Story Cover Image by Picolo-kun (on DeviantArt)
A/N Slowly building up to longer stories since the one shot I posted the other day. I do a lot of RP and creative writing in my own time but it's been a long while since I've written Fanfiction. I've been interested in the parallels between Raven and Beast Boy for a while so I'm keen to explore it and some darker, hotter themes.
Appreciate all reviews and comments as I'm a bit rusty! Rated M for eventual wink wink.
- Jupiter
-o-o-o-o-o-
His head felt... heavy. That was the first sensation that came to him through the thick fog of unconsciousness. A weight. That, and a feeling of general unease. Beast Boy's nostrils flared to the scent of fear, confusion and blood, before his other senses began kicking back in, one after another.
He opened his eyes with a soft groan, pupils tightening to a slit before expanding back out to normal, adjusting quickly to the low light. He was sitting upright, and a quick reflexive tensing of his forearms told him he was restrained. "Beast Boy." The voice of a friend came low and serious before the leader of the Teen Titians moved into his line of sight. "Robin... what the... ?" All at once Beast Boy realised he had no memory of how he'd gotten there. He had a blank chunk of time in his head and that had only happened once before. One long, careful look at the expression on Robin's face gave him all the confirmation he needed. Beast Boy took a breath, and turned his head to see something he'd never hoped to see again. No. Please no. But there she was... Raven. The beeping of machines sunk into him like shivs to the brain. It couldn't be... it wasn't possible.
"Tell me this didn't happen again." Beast Boy was alert now, every lithe muscle tensed, his hands balled into fists through his restraints, glaring back to Robin. The hairs all over his body prickled in revulsion and fury, his claws digging into his palms. "Robin! Tell me I didn't hurt her!" Robin held his eyes for a brutally grim, honest exchange, respecting his shape shifting friend too much to offer any pretence. Panic lanced Beast Boy, making him tremble. His body was rigid, straining with force against the chair in his urgent instinct to go to her. Inspect her, check every inch of her over with a vigorous need to assess her condition. Assess what he'd done to her. Every scratch, every mark. His head spun with the detection of her blood.
"Calm down Beastie." Cy's voice came from where his best friend stood beside Raven's medical bed, Starfire solemnly beside him, hands clasped sorrowfully. Beast Boy could only manage a strangled noise through his gritted teeth in response.
"Do you remember anything?" Robin's question came at him from a distance. Beast Boy couldn't tear his eyes from the girl in the bed. Raven... The strongest person he knew. Her dark hair floated about her face as if she lay under water, her beautiful, pale little wrists at her sides, palm up. She looked so terrifyingly... small.
They'd removed her cloak and uniform, covered her with a blanket that were tucked carefully under her arms to keep her warm. He felt sick as he saw the blood transfusion taking place, the bandages visible over her chest and shoulder.
"No." He managed to bite out through his clenched throat. He didn't remember a damn thing. The last thing he did remember was the bridge, her loosing control and then... nothing. Sucking in a sharp breath, he corrected himself. "The bridge... something happened." Robin nodded, and Cy took the opportunity to try to fill in the blanks. "We were fighting... whatever the hell that was.."
Beast Boy swallowed against his dry throat. He remembered the shadows twisting themselves into the shapes of half-formed beasts, remembered how they'd made his hackles rise. It was as if they broke all natural laws of nature, triggering some primal knowledge of wrongness. They hadn't been shadow or smoke, tangible but not solid, otherworldly but of this world, animal but not.
He hadn't been the only thing to feel it. The bridge had been a mess of screaming birds, dogs gone savage and frenzied cats attacking those things with all sense of self-preservation suspended. He remembered Raven being knocked to the ground, black viscous predators moving in on her. In tiger form, he'd spun around and made to go to her aid, to get between them before... before... "No one quite saw what happened B, but something messed up. It wasn't just you. The birds, the strays, those black things, anything animal just turned on her and attac—"
"I'm not an animal!"
Beast Boy snarled, cold fury burning through him. "I'm not some birds or a damn stray, I'm a man first! Her friend first! I should NEVER have been able to—" He cut himself off, emotions seething, his body shaking. He wasn't a beast. No spell on earth, no primal confusion, NOTHING should be capable of making him turn on Raven. But, he had . . . and the damage a tiger could do... Beast Boy screwed his eyes shut for a moment before looking desperately back to Raven. "Is she going to be okay?" The question sounded feeble and stupid even to his own ears. Of course she wasn't going to be okay. He'd mauled her.
"She's is in the trance of healing." Star's gentle, sympathetic voice was accompanied by her hand on top of his white-knuckled fist. He barely felt it. Where was that smell coming fro— Looking down at himself, his heart almost stopped in his chest as he realised the smell of blood wasn't coming from just Raven, but from his clothes. Her blood was all over him.
What little colour there was left drained from his face and the room was swallowed into screaming white noise. His pupils shrunk to pin pricks as he reacted in violent horror. Beast Boy didn't hear his friends try to calm him down, didn't feel their hands try to still him as his body convulsed as if rending itself apart by sheer will. Unwilling, unwanting, incapable of accepting her blood all over him. Everything went suddenly, thankfully, black.
-o-o-o-o-o-
That's the first chapter! It is intended to be similar to the scene in 'The Beast Within' but within this story those events have already taken place. They are all older and BB never in a million years thought he'd have to relive anything like this again. Only this time, there is no Adonis, and his worse fear is real.
