Who: Jack & Raven What: Jack falls off a park bench during a nap, Raven's the only nice stranger that asks if he's okay. When: Today-ish! Where: Some Park, Orange County, CA Rating/Warnings: Low. Status: Complete!
There really wasn’t wrong with sleeping outdoors, was there?
Jack didn’t see a problem. California had nicer weather than the rest of the damn country - at least to him. He came from colder climates with the kind of wet freeze that seeped into your bones, even with the sun bright and blazing. Wasn’t exactly spring time yet, but it sure as hell felt like it. Sun out, sky clear, mild breeze - it was perfect.
Except he didn’t exactly wear the nicest clothes either. Goodwill, Salvation Army - all his stops when his shoes were wearing thin or he needed to replace one of his three pants. He didn’t smell dirty, didn’t really look dirty, but he had gotten a mix of nasty and pitiful looks from people walking by.
This was America, the sidewalk bench was free, he could sleep on it. So he did, and woke up with a rude awakening when he rolled over in his daily snooze and promptly fell right onto the cement.
Despite everything going on, Raven found ways to get out that wasn’t related to school or work. Mostly it was sneaking out through a portal so that her father’s men didn’t realise she was gone. Whatever worked, right? Just because she kept to herself didn’t mean there wasn’t some sort of rebellious streak in her. Mostly just because she felt trapped in her life most of the time. Magic or not,there weren’t exactly many choices for her beyond doing what it took to keep her sanity. And to keep people safe given her father.
Which was why despite the annoying sun (okay so maybe she didn’t despise the sun, it was just annoyingly bright) Raven had decided to go read in the park. She wasn’t unaware of the dangers that lurked, but she also could defend herself if someone made the mistake of trying to attack her. Book hugged against her, the teen was walking when suddenly she saw someone fall off a park bench onto the cement right in front of her. Quirking a brow, she just looked down at the blond and tilted her head to the side some.
“Are you okay?”
“Uhhhh…” That was a good question, wasn’t it? The answer was not really, with the blood that dribbled from his nose. Once your face hits concrete, unpleasant things just tend to roll down from there. A hand went up to wipe the red on his face, smearing it some, and he couldn’t help but laugh awkwardly. “I think so.”
Further inspection led him to believe that his nose actually wasn’t broken, just really banged the fuck up and bruised. He looked up and grinned kind of crookedly. “Thanks for asking, at least?” If this was New York, he’d get trampled on carelessly by the passing crowd without a second look. “I usually don’t wake up from a nap that way.”
Between not being the touchy feely type, and the fact Raven didn’t even know Jack, she just remained where she was standing instead of helping him up. Which would have been the polite thing to do. But she had asked at least? And again, the whole not knowing him thing. Having gotten used to her empathic abilities, she at least could tell he wasn’t a threat.
“I’d worry about your face if that was how you usually woke up.”
Probably not the most proper thing to say to that comment. But well, it was the truth. If Jack always woke up from naps faceplanted in the cement, he’d have a lot of damage done to his face.
“But yeah. Looked painful so I don’t see why I wouldn’t ask.”
Gothic demonic princess who did still care about the wellbeing of others, even if she didn’t exactly express it or seem to be the sort. Just another day ending in Y.
Jack didn’t mind sitting on the ground for a couple minutes away. There was the matter of the bleeding nose he wanted to attend to first, and he didn’t have anything extra to soak up the damage to his noise aside from his sleeve - so his shirt-cuffs it was. No big deal, his buddy had a washing machine back at his place anyway.
“I’m Jack, by the way.” And he had to sort of chuckle at her dryness - he found humor in it, even if that might not have been her intention. He finally stood from the ground then, wiping his hands on his pants and smearing some faint red on them, but that’s all he had, so… “I’d shake your hand or something, but, uh.” He held his up, dirty. “Not that my blood’s got anything contagious in it. But shaking hands when you’ve got blood on it seems kind of rude.”
Didn’t seem like he had an issue being friendly to the one person who asked him if he was alright. And Jack was pretty easy-going in general anyway, so chatting it up with a total stranger wasn’t above him.
“Raven.” Might as well exchange names. Though now that she thought about it, he looked like the kid who had felt bad for the person who had mugged him because he didn’t have anything of value. Definitely a strange kid, not like Raven was any less strange. So she just went with it.
“Shake someone’s bloody hand, it turns into a blood oath and those are just messy.”
Yes. Raven made a joke. It was known to happen. Admittedly it was still completely dry in execution, but that was just Raven for you. At last he didn’t seem to care about that. Most people would get all weird about it.
“Messy and waaaaay more commitment than what I’m ready for,” he said, chuckle turned into a laugh with a smile stretched so much across his face it made his nose ache. Jack would suck through it anyway - add some ice and it would be fine, and he could rock the black and blue nostril look fine, thanks.
He took a minute to make sure his shit was still there in his backpack, rugged and with holes, and he pulled out his sketchbook to confirm that it was still in there. Okay, phew, no fuckhead had come to snatch it under his nose (har!) while he slept. “Anyway,” he continued, glancing up. “Nice to meet you. What’cha reading?”
“Pretty sure it’s more commitment than anyone is ready for.” Shrugging, Raven remained where she was, watching Jack curiously. A voice in the back of her mind said she should offer to heal him, but she pushed it down. It wasn’t something she really did unless absolutely necessary. And she didn’t know how well versed in Orange County crazy he was yet. No need to get called a freak for trying to help.
“Likewise.”
Then he was asking what she was reading. Shrugging, the teen looked down at the book in her arms then answered.
“Deathless.” It had been that or Crime and Punishment. The shorter book had won out this time. That and she had been in the mood for something more..whimsical. That and Crime and Punishment seemed a bit too on the head with everything going on.
Wow, what a title for a book. Jack blew a low, impressed-like whistle and took a seat on the bench. One last grind of hands against his pants, and he was sure the remaining smears of blood were too dry to get on anything else. “Sounds pretty deep. And serious.” Though it could be a title to throw off from the plot being about dancing space cats, who knew.
Well, she looked like she was just taking a stroll around here to...read a book? He pulled his backpack of the bench and set it next to his feet, leaving the space open for her. “If you’re going to read, you can sit. I’m not going to be annoying, cross my heart. I’m just the quiet weirdo that sits in a park and draws people.”
“It is in it’s own way. Russian folklore involving Koschei and the gods of life and death working throughout time.” In another life, she could have been Marya. The girl who tricked the Deathless. Who refused to be one of many Yelenas. Baba Yaga showed up, as she should in anything dealing with Russian folklore.
The offer to sit there was unexpected. Mostly people tended to want to keep to themselves. She was one of them. But something she had found was sometimes having someone calm nearby could block out the more annoying emotions of people. And if he just planned to draw.
“Sure. Thanks.”
Her description sounded nifty, although Jack’s choice in literature often involved illustrations. Comic books, other graphic novels - he could sit at a Barnes and Noble all day and read them for free, practice drawing characters that were originally cartoonish into something realistic that could look like it could breathe. “That’s...pretty neat. Any specific reason why you’re reading this?”
He had a habit of talking sometimes, asking some questions - he was a social creature by nature, made friends with anything that could breathe on legs. Was it a school thing? She looked young. Maybe high school. Maaaybe just entering college; he couldn’t tell, but he’d guess high school.
He flipped open his sketchbook, the first couple drawings consisting of (tasteful) nudity that wasn’t odd to him.
“No specific reason. Just re-reading it. It’s a more intensive look at a common folktale. It was this or Crime and Punishment.” Because Raven was like that, and like Marya. To carry her smile close to her skin, in her pocket, so no one could steal it. Though she did decide to pick a random quote. She felt it was important to hold onto even when she had to keep everything locked up inside of her. In a way, she could see Marya’s journey to understand her new life as Koschei’s wife and the world she found herself in similar to her own as she navigated her abilities and accepted them as part of her. “If the world is divided into seeing and not seeing, I shall always choose to see.”
There were just books that really resonated. That made sense of things. Marya spoke of a world where if you did not see magic or feel it, then you lived a dull life and it was true. Even as Raven’s demon powers made things that much more complicated. She wanted normal but she knew that pretending it didn’t exist would be tiresome.
Then she noticed the sketches and blinked.
“You’re an artist?”
“A book about Russian lore or Crime and Punishment,” Jack repeated, looking a mixture of both amused and impressed. Another laugh, with a sunny smile breaking across his face. “Good to have diverse literary tastes, then, yeah? The folklore stuff sounds like a better read.”
And at her question, he glanced down at his own book and shrugged a shoulder. “Guesso, yeah. You could say that. Sometimes I sell, but usually I do it because I want to.” Usually people came up and requested something from him, and they’d always pay generously. But he would still remain the epitome of ‘starving artist,’ but was more than content with it. “Self-taught. Cheaper than college. Also don’t have the grades for college, either.”
“Pretty much.” It made sense. Most people didn’t expect to see the goth teen reading things like Dostoevsky or Tolstoy or anything like that. But Raven liked to keep people guessing. Or more, she just preferred to keep to herself for the most part. But for now, a book based on folklore seemed the better choice.
As Jack talked about being an artist, more or less anyway, she just nodded. It made sense. She knew that college was expensive. It wasn’t something she was deeply considering yet. Well she was, in the way of getting the hell away from her father, but she had yet to decide what she would even want to do. Usually students started looking at college in their junior year, so she had a bit more time before that.
“Makes sense.” All she knew was she needed out of this place, and if college was the way to do that, then so be it. She knew she had the grades, it was just...choosing and all of that.
“Makes sense that I don’t have the grades?” One of Jack’s brows rose and his lips quirked into a smirk. He was teasing. Honestly. Raven’s responses were so short and to the point, he was making it his mission to drag a little more out of her. “I’m kidding, by the way. Just giving you a hard time. But hey, if there’s a scene or a story you want drawn out from you book….let me know.”
His subject were usually real life people, but he could weave a picture together with words, make it look like the page was actually breathing. A hand went to fish through his pocket and he pulled out a crumbled box of cigarettes with a lighter stuffed in it, and he stuck one into his mouth. And right before he lit it, he paused….then looked at her a bit sheepishly. “Uh, this okay?”
Jack didn’t want to be responsible for something if she was sensitive to it.
“It being cheaper than college.” Wasn’t that obvious? The news was filled with talk of student loans and how prices continued to grow despite wages remaining stagnant. Affording college was insane. Though Raven and her comments could be taken out of context fairly often depending given her nature. And.. he was giving her a hard time. Right. People did that sort of thing. Though the offer to draw something from her book? Interesting.
“Maybe. You’re on the network, right? Who knows. Maybe I’ll just find quotes at random and send them to you.”
Maybe. Doubtfully, but it could happen. The way Deathless was written would certainly lend to a creative mind, whimsical and flowy. And he smoked.
“Yeah. That’s fine.”
Not her favourite smell, but she could handle it. Self-heal the damage secondhand smoke did to the lungs. She had recovered from a lot worse on her own.
It was always polite to ask anyway, and he wasn’t about to light one up if the lady doth protest! So the little flame came up, and the tip was singed. A couple puffs, and it was burning fine on its own. “Yeah, that network. And I’m up for that. You can spam me with whatever quotes you want; I’ll return it with a drawing.” Putting mythology on paper and making it look like the fantasy was reality? Challenge accepted.
His fingers flipped through the pages until an empty canvas appeared, and he retrieved some of his pencils and erasers. “So....” Now that she brought up the network thing, he had to ask. “Do you experience the whole weird dream thing, too?”
Nothing wrong with being polite. Raven’s disdain of most people came from the fact that they really couldn’t be bothered. And were just annoying. But politeness or lack there of had a definite role in her disdain. So she appreciated it all the same. And well, now she could randomly challenge someone with book quotes and see what happened. That could be fine.
“Sounds like a plan.”
She knew it was a risk mentioning the network, but if he hadn’t been, she could have brushed it off. The question about experiencing the dreams was met with a nod.
“I did. They’re over now, though.” Thank god. They still cycled through on some shuffle setting, but it at least she didn’t have to worry about what would happen next. And while she didn’t have the control dream her had, Raven was better at it now than she’d been when it started. Still, thank goodness for glamours.
Made sense, since everyone on that little online community acted as a support group for each other. “I just started mine,” Jack said, chewing on his lip contemplatively as he stared at the blank page. Drawing from memory to paper - he thought about sketching Rose to see how well he could remember her. Didn’t hurt, did it? So the tip of the pencil started to move, light strokes at first. “I’m on the Titanic, in the early 1900s.”
He’d done the research at a local library. Wondered if he was dealing with a reincarnation issue, since people had theories being thrown about in regards what the dream phenomenon actually was. In the end, it was all too complicated for Jack to understand and sort through so he gave up, and just opted to stick around for the ride out of morbid curiosity.
“Yours end in a good note?” Neal told him he had died, and apparently that was a thing. A terrifying thing.
Raven nodded as he mentioned just starting his. That was always complicated for new people. Because it was just so easy to brush things off and go on with life. To just ignore them, or try to because no one could actually ignore what happened in the dreams. It might be easier and better for the sanity, but it never worked out. Add in the fact Jack said he’d been on the Titanic? Well.. that didn’t sound like it’d have a happy ending.
“Wow.”
Raven didn’t really know people who had dealt with actual historical things in their dreams. Well, she’d seen talk of France and revolutions, but mostly - or at least with those she paid attention to - things tended to be more oriented around magic and super heroes and fairytales.
“Yeah. Surprisingly.”
She had been so ready for them to end when she became the portal. That was supposed to be it. Instead she had survived, found herself and defeated Trigon, saving the world. From talking with Damian, she knew that the need for masked heroes continued, she knew that the Teen Titans would continue to evolve, grow. But for it, they had ended and she was relieved for that.
Yeah, wow. Everyone knew the fate of the Titanic - wasn’t there a movie about it? He searched, couldn’t find it for the life of him though. Either way it was still somewhere down at the bottom of the Atlantic, and that didn’t necessarily bode well for him, but Jack had told himself he wouldn’t worry about it. He didn’t want his entire life at the moment to be engulfed by the confusion of the dreams.
“Why were you so surprised?” A drag from his cigarette, and he blew smoke away from her as the lines brushed against paper began to take a feminine shape. His eyes peeked at her, his cheeks widening with a little grin. “Things started out that bad for you? I keep hearing people get superpowers or something. Some girl posted about causing that earthquake. Gnarly.”
There were plenty of movies and books about the Titanic. It was one of those stories that lived on despite it being over a hundred years since it sank. The intrigue and all of that. But what was there really to say? There was actual historical basis for that as opposed to superheroes and the like.
“Yeah.”
Because Raven wasn’t a sharer by nature. People who might be from that world, or those with powers? It was a bit easier to talk about with them, at least to give them some sort of understanding. Jack? She didn’t see that happening with Jack given what he dreamed of. But he also had already proven he was the type to press for more information. Shrugging, the teen leaned against the back of the bench, watching the people walking around.
“There was a prophecy, but in the end I beat it despite it seeming impossible.” That was the easiest way to explain it without going into the demonic powers aspect or any of that particular mess.
A prophecy? Sounded like something ominous that would fit into one of the folklores in her book, and the pencil against paper paused. Jack blinked up and brushed some of those stray blonde hairs from his eyes, brows furrowed. “Seems like some pretty serious stuff. I mean, glad you beat it, despite the impossible. But I keep hearing all the wrong things sometimes bleed over.”
She seemed a little young to deal with prophecies, and prophecies usually led to some apocalyptic world-ending scenario. Or maybe he’d been watching too many horror movies, who knew, but that’s what first came to mind anyway.
Ominous and apocalyptic world-ending would be accurate. She had been convinced of it for months and dream her since she’d been born. Not an easy way to live, and not an easy thing to have bleed over. Yet here she was, still alive and despite becoming a portal and the demon birds that had come with it for those three days, she had survived, the world had survived and she had saved it in her dreams.
“Pretty serious sums it up. But yeah. The wrong things can also bleed over. Seems more negative things bleed over than not, but I think it just depends on who you are, what your dreams are and still somehow trying to find a balance.”
Maybe that was why Robin had said she was one of the most hopeful people he knew. Well that and the fact that, despite the prophecy hanging over her head, Raven had always gotten up and tried to do good. But she had to believe in balance and that while a lot of bad bled over, good could also do so. Otherwise, what was the point?
Huh. “Good way to look at it, actually.” A reader like her would have some good insight in things like this, he thought. Jack didn’t find anything out of the ordinary in his dreams whatsoever; they looked like how things would be in the early 1900s. His most exciting scene so far was saving Rose from falling off the end of the boat, and he was sure it wasn’t going to be the last time he’d see her. She already caught his eye in the distance - funny how he actually got the chance to meet her.
Even if she was kind of a brat at first.
“If I need advice from a dream veteran, I’ll let you know. I’ll bribe you with...I don’t know, doodles. Or a hotdog. They’re like three dollars or something, I can afford those.”
Raven could try to distance herself from people all she liked (and she did try) but she had a tendency to get pulled back in. She was the creepy one, distant, but sometimes that gave her perspective. Just like reading. Just like her dreams. Though someone saying they would actually come to her for advice? That was new.
“Tea works better. But I’ll keep an eye out for any questions you might have.”
Not that she’d actually need to be bribed. Still, appearances to maintain or something like that.