Disclaimer: Well, I do have a cat, but that's really more of a partnership than an ownership.

Live Forever

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023. Alternative

Anytime

Sometimes, more than anything else, Beast Boy longed to be fully human again. But at the same time…He couldn't even remember not being green, not being a shape shifter. He couldn't begin to imagine how much different his life would have been.

No Doom Patrol.

No Teen Titans.

He wasn't even sure he'd still be alive if he couldn't fly.

And, he was used to it, now. Being green, and especially to being able to shift. He'd talked to Cyborg about it, once, because Raven had always been a half-demon and Starfire had always been Tamaranean…but… it was different for Cyborg, too. Cyborg remembered. Beast Boy…did not. Oh, he'd tried- he'd tried a lot of times, actually- but those memories weren't coming back. Ever, as far as he could tell. He wasn't even sure he wanted them back, because then the loss of what-could-have-been would be more real. Normally he didn't go in for the whole 'everything happens for a reason' theory, but when he considered the life he had now, living in Titans' Tower with his family, sometimes it struck him as an odd karmic balance. After all, he'd lost count of the number of people he'd met who had claimed they'd give up everything they had for the ability to fly. In a way, he had given up everything for flight.

He loved flying, though. He loved flight, he loved to shift into a cheetah and just run, he loved being able to swim for hours in the sea. He liked having all his animal senses, he even kind of liked his fangs and claws and ears, most of the time. They were another thing he couldn't remember being without.

So, yeah, sometimes he wished to just be normal. He didn't miss it exactly, he couldn't miss what he couldn't remember, but he wanted it sometimes.

So whenever he got in that mood, he went flying.

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024. Beacon

During How Long is Forever?

When Starfire found herself in an unfamiliar Jump, she gravitated automatically towards the building that drew her like a beacon, that would always draw any of the Titans as strongly as a beacon- a part of her almost felt there should be a light shining from the Tower, from home, to guide her there.

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025. Cliff

Anytime

He shivered a little in the cool night air, then glanced at her to see she was ready and waiting. What had started out as one of Robin's training exercises had turned into a weekly challenge.

He closed his eyes and stepped off the roof as she did the same.

As always, he shifted and snapped out his wings inches above the ocean, sending plumes of water skidding into the sky on either side of him. His talons were below the surface of the water this time, though, so he'd gotten better.

Glancing to the side, so had she. A trail of dark energy showed where'd she shot into the water and he wheeled sharply as she shot back up, the two of them climbing through the sky back to the top of the Tower. She gave him the barest half-smile, acknowledging that she'd won again, and he sighed.

For some reason, it always felt like he was jumping off more than one kind of cliff when they did this.

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026. Death

Anytime

"Where do you think we go when we die?" Cyborg asked suddenly, startling Beast Boy. Glancing around the room, the shifter realized everyone else had long since gone to sleep while they played Mega Monkeys VI.

"I don't think it matters," he replied after a long moment, tossing his controller aside. "I mean, I'll find out when I get there, and I'm not in any hurry."

"Humor me."

Beast Boy shrugged. "It'd be fun to be a ghost." He turned to his best friend and grinned. "I mean c'mon, poltergeist equals the ultimate prankster. Dude, that'd be sweet."

Cyborg laughed, his dark mood broken. "I should have known you'd say something like that."

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027. Endings

Anytime

"I'm gonna live forever."

Starfire laughed.

He lifted himself onto one elbow and mock-glared down at her. "I am." His voice came dangerously close to whining, but the tilt of his ears told her he was still amused. "Really, I'm gonna live forever or die in the attempt," and he struck a stupid cliché superhero pose, grinning when she laughed again. While it was much easier than tricking a laugh out of Raven, he loved Star's laughter, too. Actually, he liked hearing all his friends laugh, but right now that wasn't the point.

"Seriously, Starfire! I'm going to live forever, even if I have to become a ghost to do it."

"You realize there's a logical problem with that, right?" a new voice commented wryly. Beast Boy flopped back onto the warm pavement on the roof and waved up at Robin, before laughing himself and shifting into a hummingbird. He darted around Starfire for a moment, delighting her, and then dove from the roof to the sea before flying back to his room, leaving the two alone.

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028. Freedom

Anytime

He loved flying. He really, really loved flying. He couldn't help but feel sorry for Cyborg and Robin, sometimes, knowing they couldn't just leap from the roof and fly like he and the girls could. He wondered how come things never blew up when Raven was flying unless she wanted them to, because he always felt great in the air and couldn't imagine anyone could fly and not get that kind of rush.

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029. Ghost

Before Go!

Sometimes, there were advantages to being small and quick, as opposed to large and brawny.

Normally, it would have been no problem to grab breakfast at a hotel with one of those continental breakfasts- it wasn't like they expected anyone to just walk in off the street and sit down for a meal- but they did tend to remember that no one green had rented a room recently. So unfortunately for him, he had to settle for sneaking in invisibly and snatching whatever he could carry, then stealing through the shadows to get out. Sometimes he had to shift to get out unnoticed but that usually meant sacrificing the food, so instead he learned to move as invisibly as a ghost and continued towards Jump City.

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001.2- Holiday

During Refuge

Beast Boy hunched in front of the fireplace, giggling as he twirled the pronged fork and watched the marshmallow crisp. "I've always wanted to do this."

"Of course," a dry voice answered him, a thick blanket dropping onto his head. He shook it off and felt it settle around his shoulders before smiling at his 'roommate.' She sighed and rolled her eyes, but sat down beside him. Well, floated in the air beside him, anyway. "Robin called." There was no phone in her apartment, so he knew she meant through the communicator. "The Tower should be ready for us to move in by the end of the week." She eyed him, still shivering under the thick blanket, and sighed again. "You'd be freezing if you were still in the park," she said without thinking. He glared at her, but huddled further under the blanket. "Beast Boy, it's only sixty-five degrees in here. What do you think it is outside?"

He didn't answer.

His communicator beeped before she could say another word, and he turned away so she wasn't visible when he answered. "Yeah? What's up?"

Cyborg's voice emanated from his hands. "Yo, I just wanted to wish ya a merry Christmas, grass stain. Star and Rob are off somewhere pretending they're not on a date, and Raven wasn't answering."

Beast Boy was too busy gaping at the communicator to realize that Cyborg had apparently called everyone else before him. "It's Christmas?"

Cyborg laughed. "Man, how can you not know these things? I gotta go, but come by the Pizza Place later tonight if you want. If you see Raven, tell her she's invited too." The com clicked off.

Beast Boy looked up at Raven, who looked as surprised as him, and after a long moment they both spoke at the same time.

"Merry Christmas."

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030. Identity

Anytime

When Cyborg asked him who he thought Robin really was, he couldn't help it. He laughed. He didn't understand, really, why anyone wanted to know that- Robin was Robin. He'd been someone else, once, but in the way that he had once been Garfield Logan, or Cyborg Victor Stone. Now, he was Robin, and the only difference was that he'd more or less given up his original identity willingly.

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031. Journeys

Anytime

Starfire loved going to the Mall of Shopping. She loved it even more when her friends came with. Naturally she was ecstatic whenever she could convince Robin to come, but really her favorite companion on those trips was Beast Boy.

True, she didn't feel the same way for him that she did for their masked leader, but Beast Boy knew how to make even the simplest things fun. Even when things went wrong they were still fun. Every little trip anywhere had the potential to be an Adventure.

"Hey," Beast Boy joked from somewhere behind her, "you push a button and these things talk? Man, these kids are spoiled- I had to talk for my toys!"

The elderly couple watching them laughed. They'd been watching for a while; they seemed to find some great private amusement in watching two of Jump City's teenage protectors act like little kids.

He grabbed a toy horse and grinned at her as she turned in midair to face him. "Race ya!"

When Robin asked them later where they'd been all day, he just sighed when they admitted to having been playing in a toy store.

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032. Kindness

Anytime

While it was true that all the Titans had their 'spots' on the island- the roof, the rock, the gym- they all had somewhere in Jump's mainland too. She knew Beast Boy would spend hours at the zoo, leaning against a railing and staring down at the caged animals, and that Robin tended to roost on top of buildings in the late hours of the night. She wasn't entirely sure where Starfire or Cyborg went.

She liked to spend time in a corner of a small coffee shop on Main. It was actually a combination coffee shop and bookstore, and they had poetry readings every Thursday night; she very rarely read her own, but she did enjoy listening to others' poems, and she had a decent enough friendship with the owner of the shop. Actually, she had friendships with several of the other regulars, too.

There, everyone was creepy, so she was normal.

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033. Leadership

After Season Five

There was never really any question of who the leader was. Well, on occasion Cyborg would challenge Robin for it, in one way or another, but that never lasted long. Beast Boy and the girls really didn't have any desire to lead. They could, Beast Boy had more than proved that with the whole Brotherhood of Evil thing, but they didn't really want to.

Leadership for a gang of superheroes meant more than the position of commander in battle. It meant responsibility for decisions that could cost the lives of their family- and none of them particularly wanted the weight of that responsibility, but it was Robin, already used to feeling responsible for Gotham City, who took it.

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034. Media

Anytime

If there was one aspect of being a superhero Raven disliked the most, it was the media. Tabloids entertained her, true, but not when they were about her.

Cyborg saw the headline just before dark energy tore it to shreds and wouldn't stop laughing about it for a good hour and a half, and then wouldn't stop teasing her about it for a good week.

Honestly, how could anyone believe she was in a relationship with Starfire?

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035. Neutrality

After Lightspeed

It took more to changing sides than Kid Flash seemed to understand. There was a kind of wild freedom that came from being on the 'bad' side; if you wanted something it was yours. Things like laws and ethics didn't enter the picture. Going good- and she had to keep silencing the part of her subconscious that kept giggling and wailing 'come over to the light side'- was giving up a lot of that freedom.

But then, trying to lead the HIVE Five had long since ceased to feel like freedom.

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036. Ocean

Anytime

He loved living near the ocean, usually. It meant that at any time, all he had to do was dive from the roof and he could be off on his own for hours, as a bird or a dolphin or anything he wanted, with an entire coast to play in. And he did, naturally; it was in his nature to spend some time just playing. It kept him sane, or close to it, and he didn't know how Robin could stand being so…obsessive about work.

Sometimes, though, he couldn't stand the water being so near. Those were the nights he couldn't sleep.

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037. Pain

Anytime

He finished wrapping the bandage around his arm, both proud and a little disturbed that the pain didn't bother him. He was relatively certain that it would have, once, a long time ago- when his name wasn't Robin.

That, to him, seemed a very, very long time ago.

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038. Quirks

Not long after Go!

There were a few more quirks to get used to than there would be between normal roommates. Between Beast Boy's tendency for his living space to resemble an animal's den, Raven's intense desire for privacy, Starfire's disturbing ideas of what was edible and what wasn't, and Cyborg's competitive streak-not to mention his own competitive streak, which was probably twice as wide- Robin came very close to having a good old-fashioned breakdown in the first week of trying to get them all to live together without irritating each other to death.

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039. Resilience

After The End

He was very proud of his team. They'd gone through a lot together, but they always managed to bounce back. Damage was done- he doubted any of them would ever entirely heal from Terra's betrayal, and he at least still had nightmares of Trigon's brief reign- but they still continued to fight.

They always would.

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040. Secrets

After Season Five

They all had their secrets. Some of them, like Robin, guarded theirs more closely- he had shared one of them once, a photo he'd felt the need to lock in a suitcase, but he never did explain why he had a picture of Bruce Wayne and his protégé. They could guess, but in the end it was still a guess- it wouldn't be totally unlike Robin to have that picture just to throw enemies off guard.

Robin's best kept secret, though, was how much he had enjoyed being Red X. There was a certain freedom in the role that he knew he would never have again; Red X was a villain and a loner, no team to watch out for, no rules to follow.

Sometimes, he really missed that.

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041. Territorial

Anytime

For all he loved to tease Raven about being territorial, he knew he was worse, and it bothered him. The difference, though, was Raven was only territorial about his room. Every fiber of his being recognized their island and the Tower as his and the team as his and sometimes, especially for a short while after he first became the Beast and later after he defended Raven and his home, the intensity of it frightened him. The part of him that was very much a wild animal was also very much more territorial than Raven would ever be.

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042. Unity

After Titans Together

"Titans, go!"

She heard that in her sleep.

Without fail, every dream, even the nightmares, always included that phrase. "Titans, go!" To be perfectly honest, she loved hearing it. It was an affirmation of her home, her family, and her team, which were all the same thing, really.

But lately, "Titans, together!" had just as much of a ring to it, maybe more.

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043. Vacation

After Titans East part II

"Dudes, dudettes; ROADTRIP!"

In retrospect, she really should have known from those words that this was a Bad Idea. Failing that, it should have occurred to her that she was in a vehicle with Beast Boy and Starfire, and she especially should have started having a bad feeling when Robin and Cyborg peeled off and left them far behind. Leave it to Cyborg to build a car faster than their jet.

Leave it to her to let Star and Beast Boy fly that jet.

Raven folded her hands behind her head and sighed, glaring up at the metal above them.

They had no idea where they were. Wherever it was, however, the signals from their communicators were being blocked. After a fruitless two hours stumbling around in the forest- the light from Starfire's starbolts could only illuminate so much, and flying through unfamiliar territory in the dark was never a good idea- they'd all agreed to spend the night where they were.

Raven closed her eyes as she heard giggling from beside her. Since this wasn't the best spot to spend the night-actually, it wasn't even a good spot to spend the night- they'd done the best they could. The T-ship was parked against a bank of trees in the tiny clearing, and since they lacked anything even remotely resembling a tent, they had taken what would have been Robin's and Cyborg's sleeping bags and draped them over the wings of the ship to provide shelter. Of course, Robin had packed basic survival gear such as sleeping bags, fire starters, and warmer clothing, but he'd somehow neglected to include a tent.

She sat up as Beast Boy tugged down Cyborg's massive sleeping bag and replaced it with his own, before laying the larger one down on the ground. "C'mon, get on top of this one," he told her and Star, grinning. "This'll be warmer."

Sighing, Raven levitated up as he spread the blanket out to encompass most of the ground beneath the wing, then tugged hers and Starfire's bags over it and dove beneath them. The girls followed him and Raven thought with some private amusement that he was really just building a nest under here for himself. Starfire very obviously wasn't cold and Raven liked the cold. "In the morning, we'll take turns flying ahead and work out where we are and how to get home. Agreed?"

Both Beast Boy and Starfire made noises of assent and Raven joined them between the sleeping bags. Beast Boy had crawled around inside them and managed to zip them all together, making one large sleeping bag that held in warmth easily. Raven closed her eyes again and listened as he started another of his word games with Starfire; the object, as far as she could tell, was to take turns telling one line of a story, and the catch was that everything had to rhyme. Starfire was doing surprisingly well.

"One late night three friends spent beneath the stars," Beast Boy started.

Starfire giggled. "Because they did not have the fastest cars."

"And since Rob forgot to pack a tent,"

"Which, right now, would be heaven-sent," Raven muttered, before groaning when she realized she'd just unwittingly joined the game. Beast Boy laughed before Starfire gleefully joined in again. "They built a fort beneath their ship."

"This sure has been one strange trip," Beast Boy said brightly as Raven restrained the urge to smack him.

"That's it, I quit." Laughter greeted her statement as she sighed and pulled her hood on, partly to prepare for sleep, partly to hide her smile. Beast Boy and Starfire shared the ability to turn anything into an adventure, and while this should have been a minor disaster, it felt more like a small vacation.

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044. Wild

After The Beast Within

It was easy, after a while of living together, to forget that most of them weren't entirely human. After all, there were humans with stranger eating habits than Starfire's, and Raven was more than once mistaken for a Goth. Admittedly Cyborg was a bit more noticeable, in terms of appearance, but he acted like most teenage boys Raven had run into most of the time. Raven could brush each of their minds at the edge of her own perception and they all 'felt' similar.

What always disturbed her slightly was the wild undercurrent to all of Beast Boy's thoughts. It was always there, an animal's instincts surging just beneath his surface thoughts, but after the Beast incident it got worse. It was unsettling and calming at the same time; sometimes when she was awake late at night, she felt like there was a caged lion in the room next to hers, but more often she was comforted by the way his wild side considered this his territory and his pack.

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045. Xenophobia

During Season Five

Sometimes, he really hated traveling.

In Jump City, the stares had stopped a long time ago. As strange as they all were, they'd long since become commonplace there, especially after the number of times they'd saved the city. Elsewhere, though…well, he didn't mind visiting Steel City, they were used enough to their own Titans team that the first five Titans weren't so unusual.

This, however, was neither Steel nor Jump, and as his ears were picking up all of the whispers as they walked down the street, Beast Boy had opted to stay in the hotel with Cyborg and Raven rather than explore the city with Robin and Starfire. The whispers didn't seem to bother them. They probably wouldn't have bothered him, once, but he'd gotten used to Jump City.

He missed his home.

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046. Youth

During Season Five

"You know," Cyborg said suddenly, looking up from the Pocket Gamestation he was fiddling with, "you two should be getting ready for prom right now."

Beast Boy and Raven stared at him. He held up his hands defensively. "Yo, I'm just sayin'! I mean, if it weren't for the Titans an' all, you two'd be at your prom…not chasing the Brotherhood of Evil all over the world."

Raven sighed, shutting the Book of Azar and floating back to the ground. "News flash Cyborg: where I'm from, we didn't really have proms."

"And I kinda doubt I'd have gone," Beast Boy added from where he was sitting beside her, eyeing the tea she'd made. She was keeping an eye on him so he didn't drink any of it; he'd protested that he didn't want any, but the longing look in his eyes was hard to miss. She wondered, a little uneasily, just how addictive catnip was for him if he still seemed to want it so badly even after how embarrassed he'd been when it had worn off before.

"Anyway, I'm gonna get some sleep." Cyborg stood to head for his sleeping bag beside the T-ship. "If they follow the same pattern as the last three nights, Star and Rob should be back from…ah…patrol in about half an hour. G'night, y'all."

Beast Boy flopped backwards onto the ground, closing his eyes and turning his head away from where the tea was, breathing in deeply. Raven returned most of her attention to her book until he spoke.

"Do you miss it?" His voice was wistful and she didn't have to ask what he meant. Do you miss having the chance to be normal?

She could have replied that she'd never had the chance to be able to miss it. Could have said that dances weren't her thing anyway.

When she finally did answer him, she lied.

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047. Zoo

Anytime

He hated the zoo almost as much as he enjoyed it.

It confused him, the first time he visited a zoo. It took him a long time to work out his conflicting emotions about the place. He liked being around so many animals at once.

It took him a long to time to realize it was the cages that bothered him.

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GuardianSaiyoko: Long one. The game played in Vacation is one I play with my twin when we go camping; we've managed to keep it running for an hour before. It's the most fun when you're responding to each other as fast as you can. Live Forever...I have the tendency to insist that I'm going to live forever or die in the attempt. And I am. Youth is not cut off; the ending is for your own interpretation. Walking into hotels you're not staying at and grabbing their continental breakfasts does work, incredibly well in fact, but how I know that is unimportant.

Updates from me could take a while after this- my grandparents are coming to stay with me for a week, and I have enough of a 'secret identity' to hide that Robin would be proud. Between my religion and a few other major secrets, I'm going to be slightly frantic. Plus I have Oral Allergy Syndrome, which you can find information about on Wikipedia, and no matter how many times I explain it to my grandmother she keeps trying to feed me fruits and vegetables.

Later, Sai