See me resisting strongly and then you kindly forcing a decision
I can never tell you
the creaking sound of leather hurts me let's make the wound even deeper
you, deeply jealous are you always so cold-hearted?
even now I don't want to forget the abuse of my childhood
why don't I have a mother? tell me...

-Dir En Grey "Cage"

After Raven takes a shower she gets dressed and heads over to Robin's evidence room to make sure that Beast Boy filed a report like he promised to. Beast Boy had indeed filed a report, Raven reads over it to make sure that it is decently accurate. It is mostly accurate though riddled with spelling errors.

After Raven finishes reading the report she closes the window on the computer in the evidence room and stands up. Robin is also in the evidence room, even though it is three in the morning the guy hardly ever sleeps.

"Hey I was wondering if you are okay?" Robin says to Raven. "That Sleazoid guy seems like a character to me."

"Yeah I'm fine, I need to bandage up my leg though." Raven replies.

"Good, keep an eye on that for me? I don't want it to get infected." Robin sits down at the computer, "I've checked and rechecked all the files for some data on this guy."

"And," Raven says watching the glowing screen illuminate Robin's masked face.

"Nothing, nada, zilch." Robin says, he scowls, the bright computer screen seems to mock his scowl.

Raven says nothing.

"Tomorrow I'm going to go to the police station and interview him. I want to make sure that he didn't poison you some how." Robin says. He looks down at her leg, the draining wound seems to dance in the low light.

"Would you consider going to the infirmary for observation? I'm sure Cy wouldn't mind waking up to make sure your okay."

"No." Raven says and then walks out of the evidence room, her soft steps make a padding sound as she walks out the door.

Robin sighs and then turns back to his precious crime files, his precious crime files tell him nothing new.

Inside the safety of her room Raven lies down on her bed, the purple satin sheets are very comfortable yet she finds rest elusive. In fact Raven finds the sensation of the sheets to be most irritating, she finds herself wishing for less comfortable sleeping conditions.

Raven gets out of her bed and lays down on the ground, she is in her underwear and finds the cool of the floor to be a pleasant contrast to the warmth of her sheets. She finds that the way that the floor makes her muscles sore is a million times more preferable to her overly luxurious bed.

Mean while as Raven stretches her lithe frame on the ground Beast Boy sits sleepless in his room, his thoughts are also filled with the encounter from earlier that night.

Beast Boy sits staring at his dresser that is overflowing with unfolded clothes his thoughts a cacophony of blood lust and satiation. He replays the scene of the Sleazoid giggling under his blows behind his eyes over and over again.

A sense of bestial satisfaction haunts him.

He yearns to find the Sleazoid again to make his rage felt until the Sleazoid no longer laughs, but screams in agony.

Beast Boy strikes the side of his dresser with a balled fist, his facial expression doesn't change, but venting on the dresser makes him feel good. It feels good to bruise his knuckles as he splinters the wood.

Beast Boy feels mildly angry, he feels like he is filled with a boiling liquid a fury that empowers him. It isn't a raging fire, but a sickened soup simmering in his chest cavity.

He stands up and paces back in forth in his room, his thoughts are a repetitive cycle of soft sadisms and softer rage. They run through his mind like a chant, like a spell.

Robin sits in his evidence room staring at the computer monitor, he has resorted to google searching the Sleazoid looking for any insight of the perplexing that Beast Boy and Raven had encountered. He finds nothing.

Sleep finally comes to Raven, in the blackness of her dreamscape she sees two severed heads. The float just above her astral being and they scream, and argue with each other. And then the severed heads weep piteously.

It is in her dream world that Raven feels a malaligned force working in her body, there is no type of mental assault that she can lead against it. Instead she stares upon the swollen eyed ghastly couple that floats just above her chakra.

The next morning Raven wakes up early and has her morning cup of tea, afterwards she attempts to meditate, yet she finds no peace in it.

After getting frustrated with meditation she goes to the park for a walk, the day is cool thanks to a breeze that gently caresses Raven as she strolls along the serene park.

After about a quarter of an hour of enjoying the scenery she sits down on an old thoroughly graffitied park bench. The park bench is riddled with the poetry of gutter-bound minds, according to the gospel of park bench "So-and-so sucks off donkeys", and "So-and-so quaintly loves John Doe forever."

While sitting on the park bench Raven tries to focus on her breathing, she tries to regulate the flow of oxygen through her delicate and pretty circulatory system. She does this in attempts to open the door to meditation.

While Raven is staring at a particularly lovely green leaved tree a young gentleman sits down next to her. He is a young gent of average build who is dressed in a gaudy checkerboard patterned suit.

The young man says nothing, but procures a cigarette, or a fag as some may call them and lights it. He puffs contently at the carconigen filled cylinder and procures another one offering it to Raven.

Raven uncharacteristically accepts the cigarette, and the lighter that the young man offers her afterwards. Raven struggles to light the cigarette at first, but then gets the hang of it.

The tobacco entering her lungs feels quite good and Raven wonders why she had not picked up the habit earlier.

"Nothing like a good smoke to help clear a troubled mind." The young man comments while idly playing with the frayed edge of his checkerboard jacket.

Raven says nothing.

Raven watches the smoke from her cigarette drift lazily into the air, the smoke is blue and purple and catches the sunlight.

"It is unusual to see a beautiful young lady wearing nothing, but a cloak and a leotard just hanging out in the park." The man says finishing his cigarette and lighting another.

"It is unusual to see anybody dressed from head to toe like a giant chess board." Raven replies.

There is a moment of silence between the two of them, a bird can be heard chirping in a nearby tree. The bird's song is both beautiful and sorrow filled.

"Guilty as charged." The young man says. "The name is Byron."

"Raven."

"Wonderful, that is a nice name. Not that I would want to change names with you, I'm quite proud of mine." Byron says, and indeed he should be proud of his name Lord Byron (his namesake) was one of the greatest English poets to have ever lived.

"So Byron, what's your game, are you a poet? A romantic troubadour?" Raven asks, her question is not a warm one.

"Yeah I fancy myself a bit of troubadour."

"Doesn't everyone?" Raven says again, the question is in rhetoric.

"I'm the great Byron, troubled troubadour of tomorrow. What's your game Ms. Raven?" He asks, he is quite oblivious to Raven's sarcasm.

"Super-powered teenager." Raven mumbles.

Byron tosses the butt of his cigarette on the ground and stamps it out with a foot clad in a cheap shoe. After performing the aforementioned action he takes the pack from his breast pocket lights himself another one, and then offers another one to Raven.

Raven accepts the offer, lights it, and then stares off into the beauty of nature. Her thoughts consist something of the theater of the absurd. After all Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.