There was something wrong with Beast Boy.
The other Titans could tell, certainly, but due to a combination of both not caring enough and not knowing how to bring it up to him, they ignored the poor, pathetic green-skinned comic relief and went about their ordinary routines. Well, whatever it is that they did around the tower when there weren't any criminals to apprehend. Whatever, man.
In fact, that one stupid, trite phrase sums up our entire problem with Beast Boy quite nicely. You see, ordinarily, Beast Boy was a nuisance. The other titans despised him and his antics. They would cringe at his jokes, and then purposely turn around and crack a much funnier joke just to make him look like an asshole. 'Tis the life of the unloved comic relief, really - and he himself knew this.
Nonetheless, he would, on a typical day off such as this one, usually be occupying himself with sticking his nose into the affairs of all the other Titans. Always hungry for attention. Craving that one sign of affection from anyone, or even the slightest guffaw that would make his pointless existence even slightly more bearable.
Today, he just sat in the same spot on the couch all morning.
He uncharacteristically woke up before everyone else, ate nothing for breakfast and most alarming of all, did not so much as even look at the shiny, brand new Xbox 720 situated on the shelf next to the TV.
In fact, he didn't even bother to turn the TV on, which was something any normal human being without any friends caught on an uncomfortable black leather couch would do. Of course, nothing about Beast Boy was 'normal' even on his best of days but that is beside the point. Today though, he had this whole aura of, "whatever man" surrounding him, that seemed to repel his teammates whenever they came within a certain distance of him. That is, except for the ever-
oblivious Cyborg.
"Hey man, who gave you permission to be on the couch?" He yells at Beast Boy.
It would appear Cyborg's usual schedule of 75% playing video games and 25% doing black people stuff has collided with Beast Boy's bad mood, and sparks are already beginning to fly.
Beast Boy has that one spare second to think of something: a joke, a situation-applicable animal transformation or any simple comeback to hurl at the half-robot, half-asshole but nothing comes to mind. His mind is like white noise; so many different thoughts and signals are jumbling together that nothing intelligible makes it through.
"Uh…earth to green man? What's fucking wrong with you?" Cyborg snarls, not one to buy into that 'emo crap'. Oh how he hated Beast Boy's stupid single-toothed grin, oh how he secretly longed to wipe it off of his face permanently! And to bash his head in, and bask the walls with his…
"This is a crapsack world." Beast Boy suddenly replies, interrupting Cyborg's violent train of thought. He has turned his head sharply, so that henow faces Cyborg.
He has a far-off look in his eyes, something like what you would see in the eyes of somebody who is pumped up on hallucinogenic drugs. That, or a starstruck homosexual. Which of course, is the closest parallel Cyborg can happen to think up. Thinking on it more, Cyborg remembers that he didn't particularly enjoy the company of stoners, or starstruck homosexuals, for that matter."Nigga, are you goin' funny on me or somethin'?" He asks, then decides to turn his attention to more important matters.
"Now where's that remote?" He says, looking into the cracks of the couch.
"This is…a crapsack world." Beast Boy repeats.
Cyborg's attention reverts to the little green man again, but he could not think of anything to say beyond what he's said already. Usually he insulted him for the sake of the reaction, but today...beast boy just wasn't taking the bait.
Anyways, the two sit quietly next to each other like that for a while, until Cyborg evidently feels it too awkward to stay there any longer.
"Man, you've snapped alright." He says, in the most eloquent way possible, and creeps away from the scene, leaving Beast Boy to resume his practice of staring forward, into the bleak abyss that was the television screen, turned off.
…
"There's something wrong with that green motha fucker again." Cyborg is at the titans' fridge, and has just popped open a can of Bud Light.
He is directing his ingenious assessment of Beast Boy's behavior at team sex symbol Starfire, who is currently serving up a bowl of Fruit Loops for herself. She had stood there and watched the entire scene unfold, actually.
"At first I thought he was just having a bad day, but now I…" She trails off, aware that her and Cyborg's minds were on the same level for this one. Further words on the matter were not necessary. Yes, this wasn't the first time Beast Boy has been observed acting oddly. It was no later than a month ago, and a Saturday as well, Starfire recalls, when Beast Boy first started showing strange patterns in behaviour.
...
The Teen Titans were spending time chilling together at the local teen hot spot, the pizza corner, but ironically, nobody was eating any pizza this time. For you see, what had initially promised to be a relaxing vacation away from the stress of hero work, filled with Italian-borne cheese-decorated tomato pasted pies and much laughter at the humiliation of Beast Boy, the situation had turned out to be every action pseudo-drama genre animated TV show actor's personal nightmare: the comic relief had actually shut up.
So the Titans, independent of Beast Boy, conversed on, well, the types of things super-powered teenagers typically talked about: the supervillain they brought down last week, sex, food, cars, sex, the fact that Robin was the only member of the team who didn't look like a complete freak out in public and well, basically, whatever randomly came to mind. Needless to say, they quickly ran out of discussion topics this way, and before long, the table had gone completely quiet.
The waiter returned, but they declined having their orders taken. For the third time.
Now, just in case you weren't aware, the Titans ran on a unique schedule for when they were together; 'hanging out', such as they were today.
The way the pattern would unfold is,
1) the titans find their seat and commence with idle chitchat, 2) within five minutes, Beast Boy will make an attempt at humour e.g. he doesn't eat the Meat Lover's pizza because...yeah, he turns into animals, so it would be kind of like cannibalism, then 3) they all laugh in his face or ignore him, and commence to eat the food that would of arrived by then. The Titans' social schedule allowed for very few iterations or exceptions, and they were determined to follow it through to the word.
But today, for once, somebody had dared to differentiate from the norm.
