V.

Raven had been trying to quiet the intense pounding in her heart for some time now. The act of trying to be calm seemed to be making this situation worse, though. Now she was hearing his voice. On different frequencies, too. Like the crystal tower in Azarath, vibrating constantly intensely painfully strings pulled of her insides pulled with voices like crystal purely transmitting into her not listening mind but it was worse that way, then they just entered the bloodstream without even being diluted—SO TO SPEAK! So to speak. So, to speak:

You're mine, Raven. (Strong, forthright, Robin-like, except for – the tone was rough – there was an undercurrent of threat, not endearment.)

just listen to me no more fighting, no more disputing raven (A low hissing tone which took a breath every ten seconds or so and then went back to hissing.)

I am the God of your World and you are my Messenger. Before they were You Are. I Am. Go and spread the word. Go and open the gates. Smash their temples. (Stern, higher, overtones, commanding, loud.)

Don't worry; rely on the others; let them take care of it; forget, forget; let him take care of it; (False but sweet, even knowing that something was a lie didn't make you want to hear it less; in the moment one could inhabit both sides, and know that you were being lied to and like the lie, believe the lie.)

Last year, she had been afraid too, but in her heart she'd thought she would have this one more year. She'd even begged for it, prayed and wished for it, and she wondered if that had sealed the doom now, like another famous procrastinator—Now might I do it pat—

Six months ago, she had decided it might never happen, she was as far away from it as she needed to be, and it would cause unnecessary worry to tell her friends. It might happen the year afterwards, for that matter. It wasn't worth worrying about.

Three months ago, she had convinced herself that even if it was worth worrying about, if there was a way to stop it, she could find it without telling everyone. What good could they do, anyway? And furthermore, there was no reason for it to happen now. She'd escaped him; he didn't know where she was, she'd kept Azarath safe, even if she'd brought her troubles here.

One month ago, she had distracted herself by, er, kissing one Robin firmly on the lips in a moment when she was in the peaceful eye of a storm of emotional tumult. She had forgotten for a time anything about it. She was just Raven, teenage superheroine. With a truly, completely cool dork … significant other. Special friend. Whatever.

Two weeks ago, she had gotten angry with herself for forgetting, genuinely forgetting, that she had two weeks to go. She had blown up the toaster, and it was intentional. Boy, was it intentional. She spent the week alternating between impassively pretending it was fine and quietly ripping some of her old poetry into pieces, ever more microscopic pieces, in her room. Robin had noticed, but with characteristic tact, he hadn't said anything but had started bringing her tea at the times she usually would want it. It was almost miraculous, and at those moments she felt really, truly happy—and yet angry at the same time.

One week ago, she had blown up the new toaster. Robin seemed to be jealous about Starfire, and Raven wondered, not for the first time, if she'd been selfish and mean, chaining Robin to her—to a half-demon, to someone who was going to end the world (and probably sooner rather than later!—)—

Four days ago, she had decided what did it matter, anyway, if the world was going to end, and pushed it out of her mind.

Three days ago, she had decided to tell Robin everything. Then she hadn't done so.

Two days ago, she had done the same thing.

Yesterday, she'd once again, done the same thing. Worrying about Robin and what he would say or do was a good proxy to not worry about herself.

But as the hours rolled down, she couldn't stop seeing fire and demons everywhere. Her physical reactions felt like they'd been sent through an amplifier and then a torture device. When she'd gone down into the kitchen to make tea (Robin wasn't here?), Beast Boy's every twitch made things around her explode, and he was twitching a lot.

So she retreated into her usual comfort: meditating. Pushing the demon down as deep as it could go, slamming doors in its face, burying it, shoveling dirt into the hole, set him breast-deep in earth, and famish him; there let him stand, and rave, and cry for food…

The clock rolled over to midnight and Raven started to genuinely panic.

What if it was happening now? Every sense was at full alert. She heard the rushing of the waves far below. She felt like she could see the back of her closed eyelids. She smelled the incense strongly, as if it were burning her nostrils. She felt the rubbing of her cloak against her back. And she tasted… her mouth tasted like ashes, like all the rubber in the world was in her mouth.

She listened to the echo of nothing in her room. Nothing sounded like rushing everything. Water down below. Air through the pipes. Flames of candles like a soft hum.

Nothing. She opened her eyes. Her room surrounded her. Alcoves, shadows, statues, books, books, books. Her hand mirror on the bureau. The chest with the book with the dragon, another horror stored deep away within, horrible, lying creature, even worse because he pretended to care—but still better than her. Better than her. She'd lied by omission. She'd endangered her friends—was even now endangering her friends—on a wing and a prayer. She'd pretended she… loved them… loved him… She was worse than Terra, and she wasn't going to say any—

"Raven!" The door burst open and Beast Boy stood there, wide-eyed, and Raven knew the worst had happened, somehow, even without her knowing, her mere presence had brought disaster and demons. She whirled around, powers already igniting, panicked.

"Where is it?" she nearly shouted.

Beast Boy looked a little confused. "You… know?"

"Of course I know!" Raven's heart was pounding, her eyes glowing and pulsating. "Where?"

Now the green Titan was more than a little deflated. "Well… I mean, it was gonna be in the ops room. But I don't know what the point is if you already knew."

Raven stared at him. "What are you talking about?" she asked. Suddenly, his ears perked up. If she'd had more presence of mind, Raven would no doubt have noticed how poor of an actor he was, but she was on full alert and expecting demons.

"Uh. Nothing. Never mind. Come on!" he said, nearly squeaking with excitement. By this time, Raven had realized it wasn't a hell-creature. Not yet. Whatever it was—well, it was, she assumed, something typically silly of Beast Boy—but the sense of relief was so great that she willingly, almost unintentionally, followed him into the hallway, him clanking down the corridor, her sweeping noiselessly. He looked like he was going to talk to her at several points, but broke off into little nervous-sounding giggles.

The walk to the ops room had never felt longer, but then, this day was the longest of her life… nothing will happen don't worry about it just forget and quiet down and listen to him look at what he's feeling…

Raven's empathy had helped her many times to locate someone by their feelings or to sense a lie. But right now, feeling Beast Boy's exuberance was almost painful—and it always was exuberant, no matter what the actual feeling was; it was glee rather than happiness, panic rather than concern, rage instead of anger. Right now, whatever was bubbling in him was a mix of that nervousness, glee, and some other things, poking out at her.

She knew what those other things were. They were—his feelings for her. They weren't easily hidden feelings, whether they were a crush or real affection or even love. They circled around, blowing about like leaves in the wind. The feeling of a gust, a torrent, was halfway to overwhelming at times.

His nervous affection. His eager attempts at achieving coolness. His kind-spirited desire to see her happy. His excitement whenever he encountered something that might entertain her (and which usually ended up annoying her). And ultimately, his commitment. It was like a palm tree, waving in the wind but ultimately steadfast.

It wasn't that she didn't like him (whether or not she'd admit it—Pathetic, Raven, said a voice). She liked him. She wouldn't tease him the way she did if she didn't. She even loved him, for what she knew he was, really. She could have, if she was a normal girl—

But ultimately, the problem with—having something with him—was that he was not a creature of control. Even his powers showed it; his whole thing was consisting of inconsistency, being mutable, turning into different animals. And his emotional control was nil. Perhaps the problem was really that he was simply a good guy, no more, no less. And like so many good guys, it wasn't hard to imagine him doing bad things when he was hurt and dejected. What bad things? Nothing evil so much as inconsiderate, maybe even deeply inconsiderate; maybe he might break some other girl's heart, or build a wall around his own.

Robin was not a good guy. Robin was a dangerous guy. Robin was guarded. He was careful. He was controlled, and he was frightening when he let slip that control. He might do bad things, too, but not when he was hurt. Not in adversity. They would happen when they seemed necessary, and only then.

Or was all of that right? Maybe she was wrong, after all. It wouldn't be the first time. She, the demon, what would she know about it, anyway…? The despair; it's part of your world; it must be accepted; your existence can't be one of denial; or else you will come to an even worse fate;

The door to the ops room slid open, Beast Boy went in, she followed, and—

The lights went out—

And Beast Boy's voice yelled, "Surprise!" and she nearly jumped the hell out of her skin—

…The lights flickered back on. Beast Boy appeared to be the one reeling with surprise, with comically wide eyes and a loud "Huh?!" escaping him.

There was nothing unusual in the room at all, at first glance. Beast Boy's expression was turning indignant.

"Dudes!" he shouted. "I said surprise! You guys are totally ruining this!" He looked at Raven. It was quite an experience to see the emotions crossing his face, let alone to feel them lapping against the edges of her consciousness.

"Sorry," he said, disgruntled. "Hold on. Just stay here." He stormed back into the kitchen. Raven had barely listened to him, occupied with her attempt to cope with his waves of emotions crashing down, her own panic and fear still swirling, and those faraway thoughts she had trudged into, and despite that, she followed him in, dimly realizing: he knew, he knew it was her birthday.

That was stirring panic in her heart. If he knew that, what else did he know? What was he trying to pull? Above all, how had he figured it out? Was it an elaborate trap, was this not the real Beast Boy, was it Trigon trying to lure her out—

In the back, only one light was on, a harsh fluorescent light that somehow seemed to bake the walls, make them look concrete instead of metal—or was it actually concrete? She had never noticed these rough patches before.

And Beast Boy was staring around, looking like he was ready to start hopping from one foot to another. "Guys?" he called. "Guys, this isn't funny!"

He turned around, scouring the whole room with his eyes, until he saw Raven in the doorway and jumped. "Hey! I said stay there!" He giggled nervously. "Um, I mean, surprise! No one's here!" And another nervous chuckle.

What was this? Had he really meant to throw her a surprise birthday party, and make it just for the two of them? No, probably not, but where was everyone else? They wouldn't stay away. Starfire in particular would have been waiting the whole day, she was sure.

His panic was feeding her own emotions, something she couldn't afford on this day of all days—it was just some failure of a surprise birthday party, she thought, anger seeping into her mind; he didn't need to make such a huge deal of it. And it was more than panic, she felt his humiliation hardening to anger—and she could not afford to feel that now, either, Azarath, Metrion…

"I can't believe this!" Beast Boy let loose with some half-whine, half-curse. "I should've known—"

"You should've known I wouldn't want this anyway, Beast Boy," she hissed. "I don't like surprises, I don't like parties, and I do not like surprise parties!"

It was probably the wrong response, something told her, as his feeling of humiliation deepened. "So you're going to join in too?" he yelled. "Can't you see when someone's trying to be nice?!"

She rubbed her forehead. It felt hot. She deeply hoped it was just a headache.

"I don't have time for this," she said, as calmly as she could. "Thanks for the thought. Leave me alone."

She turned back towards her room, and he seemed indecisive about whether to follow her.

"Raven," he started.

She whirled on him again, making a cutting gesture at her throat. "Alone!" Propelling herself along the corridor magically, she left him in the distance and rounded the corner.

Everything was out of joint. Where were the others, for that matter, for her surprise party? But it was for the best that they hadn't been there. She could barely handle feeling her own emotions now, and Beast Boy's, the other three—especially Starfire and all she'd been feeling lately—would have been far too much.

She needed air. She touched down again and climbed a staircase. It seemed shadowed. Why was the power so low? Probably Beast Boy dimming the Tower lights for "surprise". A few flights of stairs weren't such a bad thing. Going up stairs, without flying, was something to occupy her body, at least, make it less restless, burn out the adrenaline—whatever it was.

She opened the door and took a breath, emerged into the brisk air. It was never that cold in Jump City, but anything felt cool to her right now. The skyscrapers with their lights were blurry. Everything was still reality.

And then, she felt something. Someone.

She spun around.

"Got a message for you, kid."

And she felt her forehead burning—saw a matching symbol, the symbol of Scath, on his head—saw that insouciant body, that skull mask, and that red X.