The song for this chapter is Toothpaste Kisses by The Maccabees
"I've got the blankets and pillows from the bedroom," the pale female said as she dropped the armful of items into a pile on the ground between the two of them.
"I got the ones from the closet, the ones we never unpacked because we had nowhere else to put them, and the sheets," the green man said as his own armful of items was added to Raven's pile.
"All we have left are the couch cushions then, right?"
A nod was given and suddenly the couch cushions were encased in darkness before being lifted and also being added to the growing pile between the couple.
"And you're sure we have to build this all by hand? It would be really easy to -"
"If we're doing this," the man chided with a finger reaching out to cover Raven's lips. "We're doing this together. It's not a team effort if you use your powers. Now go get the chairs."
A dramatic groan with her head tossed all the way back was Raven's reply as she dragged herself away to grab the chairs from around the table while Beast Boy set himself to work moving the body of the de-cushioned couch to the edge of the room so it would be out of the way.
They were going to make a pillow fort. For once the idea didn't come from Beast Boy, to do something out of the ordinary. It was date night, which meant one person chose what they wanted to do and that was what they were going to do. Beast Boy had decided on a simple movie marathon in order to save the introverted Raven from too many days in a row of facing the public, but Raven had upped the idea into suggesting they were make a pillow fort to have the movie marathon in. It had just been a jest when she said it, referring to his stories of how he used to build pillow forts with his family and with the Doom Patrol, but Beast Boy had taken it literally and so here they were.
Nearly all the blankets and pillows and anything else that could be classified as comfy and soft were strewn on the floor. Chairs were taken and positioned so they could be used to hold a bedsheet that would be the roof - tied to the chairs for extra stability, then more sheets draped over chairs in order to hide any draft of cold air that might try to make its way into their cozy fortress of solitude.
The floor of the fort was then meticulously covered in a layer of the couch cushions, blankets, and pillows in order to make sure it was soft, as well as a row of pillows against the wall the fort was being built against so they could lean on it. Piles of blankets were still readily available to be used inside as well, such a large amount that Raven had to pause the construction a couple different times in order to consider her life's choices that led to them having such a surplus of blankets.
Two lamps were included, near outlets to provide some type of lighting so they could actually navigate without hitting one of the chairs holding their roof up and possibly ruining their whole creation. The pièce de résistance of the evening was the Chinese takeout, drinks and various desserts that Beast Boy had obtained for them to eat throughout, effectively making it so they wouldn't have to leave the fort except to use the bathroom . As an afterthought upon realizing they had build it in the wrong direction to use the TV for their movies, a laptop was brought in.
In total it took surprisingly a lot less time to build than Raven had thought it would. Within 45 minutes they were inside the fort, snuggled up together, covered in blankets, eating Chinese food, and starting their first movie.
"I can't believe you just wanted to stay in and not go do anything." Raven noted as she clumsily tried to pick up chow mein noodles from the container with a pair of chopsticks.
"I just wanted to spend time with just you. Is that so terrible?"
"Not at all," she replied as she stopped her attempts to press a gentle kiss to his cheek. "I love it."
"Yeah, well I love you," he teasingly countered before nuzzling his nose on the side of her face, resulting in a blush and undeniable small smile.
Ever since the two of them had started living together, Raven always seemed a lot less tense. Being more exposed to his goofiness brought out a sort of appreciation for his lame jokes and genuine efforts to bring a smile to her face. She would never give up her love for dark colors, books, and gloominess but Beast Boy had shown her that there was more to life than just those things.
She could simultaneously like horror movies and those dumb romance movies that always made him cry. She could be a serious person with a resting bitch face, but also enjoy it when Starfire urged her to join her for a lame pop cardio dance class just for fun. And it was.
There was a newfound appreciation for life and emotion in general since they started living together in fact. As opposed to her upbringing where she was always taught to conceal her emotions so her powers didn't lose control, he was so unafraid to show his emotions. Sadness, anger, love. It was all there and he didn't care who knew it. Raven was always able to tell what Beast Boy was feeling. It was a trait she admired. After so long of constant emotional suppression, expression felt like a foreign thing and watching him do it so effortlessly was like watching a street performer do tricks one could only dream of replicating.
That wasn't to say Raven never showed she cared though. It just tended to come more from small acts of kindness. Something as simple as her cooking tofu for him even though she fully planned to eat meat made him melt. When she would go out of her way to pick up a snack or treat he enjoyed. When she would listen to him talk and fully interacted with him even though it pertained to something he knew she had no interest in. Whenever she tried something new with him, just because he asked her to. Beast Boy often encouraged her to still verbally express what she felt as he knew it was something she wanted to work on, and was never short with her when it came to it, but he also just appreciated her showing it in the ways she could.
When the movie first began, Beast Boy and Raven were sitting up, cuddled together with their backs against the wall covered in pillows. As the movie went on though, they sunk closer and closer to the ground until it ended up that Beast Boy was just laying down, and Raven had her head on his chest. Before long the credits rolled down the screen, marking the films slow even breathing of the man she was laying on indicated that Beast Boy must have fallen asleep, confirmed by Raven raising her head slightly and seeing his eyes closed and head fallen slightly to one side. Either the movie was boring, or the fort was too comfy for Raven's sleep deprived lover to resist.
Reaching out, Raven carefully closed the lid of the laptop before fully sitting up with a stretch and giving a yawn. The plan was to watch a bunch of movies back to back then sleep in come morning, but it seemed that would be a goal to accomplish some other time when Beast Boy could stay awake.
Leaning down, a gentle kiss was put on one of the sleeping man's cheeks, then the other, then she paused when their lips were a few inches apart. The plan was to give him a quick kiss on the lips, but that would likely wake him up. Did she really need to wake him up? Tomorrow was Saturday, there was no plans until lunch at 2pm with the other Titans. Nothing they needed to do in the morning besides now, clean up the pillow fort.
"Well if you won't do it," a slightly hoarse voice whispered in a teasing tone, indication that Beast Boy was now awake. "I will." One green eye was open with a playful grin on the mouth of the male before an arm swung around and pulled the woman the rest of the distance between them until he was able to capture her lips with his own. The kiss was somewhat brief, but still long enough to make Raven blush when they pulled apart.
"You were sleeping," she tried to defend as she sat back so she wasn't hunched over the man anymore. "I didn't want to wake you up."
"I wasn't sleeping." Mock offense dripped off his words with a fake scoff.
"You definitely were."
"I was blinking," he countered.
"Oh yeah, what happened in the movie?" Her arms crossed over her chest with a smirk tugging at her lips.
"The uh... the guy did the thing."
"What thing?"
"The important thing. You know, the thing. Maybe you're the one who was asleep if you don't know what the thing is." A teasing wink was given before he moved himself into a sitting position beside her and opened the laptop back up. "Anyway, we decided on a movie marathon. One movie doesn't make a marathon."
"It was supposed to be a movie marathon that we were both watching. You seemed to be missing a lot during your long blink." The last two words were accompanied with air quotes.
"I was totally awake," he said quickly, resulting in a noiseless chuckle from the pale woman. Leaning over Beast Boy put a quick kiss on Raven's cheek before opening his arms in an offer toward her. Crawling closer, Raven settled in his arms before reaching out and pressing play on the laptop for the next movie in their plans.
"I love you, Raven."
"I love you, too, Beast Boy."
A/N: Really my biggest mistake was telling you guys my deadline. It seems anytime I do that I suddenly can't stick to it due to life getting in the way. The semester started right after I mentioned my timeline and that semester was such hell that I couldn't get myself to write come winter break before Spring semester started and now we're in the midst of spring semester and I've found free time here and there that I could write. Technically this was pretty much ready by Valentine's day, but editing it and uploading it felt like too much work with everything else I had going on, so better late than never.
I realize it's a bit short, sorry about that. This song was my choice, so the next one will be chosen by Supernova. Iris (no space in her username, it just tends to remove it from my document if I don't put the space). I'm hoping we'll continue this and upload somewhat consistently again! I do want to get back into being creative and writing, and that comes from practice which was the whole point of this entire fic.
If you feel like, go ahead and revisit the chapter "Fuck it" for some additional stuff to the ending. I felt like it needed more after I reread it, so I added some more stuff that made me happy.
If you've got any BBRae settings/plot ideas you'd like to see my take on, leave it in the comments! I struggle to come up with plots even with song prompts, so I will gladly take suggestions :) Thanks for reading!