date posted: 2023-08-03
summary: You never escape who you really are.
word count: 946 words
notes: i don't know what the fuck this means i just wanted to write something weird. and i sure did!
With hands wrapped around her throat, Raven sees what they failed to see. She’s on her back, legs splayed out pathetically, Tara’s grip tightening, spots in her vision.
“You ruined my life! You ruined everything!”
Hazily, she notices Tara’s bleeding nose, and it almost terrifies her more than the pressure on her throat, because she knows, ultimately, she will survive this, she will survive Tara, that the girl is nothing more than a traitor. She lays helps, hears Tara’s screams, her cries, sees the warm, warm blood on her face, so close to her.
Tara’s grip loosens, and she straightens, still straddling Raven. It’s just them in this cavern, the avalanche, Raven dragged down by the skin of her cloak like little more than prey for Tara. She cried out, panicked, felt herself twisted and knotted by the strength of Tara’s tiny, pathetic fists.
She knows how to break free. It’s not hard – she could easily call for help with her soul self. She knows, intrinsically, that the Titans will find them tussling in this hole, surrounded by sharp terrain and dirt and mud (all over her cloak, Tara’s face, the blood on her fists on Raven’s neck, now).
This is the end of Tara with them, her story, the one she carved out with her glowing fists and her cutting grin, split across her face like a gash, always. She wonders how much of this Tara realizes right now.
Tara’s breathing heavily, a blank, exhausted look on her face, dark and dull, bruised and bloody (she hasn’t seen blood this dark, has she ever? Is it from the dizziness, the spots in her vision? It has to be brighter, bright like him. His shadow looms now; she can’t tell if it’s in front of her or beneath her, or inside her, satiated already, about to come out.
Maybe this is the time. Maybe he’s finally gotten to her. The blood on Tara’s face is less terrifying, now, seems right, and that thought more than anything scares her to death.)
“Are you happy?” Tara says, as Raven stares at her, the shadow behind her. The blood all over her face, from her nose, which looks crooked, somehow, maybe broken.
Raven repeats Tara’s words. Her hands are limp on her sides, weak, her head dizzy. Tara breathes harder, her face scrunching into that same anger, snarling and nasty (this is what he wants from her, she’ll never escape it). Tara leans forward, and Raven expects her to knock her unconscious in her rage.
(It’s all Tara’s feelings right now, all absorbed, none left for her, not even the gnarled, used up leftovers. She doesn’t know what she feels right now. She thinks and thinks and feels only the numbness.)
Tara’s face is close enough for Raven to feel her breath. The blood on her face almost touches her. She wonders how fresh it is, how warm it is, and then feels like she’s going to throw up, because that’s him, it’s always him, even in front of her, on her.
“This isn’t you,” she tries, fake-calm. Her hands are shaking; she knows why.
Hysterically, Tara says, “you never knew me. You made me up. I was never the good girl you Titans thought I was,”
(She’ll never be the good girl Azarath needed her to be, for their sake, for the world’s sake. It’s never about her, isn’t it? She’ll never be free and she’ll never feel for herself, anything for herself, always for others.)
Tara’s flushed, tired, wants it to be over, but still feels that anger. She’s always been the easiest and hardest to read. She wonders if she knows their time is up.
Raven knows. She wrenches her hands up, weak, pulls Tara down, and kisses her. She feels the blood on Tara’s teeth, her split lip (she wants to twist open the wound until Tara’s face matches the rest of her, until she’s just like Raven truly is; all gash, all feeling, never a person, never.)
Tara doesn’t lean into the kiss; she thrashes, wide-eyed (she watches, wants to see all of it). Raven pulls her down by the back of her head and the claw on her cheek.
Raven breaks apart to breathe, to let Tara breathe, and whispers against her mouth, “I did this,” as she studies the blood coming down Tara’s cheek, the scratches deep like the cut of a butcher’s knife (she was always scared of the taste of meat).
The girl before her is wretched, unforgiven, just like her. They’ve always been the same. Raven knows this now, knows that the Titans failed to see in Tara what she sees now.
Raven failed to see herself in the mirror, and a small part of her says she pays the price for that now, as she rakes her hand down Tara’s shoulder. Her face is covered in blood. Raven wonders if the blood on herself blends in with her now. It would be hard to tell, wouldn’t it?
There’s spit and tears and blood all over Tara’s face, as she looks closer, studies her, the both of them silent.
Calmly, Raven lays her head to the floor, letting Tara pull back as she still straddles her (it’s pointless now, she knows, and wonders if Tara knows too).
“They’ll be here soon. They’ll see all of us now,” she says, voice steady (he’s all over her now, and it barely scares her). Tara trembles above her, her hands like lead on Raven’s shoulders, leaning on her as she shakes.
There’s a wretched part of her that wants all of this to end, that wants to be done with herself and Tara and the Titans. She wonders how much of that part is herself, or the part that everyone wanted her to play. It’s all gone, now. She can’t go back. She falls in, accepts it.
“Come with me,” Raven says.