"Things change, Beast Boy." It wasn't quite the last thing she said to him, but it was the thing that stuck. Since that day, he'd spent many nights in stir. Sometimes entirely unable to sleep. Other times engulfed by fever dreams of a girl that didn't exist anymore.
Tonight was the latter. A cruel mercy invariably preceded every awakening. In that fleeting twilight state between the waking world and dreams, he felt at peace. He felt loved and in love in a reality that never came to fruition. And, us unfailingly as he experienced this bliss- the bliss that Terra was still beside him- it was cruelly swept away.
'No...' his sobering mind pleaded, gradually freeing itself from the stupor of sleep. 'Please, let this be real..' He'd always try to bargain. She felt so real in his bed. As naked and vulnerable as he was. As surrendered to love as he always wished she'd be. But this girl wasn't even a phantom of his past. It was a phantom of what could have been.
And all it gave him night after night was a spell of dreams and a cold spot in his bed.
The young man's eyes cracked open numbly. It didn't take long for them to adjust to the darkness of the room, but it didn't bother him. There was nothing there that he'd want to see anyway. Rather, the absence of what he'd see is what bothered him.
His mouth was a hot, dry thing that always bothered him in the night. He smacked his chapped lips a few times and cringed at the sound. It was in these moments he doubted his teammates would recognize him. The moments of despair following any equally marvelous and horrible night of dreaming. Beast Boy had yet to find a word for what these dreams were. In the moment, he enjoyed them. He loved them, and he loved Terra. She loved him, too. He wanted to stay there. It was reality that sucked.
Disinterestedly, he glanced at his digital clock. 3 AM.
Things change.
He wondered, dimly, how much that meant.
With a groan, he wandered out into the hall. He didn't have to use the bathroom. He didn't want to get up. The truth was, he didn't know what he wanted. These days, he felt something like a ghost. He could typically maintain a front in the company of his friends, but he'd felt hollow. He'd haunt the halls in the dead of night, wondering what it all meant.
He'd contemplate contacting Terra again, hoping maybe the ghost of who she used to be might grace him for just a mioment. But she was just a girl with a Geometry test next period
"And she hasn't studied..." He finished the thought wearily. Shambling through the unlit halls, he kept his unfocused stare on the floor.
"Bathroom's the other way," a voice rasped. Though the suddenness frightened him, he didn't lurch.
"I know..." Was all he said. Trudging a few more feet, he was stalled again by the voice.
"Have a nightmare?" She asked.
"I had an amazing dream... I have amazing dreams every night." Beast Boy paused a moment. "They seem to get better all the time." He still wouldn't face the source of the voice.
"You don't sound especially thrilled about them." Light, cautious footsteps approaching him. For whatever reason, he hoped she'd never reach him. That she'd walk forever and never see his face again. On some level he didn't understand, he was disgusted with himself. And equally with the voice. He hoped he could resist assigning a face to it. Perhaps to spare his vision of her in his tortured, blackening mind.
But that was hopeless.
"Raven..." He muttered aloud. It tasted bitter on his dry, wormy tongue.
"You don't sound especially thrilled to see me, either." The cloaked figure murmured. There was a brief silence. "What do you dream about?" Refreshingly, he couldn't detect any sarcasm or annoyance in her voice. It almost cheered him up. But almost didn't count for much these days.
"Terra was here not that long ago..." Was all he could think to say. His fists balled at his sides. "She wasn't. And yet it's like a lifetime ago. I look at these memories like old photographs, and I realize I don't even recognize myself in them." Finally, he rotated to get a good look at her. There was genuine worry in her eyes. They searched his face desperately. Perhaps for something to say to him, perhaps for an answer as to why he was behaving this way. It was almost amusing.
He offered her a humorless grin. It didn't reach his dull eyes.
"I... I don't know what to say..." She raised a hand, as if to reach for him. It halted just at her chest. Her fingers worked as if grasping for something, and then they stopped.
"I dream that we're married. I dream that we're all still living here together. I dream that we put Slade away. That our days are slow, but that we spend them together. I dream that she sleeps in the same bed with me. And that I don't wake up alone." Through everything he said, Beast Boy's face remained unaffected. Placid and unmoving. His tone was one of indifference.
"That's... Not a reality I'd want." Raven admitted quietly. A deep, black anger welled up in Beast Boy's stomach.
"Do you really hate me that much?" He tried to keep his voice even. He could tolerate being the butt of her jokes. He was used to being disrespected and ridiculed, but he never knew she held any true animosity for him. Did she take some satisfaction in him being alone? A kindred spirit she could take solace in? So they could be alone together?
"Terra isn't good for you. I never thought she was. Even when I accepted her."
"It wasn't about what you were willing to accept. It's what she and I wanted." He raised his voice. Raven was really starting to irritate him. Even so, Raven was calm and quiet.
"Apparently you wanted different things. This conversation is proof-"
"Don't," he warned.
"... Sorry." It made him want to puke. Everyone was always talking down to him. Always so sorry they couldn't betray some self-imposed rule that meant nothing. Seemingly as if to torture him.
"Everyone's sorry. But nobody's willing to do anything..." Every painful memory was surfacing. More intense and more vivid than ever before. He was tired of it. The silences and brokenness between himself and anyone he cared about. The fact everyone fell around him time and time again, and he was left alone to make sense of it all. His jokes Raven berated him for. The callousness of his friends. He wondered why he stuck around anymore.
"... You're right..." She admitted. It was almost enough to make him walk away. He didn't want to deal with another unsatisfying mess that would never resolve itself. He wasn't prepared to crack Raven open and let her bleed out if it meant she'd expose problems only he'd have to deal with. Maybe it was selfish, but he felt entitled to some selfishness for once. And maybe more than any of that, he feared seeing her injured.
"You're right," she repeated. "But none of this is because I hate you. When I don't know what to say. When I'm quiet. When I'm silent... Maybe I have been unwilling to open up... But things change."
A sour flutter in his chest.
He smiled.