Paradise

By Koriand'r Grayson and AnimalGurl55

Would've gotten this to you much sooner, just got back from my internet-less trip a few days ago, so I'm happily finishing this up )

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Oh yeah, sometime in 2008 I think the Teen Titans: The Judas Contract movie is supposed to be coming out, but it's not really based on the animated series. It's about Terra, it's pretty much season 2. And it's PG-13, like the comics. Some definite shockers that wouldn't appear in the series, but did in the comics, would probably be in the movie. (cough cough, Terra in bed with Slade, cough cough)

Typed that up a while ago, haha, pay no mind to it I guess. Chapter's pretty short XD. But Enjoy )

AnimalGurl55, out

"Okay... let's see..." Garfield thought for a moment. One thing stuck out in his mind so he said it without a second thought. "Never Have I... fought crime." Garfield smirked, realizing his mistake only after he said it. Everyone froze, their full glasses of water in their hands. Hesitantly, they each rose their glasses to their lips and took a sip.

Every single one of them.

--

Eyes shifted all around the room. Kori and Rachel looked at Karen, Karen looked and Victor, Victor looked and Richard, Richard glared at Garfield, and Garfield looked at Rachel. Their gazes changed every so often; Richard breaking his harsh stare at Gar to glance over at Kori, Kori biting her lip and looking nervously at Richard, Rachel looking at Gar wondering why he chose now to be more idiotic than usual, Karen looking at both the girls wondering if their secret would be blown, Victor looking at Karen wondering what kind of kickass things she'd done in the past, and Garfield's eyes searching for an exit.

Richard cleared his throat.

"Who's next?" Karen asked, trying to guide the conversation away from the crime fighting.

"You guys fight crime?!" Garfield blurted out. Victor resisted the urge to hit him on the back of the head in front of everyone; he would save it for later.

Kori raised her hands in defense immediately. "It was a onetime thing, nothing big anyway!"

Karen nudged Kori in the side with her elbow. "What our poor and naïve friend means is that we saved a cat here and there…" Karen thought of the time when Kori flew an old lady away from danger. "Helped old ladies cross the street." And then Rachel had put out that burning fire with her powers. "And you know, helped with a small fire." And of course when she had single handedly defeated some crooks that had just got done robbing a bank. "And were eye witnesses in a bank robbery. No big."

"Oh yeah, we don't do anything big either." Richard replied, coolly. "Help…girl scouts and stuff like that." Victor nodded in agreement.

"Except we've done cooler things, too," Gar said. Richard had a deep feeling that Gar wouldn't make it back to the plane with the rest of them. Perhaps he'd suffer a fatal "accident."

Victor took on the same course of action the Karen had, just a tiny bit more forceful. He grabbed the back of Gar's neck with his powerful hand. Gar shrieked. "What our extremely poor and extremely naïve…Gar means is that he's an idiot and likes to make up stories about his heroic adventures of when he was in a sandbox with his underwear outside of his pants." He pulled Gar up with him as he stood.

"Help me!" Gar choked out.

"Now if you little ladies don't mind, I'll go and fill up those drinks." The girls passed their drinks to Richard, and Richard passed them up to Victor. After Victor's one empty hand was full, Victor told Richard to hand them to Gar.

"What?" Gar exclaimed. "Why should I do anything why I'm over here getting abused and—" Vic's grip tightened. "Okay," Gar squeaked.

Victor dropped Gar into the kitchen. "You better unhand me!" Gar said. "I am a very small dude; I should get those Child Protection Services on you!"

Vic hit Gar behind his head, just as he promised he would. "What the hell have you been smoking?" Vic said. He squatted down next to Gar on the floor, keeping his voice low so the girls—who Richard was keeping occupied by changing the subject and talking about a time when Gar tried to hit on a girl, just so he could torment Gar a little—wouldn't hear. "Where do you get off talking about crime-fighting? We came here on break—no fighting crime, no thinking about it, no speaking about it. Rich and I always knew you were stupid but man, you're stupid. Not only that, the comedy thing you tried afterwards."

Gar's face fell.

"Well doesn't it count that the girls have fought crime too?"

Vic got up and poured the drinks out. If he didn't come back with any glasses—a total accident of course—then there would be no more of that game. "Man, they've done small things."

"Yeah, that's what we said too, but you, Rich, and I know that the truth is—"

"So what are you saying? The girls could be heroes?" Vic laughed. "Why are you trying to use that pee sized brain of yours now? Get real dude, we would've heard of them by now if they really had been superheroes."

"Maybe we have heard of them!" Gar peeped up. "They could just look different and stuff. I don't look like this every day you know."

"Shut up Gar, you're too loud," Vic said, even though he was just as loud as Gar anyways. "You look like this now because of my mad tech skills. The girls have nothing on me." Victor pronounced, filled with pride.

"Kori has a sure as hell tight grip for not being a super hero. She's stronger than she looks." Gar mumbled, his arms crossed because Vic wouldn't listen to his reasoning. He got kicked behind the head as Vic walked out of the room, snacks in hand to hopefully distract everyone from the short-lived game. Garfield yelled angrily but followed Victor nevertheless out of the room, yelling something about child abuse.

"And so Gar said—" Richard stopped when he saw Vic and Garfield return. He cut the joke short as he let the girls do their worst.

"Hey Gar," Karen said. "Are you from Tennessee?" Karen nudged Rachel in her ribs.

"Because you're the only ten I see," Rachel finished dryly.

His ears drooped slightly. "Very funny guys, but she was a ten." He immediately regretted saying that. "But Rachel's a twenty!" He added quickly before Karen could turn to glare at him. She looked at him skeptically instead.

"Only a twenty?" She said with an eyebrow raise. As the girls—and later Vic—teased Gar, Richard kept a smoldering gaze on Kori from across the room. She would admit that his gaze from his piercing blue eyes was making her uneasy. She shifted from side to side, laughing with her friends occasionally before they could ask why their usually cheery Kori wasn't laughing.

She played a scenario in her head, and no matter what happened it ended the same way.

She would cave.

She hated lying with a passion, maybe the thing she hated the most right up there with villains. Not that she hated when people lied, honestly she couldn't tell the difference right away. But it was that she hated lying herself, not to mention she had the worst poker face you ever did see.

He had to sleep sometime, she would wait until then.

"Gar, truth or dare," Victor said deviously. After teasing Gar for a while, the group started to play games, and truth and dare came up first. They gave Gar no mercy, constantly directing their questions to him, just to keep him occupied enough to not talk about crime-fighting.

Gar sighed exhaustedly. "Dare, but I'm getting sleepy dude."

Vic filled up two cups of soda and forced Gar to drink them, and he wasn't allowed to use the bathroom for another 12 hours.

"Dude! If I piss in my pants, you're cleaning it up!" He chugged them down anyways.

"Rachel's turn," Vic said smugly.

Gar fell backwards. "I'm out. Let's watch a movie." He decided finally.

"Best idea you've had all day," Richard mumbled. He had been zoned out of the game for the most part. He was still thinking. Had he ever seen a green eyed, red headed superhero? Yes, but not the green eyed red head he was looking for. Surely if he had ever seen Kori before, he would've remembered her face, a face like that wasn't easily forgotten. Hell, her eyes alone would've struck him.

What about a spunky superhero with a love for yellow and two bushes of pigtails? He'd seen heroes with a love for yellow, seen heroes with pigtails and spunk.

But not together.

And Rachel. He didn't even need to ask himself. He'd never seen a superhero as pale as her, as a matter of fact, he hadn't seen anyone as pale as her.

They all settled on the couch for the movie. Kori managed to get her mind of things for a little, but not before Rachel had pulled her away from the group and asked what was up.

"Nothing is up, please let's get back before the movie starts."

"Don't lie to me, you're not good at it."

Kori sighed and spilled.

Rachel pursed her lips. "Stupid Dick."

Kori's eyes went wide. "Rachel!" she scolded softly.

Rachel sighed. "Forget that his nickname is Dick?"

Kori blushed. "Right."

"Just don't worry about it, if he even gets into your breathing air, just yell inside your head, 'kay? Karen and I will be close."

"But what if you go to sleep?"

"Yell inside your head regardless. I'll wake up, like it was a nightmare," she said with rolled eyes.

Kori chuckled, but she was still unsure. Rachel did manage to make her feel better though.

And so now they sat, waiting for Garfield to choose his movie.

"Is there a fast forward button for him?" Rachel groaned. The tension was thick, but she imagined no one else really sensed it. Richard was on one side of the couch while Kori was all the way on the other. Richard—'Stupid Dick, let it go,' she thought—sat angrily his arms loosely crossed and his gaze straight ahead. Kori looked worried, her legs pulled close to her and her chin resting on her knees.

Both were equally pissing her off.

She let out a sigh of relief as she heard Gar exclaim.

"YES!"

"Please tell me you're done," Karen rolled her eyes.

Gar pushed the movie out so everyone on the couch could see. "Wicked Scary 3!" He said, saying each word slowly for emphasis.

"Sounds wickedly boring dude." Vic said, faking a yawn. "Putting me to sleep already."

"Gar stuck his tongue out at him and popped the movie into the DVD player anyway.

Kori's fingernails were still dug into Richard's shirt as the movie ended. This would be the third movie they watched, and the others had dosed off somewhere in the middle, leaving Kori and Richard the only ones awake.

Or at least, Kori had thought Richard was awake. He had been awake a second ago right? She turned to look at his face—eyes closed.

It didn't surprise her that she didn't pay attention. During the second movie Karen and Richard had switched places, putting Richard to her right. She didn't notice that until the second movie was over. And he didn't change positions throughout the movie at all. She was going to guess that he had fallen asleep eventually.

She released her hands from his shirt and moved back hesitantly, waiting for some kind of response. There was none. She let out a huge breath and retreated toward the balcony door. Whoa, the sun was already peeking over the horizon. She took a steady step out and leaned against the railing.

"Oh, how I love the sunrise," she said softly to herself. She took a deep breath and in it she could easily detect the ocean breeze. A wonderful smell it was. The view was wonderful too, everything on the planet was extremely wonderful in her eyes.

"I like to watch the sunrise too."

She immediately turned around.

"Richard…"

He came up beside her, leaning against the railing casually. His eyes still had that questioning stare they had had since Garfield blurted out that horrible statement. He looked up at the sunrise, as if nothing was on his mind at all. Before she could ask him when he woke up, he asked a different question.

"So tell me about your crime fighting…"

Sorry for keeping you waiting on this horrible chapter. I was away on my trip with no internet and when I came back I had school in 5 days so I've been busy with that. I just found time to send this chapter.

Hope you haven't completely lost hope in me :3

-AnimalGurl55