Disclaimer: We need to start asking the important questions, like who puts the D in McDonald's.
Previously:
Cyborg caught a glimpse of everyone's favorite couple having their little hatch-chat.
"I'm just askin' 'cause, you know, you've talked about it a little just the other day..." Beastboy was obvious in trying to seem casual. He failed to do so, but Raven still appreciated the thought. She specifically thought that the somewhat awkward, tense and uncomfortable air around them had no place in their comfortable conversations.
It was a problem that needed addressing. Raven decided that sooner was better than later. "Yes. But before I talk to you about that, I'd just like to acknowledge the... Awkwardness around here." Beastboy looked down and blushed, misunderstanding it as a pointed finger at his actions. The empath was quick to allay his fears. "We're both to blame. I just thought there was no shame in admitting it and putting it out there."
This caused Beastboy to perk up and lock eyes with her in agreement. "I know what you mean, and I don't like it either. It's like we have something to hide from each other. Geez, I'm sorry... Rae, I'd really love to be just as we were."
Raven felt a sharp jab of guilt, remembering her little experiment. However, she saw the opportunity to dissipate the tensity and took it. "Y... yeah. Let's do that."
The two let out audible sighs of relief. Though some residual discomfort still lingered, they were already notably better.
"So do you wanna talk about it now?" Beastboy asked, eager to change the subject. Raven thought it best to give him the full version, save for her self-test. Putting good faith in Beastboy's ability to not misunderstand, Raven began her story.
"A couple of days ago, I went into my mind and tried to pin-point the source of my anger." Beastboy was already immersed, like a child having a bedtime story read to them. Instead of trying to listen critically or objectively, he was just enjoying what Raven had to share with him.
"Knowledge... The yellow one with the glasses," she described her emotion, but it wasn't necessary. The changeling had their names burned into his memory. "She pulled me away from the meeting, telling me one of myselves wanted to talk." she paused. Raven found that, suddenly, she was quite unsure of herself. How could she convey her story accurately and with as little bias as possible? It caused her to think and pick her words carefully. She was baring a part of herself usually kept hidden, and now that she had a chance to share at least a bit of it, she knew she'd have to do it right.
Beastboy, on the other hand, was barely holding back his curiosity. In just three sentences, Raven managed to command his full attention, and the only matter on his mind now was which emotion wanted to talk to Raven.
The girl noticed the impatient question lingering in his eyes and decided to throw caution to the wind for once. Raven answered Beastboy's unspoken inquiry.
"Timid was waiting for us in the library, and... Well, she told us that... Don't take this the wrong way, this happens all the time."
Somehow, she found herself stumbling over her words. Embarrassment crept up on her face, sowing pink flowers, thicketing the way for her words.
"They constantly do it and frankly, it's very obnoxious."
More stuttering and awkward pauses ensued. It took an enormous effort to push through and bring herself to say it.
"Anyway, what Timid said, is that she has a bit of a thing for you."
Judging by her disposition, Beastboy felt obligated to brush it off as ridiculous. He forced a laugh to try and show that attitude. The sound seemed to fall from his lips like a ball of thick smoke, dropping to the ground and creeping in all directions.
For an indiscernible reason, Raven felt a little stab from the empty chuckle. Sure, she, too brushed Timid's convictions off, but she couldn't help but feel a splash of disappointment.
She would never admit it, but she genuinely hated being right in this situation. The reason was a little specific. She didn't find anything wrong with Beastboy dismissing a romantic relationship between them. He was, in fact, not doing the latter at all. What he was dismissing was the possibility that she harboured feelings for him.
Somehow, confirming what she believed to be true didn't make her happy.
This was a red alert to Raven. Rooting for the opposing view to win was a sure sign of denial and inner frustration. As an empath whose powers are controlled by emotions, Raven couldn't afford to have her subconscious causing her trouble.
She didn't for a moment think, however, that she was the cause for Beastboy's attempted laugh. It didn't even occur to her that, in that very moment, the boy was also dealing with an internal battle.
Beastboy found his reaction so revolting, he found himself mentally retreating from his body. He looked at his shell from the outside as it laughed like an idiot, and replayed the moment in his mind. This wasn't what he felt. He found it heart-warming and adorable that Timid had fallen for him. He felt excited and happy to hear that a small part of Raven was head over heels for him.
Then he saw it - the glimpse of hurt in Raven's eye. That was his chance. He could tell her the truth. It wasn't like he had anything to hide anyway.
"Actually, no. I'm sorry for laughing, Raven." the girl, still lost deep in thought, was torn from her state. "What?" she stuttered.
"I mean, don't get me wrong here, but I wanna say that, to me, it's really cool... What you said."
Raven was perplexed and showing it. "I mean, even if just a small part of you likes me... Like that... I find that great, and, and exciting, and..." he trailed off and looked at her amethyst eyes, searching for more words.
"So, uh, how does... That," Beastboy choked out, referring to Timid's feelings for him, "Tie into the whole anger issues - thing."
Raven had much to think about. She would have to mull over Beastboy's words, agonize over their meaning and break her mind in half over them. But that would have to wait.
"Timid took control every time she got -" Raven couldn't find a better word "jealous. So she made me angry and, while I was distracted, took control of my powers. It was still me who sent Cyborg through a portal, it was my own decision, but I was acting on account of that part of me."
"So only a part of you teleported Cyborg to Kansas?"
"Something like that, yes. That does mean it's still me, but my rational decisions were clouded by the impulses of that emotion."
Beastboy took a second to take everything in. He had more questions.
"It was Timid beating up Slade earlier today, then?"
"Not really, no. When a part of me becomes distressed and upset enough, Rage takes over. It's a lot like normal anger - when faced with a difficult challenge, anger is used to overcome it. In simpler terms: the situation caused Rage to surface and remove the obstacle."
Beastboy felt a chill down his spine. The brutal beating that Slade took was something as simple as removing an obstacle in Rage's book.
"That's not the whole story, though." Raven admitted with a heavy heart. "When I saw you fall, and then looked over the ledge, only to find you gone... I was... Scared."
By now, Raven's eyes were wet. She took a minute to pause and let the onslaught of her tears recede. In that moment, when she couldn't see him, not knowing whether or not he was alive, Raven had a feeling. It was awe, pure shock at how relentless and unforgiving life is. Had Beastboy fallen to his death, causality itself would have outstretched its hand. The cataclysmic grip of reality would have shattered the future, a glass vial which holds their life together, into a thousand pieces.
Nothing could be reclaimed from it, not a single memory would be made of the days to be. In that second, Raven felt so helpless and human. The human mind, evolved to predict the future through imagination, had created pictures of the time to come. Then, the harsh boulders of cause and effect crushed them into nothing but dust.
In spite of the fact that it was nothing more than a figment of her imagination, Raven felt entitled to her future, as all of us do. It's why she felt like something was taken away from her when it suddenly shifted. When the memories of things which never happened were unmade.
It had made her furious. Slade's intervention in her life had seemed to rob her of things, even if they were just stuck in her mind. She held the man accountable for taking away things she'd never even had.
"If I couldn't find you and talk to you. If your face and voice were lost, forever... If..." Raven didn't know what would happen. The mere thought of seeing his empty room made her stomach flip.
By the time his arms were wrapped around her, as they stood on the roof, she had lived it all out in her head. A whole lifetime without her precious friend played out in her mind. His hug didn't just stop her fear and anger, it was also a massive relief. In that moment, everything grew back to its rightful place. Raven might have beaten Slade, but Beastboy was the hero of the day in her eyes.
Beastboy thanked her sincerely. After another pause, the two turned to theorizing why Raven's powers returned in the nick of time. The conversation went on for about another hour, before the two bid their good nights.
Beastboy found himself, yet again, sitting in the quadrilateral lit by the hallway lights. The yellow light fought a losing battle with the pitch-black shadows. He was entrenched in thought, unable to dig his way out of his mind.
Everything looked like more than just a mere coincidence. From the way Raven acted, the things she said, and the way he found himself talking back. It was as if he was in a dreamy dance. The things that had happened seemed to line up too well.
"Or does it?" he asked himself. The mind is, it seems, obsessed with making a story for everything. If it notices an effect, a state of things, it immediately starts seeking a reason behind it. It tries to manufacture a story, plausible or not, which explains how things got to where they were.
From Beastboy shutting himself in his room, to the seemingly random act of kindness from Raven, there was nothing he could put a finger on that would just scream ploy or conspiracy. He had thought before that Raven helping him might have been a plan set against him, but nothing of the sort happened. He saw Raven's genuine rage and hurt at the thought of him being gone, he had no reason at all to doubt her.
On the other hand, he also felt as if his rational reasoning, trying to piece together the things he knew and apply them to reality, was like trying to count the stars. Every time he talked to Raven, it was like falling down a rabbit hole. It was magical, as if sitting in a deep forest meadow, surrounded by bark, painted blue by the shadows cast by the green leaves. As if they had managed to create their own pocket of the universe, ruled not by harsh laws, but by some intangible form of energy.
Wave after wave of himself, in a sense, seemed to spread out in all directions. A dense, yet invisible aura. And when it came in contact with Raven's, when the two waves collided, it seemed to tear a hole in reality, bringing them into the tiny world of their own.
Beastboy found his words to lose meaning as he tried to grasp the intricacies of what he was thinking about. Everything was too vague, because words had meanings, and describing these unexplored landscapes of his mind with words was difficult, like painting an image in negative space, or trying to reach the bottom of a pond with too short of a stick.
Exhaustion finally overburdened him, causing his mind to go blank. He got up and dragged himself to his bed, entering a world of bewildered and disjointed dreams for the rest of the night.
Meanwhile, Raven also laid in bed, thinking. From her anger, to sheer joy, the moments from when Beastboy seemingly tumbled to his doom, to the second his arms grabbed her, were all branded into her mind. Though the pictures were blurry, the feelings were crystal clear.
Coupled with the changeling's words from their conversation before, Raven's mind was extremely close to constructing a phobia of losing the green Titan. Much like the former, however, tiredness was quick to claw her from her thoughts and into a deep sleep.
Raven had that dream again. She was walking down the hallway towards Beastboy's door. The walls were dark and shadows hung from the ceiling, like jagged teeth of broken glass, urging her on. This time, a snowy silver light crept from the hole in the door. A horrible feeling in her gut started to brew. Raven made her way towards the door. She stood there, looking at the metal plates, desaturated by the darkness. The gray shades shaped the spilled electronics to the side, while planes of black locked together to form the door.
Raven ducked down and crawled through the hatch. The room was ash gray. Cold, metallic surfaces, coated in dust and shadow were like bars on a cage. They held the room together, but in doing so, they suppressed any possibility of living inside it. The only thing disturbing the silvery walls were black dots. Splashes of something dark.
Raven started hyperventilating. Fear, pain and horror welled up inside of her. "Gone." shot through her mind and tears immediately poured down her cheeks. Loneliness and grief overtook her.
Suddenly, she found herself back in the hallway, her misery suddenly gone. The golden light, previously replaced by the silver, was once more spilling from the hatch on his door. This time with more confidence, Raven crawled through it and stood up in his room.
Everything, from the walls to the furniture, to the floor, seemed plated in gold by the warm light that shone from a sphere on the ceiling. Everything was the way Raven had last seen it. The DVD player still on the chair in the center of the room, facing towards the bed. Beastboy was sleeping on the lower bunk, a shadow protecting the color of his face and pillow from the mighty light.
It was warm and pleasant, unlike the hallway outside. Raven felt at ease. Relaxed, content and peaceful. Without giving it a second thought, she walked over to the lower bunk, used her powers to slightly shift the scrawny frame of the boy, and tucked herself into the sheets beside him.
Raven fell into a deep, peaceful slumber. He was by her side, after all.
Okay, okay, ready guys?
A/N:
Hello again! And sorry for the tremendously long break. I don't have excuses.
This one is trying to be serious and thoughtful, so pardon the lack of awful jokes, I promise I'll make more in the future.
A follow up on the Cy/T-Car ship is needed and, maybe to cater to you guys, we might see a tragic breakup. Who knows. Since Cyborg's romantic feelings aren't really the focus of this story (just check the tags, man), I'm open to adjust it somewhat, according to your reaction. But I'll also make sure to not just brush it off. The metal man will get his fair share of attention.
Thanks again, for reading this and for your ongoing support. Have a wonderful day!