Of Thieves And Do Gooders

Raven’s Point Of View

Warm. Soft. Tired. Just don’t move, I told myself with a content sigh. Don’t move and you won’t feel that damned cold, you can keep pretending that you’re somewhere warm. Hawaii, think of Hawaii. I thought of Hawaii distantly, and then realized that it was difficult to think of a place I had never actually been before. What a stupid thought.

Feeling my warm thoughts slip away, I begrudgingly peeled my eyes open, waiting to see nothing but complete and utter whiteness because I was probably buried alive in the snow. However, the only I whiteness I saw was on the walls of the room I was in. I blinked and frowned for a long moment. Then I sat up, swallowed a mass of saliva that wetted my throat thankfully and looked around the room I was in. I was in my room, Hayden’s old room, in the mansion of Jack Crawford.

I was staring at the wall opposite me with a blankness that a robot would envy. Tick. Tick. Tick. My brain was moving in super slow mode and I couldn’t quite process what I was seeing. I looked around the room a second time, blinked, and then lifted my hand to my face and bit down on my index finger. Hard. I yelped at the pain in my hand, but more importantly the room was still firmly around me. Was I alive? I vaguely shook my head from side to side and then thrust my legs over the side of the bed, swore as I stepped on a plastic guitar and stumbled my way to the door.

I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive, I kept thinking as I pulled the door open and peered out into the hall. I was alive and I wasn’t in a hospital room which probably meant I was all right. All my limbs were attached, I could feel every part of my body, no frostbite, that was a good sign.

I’d like to make a quick mental list of people I would like to thank for my continued life. Those that are included in this list are:

1. Sonic the Hedgehog
2. Mark Walberg
3. Jace Wayland
4. Chris Farley
5. The greased-up deaf guy from Family Guy

My thanks to all of you.

Suddenly, my mental list seemed irrelevant as a particular thought popped into my mind and overtook all of my senses, stopping my entire thought process.

Hayden.

I pushed myself out into the hall and trudged down to the room with the locked door, made the turn and continued down to where Hayden’s room was. My limbs were feeling like sludge attached to my torso, and my throat became increasingly dry as the door came into view, but I kept walking.

Then the door was in front of me and my hand was on the handle. I hesitated. Did I really want to go in there? I snorted at that thought, of course I did, suspense was for the weak and mentally challenged. I twisted the doorknob and pushed the door open quickly, nearly hitting someone as they leapt backwards, yelping in surprise.

I blinked as I looked at Damion, who was staring at me incredulously, his mouth gaping as he tried to force out some words. I could feel every muscle in my body tighten at the sight of him. My eyes flickered from him to the bed where I saw a lump inhabiting the middle of the mattress. Guilt crawled up my spine and settled on my shoulders as I considered the fact that I had kissed both of them in the same night, which was so, so…whore-like, to be completely honest with myself. But if I had to ask myself which one meant more…

“Raven!” Damion started toward me, but I took a step back, and he hesitated a startled look on his face.

“Sorry Damion, I can’t deal with…with…um, you, right now, frankly. So, could you leave please? There’s some stuff I have to…” I trailed off feeling embarrassed. “Look could you just give me some time alone with Hayden?” I asked, fully aware that I wasn’t being as nice as I could have been.

Damion stared at me, looking a little offended and surprised at the same time, but he closed his mouth tightly and nodded once before pushing past me in the doorway, making sure to shove me a little with his shoulder, to let me know that he was clearly not pleased. Oh well, I thought with a shrug and walked into the room, closing the door behind me. I didn’t have time for Damion, because he wasn’t the one that was quite possibly near death. Now that I thought about it, I could have asked Damion how Hayden was doing, damn my emotions and clouded judgment.

I ignored the thought of my own stupidity and approached the bed in complete silence, telling myself distantly, heel, toe…heel, toe… Although I wasn’t quite sure why I was sneaking up on a sleeping person, or a person that wasn’t just “sleeping” for that matter. I shuddered at the thought and pushed it out of my mind. He was not dead. No one would leave a dead person in their bed, they dragged them straight to the morgue, didn’t they? That’s what I was intent on telling myself anyway, whoever put a corpse in a bed was fucked up.

Hayden’s golden hair was tussled against the pillow he was laying against, although I couldn’t see his face since he was laying on his side with his back to me. If he was asleep, was I supposed to wake him up? What if he died the second he woke up? That would be a guilt I didn’t want to live with for the rest of my life.

“Hey…um…Hayden, get up,” I ordered weakly and licked my lips nervously.

He didn’t budge.

I frowned a little, okay, so he was a hard sleeper, that was all. I reached out with my hand and touched his upper back, near his shoulder blade and laid my hand there for a moment, feeling his heart thump gently against my fingertips. With a sigh of relief I pulled my hand back, hopefully he wasn’t in a coma or something.

“Hey, I know you’re alive, so get up,” I ordered with a bit more confidence.

Still no movement, but when I looked at him more closely I could see the slight rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathed. Another good sign. “Get up damn it, I’ve seen enough chick flicks to know that this is when your eyes flutter open and I confess my undying love for you,” I said with a slight nervous chuckle and swallowed hard, then added in a mutter., “although I think usually the girl is in your position…”

He stirred slightly and my body tightened. Of all the things he could have possibly heard, he heard that, of course, thank you lady luck for once again standing back to laugh at me. Hayden muttered something and I blinked, trying to decipher his words and failing.

“What?” I asked, leaning close enough to hear him better without crowding him.

Hayden rolled around to face me, blinking tiredly before he spoke, “I said, that sounds gross.”

I blinked as I rethought what I had said, what could have possibly been gross about--? Oh, ew! “You sick-o!” I said verbally and leaned away from him with a disgusted look on my face.

“Hey you were the one who said it,” Hayden replied, rolling his eyes.

“Whatever,” I waved away his words with my hand and asked more seriously, “So, how are you feeling?”

“Tired as fuck,” he replied and pushed his face into his pillow, sending strands of his golden hair in all directions. Despite myself, I noticed how cute that was…aside from the swearing anyway. Through his pillow I heard him mutter something that came out like, “Ant poo?”

“Assuming that was supposed to be ‘and you?’, I’m fine, not even tired, you’re such a wuss,” I mocked with a sneer that he didn’t see.

“’Ut a ‘uck up,” he said as a response, still hiding his face in his pillow.

“What was that? ‘Buck up kiddo’? I can’t understand you when you’re trying to eat your pillowcase,” I spoke easily, because it was easy to tease him, easier than going back to the serious topic, but I knew I’d have to eventually.

Hayden rolled his head to the side while still laying on his stomach and glared at me. “You heard me,” he said as if it were a fact, but I guess it kind of was.

“Yeah, well, on a different note, I’m glad you’re still alive and swearing, that’s always a refreshing reassurance,” I said in a light, joking tone, although I was internally shaking like some strange type of psychotic massage chair.

“Thanks, I’m glad you didn’t turn into a popsicle out there, you would’ve been a shitty tasting popsicle,” Hayden replied without missing a beat.

“Eating shit-flavored popsicles are we? Probably not too good for your digestive system.”

“Duly noted.”

“Excellent.”

And that was when the conversation died and silence rolled in and decided to get comfortable. Sort of like that one guy that you’re kind of friends with, but you still wouldn’t want to invite him to the movies with your other friends, but he somehow manages to find out and invites himself and you can’t bring yourself to say know and so there’s that weird vibe stretching across the theater between that guy and your other friends. That guy should now be known as “Silence” because that’s the type of silence that had decided to show up uninvited into Hayden’s room.

However, the silence was sent packing when Hayden’s words moved in and took its place. “So…umm, what do you remember about…you know…?” Hayden mumbled near the end of his sentence, sounding uncomfortable. Well good, at least it wasn’t just me.

“Freezing to death?” I offered.

“Yeah, that.”

I remembered most of it, actually, which meant one of two things. 1) I had some explaining to do, or 2) I had some serious acting to do. Realistically, I remembered up to the point where I had called Hayden a “dumbass”, I remembered kissing him, and the moment his eyes were open, him waking me up when I hadn’t even realized I had fallen asleep, I remembered being tired, so tired, but still hearing Hayden’s voice. It was all a little faint, but my photographic memory enhanced it and played back the scenes over and over in my head.

“Raven?” Hayden asked carefully, as if I were a terminally ill child that was allergic to sound waves.

I blinked rapidly and then closed my eyes altogether, and said exactly what was on the edge of my mind, without even thinking about the words that came out of my mouth, “All of it.”

“What?” Hayden asked, slightly startled.

I realized that several minutes had passed and he had forgotten his question in the first place. “I remember all of it,” I elaborated. I looked up from the clenched fist at my side and saw with a start that Hayden was blushing. When I opened my mouth to say something, no words came out, so I stood with my mouth open and my mind blank like an idiot.

“Even…” Hayden swallowed hard, “even the…umm…what I asked you…?” he questioned, looking firmly at his bedspread now.

“Yeah…”

“And you called me--”

“A dumbass, I remember.”

“Yeah…why’d you call me a dumbass?” he asked, sounding like the insult had been applied afresh.

I blushed furiously and dug my teeth into my lower lip while curling my hands into tight fists, my fingernails digging into the flesh on my palms. He really was a dumbass if he couldn’t figure that out! “Do you even remember what you asked me?” I wondered aloud, looking at the bedspread too, but near the foot of the bed, away from him at all costs.

“Uh…yeah, I asked you why you…erm…why you…” he couldn’t seem to get the question out a second time, and instead settled for, “why you did what you did.”

I laughed once, sounding slightly bitter. “You mean why I kissed you?” I inquired, a strange little smile curling onto my mouth. I didn’t wait for his reply and turned my eyes away from the comforter to look at Hayden, however, my throat closed up when I saw that he was looking at me too, looking curious, thoroughly and utterly confused. That was when my embarrassment, which had been a steady flame, was completely engulfed by my anger which flared up insistently and unexpectedly. “Come on Hayden, really? You need me to say it? Why else does one person kiss another person?” I snapped, folding my arms across my chest to keep myself from maiming my palms further.

Hayden didn’t back down as most people would, he pushed himself into a sitting position and glared back at me. “I don’t know Raven, why don’t you tell me why it is that you kiss other people? Because the traditional reason that one person kisses another person is because they happen to like that other person, but you aren’t very traditional are you? You’re as unorthodox as they come! You kissed Damion before you kissed me and you can’t exactly like two people at the same time now can you?” He paused and took a sharp breath and then added, “So tell me Raven, tell me why it is, exactly, that you kiss people.”

My face reddened, although it was in fury now. “Okay, you caught me! I kiss people because, obviously, that’s how I suck the life out of people, how I stay alive and drive the happiness from their lives, because based on how you ended up that’s all my kisses are good for!” I shouted and threw my hands down at my sides. Hoping he got the sarcasm from my last sentences, I said more seriously, and more loudly for that matter, “The difference between my kiss with you and my kiss with Damion is that I kissed you, not the other way around. And when you really think about it, and use your brain every once in awhile, you might be able to see that…that…that Laura isn’t the only girl that you know!”

“Raven, I--” Hayden started to say, sounding like he was trying to apologize.

So I cut him off, “Laura doesn’t even like you the way that--” my throat choked shut and I bit my bottom lip. I had been about to say the way that I do, but I changed it, “--the way that you like her, I don’t know how many relationships you’ve been in before, but one-sided ones don’t turn out too well, that’s called stalking.”

“Rave--”

“No, I don’t want to hear it, I don’t want to hear anything else from you, because I’ve decided, you’re a complete and total ass, any words that come out of your mouth are just--” going to hurt is what I had been about to say, but I stopped myself and swore inwardly, what was wrong with me? I kept having to correct myself, words kept coming out of me that I didn’t want to come out. I turned quickly toward the door and grabbed the doorknob.

That was when the blankets ruffled behind me and I heard Hayden’s feet hit the floor. “Raven! Wait, where are you--?”

“I’m going for a walk, lay down before you fall over,” I replied in a sharp tone, and slammed the door behind me. With a startled gasp I ran headfirst into Leon’s chest. “Sorry,” I muttered and pushed my way past him, not even in the mood for his company. I didn’t want to take my anger out on him. Damion, maybe, but not Leon.

“Raven, are you all right?” Leon called after me, sounding concerned.

My heart gave a twinge at the amount of concern in his voice, but I didn’t stop walking, “I’m fine, don’t worry about me, might wanna check on Hayden though, he’s crying his eyes out in there,” I said sarcastically and turned the corner at the end of the hall. I wasn’t stopped once on the rest of my journey to the front door, not even by a maid or a butler.

__________________________________

Hayden’s Point Of View

“Mother-fucking--shit--God damn it all to fucking--” I was swearing to myself--no, at myself. Not only had I tripped and fell on my face while trying to run after Raven, but now my brain was spitting insults at itself, not to mention regurgitating small fragments of Raven’s little speech. And to add to all of that, I pictured her face the entire time my mind was feeding me all of that dialogue to deal with--had there been tears at the corners of her eyes?

I had hardly even realized that the door had opened when I decided to kick my dresser and knock a lamp onto the carpet. It shattered, naturally. “Fucking shit!” I yelled at the lamp and leapt away from the crashing sound that it had made.

“Hayden, what the hell are you doing?” Lee’s voice, sturdy and angry rushed into my ears. Great, just what I needed, more talking to add to the talking in my head.

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m injuring myself to distract myself!” I said as though it were obvious, although I hadn’t realized my foot hurt until that exact moment. I sat on my bed with more swearing and rubbed my aching foot.

“What the fuck is going on?” Lee asked and kicked the door shut behind him, ignoring the mess I had made as he approached the bed where I sat and stood in front of me, looming like some sort of giant tree.

“Apparently, I’m a dumbass and Laura doesn’t like me, that is what’s going on,” I spat bitterly, a strange buzzing filtering through my ears.

“God damn, calm down would you? I haven’t seen you this worked up since--” Lee cut himself off at that point, good choice. “What just happened?” he asked, eyeing the broken lamp in speculation.

I sighed and clenched my teeth for a short moment, before I decided to recount what Raven and I had talked about. Or, more like, what Raven had yelled at me.

“So, Raven got mad and called you a dumbass and then you got mad and called her a callous whore, then she got mad again and interrupted herself a lot and then stormed out. Then I came in and you broke a lamp, am I all caught up now?” Lee asked and I nodded.

“I didn’t call her a callous whore,” I said defensively.

“Might as well have,” Lee answered with a shrug and added, “that’s what you implied anyway.”

“I didn’t mean--”

“I know, but you still implied it, you also implied she isn’t normal in any way, shape or form. Way to go, you’re a real ladies man,” Lee spoke with a spark of uncharacteristic sarcasm in his voice.

“Look I know what I said, what do you want me to do? Take it back? Because something tells me that the third dimension won’t let me jump through time and take it all back, and the supernatural power to erase memories is something I don’t have, so I don’t know what you want me to do!” I snapped and pushed my palm against my forehead, I was starting to get a fucking headache.

“I don’t want you to do anything, you got yourself into this mess, you can find your way out. I’m just here to listen so you can figure it all out,” Lee said with a shrug of his broad shoulders.

“What, exactly, is it that I should be figuring out?” I inquired, speaking as if he were a moron.

“Huh, I guess since I wasn’t there to hear it all I can see it better than you can,” Lee said thoughtfully and shook his head.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I asked crossly, he was talking to himself, and he wasn’t making sense either. Just fucking magical.

“Nothing, I’m gonna go tell your dad you’re up, he’ll probably want to check in on you,” Lee spoke easily and then waltzed out of the room and closed the door lightly behind him.

I felt like I could break another lamp at that moment. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lamp in sight, aside from the one that lay shattered miserably on the carpet. So, I settled for the pillow on my bed, and flung it across the room where it hit the wall with a muffled thud, and then flopped innocently to the floor.

You can’t exactly like two people at the same time now can you? Could I get anymore hypocritical? I growled at the thought and stalked over to where my pillow lay and ripped it up off of the floor, intent on hurtling it across the room a second time, however something flitted past my fingertips and lay motionless beside my foot. A piece of paper? I dropped my pillow and scooped up the piece of paper curiously, observing the crease that had been made down the middle.

I flipped the paper over and realized--with the dying of my curiosity--that it was just Raven’s picture, the one of her brother and her. My rage surged to the surface and every fiber in my fingertips itched to tear that picture into tiny little unrecognizable pieces, for vengeful purposes only. I held the photo with both hands, my fingertips creating a pincer-like grip at the top of the photo where I could practically feel the paper giving way beneath the small amount of pressure I could apply. Just a teeny, tiny bit of pressure and that photo would be reduced to nothing. I clenched my teeth and made a small tear near the top when my attention was drawn to the glossy side of the paper that was facing me, and on that particular side a sixteen-year-old Raven Frost was smiling happily up at me.

I stuffed the picture into my pillowcase and chucked it at the headboard on my bed.

Fucking conscience.
______________________________________

Raven’s Point Of View

Okay, did you overreact? I think you overreacted, the mental voice in my head was spitting irritating questions at me while I sat on the far side of the back deck. Turns out my walk didn’t quite make it past the front gate. I did not overreact, by the way, overreacting would have resulted in Hayden being on the floor with a bloody nose and cupping his balls, taking into consideration that he wasn’t bleeding from any orifice, I thoroughly believe that I didn’t overreact, I reacted in a completely normal fashion. Anyone would have reacted that way, right? Right, keep telling yourself that, everyone bumbles like an idiot when trying to confess feelings for another person, my mental voice mocked and then added, oh, and, of course, gets flaming pissed when that person has no idea what they’re talking about, way to go champ.

Okay, no need to get sarcastic about it.

I plucked innocently at the hem of my shirt, my brain still churning as I attempted a battle of the wits with my mental voice of reason, which happens to be surprisingly sarcastic.

“What are you doing out here?” a sneering little squeak of a voice interrupted my thought process.

I turned my head curiously and scowled, it was the same little girl from the Christmas party, the little shit that had tried to snag my eggnog. “What do you want kid?” I asked dryly and kept my attention on her. She had a defiant look in her eyes that was freakishly like my own. “Unless you’re here to fetch me some eggnog, beat it,” I added and jerked my thumb over my shoulder to signify the act.

“You’re gonna get sick again,” the little girl persisted with the same sneer as before.

“I’m not gonna get sick, thanks for your concern, but you can scram now. Go on, go play with your dolls, spit on an orphan or what ever it is that you rich kids do in your free time,” I pushed myself off of the railing of the deck and dusted off my pants.

“You’re gonna get sick and die and then no one is gonna cry because you’re mean to little kids,” the little girl said matter-of-factly.

Kill the child, my mental voice was startlingly satanic…and making quite a bit of sense…

“Look kid--”

“Do you like Hayden or something?” she cocked her head to the side, completely disregarding the death glare I was giving her.

That startled the expression from my face. “What are you? A four-year-old psychologist? I don’t need to tell you anything,” I sneered at her, as if I had just won a battle. A battle with a four-year-old, kudos to me…

“He’s icky, you know,” she continued knowledgeably.

I rose an eyebrow, I was liking where this was going, dig up some dirt and use it against him in numerous insulting ways. Very nice indeed. “And how might he be ‘icky’?” I inquired, although there was still a bit of bite at the end of my sentence.

“Every morning he walks around without a shirt for, like, hours, and sometimes he doesn’t even shower every day,” she spoke with that same self-important ring to her voice. “Hayden…icky,” she said as an emphasis.

The showering thing maybe…but dear lord he walks around without a shirt on for hours all throughout the morning? If that qualifies as “icky” there was obviously something wrong with the circuitry in my brain because a nerve was bumped in my brain that sent me into “stupid giggle” mode. The little girl stared at me with a frown, clearly insulted that I found her information funny rather than appalling.

“I’m sorry, you’re right, he’s a monster and that is just vile, clearly there’s something wrong with him,” I amended with a feigned solemn shake of my head.

“But do you like him, like him?” she asked suddenly, sounding determined.

“What are you a spy now? You ain’t cracking me kid, any info on that subject is clearly classified,” I said lazily and hopped back up onto the railing, settling my back against the corner of the house that the porch met.

“I heard you two yelling you know,” she spoke a little quietly, examining her fingernails as if she had leverage. And God damn it all, she actually did.

“Really? And what did you make out of all that yelling?” I asked with a mocking smile in her direction, obviously the kid wasn’t that smart.

“You like Hayden, but Hayden’s stupid,” the little girl said with a strange drawl to her voice as if she were obviously well-informed and had repeated the information several times already.

“Hayden’s stupid?” I asked with a raised brow.

“Yup.”

“And why’s that?” This just kept getting more interesting.

“Because,” she continued, sounding exasperated, “he likes a girl that doesn’t even like him, but you like him, right?”

I stared at her for a long moment, and realized that she was on my side, and she completely and utterly saw things my way. This was getting a little creepy, to be honest. “What’s your name kid?” I asked carefully, any hostility in my voice now absent.

She jutted her chin out proudly and smiled a little before she replied, “Amber, but Mama calls me Am.”

“Amber eh? Well, I’m enlisting you into my army of spies, you work for me now, got it?” I asked and leaned down, gesturing for her to come closer, she obliged and listened fiercely when I said, “Your main objective is to keep close watch on Leon, got it? You know him? The big red-headed guy? Hayden’s friend?” Honestly, I just needed to keep her preoccupied and get her away from me. The kid wasn’t really that bad, but she was annoying enough that I certainly didn’t want her around all the time.

“Yeah, he’s icky too,” Amber informed me with a shrug of her shoulders.

“Walks around without a shirt too?” I wondered aloud and she nodded, I shook my head from side to side, “Dastardly, the fiend,” I said with an over dramatized tone of a self-righteous hero. Amber didn’t seem to notice though, for she seemed contented that I had the correct amount of disgust in my voice. Truthfully, Leon without a shirt didn’t sound that bad to me, I mean, I loved him like a brother and all that good stuff but we weren’t actually related, which meant it was perfectly normal for me to imagine…

“Hel-lo,” Amber spoke crossly, waving her hand in front of my face and tugging at my pants.

I jerked my pants free of her hand. “Hey, cool it kid. Look, I think Leon‘s somewhere in the house and I need you to find him and stay on his trail and report back to me in exactly…well…how about at five ‘o clock tonight?”

Amber nodded, clearly pleased by the new mission I had assigned her. With that decided she scampered off into the house, slinking against the wall just before she disappeared out of my sight. Wacky little child. Cuckoo for Coco Puffs, that one.

When she was gone I leaned my head back against the side of the house, observing the cloud-littered sky with scorn. It was probably going to snow again and I, for one, wouldn’t be frolicking in the subtle death trap. With a sigh, I threw my legs over the railing and jumped back down onto the deck. I would have to go back inside eventually, and considering Hayden probably didn’t make it out of his room, I wouldn’t have to worry about running into him. So why not go inside now? Maybe talk to Jack Crawford for a bit, assure him that I’m not dying, thank him for not letting me die, and all that good stuff.

I could worry about Hayden later, him and his idiocy that prevents him from seeing things even a four-year-old could. Why else would I call him a dumbass, really?

…

Okay maybe there are several reasons, but, that’s not my point.