Hello all, sorry I haven't updated but I've been having trouble coming up with motivation to write lately. Still, I think this chapter is alright. Enjoy!
Rock Your World, Chapter 9
"Guess there's only so much bored tinkering a half-robot man can stand before he runs out of stuff to do," Cyborg sighed. He straightened out of his kneeling position from where he'd just checked on the fire for the umpteenth time that evening and looked around him. "Do we even need this fire, still?" He asked himself. Sure the warmth was nice, but it didn't do much with no one close enough to it to enjoy it. The light it provided was still more superfluous, as the overhead bulbs turned on automatically when the sensors registered movement around them, surrounding the Titans with several hundred feet of uninterrupted illumination.
"Wonder what's going on with the rest of the crew."
He spotted Raven first, busy making with the hocus pocus from her lotus position across the fire and hovering her glowing blue hands over Robin, whose skin still looked as purple and swollen as an eggplant's. Starfire, off in the distance and opposite Raven and Robin, had returned to pacing, though this time she'd chosen the tunnel's vertical wall as her stroll site, rather than the ground, her red hair hanging perpendicular to her body. Beast Boy, in contrast, hadn't moved from his spot against the wall since Starfire and Robin arrived, and his eyes stared blearily ahead of him, open at half-mast with his head propped up on the rock behind him.
"Hey man, how you doin'?" Cyborg asked, approaching his shortest, greenest friend.
Beast Boy pulled away from the wall and jumped up, his ears perked and his smile cheerful.
"Better now we have our fearless leader back," he replied a little too quickly.
"That's good," Cyborg said in a sympathetic voice. He waited for the changeling to continue the conversation, but BB simply stared at him, his smile growing more forced by the second. "Gotta broach this carefully," Cyborg reminded himself. He pursed his fleshy lips, twitched his cybernetic cheek, and sighed. "You know this wasn't your fault, right?"
Beast Boy grimaced. "What are you talking about?"
"Smooth," he thought.
"It's okay, B. We all know how you felt about Terra, and after she left we knew sooner or later we were gonna see her again, but it still hurt to see her when we did, how we did. You don't have to put on a bold face for us."
BB narrowed his eyes. "I don't know why you're telling me things I already know, but I don't appreciate it," he snapped, his usually innocuous-looking fang poking out menacingly.
Cyborg backed away and raised his hands up, palms out in a placating manner. "Cool it, Beast Boy, I just wanted to check to make sure you're okay." He sharpened his voice. "But I don't need you jumping down my throat."
Beast Boy's frown eased into a neutral expression. "Sorry, I guess I'm just not up to socializing right now."
"Alright that's fine," Cyborg said with a shrug. He dropped his hands down and backed away slowly. "Just remember, Green Bean, I'm good for more than just video games, if you need to talk to someone."
Beast Boy graced him with a small smile. "I know," he said. Then he brightened. "You're just not good at building tunnels, or else you wouldn't have a leak," he said cheekily.
Cyborg returned the grin and shook his head. "I'm sure that'll be the first thing we take care of once we get back on our feet. A'ight?"
He offered the changeling a half-hearted fist bump, then placed his hand on the smaller boy's shoulder. "How 'bout we get you somewhere drier, mmm?" Cyborg directed the changeling to the nearest sleeping pad, close to the firepit.
"I'm not really that tired—" Beast Boy protested, but shuffled forward obediently.
"That's what happens when you use stone as your mattress and pillow!" Cyborg retorted, then slapped him heartily on the back, bringing Beast Boy to his knees on the soft padding. "Once you get all warm and toasty, I'm sure you'll drift off just fine."
The changeling grumbled but slunk into the fetal position and wrapped himself in a blanket.
Cyborg quietly congratulated himself. "One down, three to go," he thought, and made his way toward the Tameranian a hundred or so feet away.
As he neared, he noticed that during this round of pacing she seemed to exude less anxiety and more anger, if her glowing eyes and fists indicated anything of her present state of mind. She had also taken to pacing along the wall instead of the floor, using her flight ability to keep her fixed to the vertical stone.
"Least Star's not trying to hide her feelings." "Hey girl," he called to her. "How's it hanging?"
Starfire froze. "I am sorry, but I do not believe I have anything hanging at the moment," she considered for a moment, and extinguished her eyes as her fury gave way to confusion, furrowing her brows. "Unless you refer to my hair, which is indeed hanging down."
Cyborg chuckled. "S'no problem. It's another one of our crazy sayings. It's like 'how are you?'"
"I am the okay, friend Cyborg. I thank you for asking."
The half-robot teem eyed her skeptically out of his human eye.
"Truly, I am being honest. I cannot manage happiness due to the gravity of our circumstances, but everyone is here, protected from immediate harm, and-" she cast a glance to where Raven worked on Robin. "-mostly undamaged, so neither am I particularly distraught."
"Then why you all the way over here?"
She hopped down and affected a demure stance, her eyes downcast and her hands clasped behind her back. "I have full faith in Raven's healing abilities, but I find myself anxious regardless, and my nervous disposition disturbs Raven's concentration. I have placed myself out of her immediate empathic reach to avoid distracting her."
"Maybe you should try and relax," he suggested.
Starfire shook her head vehemently and resumed her pacing. "I cannot do the relaxing while Robin's life is in danger. I find I am too 'wound up' to do the calming down. Or sitting down or laying down or anything besides staying alert until Raven has finished for the night and I am certain Robin is alright."
"You know you can stay up without wearing a track into that poor wall, right?" He smiled and pointed to the line of red dust that had been imprinted upon the stone from Starfire's boots.
"You are employing an element of humor in an effort to pacify me, yes?"
Cyborg blanched. "Uh. Nah, I'm just checking up on ya-wanted to see what's wrong with the bed I made for you that it isn't good enough to actually use."
"You are doing it again," she chided him, but he simply crossed his arms and smiled at her. "Nothing is wrong with the bedding, and I appreciate your thoughtfulness, but I am not interested in sleeping now."
His smile sagged and he looked down at her pleadingly. "Come on, Star, you know Rob would want you to be at your best tomorrow. He'll still be bent out of shape, Rae'll be tired from fixing him, and I'll be operating on minimum power until I can recharge. We need you and BB to keep your strength up to make up for the rest of us being low on our game."
Starfire's eyes twitched left, then right. She dug the toe of one of her boots into the ground as she fidgeted with her hands, clearly wrestling her people-pleasing instincts against her will to stay conscious and keep tabs on Robin.
Cyborg noticed the moment she gave in, her arm muscles tensing in the second before she met his eye and said: "I will attempt to sleep, but I make none of the guarantees."
He beckoned her with a wave of his hand back to the firepit. "Right this way, lil' lady."
As they neared the fire, Cyborg quickened his pace to reach Starfire's pad before her, then dragged it back an extra twenty feet. Starfire nodded her appreciation, eyeing Raven guiltily. "That is a good idea," she whispered, and pulled back a few inches so the rectangular pad lay parallel to the tunnel wall. "To keep me further away."
He straightened her pillow and blanket a bit and glanced back at her. "It's isn't round like your weird alien bed upstairs, but it'll do. And it's not like you have to worry about getting cold or anything, right."
She smiled gratefully at him and sat down. "It is wonderful."
Cyborg waved her goodnight and surveyed the area. "Two down, two to go," he thought, then yawned. "Make that three," he amended, walking slowly to Raven's workspace, encircled by a series of flashlights in lieu of her usual candles. He checked his internal battery and winced. "Low battery. Go figure, after all we've done today. But with no power station in reach I'm out for a regular recharge. Guess I'll just shutdown in a few and set an alarm for the morning."
When he was within three feet of the circle, he raised a finger and opened his mouth to speak.
"No," Raven said tersely, her hood up and her back turned to him as she wrapped Robin's right leg—clean of blood and bare to his mid-thigh-in a thick layer of white gauze.
"No what?" Cyborg asked, confused.
She paused in her ministrations. "No I don't need anything, no I'm not going to sleep yet, no I won't be done anytime soon. Just no."
"Got it," he mumbled, sheepish.
"Sorry. Concentrating. Night."
"Night," he replied, and headed for his own sleeping pad a short distance away. "Guess that settles that," he thought, and settled in. He covered himself in the blanket and punched in his alarm and shutdown codes. "Shutting down," flashed across his vision in red letters, then it went black.
