Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans, or any of the medical jargon/conditions/procedures. I hope you enjoy the second chapter of the story.
Tuesdays. Always Tuesdays.
He didn't know why, or what caused him to, but Beast Boy always found himself drawing mindlessly for hours on Tuesdays. The pictures weren't great, in fact he had finally admitted to himself that he couldn't draw, but still, he drew and drew. Most of the time it was of the team, sometimes an animal or two, or a nice flower.
This Tuesday was no different.
The green changeling sat hunched over the table with his tongue instinctively hanging out of his mouth while he concentrated on the moving crayon in his hand. Sporadically laid about him were dozens of sheets of once white paper, now covered in stick figure drawings of the Teen Titans. Currently the boy was attempting to draw something other than a stick figure.
The nurse stood off to the side of the room and watched as 11456783 painstakingly chose the next color for his current piece of artwork. It was a marigold crayon that he finally gripped and brought down on the paper. He bent his face closer to the table while he brought the crayon down in subtle swooping motions. The boy seemed satisfied with his latest endeavor and carefully placed the crayon back into its designated spot in the small, colorful box.
Doctor Grayson walked into the room and squatted down next to the patient. For a few moments he stayed in that position, watching every stroke of color fall onto the paper. Eventually he gave into his indecision and lightly shook the boy's shoulder.
A threatening growl escaped 11456783's lips as he turned his head to glare down the cause of his break in concentration; but, when he saw the doctor, a half-grin replaced the snarl.
"If you want to go, Rae's here to take you to her meditation session this morning." The boy's eyes followed Dick's finger as he pointed out the purple-haired volunteer standing in the doorway. 11456783 began to stand from his position at the table but then gazed back down at his unfinished picture.
"You can finish this later," Doctor Grayson smiled warmly at the boy. "I promise."
The patient nodded his head in understanding and began to walk cautiously to the door. He turned one last time to look at his picture, then joined the girl out in the hallway.
Doctor Grayson ran his hand over the various pictures, occasionally picking up a piece of paper for closer inspection. A smirk formed on his lips as he placed a series of six pictures in a row on the table.
"I'd say he has someone on his mind," Dick commented.
Star wandered over to the table and looked down at the line of drawings the doctor had laid out. Each one showed a frame of the young girl, Terra, completing the complicated movements to invoke her powers. Reaching out her hand, the nurse moved the unfinished picture to the end of the line. She smiled at the finished product; for it showed a giant boulder on top of the blonde-headed nurse from the day before, and Terra hugging a love-struck Beast Boy.
"I'd say you're right." The nurse sifted through the papers and pulled out a brightly colored piece of artwork. "Uh-oh."
"What is it?" Doctor Grayson turned towards the nurse for a response.
Slowly Star flipped the paper so that Dick could see what was drawn. "We have been caught," she added as commentary to the picture.
On the paper was drawn stick figure representations of Starfire and Robin stealing a kiss behind the backs of their teammates.
"So, you've finally broken down and let me join you in meditation. Has the world ended and we're the only two left?" The changeling asked as he mischievously sidled alongside Raven.
The girl clenched and unclenched her fists, attempting to prevent her rage from escaping and injuring her teammate. Robin had ordered her to give the boy a shot, and she had eventually conceded to the task. At this moment, though, she wholly regretted her break down.
Raven pulled in a deep breath before answering the boy. "No, I am seeing if my unrealistic goal, proving you not to be a walking specimen of the idiocy of the male species, has been met."
Beast Boy shrugged his shoulders at her comment. "Fair enough."
The purple-haired volunteer spent several minutes placing each patient into their specified areas. It had taken only one sitting for her to figure out which mental disorders clashed with which, but now she found herself faced with the decision of where the new boy should sit. He could sit next to Ted, the schizophrenic, but then again, the last person to sit next to him got a fist smashed into his face. She desperately scanned the floor for any opening that could work. Finally she found one.
Gently she guided the patient to the empty spot on the floor. "Sit here."
11456783 obediently sat cross-legged on the floor. He allowed his eyes to wander the room a bit. He knew most of the people in the room, not by meeting them (he wasn't allowed to) but he had seen them whenever the doctor would take him on their daily walks. Some of the patients glared the boy down, others attempted a smile only after shifting their eyes to make sure no one was looking, but most just stared ahead at the purple-haired girl seated on the table.
"Do you want to pet my bunny?" The boy's observations were cut short by a squeaky voice. He turned his face in the direction of the question and found a young girl holding out her hands. "Do you want to pet my bunny?" She smiled at him as she spoke.
11456783 stared curiously at the girl's hands. For all it was worth, he couldn't find any bunny. The boy brought his arms up into a shrug. His movement made the girl jump and a solitary tear rolled down her face.
"You made it hop away."
He anxiously searched the room for someone who knew what to do with the crying girl, but then an idea hit. The boy squatted on his feet, hunched forward, and brought his hands down near his toes. At first he hopped up and down in one place, but when the smile on the girl's face continued to increase he began to jump back and forth. The girl clapped her hands and roared with laughter. The boy made even more daring jumps in all directions.
The volunteer on the table kept her eyes closed and repeated the phrase of the day over and over again, in the hope that maybe one of the patients was actually participating. Eventually the sound of laughter grew too loud that she forced one eye open. Scanning the room, she found the focus of all the noise to be patient 11456783. He was hopping all over the room and occasionally would stop and groom back his "ears." She stood up on the table and attempted to politely (yet firmly) gain back the attention of all the patients.
A low growl escaped her lips as all control was lost. "Stop it!"
Beast Boy shuffled uncomfortably between Starfire and Robin. His leader had a stone cold expression of disappointment and anger, while the Tameranian girl tried to portray a look of consoling hope. The changeling thought back on how his teammate had yelled so loud at him and proceeded to leap down from her position of meditation. If it weren't for the fact that Starfire had interceded when she had, Beast Boy held no doubt in his mind that Raven would not have hesitated in killing him. What made the whole ordeal worse was the fact that the purple-haired girl had reported back to Robin and tore him verbally to shreds for the idiocy of his thoughts about even mentioning letting Beast Boy meditate with her.
Beast Boy sighed as he realized how perfectly he had shattered any chance that Raven's goal would ever be proven.
"Why would you do that?"
The boy shrugged at his leader's question. "I don't know."
"There has to be a good reason why you would turn into a rabbit and start hopping around while Raven was meditating."
Silence fell on the three again as Beast Boy attempted to form a sane reason for his actions. When no sane response could be found, he turned to Robin and tried telling him the truth. "Look, there was this girl and she was crying because I scared her bunny away. Then I thought, 'Hey, I can change into any animal,' so I morphed into a rabbit so the girl would stop crying."
"That's why you risked your life?"
Beast Boy nodded his head proudly.
Doctor Grayson reached over the patient and placed his hand on the nurse's shoulder. "Star, can you take him to the chair and strap him in, I think it's time we start the increase in dopamine antagonists." The red-haired nurse nodded her head and led the patient into a small room at the end of the hallway.
The boy shifted his eyes nervously about the room while Star strapped him into the chair. He hadn't been in the room for a long time, and he had no idea why he was there now. Memory was sparked, though, when he saw Doctor Grayson walk through the door holding a needle filled with an unknown solution.
He tried a bird, a Tyrannosaurus Rex, even an ant, but nothing set him free from the straps that bound him to the seat. 11456783 growled and nipped at the doctor's hand as he neared with the needle.
"Please don't make this harder then it should be," the doctor pleaded while he dodged the hungry mouth. "I'm doing this to help you, understand that."
It took the weight and strength of both the nurse and the doctor to get the boy to stop thrashing long enough to administer the medicine. Once it was over the boy refused to get up off the chair. He stubbornly sat there growling and hissing at the doctor as he threw away the needle.
Doctor Grayson tried to give the boy a sympathetic look, but the various animal noises spoiled the effect. "Listen, I have to give you that, whether you want it or not. It's the only chance we have of combating your disorder."
11456783's face softened for a moment before returning to a mask of perturbed rage. With a final growl he slid off the chair, "morphed" into a Tyrannosaurus Rex, and began circling the doctor.
Dick stood absolutely still, save for his hand fumbling for the emergency sedative in his coat pocket. The patient sped up his circling, occasionally leaning in his head for a sniff. Whenever he felt the need for it, the boy would roar right in the doctor's face.
While the patient continued to size up and threaten the doctor, Star slowly worked her way over to the emergency button posted on the wall. She watched as the boy leaned in again and nipped at the doctor's lab coat.
"Star," Dick half-whispered, half-choked out the name. The nurse put her hand on the button and then turned toward Doctor Grayson for the go ahead. To her surprise he shook his head "no" and silently ordered her to take her hand down.
The doctor's eyes followed the boy as he continued to make his acute circles. He had never reacted this way before to the medicine, no patient ever had. It was a paradox to everything the doctor was trying to help the boy with, and for that reason, Doctor Grayson found he would have to give into the boy's normal delusions in order to get him out of the dangerous one he was lost in now.
"Beast Boy, if I hurt you I didn't mean to. I'm sorry." The patient slowed his steps, but continued the instinctual threats, as he began to listen more intently to the doctor's words. "If you want, we can go see Terra." At the mention of the blonde-haired girl the boy immediately dropped the helm of the dinosaur and smiled warmly at the doctor.
Doctor Grayson and Star sighed in relief as they led the boy out of the room.
"Terra! Terra!" Beast Boy ran back and forth along his path calling for the girl. He stopped when he reached the place of their first meeting, but she wasn't there. "Terra, where are you!"
The boy turned around in circles searching vainly for the missing girl. A foreign feeling of betrayal began to settle in his stomach as he dwelled on the possibility that maybe she didn't want to see him again. Beast Boy smiled at himself, why would anyone never want to see him again?
"Perhaps she has found a new location of enjoyment, Beast Boy," Starfire encouraged as she caught up with the boy.
The green changeling thought on her comment for a moment. It was the most logical explanation, but the question remained: where would she go? The beach, probably not. The mall, no. Someplace with a great multitude of rocks was the key.
"What about the gravel pit?"
Beast Boy nodded at his leader's suggestion. "The gravel pit, yeah, she would have a ton of fun there. Beast Boy, you're a genius."
Doctor Grayson sat down comfortably on a bench and watched with amusement as the patient shyly approached the blonde girl playing in the makeshift sand box.
"Dick, may I ask you a question."
The doctor smiled at the nurse and motioned for her to take a seat next to him. "Sure Star, what is it?"
The red-haired woman gazed down at her hands while she attempted to come up with the right phrasing to say. Finally, she breathed in and went for the plunge. "What happened back there?"
"I don't know."
The two sat in an uncomfortable silence as they watched 11456783 continue to approach the girl. Star opened her mouth to ask another question, but Dick's voice cut her off:
"That wasn't him, or at least, that wasn't Beast Boy. There was no sanity, no remote goodness about his act. Whatever it was, I believe we may have seen the true face of his zoanthropy."
Star nodded her head in agreement. Never before had 11456783 acted in any way threatening to anyone, especially not Dick. Likewise she knew that his delusional persona, Beast Boy, would never act that way towards Robin, his leader and friend.
"Do you think the medicine had anything to do with it?"
Dick shook his head. "It should have done the exact opposite."
"I do not understand."
"Theoretically his monomania is attributed, like in schizophrenia, to an increase in dopamine levels active in the brain," Dick explained to the woman sitting next to him. "The dopamine antagonists we give him are suppose to bind but not activate the dopamine receptors in the brain, thus controlling the levels and healing the mind. Of course, no one knows what causes zoanthropy, so this is just a theory," he added in quickly.
"Hopefully it will never happen again," Star added as she brought her head down on the doctor's shoulder.
Dick nodded his head at her comment. "Let's hope."
He couldn't breath, his knees were trembling, sweat was dripping from his skin. It would take a miracle if he was able to stay upright during his walk to speak with the girl. Beast Boy shivered at the thought of how suddenly his entire mien was altered by the appearance of Terra. Though, perhaps it was a good thing. Maybe everyone went through this when they met a person that could make them feel entirely alive and yet have them wishing they were dead at the same time. Not that he wanted to die, of course, he just figured one day he would perish from the embarrassment of his eternally corny comments. Nevertheless, his determination and desire to speak with the girl won over his hesitation and doubts.
When Beast Boy finally reached the gravel pit he stood and watched the girl instead of immediately speaking. She had created a bulls-eye out of pebbles and was proceeding to send elongated rocks at it like darts. Every single hit was right in the center, even if it meant her having to move the target's bulls-eye into the path of the flying rock. Nobody's perfect, he compensated to himself.
With a weak wave of his gloved hand the changeling attempted a hello. Unfortunately, he discovered he would have to talk. "Hey Terra."
The girl continued to play darts with the rocks.
Beast Boy decided to try again, only this time a little louder. "Hey Terra."
Another rock went flying through the air.
"Terra," his voice gained a bit in volume.
She moved the target to the left.
"Terra," a little louder.
The target shifted slightly right.
"Terra," he was on the verge of screaming at the girl.
Bulls-eye.
"Terra!" The green boy leapt in front of where the girl was sitting and waved his arms erratically in the air.
The blonde-haired girl moved her goggles up to their perch on her head. "Hey BB," she cocked her head to the side and produced a friendly smile. "What's up."
If it had been anyone else, he would have yelled at them. But looking at the smile on her face vanquished all of the anger produced from the attempt of receiving her attention.
Beast Boy brought a hand up to the back of his head and rubbed it nervously up and down. "Nothing really, you?"
"Just working on controlling my powers," the girl reached forward her hands and cracked her knuckles on the word 'powers.'
"I'd say you're 'right on target' with them." He wanted to die, but instead attempted a hardy laugh. Terra chuckled at his lame attempt of cracking a joke.
Her smile dimmed momentarily, "Not really."
The changeling stared incredulously at the girl. For the past ten minutes he had stood by and watched as she expertly sent rocks flying through the air at a target, that at its best, reached six inches in diameter. He waved his hand at her still hovering target. "What do you mean, I watched you get a bulls-eye every time."
Terra shrugged. "But those are just pebbles, when it comes to boulders, I don't have complete control." The two teens sat in silence, then the girl's face filled with worry. "You won't tell anyone, will you?"
"Of course not," Beast Boy shook his head from side to side to strengthen his promise.
"Thanks, BB." A silence descended quickly upon the two as each discovered they had nothing to say. Beast boy began to twiddle his thumbs to pass the awkwardness, while Terra nervously tossed rocks up and down in the air with her powers.
Eventually the earth-mover spoke. "So, how are the rest of the Titans?"
"They're good," Beast Boy replied. "Except Starfire and Robin have been looking at me odd since early this afternoon. I have no idea why though, maybe they're still mad at me for the whole Raven incident."
Terra laughed at the boy. "I heard about that, way to go." She held up a gloved hand and the changeling gave her a high five.
Doctor Grayson and Star watched as the two patients gave each other a high five. At least 11456783 was behaving better now that he was with the girl.
"Fascinating, isn't it, how our two patients have grown so fond of each other, Dick." The two sitting on the bench averted their eyes to the side to see the owner of the deep voice that had just spoken. Doctor Grayson stood up from his seat and glared at the man.
"Doctor Wilson."
The man smiled at the young physician. The disturbing nature of his look was increased by a black eye patch situated over his right eye. The other doctors at the institution always commented on how it made him look like a pirate, and that's why Doctor Wilson kept it instead of getting a glass eye.
"Come now, Dick," he began. "We've been working at the same institution for over three years. I believe we can address each other by our first names."
Dick licked his lips in preparation of the name he hated saying. "Slade."
The older doctor smiled amusedly down at his colleague. He then motioned his hand over to the two teenagers sitting in the sandbox. "Is that your zoanthropy patient I've heard so much about."
"Yes," Dick replied in a frigid voice.
"I envy you Dick, no one has ever worked with a mind plagued by such a fascinating illness. Can you imagine what his thoughts are like? How it would be to be always under the delusion that you can change your physical form to that of any of the lower animals. Fascinating, really. Do you ever wonder if he knows the truth, if he ever found that he couldn't change his form?"
Dick kept his face emotionless when he spoke. "I imagine every doctor has to wonder whether or not their patient actually knows the truth. Are they keeping with the delusions because they want it to be true so badly, or has the illness so completely set in that, even if the truth was presented on a silver platter, they wouldn't see it?"
"At least he has an illness with a noble past. What is the verse again?"
"Daniel, chapter four, verse 33: 'Immediately what was said about Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled. He was driven away from people and ate grass like cattle. His body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like the claws of a bird.'" Dick quoted the verse with the air of one not impressed by his converser's knowledge.
Doctor Slade Wilson smirked at the young man's soliloquy. "Refreshing to find you know your literature."
"No," Dick stared straight into the man's solitary eye. "I should be familiar with the texts concerning my patient's illness. My question is, why are you?"
The man smiled at Dick then sauntered over to the sandbox and held out his hand to the young girl. She immediately halted in her speech with 11456783 and gingerly grabbed the doctor's hand while smiling warmly up at his grinning face. The two walked away from the outer courtyard of the institution hand in hand, but right before they entered in through a pair of doors, Doctor Wilson turned to the bench.
"Patience is a virtue, Doctor Grayson."
Beast Boy sat dumbstruck as he watched Terra walk away holding hands with some man. The way she had looked up at him, how she had smiled and took his hand immediately without even a goodbye, haunted the changeling's thoughts. Even worse was the sense of pure malignity surrounding the man.
"Robin, please calm yourself." Beast Boy turned his attention to his two teammates. Currently Starfire had wrapped her arms around Robin's chest in order to stop the Boy Wonder from charging after the one-eyed man. Beast Boy secretly wished she would let him go.
The masked boy tried to break free from the alien's arms. "I can't let him hurt someone else, Star. I'll kill him if he does."
Starfire increased the strength with which she was holding him back. "But if I let you go, I fear you may kill him now."
"Dude, give it a rest, we'll track him down tomorrow or something." The changeling placed his hand on his leader's shoulder. It hurt him to have to do this, but he couldn't risk Terra's life with an irate Robin on the loose hunting down the man she had left with.
Robin stopped his struggling and succumbed to his teammates' wishes. "Fine, let's head back to the tower. I'll deal with Slade later."
11456783 found himself being place in his room an hour before his normal retirement. He turned to his table and decided that maybe it was better. The doctor had been acting strangely towards him all day. With a pained smile on his face he picked up his discarded crayons.
In large, red letters he printed the name 'Slade' at the top of the page, and began a new picture.
AN: So...how was it? I hope it was to everyone's liking.
I would like to give a huge thank you to my reviewers for chapter one: SiriusAboutMarauders, Rhys Davies, Flying Star, SuNsHiNe10, Blowfish the Monkey Tamer; and I give a special award to Lady SnowStorm for figuring out the villain of the story right away and foiling my chances of a surprise. Well done.
Well, review if you want. Thank you for reading chapter two. Hopefully I will be able to write chapter three soon.
Thanks again.