Disclaimer: Hey Cyrus- Bump! Yeah, this author note'll eventually make sense to everyone else…kinda. Well, as much sense as it can make anymore. My mother and uncles, some time ago, obtained a set of classic 70s CDs. Me being the clever person I am, I promptly acquired them and made copies, then proceeded to drive my brothers insane. I recently found them again. This is my excuse.

Oh yeah, if you're offended by girls hitting on girls, first of all, grow up, I'm just as human as you are. Second, you might wanna skip the last shot.

The second part of The Great Outdoors can be found in ShinobiCyrus' Five Stories. Go, read it!

091. Dreamcatcher

Continuity: Anytime

One of the problems with being an empath in close quarters was that nightmares never infected only one person. No, any time any of the others had a nightmare, Raven's sleep was disturbed as well. Most of the others were "quiet" dreamers, that is, they didn't broadcast their dreams empathically or at least not far enough to interfere with Raven's sleep, but Beast Boy happened to be a very loud dreamer.

This was in her own self-interest, or at least that's what she kept telling herself.

Not that she knew for sure if it would work, it hadn't always for her, but then her circumstances were different. One of the monks who'd raised her had sworn by this.

"It has to be made either by the person using it or by someone very close to them, preferably someone with some form of magic themselves, and that's when it will work. On Earth they don't, often, but then most of those using them made the mistake of simply buying them."

Well, she'd never had occasion to try this before, but she really hoped it worked.

"Beast Boy? ….I made you a dreamcatcher."

092. House-sitting

Continuity: During The Great Outdoors

Kid Flash leaned against the doorframe and surveyed Jinx's handiwork with a grimace. "Jinx, somehow, I don't see her appreciating this."

Jinx shrugged and adjusted something pink and frilly over the bedside table, absently taking a tack from where she held several in her mouth and tacking up a drawing of a unicorn centered above the bed. She grinned wickedly. "Relax, Kid, I'm just doing them a favor. Girl needs to relax, y'know? Needs some color."

He eyed the transformed room cautiously and replied, "Did that color have to be pink?"

Her smile grew, if possible, more wicked. "Of course it did."

"Right….Just remember, I'm the one that can out run her, not you."

They both stepped out and let the door swing shut, revealing the nameplate where Raven had been artfully lacquered over in glittery pink.

"Now, we've just gotta brighten up Bird Boy's room."

093. BumpEr Cars!

Continuity: After Season Five

I feel like I'm babysitting. Cyborg considered that briefly as he lay with his arms crossed behind his head, watching a green crow dart about Raven and mock her with harsh caws. Raven, in turn, executed a neat midair turn and snatched one of his tail-feathers, sending him into a sharp circle before he shifted to a peregrine falcon and shot past her. He turned the dive into a climb and the climb into a dive in turn, trading height for speed and teasing Raven into a race she couldn't hope to win.

They were supposed to be training, but it certainly looked like play to him. Finally they both alighted beside him, clearly tired out, and Beast Boy morphed back to human. He giggled faintly and said, "Hey Raven. Bump!"

She sighed, but smiled. "Er."

"Cars!" he cried, and dissolved into further giggles. Cyborg shook his head.

"I will never understand you two."

094. Soundtrack

Continuity: After Season Five

Robin looked up as Beast Boy sidled in the door to the common room, case of CDs in hand, and crossed immediately to the sound system hookup. A moment later music boomed through the Tower.

"I'm too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my…"

He was dancing, too, and grinning wildly, and Robin might have been entertained enough to let it continue, but black energy outlined the stereo system and sent it flicking to another disc, leaving Beast Boy dancing to something else altogether.

"Turn the beat around, turn it upside down…." Now Beast Boy slid across the room on his knees, throwing his head back as if his hair was long enough to toss and caterwauling loudly, "Make me, make me wanna move my body, yeah!" The stereo shuffled again, somehow conveying a frantic undertone.

Beast Boy segued easily into the next song. "Don't give up on us baby, don't make what's wrong seem right, the future isn't just one night, it's written in the moonlight and painted on the stars…" Another shuffle. Another segue. "….when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore!" Beast Boy grinned. "Hey, we should make a soundtrack with all these songs!"

One last shuffle before Raven gave it up as a lost cause, and Beast Boy caroled happily, "Everybody was kung fu fighting, those kids were fast as lightning…Hey Rob, this is totally your song!"

…He was going to kill Cyborg for buying those "70's- One Hit Wonders!" CDs. He really was.

That is, if Raven didn't beat him to it.

095. Ribbon Chasing

Continuity: After Season Five

Starfire finished tying a ribbon onto her left ankle and stood, leaning in a couple different directions, testing the strength of the knot, before leaping lightly into the air and smiling down at Beast Boy.

"Come on, Rave!" the shapechanger exclaimed, hopping with impatience and sending the green ribbon attached to his own ankle fluttering about. "It'll be fun!"

"No." Caught up in replying to Beast Boy, Raven didn't react quickly enough when Starfire caught at her ankle and swiftly tied a bit of ribbon to it. Beast Boy became a peregrine falcon and darted into the air, snatching first at Starfire's ribbon and missing as she wheeled sharply, then at Raven's. He got a pretty good chunk of Raven's ribbon before the girl darted away.

"Whoever is the last with a bit of ribbon wins!" Starfire called laughingly, then turned and fled for the clouds. After a moment Raven gave chase.

Every year, for two days, Robin was gone and the remaining team was expected to come up with training exercises in that time. Ribbon-chasing was what Starfire and Beast Boy usually ended up doing for the entire two day span, and this year, with Cyborg in Steel City temporarily, Raven found herself all too willing to join them.

096. Anyone Remember What We Were Supposed to Be Doing…?

Continuity: Anytime

Robin sprawled contentedly at the foot of the common room's couch, Starfire massaging his ankles, and waited for Beast Boy to finish changing the records. Somehow, he and Cyborg had gotten their hands on an old record player and a slew of old records, and somehow all plans for the day had wound up on hold while the team sat around listening to said records.

"There…" Beast Boy grinned. "The next 45 is in!"

A second later they were all subjected to the sound of Beast Boy, Cyborg, and Starfire together attempting to sing "These Boots Are Made for Walking." Robin leaned back and sighed, feeling Star's hands tangle in his hair. He never would've thought that he'd be happy to spend an excess of several hours listening to old music in the common room, but he didn't remember the last time he'd been so relaxed.

097. On Living Forever…Or Dying in the Attempt

Continuity: Anytime

"We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun, but the stars we could reach were just starfish on the beach…"

Cyborg groaned and straightened, hearing his friend singing on the garage stairs.

"…Goodbye my friend it's hard to die, when all the birds are singing in the sky, now that the spring is in the air, pretty girls are everywhere, think of me and I'll be there…."

"Beast Boy," Cyborg said quietly, "you know the rest of us don't like that song."

Already sprawled in his accustomed position on the stairs, Beast Boy shrugged. "I love this song, it's catchy."

Cyborg set his wrench down and went to sit down next to Beast Boy, the changeling shifting swiftly over to make room. "I don't like to hear you talking about dying, even in a song, all right?"

"But you're missing the point," Beast Boy argued. "For one thing, not hearing it won't make it any less a possibility, not with our lives- and for another, the song isn't about dying, not to me anyway."

"Oh?" Cyborg raised an eyebrow. "'Goodbye my friend it's hard to die?' You have another interpretation?"

"As it happens, yes," Beast Boy replied, agitated. "It's about not dying, about living forever because you've left an impact, even if it's only on a few people close to you. I've left an imprint here, on this Tower and on this team, and you've all changed at least a little for having met me, and so I'll never really die because I'll always be here."

Then he got up and walked away, leaving Cyborg staring after him on the stairs.

098. Short Attention Spa- Oh Look A Chicken!

Continuity: Anytime

Short attention spans were awesome.

Why were they awesome? Because he never stayed upset terribly long, because something would inevitably distract him. Eventually he'd remember why he'd been upset again, of course, but his dark moods were constantly broken by something catching his attention.

He glanced in the kitchen, saw Robin poking morosely at his macaroni and cheese, heard him confide to Cyborg, "The more of this I eat, the more disturbed I am by the concept of powdered cheese."

He didn't hear Cyborg's answer, because by then his thought train had run onto what one would add to powdered water, if such a thing as powdered water existed, if he could create powdered water, whether this was how people who came up with strange inventions got started, whether the guy who invented microwaves had been all "hey I'm totally going to make fire in a box!," maybe there was a way to light a fire in a cardboard box without the box burning and he was totally going to get Cyborg to try that, after all he'd gotten Cyborg to go along with him on that shopping trip where they'd done nothing but run up the down escalators and down the up escalators, what was up with those escalators anyway taking the stairs was seriously faster, had people just gotten lazy or what, and anyway any of the Titans could just jump or fly from one level to next, he should totally practice some flight maneuvers the next time they were at the mall, maybe he could finally get Raven to go along with that ribbon-chasing one, and suddenly he was standing in the garage watching Raven make a valiant attempt at meditation and he was whistling the tune to the Andy Griffith Show.

099. Shameless Self-Insertion!

Continuity: Um…I don't know…

"Heyla."

Raven glanced up from the cup of tea she'd been nursing, one eyebrow going up, as the greeter slid into the booth across from her. She ran a quick check of her surroundings; three a.m., quiet coffee shop in a backwater part of the city, the only other patrons quiet booksy types and a few late concertgoers- for Raven, a normal nocturnal haunt.

Normally, though, the clients didn't go to any great pains to introduce themselves to each other.

"Raven, right?" the other woman attempted, smiling a little. Raven nodded slowly, observing her a moment- older clothes, not goth, a little closer to street punk or grunge. The dark shirt had Dragons killed the dinosaurs hand-painted on it. Neopagan? Or just odd?

The woman was still speaking. Raven dragged her attention back and noticed the girl was rubbing the back of her head in a nervous gesture, and that two men three tables over were staring at them. Raven's eyes narrowed and she interrupted the girl. "This a bet?"

"No! Well…kinda." The girl shifted uncomfortably. "Zeke and Ari did dare me, but they were joking; I really did want to talk to you. I'm Ashley, by the way, but I go by Ash a lot."

"…Ash."

"Yeah, well…" 'Ash' shrugged. "I like the androgynous thing. Ashley did technically start out as a guy's name, but hardly anyone knows that anymore." She fidgeted again, this time rubbing her left shoulder. The two guys were eyeing them still and Raven sighed.

"Why don't you invite your friends over here, too?"

"What? Oh, no, no! They're okay, they're just a little… overprotective."

Raven stared at her in disbelief, then stared around at her surroundings again. They were overprotective and hanging out in a coffee shop at three in the morning? In this coffee shop, no less?

Ash was still speaking, she noted. "So uh…would you wanna, maybe, catch a movie with me? I mean, it's cool if you don't, I was just…wondering…and all….There are still some places open, I know this great theatre nearby that's showing the new James Bond movie…"

Raven's head swiveled to face her again. Ash turned bright red, squeaked something, and hurried back to Zeke and Ari at her own table.

Did….she just ask me out?

Raven was starting to think she needed some new haunts.

Kayasuri-n's additions to the List

Beast Boy is not allowed to write to the Discovery
Channel and complain about repeats.


Beast Boy is also not allowed to 'go visit' the studios. Ever. In any
form.

SithKnight-Galen's additions to the List

Do not under any circumstances switch the labels of the teas in
Raven's cupboard to make "Mystery meditiation surprise."

Do not enter the tower as anything furry after patrolling the city
in the rain.

Do not use the Titans Tower security camera system to record your
own "Reality Show."

As above, do not try selling any said ideas for Reality shows to
network stations and claiming you can get sequals from affiliate teams;
Bumblebee and Aqualad were not amused.

GuardianSaiyoko: Don't kill me! Heyla, after over 100 shorts, I figured so long as I didn't go all Mary-Sue on everyone…well, it was fun, heh.

I swear by my dreamcatcher, seriously. I've never had a nightmare in my life and the only difference between my dreamcatcher and those my brothers own is that mine was made by myself and my mother.

I'd explain the origins of the Bumper Cars joke/game if I remembered them, but I don't. Maybe Cyrus does…? Everyone sitting around listening to old records: my family did that one day for so long that we all forget we were supposed to be places. Eventually everyone we were supposed to meet up with figured out where we were, and then they…uh…joined us. Yeah. Music is a huge deal in my family. Beast Boy's little Live Forever speech is the kind of thing I explain to my mother, then cheerfully listen to the shocked silence on the other end of the line while she tries to figure out how the hell I come up with these things.

Songs are, in order of appearance: Right Said Fred's I'm Too Sexy, Gloria Estefan's Turn The Beat Around, David Soul's Don't Give Up On Us Baby, That's Amore, Carl Douglas's Kung Fu Fighting, and The Brother's Four Season in the Sun. Yeah, I'll listen to just about anything.

…Reviews?