would you come to someone in the middle of the night about your broken bed if they were merely a confidant?" Raven whimpered, as he too had pitched her own words and actions against her, all the while rounding her ear with his tongue.
"But, I thought -" She murmured incoherently into his neck "- and my powers."
"Yes, what about them? How could they resist reaching out, if you hadn't considered more? If you thought of me as only a friend?" Raven gasped, and he stole it straight from her - along with every breath from all the gasps from her lungs. "It's just us, we can both admit the truth."
"And what is the truth?" Raven leaned into him, turning doe-eyed blue-violet upon him. He feathered his thumb over those impossibly soft lips, like he couldn't help himself, because if talking to her meant he couldn't kiss that mouth, he had to touch it in some form or fashion.
"You were reading that romance novel you dogeared to death, I saw it there, covered in wood chips and sawdust." The man, half-naked, broad shouldered, and dark-skinned was unlacing the red corset of a willowy brunette with an arched back. The image was right there on the cover, it was unmistakable. And everything clicked right into place, as if he'd always known. Raven had pictured them in their place and used those thoughts as fodder or fuel. "You were imagining us."
"So tell me." He felt shivers race up his spine and it wasn't from those machinations alone, it was Raven's lips, stroking along his neck. When she spoke her voice was barely a whisper and raspier than he had ever heard it. "What did I imagine?"
"We were in your room, caught up in our connection -" The pale fingers threaded through his hair, in time with his musings. "Caught up in each other in ways that would make the Goddesses blush, if not undoubtedly cause a box-spring shatter beneath us, and then..."
Her hands stilled and tugged the dark strands. "Then?"
"Then it did, your bed broke."
A small smile curved onto her face, but it didn't match the mischievous stare contained in her eyes. Not exactly. "And now we're here?"
Damian glanced at the door plate marking the entrance to his room. "And now...we're here."