Hey, guys! I'm back. And I'm all done with summer reading so I will likely post a few new stories/chapters before school starts. :) Be on the lookout for anything else I happen to post this week.
I don't really know what inspired this story. I guess I just wanted to show a more serious side of Beast Boy, but who knows?
I'm not the best at writing things on headstones, so please forgive me for that! (whoops, was that a spoiler? Oh well.)
Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans. There would have been romance by now and I would have been rolling in money instead of typing a story on FF.
For the past few days, the Teen Titans have been noticing a change in behavior in Beast Boy. He wasn't acting like himself.
It was originally a small difference here or there, like spacing out during random times or being in his room a little more than before. But the boy they had all come to know and care about began chipping away, piece by piece, into something else altogether.
Raven acknowledged it when he told less jokes. He let opportunities for a corny joke in their everyday conversation slip by and hardly showed any signs of regret. She even gave him a perfect set-up a few times, not that she would admit it out loud, but they were either ignored or glossed over. If she hadn't known any better, Raven would say that he had no jokes to tell. It was as if he lost interest in it completely. Though she liked having less interruptions during her meditation, she still felt as if there was something missing. The tower felt empty, somehow.
Cyborg noticed it when he began eating less. For as long as he could remember, he and Beast Boy had been the human garbage disposals when it came to the food in the tower, so when the amount Beast Boy ate started to diminish, he noticed it. Hell, their infamous meat vs. tofu arguments halted, too. There was definitely something wrong.
The Boy Wonder detected something was wrong the day Beast Boy woke up early. Well, earlier than before, anyway. The green changeling was known for sleeping the day away, awakening somewhere around noon. The fact that he woke up several hours before that was remarkable.
Starfire was possibly the first to catch on to her friend's odd behavior. It was something so simple, so small, that nobody seemed to notice at first. Starfire, being as observant as she is, couldn't help but observe it right away when the signs first started showing.
He was smiling less.
Days passed by. The small hints became embarrassingly noticeable. Beast Boy's smiles became rare, and they were small, forced ones, at that. It was almost as if he smiled in order to keep up a charade. The smiles weren't making things any better, though, and his laugh was almost never heard.
He got out of bed earlier than Robin did, and that was a huge feat. Robin awoke no later than 7 A.M. to start the day-a polar opposite to Beast Boy's old ways. He initially thought the boy was trying to dispose of his bad habits. When Robin started seeing bags under Beast Boy's eyes, however, he saw that wasn't the case at all.
Beast Boy skipped meals. Claiming he wasn't hungry, he spent most of the day without any food in his stomach at all. Cyborg checked the fridge a few times in case Beast Boy took something when no one was looking, but he had not. The robotic man grew more and more concerned, especially when "the little grass stain" turned down Cyborg's offer to a game.
All of these symptoms were not seen too often since Beast Boy spent hours in his room nowadays. Raven considered asking Beast Boy if they were in a silent competition for who spent more alone time in their rooms, but she decided against it.
The four other Titans discussed this during meal times, and they all agreed to talk to Beast Boy the next day when he came out of his room. It was supposed to be something like an intervention.
But the intervention never happened.
"I'm taking a personal day." Beast Boy announced that morning. He no longer had his superhero costume on, but instead wore regular civilian clothing. The most noteworthy was the huge trenchcoat and fedora. Raven assumed this was for hiding his secret identity, but chose not to point out the fact that he still had green skin and fangs.
The leader of the Titans narrowed his eyes. "What are you talking about, Beast Boy?"
"Do I need to repeat myself?" the changeling asked somewhat rudely. "I'm taking a personal day. And I'm borrowing the T-Car."
"What? No way!" Cyborg screamed, beginning to stand up. "That's my baby!"
"I heard what you said," the Boy Wonder continued with a bit of edge in his voice, "But I was hoping I heard wrong. You can't go."
The green boy frowned. "I need to go somewhere far today. I'm going, and that's that."
"I don't care about where you 'need' to go, Beast Boy!" Robin slammed his fist against the kitchen table. "You can give me all the excuses you want, too, but it's still insufficient! Superheroes don't take personal days. Crime happens everyday, and we need to stop it. That's our job! I don't know what makes you think otherwise, but I suggest you get your act together and own up to what you signed up for!"
Beast Boy's jaw tightened and he glared at Robin. "Excuses? I don't need excuses to do what I want. What makes you think I need to answer to you all the time? Just 'cause you're the leader, you think you can control every single action of mine? That's crazy. Dudes, I'm out of here."
If the doors didn't automatically open, Beast Boy would have slammed them shut.
The four remaining Titans sat there in silence. "Agh!" Robin screamed, stomping his foot on the floor. "What makes him think that he can suddenly get up and leave like that? You know what? Forget it. I'm going to go train." He left, not caring about what the others had to say.
"What has gotten into friend Beast Boy?" Starfire asked. "I believe he and Robin are doing the 'pissing.' "
Raven's eye twitched. "I think you mean that the two of them are pissed, Starfire," She explained in monotone. She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. The stress she'd had from Beast Boy's recent behavior had been getting to her and she didn't want to deal with the Tameranians's ignorance of human culture at the moment. "And I don't know. He's getting worse, too."
"It makes me wonder if we'll ever have the good ole' BB back." Cyborg said, frowning.
The car ride there was silent. No radio, no CD's playing, no IPod plugged in or anything. None of the windows were open, leaving Beast Boy enclosed in that small space in the T-Car. Beast Boy's exceptional hearing was still able to pick up the smallest sounds on the road from very far away.
The Changeling wasn't kidding when he said it was far away. It took around three hours to get where Beast Boy was headed. It would have been two without the traffic, Beast Boy thought bitterly. The only times he stopped were to get more gas and to get a bouquet of flowers from a florist a few miles away from the destination.
Beast Boy parked the T-Car by the entrance and entered through a large arch. Surrounding him now was a large amount of hills with headstones evenly spread out everywhere. After standing there a moment to take in his surroundings, Beast Boy took a deep breath and trudged onward.
He found the headstone he was looking for. The green boy stood there and placed the bouquet neatly in front of it. It was quite large, since that part of the graveyard was to be... occupied by three people-that is, after the third passes away. Two of them were already buried, laying there together underneath the headstone labeled "The Logan Family." Yes, laying underneath the ground before him was the changeling's own parents. The third was-and still is-saved for Beast Boy.
"Here lies Mark Logan, a wonderful son, protective father, and most likely a great grandfather, if given the opportunity. He and his wife was taken much too soon and will be missed dearly."
"Next to him lies his wife, Marie Logan, a beautiful daughter and the caring mother of one child. She shared the same tragic fate of her husband that day, but would willingly do it again for the sake of her son."
Despite wanting to keep his composure, Beast Boy started tearing up as he read the words written before him. That last line always killed him.
He fell onto his knees and lost control. His gloved hands tightly gripped the grass in front of him in despair.
"I'm sorry," Beast Boy whispered. "I'm so sorry."