Chapter 3

Beast Boy had gone back to his room, but sleep failed to join him, and he was left tossing and turning in his bed. Finally he admitted defeat, turning on the bedside lamp and staring up at the ceiling. 'Shit' he thought 'now insomnia, on top of everything else, fanfuckingtastic'. "Might as well get a drink" he muttered to himself. Exiting his door, he saw a figure steal across from the guest room to the stairs that led to the roof. A flash of moonlight revealed the figure to be Riley. ' what is he doing' thought Beast Boy, 'I'd better follow him'. When Riley had gone, BB traced his path up the stairs

"What are you doing up here?" came the harsh question, nearly causing Riley to fall off the edge in surprise.

Turning to face Beast Boy, Riley coughed a few times and muttered " Fucking hell man, don't do that to me, I nearly fell off the bloody ledge. Anyway what does it look like I'm doing, I'm having a quiet smoke.

Beast Boy sniffed the air a couple of time and looked sceptically at Riley. "Smells like your smoking dope."

" Could be. Any way how do you know what dope smells like."

" Just because I happen to be a super hero doesn't mean that I'm perfect."

Riley looked stunned for a few second before shrugging and offering to reefer to Beast Boy. " Ok then, sit with me and have a smoke then. What would the others do if they knew?" asked Riley quizzically

" Robin and Cy would be angry, Starfire would be upset and Raven would, actually don't know what Raven would do, probably nothing. Either that or make some kind of snappy remark, but fuck all of them. I'll do what I want." Replied Beast Boy taking the reefer " They have no idea what I've been through. What fate has dealt for me."

" You think that you have it bad? I'm a prophet for the lord and I haven't been to church since I was five. What do I know about being a messenger for the lord?" said Riley rhetorically. "Anyway how did you end up becoming a superhero then? I mean its not a job that you just fall into ya know. You don't suddenly wake up one day and think, I know I'll be a superhero."

"Don't I know it." Grumbled Beast Boy, passing the joint back to Riley " alright then. I got my powers when I was 14, just starting through puberty. I tell you, the orphanage was hell, even before I turned green. Mind you they all stopped laughing at me when I savaged some kid. And before you say anything, the bastard brought it on himself, the guy I mauled was the main cause of my problems at the orphanage. After that I left and came to Jump City. At first I was just wandering about with nothing. Then Raven came and offered me a place in the Titans, where I could find acceptance maybe even happiness."

" Has it?" asked Riley finishing the reefer and throwing it over the side of the tower. He took another out and sparked that one up as well

" To a point yes. The others accept and like me for who I am. They don't see me as a freak of some kind. But now I feel like I don't have any purpose. When there were criminals to battle and a city to save from some mental freak or another I felt alive, happy. Now I just feel bored and lonely."

" Curse of humanity mate, the curse of humanity. I take it that you don't have a girlfriend?" asked Riley

" No, women don't seem to go for me. Might be the greenness, can put some people off. Or the fangs, people tend to be a bit creeped out by them, think I'm some kind of weird vampire or something like that. Either way I don't have much luck with women." As Beast Boy spoke he seemed to shrink in stature as if closing up against the world.

" you make a good case but I think that if you went for the kind of Goth type chick, the kind who like weird things like dick piercing and waxing the gooch, and strange coloured hair, I know for a fact that they would love you."

" You think? But I don't want to pierce or wax…anything!" stated the green titan categorically

Riley handed the joint to Beast Boy and stared with closed eyes at the city. "You might not have a choice mate, women can get you to do nearly anything, they always find a way, like unrelenting beasts that attack again and again until you crumble and they get their way. Trust me, I know."

Raven awoke with a jolt. What was that? She thought. Damm it, I thought that I wouldn't have anymore sexy dreams. She wandered out of her room and into the hallway. As she wandered along the hall, Raven cast her mind back to the erotic and very vivid dream about a certain titan that she had just had. She had been sitting in the common room, when he had entered. At first she didn't notice him, as she was deep in meditation. However using all his skill, he had squatted quietly behind her until she had started to levitate to the ground. As soon as her feet had hit the floor, he pounced. Beast Boy landed squarely on the small of Ravens back causing her to A. give off a scream of surprise and B. topple face first over the back of the sofa.

"Beast Boy! You are so dead!" she threatened.

Turning her over underneath him, the green titan looked down at her, staring right into her eyes, in a fashion that made Raven give a small shudder of anticipation.

"You wouldn't hurt me that much would you Rae?" he asked with a grin, slowly and inevitably moving closer to her face.

When their lips met, Raven felt shocked at the apparent passion that her dream put into the kiss. She could still feel it tingling on her lips. After the kiss, her dream had proceeded to get steamy to the point where she jolted awake, dripping with sweat and on fire in places that she would never admit that she had, not in public anyway.

As she walked uncomfortably, the crotch of her leotard becoming ever damper as she walked down the hall, she noticed that there was a light on in the common room.

'Who the hell is going to be awake at this time?' she thought to herself.

As she came up to doorway she began to hear voices behind the door and the faint strains of DJ Shadow 'Midnight in a perfect world leaking from underneath the door.

" Mate, do you have Dynasty Warriors 4®, that's fuckin mad. you can be this mentalist wizard bloke. He's got this special power where he shoots flames out of his wand and burns the fuck out of his enemies with flames."

'That's, whatshisname, Riley.' She thought suspiciously, 'What is he doing in the common room so late at night?

Then she heard another voice, one that she recognised from her dream.

" Dude, that is the coolest thing that I've heard tonight, don't think that we do though."

Upon hearing Beast Boy's voice, she stormed into the common room determined to get to the bottom of what ever was going on, unintentionally aroused or not.

She phased through the door and was greeted with the sight of Riley and Beast Boy slumped on the couch, discussing the finer details of why Mario 64 could never beat Super Mario for the SNES. However she could tell that something was up because it was less of a discussion than Riley abusing the green titan for his claim that Mario 64 was the superior title, whilst Beast Boy was crumpled over with silent hysterics at the rant.

" I don't know what weird and messed up planet you are from you green fiend but this is earth, and on earth, Super Mario will always, always, always beat Mario 64 hands, feet and arse down. What the fuck are you doing thinking otherwise huh?" he spat out, verbally lashing Beast Boy for his stupidity.

As she took a closer look at the pair, she saw that Riley's eyes were glazed over and he had a far away look about him, like any second he was expecting to just float away whereas Beast Boy's eyes were so red that they looked almost crimson and he was slouched across the couch stuffing himself with popcorn. When Riley had calmed down, she marched across and stood facing both of them.

"What have you been doing to Beast Boy? He looks like he's been drugged." Demanded Raven, her voice rising in anger at the end.

" Excuse me? He was a willing participant, don't get so upset its only reefer. Its not like I pumped him full of smack and sold him on the streets to sex tourists! Calm the fuck down!" retaliated Riley pointing at Beast Boy

Having been unable to vent her ire at Riley, she now turned her attention to Beast Boy.

" As for you, what the FUCK are you thinking? If Robin ever finds out about this, he's gonna kick you off the team"

Beast Boy took a few seconds to digest this information, and then tried to focus his gaze on Raven and started to giggle. Raven stared at him in disgust, before turning on Riley

" I'm going to take him back to his room, then me and you are going to have a nice, long talk about what you have done to him." She growled, in tones laced with menace, like arsenic in a wedding cake.

Raven used her powers to lift the now unconscious Beast Boy down the hall and back into his room, as she deposited him on his bed, she looked him over. Raven noticed that her green friend had bulked out quite a bit over the years and puberty had been kind to him, leaving not even a small amount of acne in its wake, just a large amount of stubble which served to make him look quite sexy. As she ran her eyes up and down his body, Raven blushed, remembering her recent dream about the green titan, and decided that it was time to leave before she got tempted to see what he looked like totally nude.

Turning on her heel she stalked back to the common room, where Riley was sitting in the exact same place as before.

" What the fuck were you thinking pumping him full of drugs and warping his mind, huh?" she hissed at him, her violet eyes lit up with protective anger " I've read his mind often enough to know that he's troubled enough without you adding drugs to the mix."

"HEY, step down bitch, or I'll ruin your shit. Drugs only help, never hinder. And besides how much of his mind have you read. Cos if you had read it tonight, them you might find that he is at peace for the first time in a long fucking while." Bit back Riley, just as angry at being put on the defensive.

"I know enough about Beast Boy to realise that drugs can never do any good to anyone!"

"Just shows that you know shit all about people and shit all about drugs."

"Merely because you are a addict doesn't mean you have to infect Beast Boy as well. Just because you are unable to deal with the real world, that isn't to say that no one else can either." She spat, like a bullet from a gun.

Riley stared hard at Raven for what seemed to be an eternity before speaking again. However his tone was slow and threatening when it did arrive.

"You have no idea do you?" it was so quite that Raven could scarcely hear it. "About what?"

"About what that poor bastard has been through in his life. And you sure as shit don't know what me and Ozzy have had to deal with. But to be honest with you I don't really want to enlighten you as to my past, as for Ozzy and Beast Boy, its up to them. If they want to tell you then they will."

Far above the two fighting inhabitants of the tower, in the clouds above, a fat snowflake began its long descent to the ground, it was shortly followed by another, and another, till the sky was white with snow. This was the beginning.

" Your dependence on drugs is just showing that you have no strength of character, that you are incapable of dealing with the past, no matter how bad it may be!" stated Raven bluntly. The force that she put into these words hit Riley like a brick in the face. He sat stunned for a moment, thinking of how to put his rage into intelligible words. Then he rose to his feet, slowly, methodically but most of all threateningly. Raven backed away from his, sensing the anger pouring off him like steam. Riley started to walk towards her, she kept on backing away, as if pushed away through sheer force of rage. Raven felt the glass of the windows press into her back.

" Stay away from me, I'm warning you!" she uttered but he kept on walking, slowly and deliberately towards her, until he was just millimetres away from her face. She could smell the skunk on his breath, feel the heat from his fury.

" How dare you judge me. I've only known you for a day and you think that you can judge me as if you know me. You arrogant whore, you could never understand." With this he stalked out of the common room and left her, panting with emotion and struggling to keep control whilst all round the tower, snow danced to the ground.

" Sorry about Riley, normally he's quite a nice guy but you kind of touched a nerve."

Raven jumped, startled by the voice. Looking over to the kitchen, where the voice came from, she saw Ozzy drinking a glass of milk. He continued, "He once told me what happened to him, and it isn't nice. He still wakes up some nights screaming. Mind you neither of us has had it good."

"What happened to him?" Raven asked

"Afraid I can't tell you that. Only he can."

"What happened to you then?"

"Can I tell you later? I don't like to talk about it before I go to sleep. Bad memories."

Starfire slowly gained consciousness and looked at her clock; the red neon numbers showed her that it was half past three in the morning. Why have I awoken from my rest so early? She thought. Rising sluggishly from the bed, she donned her vibrant pink dressing gown, that Robin had given her last Christmas. It was a comfort to her whenever she felt upset or lost. Swinging her long legs to the ground, she clambered off the bed and slouched over to the curtains. Drawing them back she gasped in delighted surprise at the shroud of white snow that covered the surroundings. I must tell friend Robin about this, she thought, however a glance at the clock told her that friend Robin would probably not want to be informed of the snow at quarter to four in the morning. So instead she closed the curtains, got back into bed and started to think about the events of the past two days. She still felt worried for her friend and concerned about his state of mind, however she knew that if he was ever in real trouble then she and the others would be there for him especially Raven. It was funny when she thought about it, and she knew that she wasn't the only one to notice how much time that the telepath spent with the shape shifter. I wish that friend Raven would come to her senses and tell friend Beast Boy how she obviously feels, I believe that it would bring him great comfort. However those thoughts soon lead to thoughts of Robin, and how sweet and kind and heroically handsome that he was. This made her feel even more alone, so she decided to watch the strange programmes and creepy infomercial hosts that populate the hour of four in the morning. As she mooched towards the common room, she saw Riley stalk past, with a face like thunder, muttering curses and invectives under his breath and disappear into his room.

Upon entering the common room, Starfire was greeted with the sight of Raven trying to meditate, with a grinning Ozzy quietly laughing as he walked out of the room. Star tapped him on the shoulder as he passed.

"Why does friend Raven look so flustered and angry?"

" She and my mate and a bit of an argument as it were and she pissed him off too much. When that happens then he can be quite intimidating to people who don't know him, maybe because he looks like he's going to bite your throat out. He wouldn't really thought, probably. Night."