Beast Boy had a very rudimentary understanding of love from the beginning of his life. Growing up with parents as loudly affectionate as he was, Beast Boy always thought that that was how all people showed their love. So he treated everyone he cared for that way – with tight hugs and loud proclamations of feelings. And after his parents died, he was thrown into an entirely new environment. Rita was affectionate, but still distant. It took Beast Boy a while to believe her when she told him she loved him. It was painful at first – the untainted waterfall of love he had been given from his parents had disappeared, replaced by something completely different. Even going into his teen years Beast Boy still didn't really understand the Doom Patrol's distant, professional love for him. He knew they cared, but loved?

Mento was especially an issue. No matter how many times Rita assured him, Beast Boy never thought that Steve loved him. "He tolerates me," he'd spat. "If he loves me, why doesn't he show it?"

Rita's eyes had grown sad. "He's afraid to." It took Beast Boy years to understand what that statement meant, and by that time he was long gone.

He began to notice it in other people too: the fearful love. Most people, actually. For a little while Beast Boy began to resent his parents for teaching him the wrong way to love people. They found him overbearing and annoying. He struggled with finding a way of showing people he cared without driving them away. Around this time, he discovered he had a knack for making people laugh.

Beast Boy's jokes were stupid and mostly corny, but it made him likeable to people. It was how he grew close to Cyborg, who already leaned toward the louder edge of affection. So did Starfire, which also made her easier to befriend. Raven and Robin, however, remained as far away as anyone.

It was Mento all over again. He came head to head with the two more than once, especially Raven. He wanted to love them, the same way he had wanted to love his adopted father. But they made it so hard. Beast Boy could not love without any love in return – it just wasn't in his nature. He'd get that lonely feeling again; the one that had surfaced after his parents died.

So he tried a new tactic. Robin he treated with respect and quiet admiration, hoping his leader would eventually mirror it back to him. Raven was an entirely different battle. Whatever he tried, she showed the same empty reaction, whether it was respect, friendliness, aloofness, and even animosity. However, he had gotten her to laugh once before. And if that was the only thing he can do to win her love, then by God he'd continue to do it.

When he met Terra, it was like a bright blast of emotion suddenly entered his life. She was like him – her affection was loud and massive. He began to free up his love, and soon it flowed as freely as it had when his parents were alive. Beast Boy had never been happier.

And when she was torn from his grasp, he was broken. The worst part was the fact that she chose not to love him. They all said she couldn't. Couldn't love? If Terra, who had no ration on affection, was incapable of love, who was to say anyone was?

And in those first few months, Beast Boy stopped believing in love. They were all just creatures forced together into a small space. They had to tolerate each other, or else they'd kill each other. And the people you really did love could be ripped from your grasp without warning or regret. Without meaning to, Beast Boy built a wall around himself.

It was to protect himself, like a turtle's shell or a porcupine's quills. It was then that he realized exactly what Rita meant by Mento's fear of love. Was it really a fear of loss? Beast Boy could certainly relate to that. After Terra, he didn't want to let anyone in at all. In the end, wouldn't it just end in pain? After all, that's what happened with his parents. He had loved them so much, and look where that led him.

Even after he began to heal from Terra's wounds, Beast Boy found that he still couldn't truly love anyone anymore. It was terrifying and sad, because he wanted so badly to love everyone as freely as he had before.

"Why didn't you do anything with that waitress? She was practically falling all over you! She gave you her number!" Cyborg was baffled with Beast Boy's indifference to flirty women. His mind would just jump forward, reminding him that relationships ended in sadness, anger, or death. There was no other option, and he wanted none of it.

Raven seemed to catch on to Beast Boy's broken faith in love. He'd catch her looking at him sometimes, a pained expression briefly crossing her soft face. One night, she sat next to him, making no obvious attempt at conversation.

"Love is important," she'd said after a moment. He looked over at her, one eyebrow raised. She was looking at her hands. "I also used to think it was useless, especially when my mother never showed me any. But I have learned that you can't get rid of it – it's always there, pulsing beneath your skin and making itself known in the oddest ways." She paused, staring straight forward now. "I want you to know right now that even if I don't show it, I do love you, Beast Boy."

These words sparked hope in his chest. And slowly, he began to let himself love again, well in mind of the consequences that rode with every relationship. Because really, life is too short for anything else.

A/N – I'm apparently feeling angsty today. Lol. I based this one off of the song "The Wrong Direction" by Passenger. It's a damn good song and it just feels so BB to me! I hope you enjoyed, sorry this is so short 3