(A/N) So…for anybody actually reading these author's notes, remember how I said I'd been writing daily and I was trying to make it a habit? Well, I haven't stopped, which is good, but I may have a problem. Seems I've written over fifteen thousand words for a completely different fic this week on top of getting this chapter done. Most of that writing was done in two days. Now to just finish up this fic and then post the other once it's finished. That's going to be a weird week when that happens. "Here's the AYITL ~5000 word conclusion and a 50,000 word one shot."
Yeah.
Disclaimer – You know how many songs there are about the month of November? A lot. We're talking December numbers here and December's got Christmas. Sure, November has Thanksgiving, but let's be honest. Thanksgiving is a horrible song subject and a terrible word to try and sing. Why am I bringing this all up? Mostly because writing disclaimers is boring and I wanted to talk about something more interesting than how I don't own the Teen Titans, but there's also a bit of a precedence here. I always ramble, and I simply MUST uphold my image. Seriously. I've got a photo in my hands right now.
A Year In The Life – November – November seems odd, you're my firing squad, November. (Tom Waits)
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The blue was incredible. He'd tried the red and green, but blue was completely brilliant. He idly wondered why slushies were described by their colors instead of their flavors, but blue was calling out to him, telling him where the largest cups were kept.
Cyborg barely looked up from his slushy crusade as Raven drifted by in a turban and scuba suit. Blue had him completely captivated.
Starfire was less captivated. She'd had plenty of experience with blue food; most of it involving combat. A drinkable form wasn't appealing. Raven's strange clothes made perfect sense to her though. Raven was just going to go snorkeling in the Middle East and didn't want to offend anyone; perfectly logical.
She put Silkie back into his basinet and walked over to the book section. There had to be something about earth boys and what to do when they were being stubborn. The book "Earth Boys Made Easy" caught her eye and she flew it to the cashier laughing.
Beast Boy and Robin were trying to decide how edible the ceiling was. Beast Boy believed it would taste horrible, but be mildly nutritious, while Robin believed it would taste excellent and have no redeeming value beyond that. They were currently removing one of the tiles from overhead to have a taste test.
Having spent a large portion of their lives training for disaster, the sound of screaming coming from outside pulled them out of their current activities as they sprang for the exits to see what the hubbub was about.
Robin, doing as much leading as possible, was outside first and spotted the horrific sight terrorizing the citizenry: A huge pile of Beast Boy's laundry.
With a cry of "Titans go!" they leapt into action. Raven used her powers to summon an overpriced box of laundry detergent from the convenience store they'd just been in. Starfire grabbed Cyborg and flew off towards the nearest body of water. Beast Boy and Robin charged headlong into the fearsome collective of socks, body suits, and underpants.
Raven was having trouble getting the detergent. The shop owner, despite his obvious fear of the creature that bellowed in a voice reminiscent of gargled toothpaste, but he refused to let Raven just take his merchandise.
So, they haggled.
She offered saving his life and the lives of people who might be his customers. He countered with ten dollars and eighty-five cents plus tax. She offered the rebuttal of it being the right thing to do. He continued to request the sum listed on the box. Plus tax.
They went back and forth a few times until they agreed upon the compromise of Raven not killing him herself and giving him the four dollars and a pack of gum she had on her.
Generic clothes cleaner made from lye and various chemicals that made the lye smell like summer rain, whatever that was supposed to smell like, in hand, Raven caught up quickly with Robin and Beast Boy.
The two of them had made some progress in driving the monstrosity towards the bay, but they'd reached a stalemate. The monster was determined to take Bayshore to Cesar Chavez but Robin thought 280 to 16th would have less traffic. Beast Boy was arguing for King Street instead of 16th because he still hadn't seen the Giants' new ballpark.
Their own compromise was to take Bayshore to the Vermont street exit, turn onto 16th and then onto 3rd, stop by the ballpark and end in McCovey Cove to meet up with Starfire and Cyborg.
As they made their way, they passed the time playing the alphabet game. Raven won by spotting an ad at a bus stop for the zoo.
The monster, trying to be make amends for causing such chaos and havoc bought everyone hotdogs and sodas from a street vendor near the ballpark and even offered to help lift the last piece of the giant shower Cyborg and Starfire had been constructing.
Waving a fond farewell as it was scrubbed into oblivion, it broke apart and Beast Boy was left with the task of putting it all out to dry.
He handed one end of the clothesline to the Jolly Green Giant and the other end to Jack at the top of the beanstalk, the two had agreed that Jack needed the gold more than the giant and no harm was done by either of them.
His laundry drying in a bright summer sun, Beast Boy strutted up to Raven, called her a cutie and promptly switched his ears out for rhinestones. Raven blushed furiously while Starfire, who had been listening in on her ham radio, did loop-the-loops in celebration.
Feeling like she needed to share her joy with her own boyfriend, she flew out of the tree house she was in and went off to find him.
After the battle Robin had decided to work on his stealth techniques and was currently impersonating a Fig Newton. The plate he was on was very convincing, but his cape was just too bright a yellow to be believed as the cake part of the cookie.
Not wanting to hurt his ego, she played along asking where he was and calling out to him. Robin giggled in response.
The giggling caught Starfire strangely. Even in her dreams, which she was sure this was, Robin did not giggle. He would smile and laugh and tell her the most wonderful things about his feelings, but Robin never giggled.
Something about actively knowing it wasn't real rather than passively doing so had broken the dream's hold on her. She started seeing how ridiculous everything was. She noticed how outdated some of the ideas the dream had shown were.
She also started to notice other things that didn't belong. Cyborg was being too quiet. Beast Boy hadn't transformed into any animals. Raven wasn't wearing cute clothes or her normal outfit. This wasn't her dream.
Starfire woke up in a chair at the dining room table. The others were still fast asleep and as she shook each in turn to try and wake them, calling each by name, they slept on with no change. When she calmed down again she could hear a faint humming coming from the kitchen. She flew as quietly as she could to investigate.
As she drew nearer the humming grew louder and there, behind the counter, rolling out piecrusts was Mother Mae-Eye. Starfire continued to glide along quietly, seeing if she could get close enough to grab the villainess's magic spoon. As she skulked along the underside of the counter she heard the old witch talking to herself.
It seems she had misplaced the cinnamon, which no pie could be complete without. Starfire used this distraction to pull around the side of the counter and up behind her. Once she was close enough she started to reach for the wooden spoon she saw sticking out of Mae-Eye's apron pocket when the old woman asked herself, clearly frustrated, where she had left the blasted cinnamon.
Starfire didn't mean to answer. It had just slipped out. Strangely, it took the witch a few moments to realize what had happened as she had initially thanked Starfire and reached up onto the high shelf where the little bottle sat. She'd started screaming bloody murder when she saw Starfire flying away with her spoon and ran after the redhead.
Starfire swooped and bolted, doing her best to keep out of reach as she tapped the spoon against every pie tin in the kitchen, but none of them reacted the way she needed them to.
She was forced to retreat behind the dining room table when Mother Mae-Eye had leapt over the counter. And ducked down behind the green bean casserole as she was, she spotted one more pie tin she hadn't tried yet and gave it a mighty whack. With a great swirling wind Mother Mae-Eye was sucked into the pie that landed hot and ready for serving on the table.
Now that Mother May-Eye was gone the other Titans finally started to wake up. Starfire greeted them all heartily and explained what had happened. Asking them why they hadn't noticed that their dreams were so strange.
Beast Boy and Cyborg both said their dreams were always strange and Robin thought it was something he ate, laughing at himself when he realized he was right. Raven refused to answer and quickly pulled her hood up when asked why she wouldn't tell.
In the end, they all agreed that next Thanksgiving they were just going to skip pie.
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(A/N) So, yeah, that happened. And before any of you come at me with cries of 'filler' or 'ran out of ideas' I'd like to point out that this is exactly what I had planned on writing for this chapter. My original note-to-self from four years ago even says, "November, Thanksgiving – Insanity – Just let my imagination get a little out of control; think 'Depth Takes a Holiday'."
Depth Takes a Holiday is an episode from the old cartoon Daria, which is where my username comes from. It was an extreme break from the show in that a lot of weird stuff happens that goes against the norm of sarcasm against an increasingly moronic world. It was delightful, but a lot of fans hated that it didn't feel like the rest of the show and they often considered it non-canon. I liked the idea of having things go insane without it being Larry, and came up with this.