Raven loves waffles more than life itself (ofevilsfire) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2015-12-02 16:48:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, peter pan, rachel roth (raven) |
Who: Peter and Raven
What: Evening out the playing field
When: 2 December, middle of the night
Where: Peter’s apartment
Warnings: Low
Status: Log | Complete
And like years previous, it had started to snow. Which meant that Raven had taken to going out and doing her patrols with Laura more often, mostly to offer blankets and sandwiches to people in need, something warm. There wasn’t much else she could do. It also helped to clear her mind, give her something to focus on as school work was easy and people were confusing.
She honestly had no idea how she had gotten into this mess. Oh right. She had let people get close to her.
As the hours ticked by and the air remained cold, the teen pulled her cloak around herself. The joys of being able to travel through an inter-dimension was that she could also store things in that inter-dimension, such as the blankets and sandwiches and the like that she was handing out.
One thing continued to bother her though. The fact that Peter knew too much about her and she really had no idea about him. It didn’t mean anything. He was still confusing and annoying and it frustrated her. But that didn’t mean she was happy that he had gotten bits and pieces about her father out of her. So even if he was weird and confusing and it was awkward, Raven made a decision.
She was going to demand answers. In fact. She was going to do that right now. Because the thought kept poking at the back of her mind even as she tried to ignore it. Well. She was done with her rounds and she didn’t feel like heading back home yet. So it was through the portal and into Peter’s room. (She really needed to get better about figuring out where she would end up.) In the room, Raven just levitated, not really touching down given it was dark.
“You know too much about me and I know nothing about you. That’s not fair.” Well, no one said she was subtle when she was frustrated. Or ever.
Things were still strange between Peter and Raven and he was doing his best to prevent himself from thinking about it. He would not be that bully guy who pressured her into figuring out how she felt and would never want to push her into something she didn’t want to do (like a relationship), but that also meant he needed something good to distract him. There were a handful of girls that he had been seeing sporadically since he kissed Raven, but it had started out as a way to make sure he wasn’t repulsive, and he didn’t intend to take it very far. The girls seemed to be on the same page as him, but he knew he should probably make it clear the next time he saw any of them. He was a little ashamed about it, but he was all kinds of dysfunctional if you got down to it.
Luckily no one was over at his place when Raven decided to make her late night call. Since she didn’t bother to sit on the bed he had absolutely no idea that she was even in the room until her voice cut through the air. At first he just believed the voice to be in his dreams and he didn’t think anything of it until he heard it once more replaying in his mind and realized the voice was too close. He awoke with a start, rolling onto his back, and kicking his covers off his body in the process. There was a bare chest and a bare leg sticking half out of the blankets, but they managed to stay on over his lower stomach.
“What the -- “ he called out and groaned as he vaguely caught sight of her in the darkness, “God damn it, Raven. You can’t just show up in the middle of the night. I’m trying to sleep here.”
It definitely would have been awkward had some random girl been there. Well. More awkward than it already was. Which was annoying Raven and distracting her. And she couldn’t afford to be distracted, especially as she was realising that despite things being fine at home, Dick moving back to New York had her seriously ungrounded. Her patrols helped some, but then she had ended up here so maybe not as much as she had wanted to believe.
“Right. Sorry.”
And she was. He annoyed her and she still didn’t know what she felt about him in any regard, but she did feel a bit bad about waking him and just..showing up. It just tended to be how she was. Especially when focused on something (such as evening the playing field about him knowing things about her and her not knowing things about him). Even so, she didn’t turn around and portal out. She just sort of remained levitating.
He pulled the pillow out from under his head and covered his face with it briefly before letting out an annoyed groan. He almost had an urge to toss it at her to see if it would break her levitation, but he wasn’t that rude. So once he was done voicing his frustration into it he slid it off his face and back underneath his head. He was surprised that she was actually apologizing and was going to attempt to just sleep again, but she was floating above him. It was odd.
“Ugh, okay, what are you complaining about? That you don’t know anything about me? What do you want to know?”
His voice was still coated in sleep and he may have slurred a bit of what he was saying, but he didn’t care. Apparently she wanted to talk to him about something and he wasn’t going to tell her no. He would take any opportunity to spend time with her that he could, but he wouldn’t tell her about that.
Again with the bad ideas. But sometimes it just happened. And it wasn’t like she could take it back now. So Raven just let him groan into his pillow. This was very annoying. All of it. Once again she was regretting the fact that she let people get close to her. That she had somehow let Peter under her skin. That wasn’t okay. It was ten shades of not okay.
She didn’t even retort about the ‘complaining’ comment. She considered it fair to know about him since he knew about her. She didn’t just tell people things about herself, she kept it all locked away.
“I don’t know. But you know more about me than most people and that’s not okay.” It made sense since she had needed to explain the whole...fake ID thing that allowed her to not only work over the hours of someone who was a minor, but who had been too young to get a job initially.
At least she was honest.
“What do you meant, you don’t know? You can’t just show up at my place with zero idea of how to execute your plan. Let’s see, my name is Peter Pan and I’m 20 years old. My parents are dead and I grew up in foster care,” he explained to her. Might as well get the easy stuff out of the way. The things he didn’t enjoy talking about. It may have been years since his parents died, but sometimes it was still raw. He had no one that he was close to except for Tink’s parents and he hadn’t talked to them in a long time.
But if she truly just wanted to know things about him since she had revealed things about herself then he would play her game. It obviously meant something that she needed to know these things. That thought made him smile just a little bit and he slowly opened his eyes so he could look at her.
“Are you really just going to float there all night? You can sit on my bed.”
She would have retorted that it meant exactly what she said. She didn’t know just what she meant. He was confusing it had thrown her and she didn’t like it. So getting answers. That was the plan. Knowledge. It wouldn’t exactly protect her or anything, but it would maybe make things a little less confusing. Hopefully.
“Mm.” There wasn’t much to say about the parents being dead and being raised in foster care thing. But she did understand on some level. She’d never known her mother, she’d died in childbirth and then all the issues with her father. But it didn’t mean she was going to look at him differently or treat him differently. He was still annoying. It might just be a defence mechanism. Or.. something. “So you hide behind jokes and not being serious.”
Like Beast Boy in a way. At least, that was the connection her mind went to. Same level of annoying and frustrating, for sure.
Then he was saying she could sit on his bed and she blinked. The idea hadn’t occurred to Raven. And it sort of shocked her more into realising where she was, not that she hadn’t known just making the connection. Lowering from the air, the teen stayed at the far end of the bed, knees pulled up and cloak wrapped tightly around her.
“Sure, if you want to put it that way. Are you turning into a shrink on me?” he commented with a confused look on his face. Maybe it was his defense mechanism, but it was truly his personality. His life may have gone to shit for a while, but he was a generally happy person. Things had been going well in his life now and he didn’t really feel the need to be serious. Part of it was probably his dream personality as well.
When she landed on the bed he sat up a little bit so he could watch her. At least she was finally sitting down and not being such a looming figure up in the air. It was still strange to him even though he could technically fly. “What else do you want to know?” The least he could do was give her more information if she wanted it. Maybe it would help her figure out her feelings for him since she hadn’t run out of his apartment yet.
“No. I just know someone in my dreams who would do that.” And it was also part of who Beast Boy was. She knew that he could be serious when needed, and she knew that he just..generally was like that. It was mostly finding connections for Raven right then. It was hard to know. But Beast Boy was relatable for her, she knew that dynamic. And maybe it explained… well, she didn’t know. The general annoyance but the random flickers of him caring. Well before he had dropped the whole ‘I have a crush on you’ thing that then made things ungodly awkward since he’d gone and kissed her.
“What do you even want to do with yourself.” Hers was pretty straight forward. She had said as much. Even if it had been in terms of the dreams, it was clear in her actions and how she’d said it. She was trying to make up for the evil she was supposed to bring. It was why she’d been out that night and why she was out most nights. Trying to at least do some form of good. And not many people knew that. Those who knew about her dreams and destiny felt she took too much on, carried it all and should be normal. Or at least try to be. And it never worked out.
That was the most important question he continued to ask himself. He honestly had no idea, but there were ideas that seemed appealing to him. He stretched his arms over his head and seemed to have forgotten that he was shirtless. It took him a few moments of quiet consideration before he finally answered her question. “I honestly have no idea. I enjoy learning, but it’s hard to know what to do. I’ve started to really consider becoming a psychologist. I want to help those that have been through what I’ve been through. I don’t want them to think that they’re alone and maybe if they have someone to talk to that they would be able to find the right track,” this was probably the most sincere and honest thing he had shared with her. He didn’t normally talk like this to anyone else.
“I...I have this group of boys that follow me around in my dreams called the Lost Boys and that’s what I feel like is happening here as well. I could get other boys that feel lost in the foster system and help lead them into a happier life. I certainly don’t think I could make a living fighting pirates and indians, so this is probably the next best thing,” Peter explained to her before he moved his arm over his forehead and let out a yawn. This was some heavy stuff to talk about and he probably wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t been half asleep at the moment.
Sometimes late night talks could be very deep. Mostly because exhaustion and being half asleep meant people weren’t always as in control of the walls and barriers they put up. The defence mechanisms and persona they always maintained. She didn’t even mind the silence, it was what she thrived in. But she could hear the honesty, there were no pretenses.
This Peter she could actually be friends with.
So Raven just rested her chin on her knees, the hood of her cape having fallen back so that her face wasn’t covered anymore.
“That would be a good idea. No one should feel alone.” Unless they were her because it was safer that way. For everyone. She was a danger, and she also knew that letting people get close meant that if something happened to any of the people she considered hers, the ones she had emotional tethers to that had gone up without her noticing, she could cause a lot of destruction from her own pain without even meaning to.
But kids in the foster system? Things like that? They should have that feeling of understanding and not as if they were alone.
Well, if this was the Peter she liked then she should say something and he would change how he acted around her. This was probably the Peter she would get if she told him that she liked him as well. He didn’t try to put on a front, but he was a cheerful person. The sarcasm was part of a defense mechanism most likely, but he tried not to psychoanalyze himself despite taking quite a few psych class.
He couldn’t help but notice that her hood had fallen back and admired silently how pretty she looked like that. He made a noise of agreement and yawned once again. God, he seriously just wanted to go to sleep, “I just want people to be happy. mmm, I should like a Miss America pageant contestant. I want world peace, Pat,” he had an urge to curl up on his side and bury his face in his pillow and pretend she didn’t exist right now, “Maybe I can learn how to make you happy while I’m at it.”
“You’re not so annoying when there are no pretenses.” Well. It was Raven and she tended to be blunt on things like that. Besides, she made no attempt to hide the fact she found Peter insufferable most of the time. He’d started confusing her when he showed concern and the lack of pretenses made it make sense so she’d say something. But then he was talking about being Miss America and she just scoffed slightly.
At least until he made the comment on learning how to make her happy. Suddenly Raven was much more thankful for the darkness since she was pretty sure she coloured some at that. She still didn’t know how to respond to him or situations in general like this.
“So you’re saying I’m one of your lost boys from the dreams.” More a statement than a question. But it was still a seemingly accurate description to her.
“I’m not that annoying. Not when you get me alone, but you don’t want to be alone with me. You’re missing out,” Peter murmured sleepily as he tried to keep his eyes open. Man, tomorrow was going to be a wash if she kept him awake all night because he would never be able to get anything done. There may be a handful of naps in his future, but at least he didn’t have to work.
“A bit like them. I mean, you’re prettier than the Lost Boys, but you kind of are. I want to protect you and make you happy. I want you to know that you’re not alone and you shouldn’t be scared to care about other people. You deserved to be cared about because you go off trying to protect everyone. I don’t think you see how amazing you truly are,” Peter pointed out to her. He could sense her need to be alone, but no one should be alone. He wanted to extend his warmth and happiness to her and the more he learned about her patrolling and things like that the more she appealed to him. He even enjoyed their verbal sparring matches at work.
“Right…” Trailing off seemed to work. Because he was basically talking in his sleep and thus rambling, with nothing much to say to it. Not that Raven would know how to respond anyway. And then he was… saying a lot of things that really didn’t make sense and just served to make her self conscious. Which.. was the last thing she needed.
“And now you’re talking crazy. Clearly it’s from lack of sleep.” Straightening up, Raven started to levitate off the bed in order to leave. “I’ll let you get back to that. Sleep.”
So much for trying to make things less confusing.
It was far more than Peter ever wanted to reveal about his feelings about her. He felt strongly about her and knew it was probably silly to feel that way. But obviously she wasn’t taking his conversation seriously anyway, so he didn’t have to really worry about it much. He would probably forget what he said and hope that she would as well. Or don’t and maybe it would help her figure out her feelings.
“You don’t have to go. You can stay here if you want,” Peter murmured as he turned to curl up on his side, which left half of the bed empty. He knew she wouldn’t take him up on the offer, but he was at least going to offer, “I wish you would.” The last part was said in a whisper and he didn’t know or care if he heard her because he was starting to drift back off into sleep.
Whether or not he meant her to hear the last part, she had and it freaked her out. This was never supposed to happen. She wasn’t supposed to have let people in and that had failed. But people never should have gotten to that point in wanting her to be around either. And it sounded like more than a crush when he put it that way. If she could be his friend or what, it didn’t matter.
Her head hurt.
“No. I should go.” And with that, she vanished through the portal to her own room. It was safer there. In fact, she was going to take it one step further and vanish into her meditative mirror. Things at least made sense there.