A scream blared from the T.V. followed by a growl. Cassy sighed as she peeked into the living room where her brother was watching a cheesy horror movie. He was staring at the screen with a glazed look about him, oblivious to the outside world. She hated how he sat around all day on Saturdays, but as long as he got off his ass to go to work during the week, she couldn't complain. She grimaced as another fake scream ripped through the house.
"Turn that shit down, Travis!" she yelled when it became impossible to focus on her assigned reading book anymore.
"Shut up!" was his oh-so-intelligent response. She rolled her eyes and returned to her book. After another few minutes of failing to concentrate, she got up and walked into the living room. She was about to either cuss out Travis or hit him with something when there was a knock on the door. Still grumbling to herself, she answered it.
"Oh, hey!" she said when she saw that it was Beast Boy.
"Hey," he said, smiling. He had still wasn't sure why he continued to bother her. There was just something about Nobody that confused and intrigued him. He wanted to figure her out, to understand, and he had a feeling it would take awhile.
"No saving the world scheduled for today?" she asked jokingly.
"Nope, but I've got my communicator if they need me," he told her. She just nodded. He peeked around the door into the apartment, seeing a small but fairly clean space with too much furniture crammed into it. "So, can I come in?" he asked tentatively.
"Um," she hesitated, looking behind her at Travis, still engrossed in his movie. He would be a pain in the ass if they stayed in the main room where he could see them, and her room wasn't exactly fit for company. "Why don't we go out?" she suggested.
"Okay, fine by me," he said agreeably. He stuck his hands in his pockets as she grabbed her purse and shut the door. "So that's your . . . dad?" Beast Boy asked.
She couldn't help but break into a fit of laughter. Just the thought of Travis ever being a parent was hysterical. "Hell no! He's just my older brother," she said when she'd recovered, "He's not much of a guardian, but he pays the bills."
"Right," the green boy replied absently. He couldn't help but stare at the houses and apartments they passed as they walked down the street. Everything was just so much older and run-down than what he was used to. Nobody caught him looking and grinned.
"I know it's no Titans Tower," she said with a shrug, "But it's home."
"No, I mean, there's nothing wrong with, er, I'm just not used to—" he stumbled over the words until she put a hand on his arm to silence him.
"It's okay, I get it," she smiled.
"So where do you wanna go?" he asked to change the subject.
"Well, we could go—" she was interrupted by the sound of her cell phone ringing, "Sorry, I gotta answer this." He watched as she pulled out a small red phone and flipped it open. "Hello?" she said. There was a pause while the person on the other end talked.
"No way! That is entirely impossible! There is no way you could have broken that!" she nearly shouted. Another pause. "Well can't you fix it yourself? I'm busy right now." There was a longer pause this time. "How did you manage that?" she asked. There were only a few seconds of quiet before Nobody screeched, "You fuckin' did what?!" this time he could hear the other person yelling. "Alright, alright, I'll see what I can do," she mumbled and hung up.
"So what was that about?" he wondered, not sure whether he should laugh or be afraid.
"My boss is being a bitch again," she said simply.
"And?" he prompted when she failed to elaborate.
"Okay, well, as a part-time thing I work at an ice sculpture place, cuz, ya know, my powers come in handy. Well, I made this big really complicated thing for a wedding next weekend, and one of the other workers accidentally knocked it off the third story balcony, and it broke," she explained hastily, "And now they want me to come fix it."
"So go ahead," he told her, "I'll come with you."
"Really? It's pretty boring," she said.
"Yeah, it's cool," he assured, "I've never been to someone's job before."
"Okay then, we'll need to get there quickly, otherwise they might screw it up even more," she said. Nobody looked at a spot in the sky just above the skyline and made a slight motion with her hand. A trail of ice appeared there, supported by no visible means, which lead across the city towards the boardwalk area. She gestured again and a set of ice stairs formed leading up to the trail.
"Sweet!" he said, and he began climbing the stairs, which were surprisingly not slippery at all. Nobody followed him and reached the top just as he shifted into a penguin. He slid along on his belly while she sort of skated down the ice, using her powers to propel her forward.
Beast Boy glanced down at the people on the street, wondering what they must think of this sight, but not one of them was looking in his direction. When he looked at the air around the slide, he noticed a fine mist of ice crystals encircling it.
"It's so I don't attract attention," Nobody explained, nodding towards the mist, "We just look like a cloud to those people down there."
"Why don't you use this all the time? It's fast!" he said. It had only been a minute or two and they were already nearing their destination.
"Exactly, it's too fast," she said, "I like to enjoy the ride."
Cassy hopped off of the ice slide and onto the roof of the building where she worked. It was originally a catering company, but that had gone under a few years ago. The current owner now ran the business, which made ice sculptures as well as flower arrangements. She walked over to a trapdoor and dropped through it, motioning for Beast Boy to follow. They landed on the squishy carpet of the third floor, which was just office space. They took the stairs down to the second floor.
"Nobody's here!" the receptionist, a perky blonde, called to a back room when she saw them.
"They even call you Nobody here?" Beast Boy whispered.
Cassy grinned and said, "Yeah, it's kind of a nickname for me, even my brother, Travis, calls me that sometimes."
She led the way back to a large open room with tarps covering the hard wood floor. She dropped her coat on a chair and strolled over to talk to a woman with streaks of gray in her short black hair, though she couldn't have been more than thirty. Beast Boy casually looked around the room, examining a few half-finished ice sculptures that were sitting out. They were all beautiful, even incomplete.
"I think we'll just have to redo this one," he heard Nobody saying, "It's in too many pieces."
"But the deadline is coming up!" the woman protested.
"Well, Maggie, I told you to be careful with it. What was it doing on the third floor anyway?" Nobody said.
"Charlene wanted it up there to keep it cooler, since the freezer hasn't been working," Maggie explained, obviously trying to shift the blame away from herself.
"I've told her a thousand times that this stuff won't melt! You could probably take a blowtorch to it and it would barely be affected! It wouldn't even break if I didn't have to make it soft enough to be carved by hand," Cassy said, frustrated. Sometimes her boss could be so thickheaded.
"Well, what are we gonna do? She says it's got to be fixed by Monday or the customer's not paying," Maggie said, "We're already a day late on delivery."
Cassy sighed, trying to think of a quick fix. "I'll remake it myself, and make sure it won't break," she replied, "Just get the pieces of the last one out of the way." Nobody walked back over to Beast Boy while Maggie called in the receptionist and they moved the chunks of ice into a different room. "Would you mind terribly waiting for me to finish up here? It shouldn't take too long really," she said.
"No problem," he said casually, "I've got time."
She smiled at him and went over to a tarp in the corner of the room. She put her hands out in front of her, her hands flat and palms down. After a few seconds of concentration, a block of ice appeared under her hands, perfectly smooth and clear. Nobody moved her hands around the block, causing the ice to shape itself to her will. After about half an hour or so, she had an unbelievably detailed sculpture of a dove in flight. Thin tubes of ice snake up around it, twisting around like vines, surrounding the bird without enclosing it.
"Would you run down to the first floor and as them if they could spare a couple dozen uncut roses?" she asked him. Beast Boy nodded and quickly ran down the stairs to fetch the flowers. When he gave them to her she sprayed them down at a sink so that droplets of water clung to the soft petals. Then as she stared at the flowers a thin layer of frost coated each one, preserving the flowers and giving them a sort of icy beauty. Nobody inserted roses into various holes in the tubes of ice on the sculpture. Then she closed up the tubes so that the flowers wouldn't fall out.
"What do you think?" she said, stepping back to admire her work.
"It's incredible," he said, staring at the magnificent thing before him.
"Thanks, I think the original was better, but this one's good considering it only took an hour," she replied, still looking the sculpture over.
"No, it's perfect," he told her and she smiled.
"I'll go get Maggie to tell Charlene it's done," Nobody said, heading for the door.
"Why don't you just tell her yourself?" he asked.
"I so don't have the patience to deal with Charlene today," she said, then added, "Most days I just avoid her." She went out to the main room and returned a few seconds later with Maggie in tow.
"Looks good, kid," the older woman said, "You should be able to go now."
"Great!" she said, eager to get out of there. She grabbed Beast Boy's hand and pulled him along with her as she ran down the stairs and out the front door. When they stepped out onto the street she realized what she'd done, blushed, and dropped his hand.
"Where to now?" he asked quickly.
"I dunno," she said, thinking of places close by.
"What do you like to do?" he suggested.
"I like ice skating," she blurted.
"Can't imagine why," Beast Boy said sarcastically.
She laughed, "There's a rink not far from here, if you wanna go." He agreed and they headed down the street. It didn't take long to get there, and Cassy went there often enough that it was no problem getting their skates, despite the line when they arrived.
She skated out onto the ice, gliding effortlessly across the smooth surface. Beast Boy, however, wobbled some on his skates and clutched the wall for support. She didn't understand what it was like to not know how to ice skate, she could remember being good at it as long as she could remember having her powers. For her, it was like she was a part of the ice as she moved, because she kind of was.
He skated over to her shakily, arms spread out for balance. He was almost there when he slipped and started to fall. She grabbed his arm, trying to keep him upright, but only succeeded in bringing herself down with him. He fell hard on his butt while she did a face plant.
"Ow," they said in unison. They looked at each other for a minute before erupting into laughter.
Three hours later they were both a bit damp from falling so much but still grinning. Cassy had tried to keep them both on their feet, but Beast Boy proved to be a somewhat hopeless ice skater. It didn't help that she was laughing so much at his comments that she wasn't paying much attention to balance. They were walking to her favorite fast food place to get some fries when Beast Boy's communicator beeped loudly. Robin's face appeared on the small screen, telling Beast Boy they needed his help downtown.
"Sorry, but I gotta go," he said, "You can come too if you want."
Cassy considered it for a moment before saying, "Thanks, but no thanks, maybe next time." She liked Beast Boy and the fact that they seemed to be becoming friends, but that was when he wasn't being a hero. She still didn't like the concept of the Teen Titans running around saving the day.
"Alright, guess I'll say goodbye then," he said.
"See ya tomorrow?" she asked.
"Definitely," he replied as he turned into an eagle and flew away.