Chapter 12

Any form of gaming had been ruled out as too stressful for Robin, despite his oddly mild protests. But the Titans still had to do something fun together. And obviously rigorous training or sports were still out for the time being. After talking over the possibilities together, a three for, one against vote had the teens destined for Beast Boy's personal worst nightmare in recreational activity.

They were going to start a book club.

And all of the green shapeshifter's best efforts couldn't convince the other three to let comic books count.

Let's be perfectly clear here: Beast Boy is not stupid. In fact, he even reads books without being forced to do so sometimes. It's just that he is a social animal, and without the allure of irritating Raven by peeking over her shoulder, reading as a solitary activity in and of itself depresses him. Comic books are different because, being highly visual, he can at least talk to the characters and halfway pretend they can hear him sometimes.

To make matters worse, for some reason Cyborg and Raven had their hearts set on a weird gay Nancy Drew parody mystery novel. And it wasn't gay in the sense of being lame, either. The girl detective hero liked chicks. It wasn't that Beast Boy had any problems with that. In fact, he enjoyed visualizing lesbians making out as much as any other guy. But reading about it and then having to talk about it was weird. It was like talking about a skin mag collection or something. And Raven and Cyborg kept giving him really weird looks when they talked together about the latest chapter.

The average conversation went something like this.

"I know you guys are enjoying this book, but I'm not getting so much out of it," Robin opened up. "It's not that I don't like the story... I love the story. The mystery with the garden shear killer's set up pretty well, and the setting is realistic and well-developed. And the character interactions are... um, okay. But the way the author writes about it all is just annoying. It's really flowery and unnecessarily filled with fancy adjectives, and that takes away from the realism and grittiness."

"That's a really good point. The outer packaging of something isn't necessarily coupled directly to the substance on the inside," Raven responded to the boy wonder, except for some reason she was half-looking at Beast Boy instead. "Sometimes things on the outside can be deceptive or misleading. You don't have to like the prose style to appreciate the other story elements. Just like some people can look like one thing on the outside and then surprise you with who they really are on the inside. Right, Cyborg?"

"Um, yeah. And I kinda agree with Robin on how the lady writes everything is a little, I dunno, funky, but I'm enjoying the story enough to get past it. And I'd never thought about it before, but you know how there's always a sidekick that's a boy if the main hero is a boy, or a girl if the main hero is a girl? Then you normally have to shove a romantic figure in there too, and it seems kinda weird. But if you just have them be gay... then, it's like, it feels more built up naturally. Because they're already around each other and stuff. Not that I'm saying it's, you know, right from a moral perspective or anything..."

Raven not so discreetly kicked Cyborg in the shin with a dull metal ting. The fact that that was all she did was a rock-solid testament to how seriously they were all taking Dr. Lesion's advice to keep the infighting down.

"Not that it's not equally wrong to hate people for their lifestyle choices!" Cyborg added hastily, a faint sheen of sweat shining up the chromier half of his dome.

Beast Boy scrunched up his forehead in concentration. "Did you put the right number of nots in there? Isn't that like a double negative or something? Are you saying you hate gay people or you don't hate gay people?"

"I, um, err..."

"What Cyborg means to say is that he doesn't necessarily agree with the lifestyle but still cares for the people who disagree with him on that subject," Raven explained carefully. She had become Cyborg's official stammer interpreter lately, for reasons Beast Boy couldn't understand. Cyborg had never had trouble communicating before. He just yelled louder if he was having trouble being understood. And of course that went back to Beast Boy's own seemingly more and more justified fear of losing his best friend through lack of the oh so crucial male bonding smack talk. "Just like you, Beast Boy, and Cyborg are still friends even though he loves meat and you love tofu."

Beast Boy scratched his head. "Oh. Was that what you were gonna say, Cy?"

"Uh. Yeah! Exactly!"

They all beamed at each other a bit, except for Raven, who fixed as neutral an expression as possible on her face. That was the closest she ordinarily got to beaming. Beast Boy giggled nervously.

"So, Beast Boy," Robin said with a very fixed smile, "what do you think about the book so far?"

"It's okay I guess. I don't understand all the words the lady uses, she tries too hard to be fancy. But the killer's pretty neat, and that time the two chicks made out in the lighthouse was hot."

"You don't have anything deeper to add to the discussion than that?" Raven pushed him. Literally, by sheer force of personality. He leaned back against his chair meekly. "There's a lot going on in this story. Tell us what you really feel about it. What about Annabeth's inner struggle to out herself to her parents? And the contrasting symbolism between the killer's hatred of minorities and Sarah's openness towards new concepts?"

"If BB doesn't wanna go any deeper than that he doesn't have to," Cyborg objected, using his special I'm-not-yelling-but-I-want-to voice that he'd taken to since the heart attack. "Maybe he's not comfortable analyzing all that stuff."

"He doesn't have to," Raven replied. She had her own version of the I'm-not-yelling voice, a super-flat, deadpannier than deadpan rendition. "But I think he can get a lot out of this story if he gives it a chance. For instance, the light house scene. Beast Boy, you brought that up because it's 'hot.' But doesn't it strike you as tragic that the two characters are indulging in physical impulses at the time solely to get away from the emotional problems they're refusing to face? If they just talked to each other openly-"

"If they just talked to each other openly, we'd have no story," Robin interrupted gently. "People aren't meant to talk about their feelings all the time, and if they did, it wouldn't make life any better. Right, Beast Boy?"

"Sure, I guess. I mean, if you said what was on your mind all the time, you'd be me, right? Heheh."

They all laughed at the joke. Even Raven. And that was how Beast Boy knew things were seriously screwed up.

There was an awkward silence, like a million other awkward silences they were having lately. They all smiled at each other. A single bead of sweat fell off Cyborg and plipped on the floor. Ambling by, Silkie burped, squeaked out something that sounded suspiciously like the phrase 'Excuse me' in Tamaranian, and continued about his business.

"You know, dudes, one thing I did think of..." Beast Boy ventured hesitantly, wanting to break up the silence. Mostly because he knew he wouldn't be excused until they'd talked about the book for at least another five minutes. Three pairs of eyes looked at him expectantly. "These girls are like us, kind of. Except they're not real, and they don't have the same problems as we do, so instead the writer has to make up all these problems from them not talking to each other. I mean, yeah, we don't have to tell each other everything, but we don't have to lie about a million things like these chicks do with each other either. We don't need to make up annoying junk that makes our lives harder, bad guys come right up to our door and stuff and make life hard for us!"

"What you're trying to say is characters keeping secrets from each other for no reason is unrealistic and contrived?" Robin asked.

"Yeah, exactly!" Beast Boy said, happy that someone genuinely got it. "Like your mask thing. Dude, you have no idea how much that bugged me before you took it off in front of us that first time. I mean, it's not like we were gonna turn you in or anything!"

"Beast Boy, that's needlessly confrontational," Raven chided him.

Beast Boy held up his hands defensively. "I'm not being confrontational! Robin even agrees! Don't you, Rob?"

"It's fine," said through a plastered on smile. "I don't have a problem with it. I have been hiding things a little too much. But I'm done keeping big things like that from you guys. It only stresses me out, after all."

"We're all glad to hear that," Raven said slowly with a suspicious look at their leader. "So, Beast Boy, since you're being a proponent of absolute honesty, is there anything you'd like to get off your chest? You know we can all trust each other."

He picked a flea off his ear and squished it. "Nope! I'm good. ...Can I go now?"

"If no one else has anything to add for this chapter..." Raven unsuccessfully tried to prompt them. She sighed. "I guess we're done, then."

Beast Boy scrambled off as quickly as he could without being rude about it. Even as fast as he was going, though, he still heard Cyborg and Raven start up a harsh, whispery exchange of nasty words he couldn't really make out, even with his hearing. When he turned to look back, the whispering stopped, Cyborg smiling innocently, Raven deadpanning. He shrugged and went back to getting the heck out of dodge before they made him talk about literachure some more.

The team was only getting weirder and weirder every day, and he didn't know what to do to stop it. Or even if he should stop it. All that smiling couldn't be good for their cheek muscles, though! And what if they broke up?! He didn't want them to break up! Even if it might be best for Robin... he didn't wanna! For one thing, he had zilch for a backup plan. No college fund or safety net or anything. Unless the Doom Patrol would take him back, but the concept of being yelled at by Mento was a lot less appealing than being yelled at by Robin (if Rob was ever allowed to yell again in his life). Plus, the Doom Patrol had a very severe lack of hot chicks. Just because he couldn't actually flirt with Starfire or Raven without being killed didn't mean he didn't enjoy the eye candy, like any other green-blooded dude.

And Cyborg....

He was not gonna let Cy go without a fight! No matter how weird his best bud was acting! No way, no how. Best friends forever.

FOREVER.

Then it occurred to him that maybe Raven and Cy were spending so much time around each other because they liked each other. That would explain so much! Cy was totally avoiding him to make out with Raven, of course, it was all so simple! Okay, fine, Raven was hot when she wasn't being mean, but that didn't mean she could steal his friend while they were pretending everything was cool because of Rob's condition! If he had to choose, Beast Boy knew he'd choose having Raven mad at him and having Cy for a best friend again over having Cy and Raven be nice at him and drift away to be with each other. Because Raven being mad at him was really just Normal, and fake niceness sucked for having fun. But even Beast Boy knew he couldn't just walk up to them and demand that they stop it with the tongue hockey....

Wait, wait.

He was being dumb.

This was stupid.

If they were hanging out more together, it was obviously because they just got along better without arguing! Just like he was trying to do, but it wasn't working because Cy was spending time not-arguing with Raven instead of not-arguing with him. Cyborg was replacing him with Raven as a best friend!

...and okay, maybe they'd never actually said they were best friends... it wasn't like they'd ever pinky swore on anything on it... but still....

Obviously, he had to show Cy how good a friend he was, and how he didn't mind if Cy spent time with other people who happened to have silky-smooth legs and Dracula haircuts. He'd just pretend it didn't matter and continue to be super awesome with his best bud. In fact, he'd be super awesome more than ever. Better than Raven could ever be! They'd have so much fun together they couldn't stand it! Every moment Cyborg was away from Raven, he, the lovable Beast Boy, would be there to fill Cy's life with all the bad jokes and tofu that Raven couldn't provide. And when they weren't together, he'd be doing stuff to help Cy out just like friends did, so Cy wouldn't even have any reason to want to yell at him anymore. Yeah. That was it. He wouldn't make Cy choose or anything. He'd just show the dude how much more fun he was than that mopey bookworm.

It was a totally awesome plan, and nothing could possibly go wrong with it.

He'd start by doing Cy a favor and polishing his car by going turtle and rubbing his shell all over the new paint job. He was pretty sure that was what a turtle waxing meant. The little ridges in the shell helped to take the dirt off, or something. Then Cy would see who the best teammate was!