Hit a small snag in Crossing of the Rubicon, and this flourished. The unconscious mind is a fertile landscape.
It all starts with Robin calling us to a meeting in the training room. I walk in a few minutes later than everyone else to find him and Raven standing side by side, the others arranged around them. I creep in pretending I can't tell Robin's throat clearing is about my being slightly behind schedule, but Raven coughs delicately and he lets it slide.
"We've been talking, Raven and I. Something new needs to make it into our training regime." Robin is usually trying to push us up to the next level, particularly since the weird shape shifty thing that nearly whipped our asses a couple of months ago, so him speaking of new training techniques isn't weird.
He doesn't just have us running around the training grounds and at the gym a few days a week: Robin has charts and graphs and blow by blow analysis sheets of our abilities and weaknesses, works out personalized training regimes, designs new team strategies, even makes time to personally work us out of ruts.
Honestly, people who think he just sits around flicking darts at a picture of Slade don't know how much hard work heroes do after the bad guy gets chucked into the back of an armored truck.
"So. It's been brought to my attention that, historically, we sometimes sweep pretty serious issues under the rug, then they explode and we're usually too late to deal." Robin looks around the room and not one of us can hold his gaze, even Raven looks slightly to the side of him. Robin probably realizes he's channeling Batman more than a bit, because his voice is a whole lot gentler when he speaks next. "I'm not trying to blame anyone of anything here. We're heroes. We deal with a whole lot. You're all capable and strong, and you've proved it time and time again under the worst circumstances. I'm proud to know each of you." His mask makes it hard to tell sometimes, but I know he's looking straight at me.
I smile. Robin-praise isn't rare, but it makes me feel glowy as a firefly.
"Which brings me to this. We're really good at saving other people. But sometimes we forget how important it is to take care of ourselves so we can do that. And we can't exactly phone Jump Mental Health Services for a few therapy sessions when things become a bit much, not without putting our secrets in danger. And even if we could, sometimes talking to someone else is just that much harder. I should know..." He smiles sheepishly. Out of all of us, Robin's probably the one who's gotten closest to losing it, even if it did involve a little help from Slade's special Double Whammer cocktail: accepting he's made mistakes that might have harmed the team is hard on him.
He looks around like he's waiting for us to yell at him the way we did after the Red X incident, but then Star walks up to him to lean her head on his shoulder and Cyborg gives him the slow smile and I give him two thumbs up. Come on, the big fearless leader is showing us Learned A Lesson, I'd give him four if I could. Then again, I can: I change into a chimpanzee and sit down to raise all my thumbs.
My four thumbs make him chuckle. Score!
He lightens up and turns to Raven, who's put her hand on his shoulder in her own supportive way. He nods to her and she knows what to do, gesturing us into a closer circle, then sitting down with her legs crossed on each other. "Raven is going to teach us some mental housekeeping. Her level of meditation is difficult and would probably take more time than we have to actually master it, but we've gone over some techniques that might come in handy. They'll help us remain aware of our feelings, our fears and whatever else might be running amok in our heads." He nods to her. "Your turn, Raven."
Raven returns the nod. A few stray tendrils of hair wave around with her breath and tickle her nose, so she brushes them aside a little irritably. "The monks of Azarath believe everyone has a mindscape they can access. Basically, your mind is a place that your…spiritual self can visit. The state it's in, the things you see in it, they can help you become aware of what's going on with you and your emotions, even the things you don't want to think about or are deeply suppressed." The hairs float back onto her nose.
I feel a little bad for her, how she's trying to look in control and be engaging and easy to follow and those hairs are ruining her mojo, so I reach out and push the hairs onto her head where they won't bug her. Her eyes follow my hand as I retract it, looking at me when I finally put it back down. She looks at me funny for a split second before looking annoyed. I smile and try to look harmless. It looks like it works, because she looks away instead of kicking me into Herald's dimension or something.
Starfire perks up, clearly having heard of this before. "This sounds most difficult at first, but one finds it easier as time goes on, as the place is exactly the place one wants to be the most." She couples her statement with a smile. Raven is nodding too.
"Azarath lore also says that once in alpha state, most people will naturally gravitate there. It's the place that will feel the safest …remember that if the Puppet King ever breaks out again."
She takes us through breathing exercises, methods of keeping our thoughts quiet. Everyone is embarrassingly surprised when I can actually do it, like they always forget Mento was my first team leader, but because we're trying to put our issues at rest and stuff there's a round of apology almost immediately. Raven doesn't join in. I did see her funny not-smiling-but-pleased expression after the exercise though, so I'm pretty sure she wasn't as surprised as everyone else.
Finally, she tells us about finding our center. When telling us to find where we feel the most 'us' isn't that effective, Raven tries telling us to think of the place where we feel the most at peace. Normally, this would be my rock, the seaside rocky outcropping west of the tower I go to when I'm upset or emotional, but that brings up the time I took not-Terra there a couple of months ago, and it makes me feel sick to my stomach. When I open my eyes Raven's are on me. It's then that I realize she's probably examining our emotions with her powers to make sure we're doing OK. Her eyes are soft, so I know she knows I'm upset.
"Something wrong?" Cy and Robin and Star are apparently making progress, so she's speaking softly. I can hear her, my animal hearing is sharp enough, but I edge closer so she can hear me too.
"Guess my happy place isn't really making me happy right now." I did tell the team about Terra not being Terra. I even mentioned the Slade bot. It got Robin all…Robiny for a few weeks until the false leads and radio silence from Slade made it obvious it wasn't phase one of an invasion or anything like that. He probably felt like leaving us a calling card after being away for so long, to remind us he's out there.
Jerk.
But some of the details I've kept to myself, things that were just for Terra and me, and now just for me, like the pies from Ben's or the rundown carnival. And how she ran from me out by my rock.
Raven sighs. It's not her impatient sigh. It's a slow, sad sort of sigh. I'm half afraid, half resigned, because I think she's about to pity me. But then she looks away from me, like she's looking for answers out our bay windows, before turning to me. Not just her head – she shifts her entire body towards me. "You lived in Africa?"
"Well….yeah. How-?"
"Your files." The ones you poked through to find out my birthdate, she doesn't say. I'd be a big hypocrite if I said anything. I'm not even sure how much information is in there, I'm guessing it's files the Doom Patrol built up since I was a kid and sent over when we made the team official. "Maybe that can be your new happy place."
I shake my head. The jungles of Congo were a special place. It was home, a colorful, lush, living home, one that made the city feel dirty and dead when I had to be sent back. But the person I am now doesn't seem to want to actually live those times anymore. I would do almost anything to have my parents back…but I've done too much at eighteen to want to be eight again. I know. It's weird.
"Not Africa then. Well, there has to be someplace you find comfortable." I think, I think, and I think. Finally, a place comes to mind...kind of. I find memories of feeling safe after a long time of feeling anything but, and the place comes second. It's dark and it's quiet, but it's calm and pretty cozy. The details are hazy, but Rae talked about feelings mostly, right? I concentrate on the feeling hard.
I expect to feel something happening to my actual body, being sucked into somewhere or pushed up or anything really. Like Rae's mirror when it sucked us in. All I feel is weightlessness for a fraction of a second. When I open my eyes, I'm alone in the common room.
For a while I'm caught between freaking out and feeling awed. I might be the first one drooling whenever a hypnotic swirly board pops up, but I can tell this thing feels less real than reality, and just a bit more solid than dreams. Then it hits me: this is my mindscape! Dude, I'm in!
I pump my fist in the air even though I know nobody can see me. I can't even decide where to go first. I run to the window, our own familiar bay window, and I know I'm not actually in Jump City, but I'm not ready for what actually is out there.
The ocean is there, and so is the city skyline, but instead of looking far away it's right there, a human swimming distance away. And right up against the coastline are all my favorite places in the city: the pizza place, my favorite slice of the amusement park, even the old video rental place that went under. The bridge is gone.
And to my left, also a human swimming distance away, another land mass has appeared. There is no beach, which would be weird if this weren't my mind, just tall trees thick with leaves that don't thin out for miles. There is a small opening where the trees have grown into outwards curves to form a natural archway. I think of the closet from Narnia for a second, and I chuckle, but I know what I'm looking at: the Congo jungle. Okay, so Africa might not be the happy place I need to connect with my center, but it's important enough to be here.
I turn around, looking at the dream-common room, which looks pretty much the same. I walk up the stairs to look for the rooms, but instead of the network of corridors my room is right there. Huh? I walk back out the door to the common room, then rush back in: yep, still my room. I guess my mind doesn't really care to add all those other places from the tower.
I walk into my room. It's become huge. A part of it looks just like the room I've known for the past few years at Titans tower, with my bunk beds and my junk in the corners and my comics crowding the desk. But instead of windows and walls, darkness yawns out into infinity, like the room is just a tiny place under a spotlight in the middle of...someplace.
The darkness makes me feel funny. It's fear and something cagey, and frankly I'm not surprised. Maybe my fears live down there? If my fear looks anything like Rae's, I think I'll sit out visiting them for now. I so don't want another run in with the monster from Wicked Scary.
I poke around my room for a while. There are things here that I know are at my real room in the tower, but also lots of things that aren't, like my old wind-up monkey, pictures of my parents that never made it out of Congo, pictures I know nobody ever took of me with Rita and Mento, playing with Cliff while he doesn't look very amused, Larry playing with me while I look pretty unamused (c'mon, he cheated at hide-and-seek, always!). I take my time going through the pictures, then look back at the dark corners.
I'm not kidding when I say I expect the freaky fearmonster to come out. Do I even need to go down there right now? I remember getting kicked really good when in Nevermore. Could my fears actually hurt me? Could accepting them make them go away?
I've got too many questions. I'm not ready. I'm beginning to think of a way out so I can ask the actual expert when everything goes dim and I hear a voice like it's coming through water -
Beast Boy?
I open my eyes, my actual physical eyes, back in the training room, on the mat as someone pokes my shoulder. Star and Robin are looking at me, Star so close I could probably brush her nose with my eyelash, and Cyborg's foot to my left indicates he's the one jabbing at me. Raven hangs back, but she's peering over Star and Robin. She's the one who called my name.
"Uh, hi?"
"You were getting agitated." Raven says simply.
"You were also the last to return. You OK grass stain?" Cyborg adds in between pokes.
"It was awesome! There's a bit of Congo and all my stuff was there, but there were these huge blank spots in my room, they were dark and scary and I figured I had to look in, but it was creepy and I didn't feel ready to go poking through my fears and stuff, but then I thought of when we kicked butt in Nevermore and wondered if it could hurt me, and just when I was trying to come back you called me". Robin shakes his head. Raven, however, looks thoughtful.
"The next time you go in, try investigating the dark. It's your own darkness. If you confront it, it can't hurt you. There shouldn't be demons in your mind, and because you're not in there in a physical form, nothing you fight there should leave you physical damage." She doesn't say it won't. I wonder if I should be worried.
The exercise is concluded for the day and we file out of the training room. When I turn to challenge Cy to a round of racing games for tonight's dish duty though, I could swear I just barely missed catching Raven staring at me.
She isn't, not that she'll do it when I'm looking back of course. But there are two creases on her forehead I don't usually see when she's relaxed.