chapter one. Young Pilgrims
"I fell into a winter slide;
And ended up the kind of kid who goes down chutes too narrow—
Just sticking out my measly pipe.
But I learned fast how to keep my head up
Cuz I know I've got this side of me
That wants to grab the yoke from the pilot and just
Fly the whole mess into the sea."
-- The Shins
This is suicide.
Beast Boy stood as he had stood for the past ten minutes: in front of Rae's steel front door, fist suspended in mid-air half an inch before it, as he listened to a small and rarely heard part of himself he had dubbed his "Inner Raven". Seeing as his Inner Raven got a chance to speak about once every six months or so, she was taking this opportunity to shove as much convincing into her speech as possible, and the effort of engaging his rather petite attention span left no energy for such tawdry activities as "physical movement."
This is suicide, repeated the Inner Raven in tones which suggested holding her medium an inch from her metaphysical face by the front of his plum-and-sable uniform, speaking slow and clear just in case he somehow missed something (which, considering this was Beast Boy, was not a bad idea).
This is a bad idea. Going into Raven's room equals a bad idea. Bothering Raven equals a bad idea.
'Buuuut, I thought apologizing equals good idea?'
He could practically see the massaging of the sinuses.
Apologizing does equal good idea. Bothering Rae and barging into her room to do the apologizing—bad idea.
'But—'
Remember the last time you went to her room to apologize for something?
'She hugged me?'
There was a pause from Inner Raven.
…Remember the time before that?
'Dude, it's kinda hard to forget getting sucked into a mini-mirror of doom.'
They're called hand-glasses.
'I thought those were glasses. Like…glasses.'
No. We've had this talk before. Hand-glasses are hand-held mirror thingies.
'But—'
Raven said they were.
And there was silence from both sides. Once Rae said something was something, that was the end of that. Except, of course, when it came to the subject of her.
Anyway! Inner Raven went on, making a hair-pin curve off a subject track that was going in very dangerous directions. The moral of this story is that entering Raven's room unannounced leads to big four-eyed demon-thingies that could, to be perfectly frank, sit on and smush you.
'But…wait…We defeated that guy.'
Correction: Rave defeated that guy.
'Right…with our help.'
Are you serious? Inner Raven rolled her eyes. Maybe with Cyborg's help. But you? Garfield…you turn into furry things. You're the size of, like, a twig. You crack jokes…That's what you do.
A pregnant pause followed, where Inner Raven waited for Beast Boy to argue with a small frown on her metaphorical face. Nothing came.
Look, she sighed finally. Stick to what you're good at, alright? You're the funny man; be funny. You know that if you try to apologize you'll just mess up somehow and make her even madder. You've knocked on her door like five times. You've tried calling to her. She obviously doesn't want to speak to you right now, so we should both just—
"Are you lost in thought?"
Beast Boy (the physical Beast Boy) squealed like a small animal who'd been trod on and jumped five feet into the air, only to come crashing down to earth seconds later. Rae's eyebrow raised in slow mo.
"Dude!" he exploded, flailing his green-dyed arms. "Would you, like, wear a bell or flash some lights or buy a private medieval horn-blowy guy to announce you or somethin'?! Jeez!"
"You know what 'medieval' is," Rae deadpanned. "I'm impressed."
"Really?"
Rae met him with a dead-on stare which lasted several grueling seconds.
Finally, Beast Boy managed to force up some hard-won anxious laughter (as opposed to puke; it always made him sick when he embarrassed himself) as the dark girl turned heel and walked back inside her bedroom without shutting the door behind her.
"Heh heh…heh…I, ah, take it that was a 'no', then?"
"Ingenious."
"Well, at least you know enough to tell me. Heh heh. Get it? Cuz—"
"Beast Boy, why are you here?" Rae asked flatly, thoroughly decapitating any chance for small talk or light-hearted banter. Her back was still towards him as he hovered in her doorway, trying to determine whether leaving her room open was an invitation or not. She certainly wasn't helping.
I told you this was a bad idea.
"I just…ah…" What did he want again? His olive eyes were busy wandering over the various artifacts and sundry books which littered her somber bedroom. It was still a Halloween-war zone, but he preferred weird stuff to look at that the normal sorts of objects which drew the other Titans to them like magnets. His and Rae's rooms weren't that different, really. His weird stuff was just a bit more…sunny.
"Beast Boy."
"Meh?"
"Your point. Make it."
"Oh! Yeah! Sorry…" His eyes traveled down to her heather-colored floor. Such a bad, bad idea… "Actually, umm…that kinda was the point. I mean, the sorry…ness. I mean, I kinda wanted to apologize. For earlier."
" 'Kinda' wanted to?" Her fingers darted like spider legs over the dark bindings of each musty tome on her shelves. "Gee, Beast Boy, don't strain yourself."
"No! Gack!" The boy had taken an automatic step into her room and, in his anxiety, lost his footing, crashed to the floor, and caused several dozen books to fall from their stacks and come crashing onto him. In a flash he was up again, his lithe body flickering all over the floor, trying desperately to do a million things at once. "No—uh, sorry about the—I mean, I really mean it. I'm really sorry. I mean, okay, so I don't really know why you picked today to go all psycho-mondo-doom-queen-of-death on me, but—Ack! Sorry! That wasn't how it sounded! I mean it was but it wasn't supposed to be—"
He looked up at her hopelessly. Her back was still turned but at least she'd finally stopped that totally not-caring way she'd been looking through the books…Why did she always have to do this? Apologizing was hard for Beast Boy in any setting really…But with Rae… With Rae, it was like begging forgiveness from a box; like professing your undying devotion to a bush. Talking to Raven was like sprinting into a wall, full-speed, head-first, again and again and again, and yet somehow he kept on doing it. Why?
"I've gotta be a masochist…" he muttered accidentally aloud.
"I'm sorry."
Beast Boy stared at the back of Raven's head, until even he was surprised he hadn't drilled in two clean holes. She's…
"You're…"
…what?!
"Sorry." Raven's voice had somehow grown tighter, as if someone had stretched her vocal chords to the snapping point. "I am. Really. You really weren't any more obnoxious or nerve-grating than you usually are, and I should be able to handle that, but today I couldn't, and for that I am sorry. And, to answer your question, no, Beast Boy, I'm not okay, and I probably won't be okay for the next couple days."
Beast Boy continued to stare. She couldn't be saying this—not to him; not to anyone, but certainly not to him. Something sharp took a hold of him then. A feeling. Just a bad feeling. She had to be joking; she'd sounded so heavy, so…dead. She had to be joking, it had to be a joke. But…Raven didn't joke…
"Beast Boy!"
"Huh?"
"I don't suppose you've somehow managed to retain the concept of 'enter-my-room-and-you-die', have you?"
"Wha…?"
He looked down. Then he looked back. Then he looked up.
"Oh…eh heh heh…" Trying his best to not look straight at the look of death which played upon her Azarathian features, Beast Boy stumbled to his feet and handed her the formerly fallen books. "Sorry bout that, Rae."
Two fists clenched to deadly degrees at her side, and a red tint entered her eyes.
"I told you…" began Raven, poison oozing out of her every word. "Don't call me—"
"Rae!"
"Tell me, Beast Boy, do you have a death wish?"
"No—Rae—I mean…look!—"
"Because I really don't think any court in the country would convict me right about now…"
"No, I mean—Dude, your hands!"
Finally the girl in black stopped her slow stalking of the changeling, and looked down at her gray hands. Or, they should have been gray hands. At the moment they were red.
Her eyes faded back to their familiar azure state. Her eyebrows rose.
"Oh."
And then she finally passed out.
--Elsewhere…--
Her skin was dead.
They'd made fun of her for it, before. The way the skin was paper-white, winter-white, snow-white; how waxy it had felt. What had they said?
"Snow-white, snow-white,
Got an apple, took a bite,
She went down without a fight,
Got her lips bit by a knight,
Stupid dyke, snow-white!"
Fools. "Dyke" didn't even rhyme with "white".
"Hey lady!"
The policeman snapped his peppermint gum; it was a habit his wife despised, but, hey, what's a guy supposed to do? She was always on his back about it; "Richard, stop snapping that damn gum!" Geez…lady-like his ass. Sometimes he couldn't even remember why he'd gotten hitched in the first place.
"Lady, stop!" Dumb chick. Just like all of them. It drove Dick nuts sometimes. Sometimes he wondered if he was the only sane one left in the universe. Then he'd stop wondering stuff like that, because stuff like that scared the living shit out of him when he really stopped and thought.
Finally, after walking in front of her Saturn and waving his night-stick in her wind-shield-obscured face, she began to slow down and stop. He swaggered to her window as she rolled it down. Immediately his eyebrows rose.
"What seems to be the problem, officer?" Her voice was like ice; no, ice was stationary. Her voice was like icicles, sharp and cold, piercing him right through his bulletproof vest.
He coughed. "Right," he began. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but this here is a yellow-tape zone. No cars in or out for the next couple hours. You'll have to take the detour indicated by the orange cones."
"My, you policemen certainly rely on color." She smiled. She was…beautiful. She wasn't hot, or sexy, or cute, or gorgeous. She was beautiful. Dick could feel his hard-on growing…He flushed crimson.
"Fine, then," she continued, oblivious. "I'll take the detour. Exactly what happened here anyway?"
His eyes widened when what came out of his mouth wasn't the "I'm sorry, miss, that's classified information…" speech he'd given the other motorists that had come this way .
"Lunchtime special. Someone came into that house—" He jerked his chubby hand over his shoulder at a Tudor style flat. "—bout a half hour ago. Off-ed an entire party on the sixth floor. Twenty people. Well, kinda off-ed them. More sent them into some kinda comas…Might as well be dead, though. Nothing going on up here--" Richard tapped his forehead. "—like less than vegetables."
"Really." Her hair…it was so black. Maybe she was one of those Japs? But it seemed darker than that…It was like night, like spider's threads rubbed in coal. "How?"
"Dunno…" He scrunched up his face conspiratorially. "That's the weird thing. I guess their brains just shut off. Not a scratch on them."
"Really." And lips…They were red, but they weren't red. They were something purer than red, something carnal. They were like meat, like blood… "You caught the psycho that did it yet?"
"Not yet. Somethin' tells me the chief's gonna crack and call up the Teen Titans. He hates that half the time us cops gotta rely on a bunch of hormone-driven kids to save the city, but what're you gonna do? Besides, they've got powers 'n shit, y'know? And considering we're dealing with some schytzo who can turn off peoples brains, looks like guns aren't gonna do the deed."
"Oh, I don't know…"
Her fingers grazed his dyed cuffs lightly…They were so white.
"You'd be surprised how these things go."
As white as snow.
"Maybe you just need someone…"
As white as death.
"…who can keep his head."
And then everything turned off.
Author's Note(s): Dun dun duuuunn!! Meet the new villain, gang. Yeesh…I think I've managed to creep myself out with this one…I like her though. She's a real bitch. Not to mention psycho. Gotta love the classics. Also, I promise Raven's random passing out does have a point and it's not just an excuse for BB to get concerned. /shifty eyes ensue/ And speaking of BB…
A note on Inner Raven (WARNING: prepare yourself for an essay…): I believe most people have an "Inner Raven" of sorts. It's similar to a conscience, but since every conscience bends depending upon whom it belongs to, I think BB's would show up with the voice, and general character, of Raven. Of course, this is also BB's version of Raven; it's essentially still BB, but it's BB trying to imitate Raven, which he generally does a pretty good job on. In my fic at least this is evidence that BB isn't necessarily as dumb as he comes off to be; he's no genius, but most of his stupidity seems to stem from his belief that "I am Beast Boy and therefore I am stupid." While he's playing Raven he's coming from "I am Raven and therefore I am smart", and thus he is (or tries to be) smarter. However, he's still BB, and this explains not only why Inner Raven says things like "four-eyed demon-thingy", but why she is consistently condescending and cruel to poor BB. I'm going with a mixture of the cartoon BB and the comic BB: to quote one of the comics creators, "Because everyone in his life had died on him, Changeling believed he had very little to offer anyone and covered it up with an outward bravado." I'm hanging on tight to the theory that there is a reason Beast Boy acts the way he does; and seeing how all the real-life Beast Boys I know (read: two) suffer from this same "a-huge-ego-resulting-from-no-ego" complex, this is the reasoning I'm going with. And because Raven is (much as I love her) by far the Titan who puts BB down the worst, it makes sense that his 'Inner Raven' would also be a catalyst for his self-hatred. Much as I sometimes don't like the idea, our actions, and our words, having due reactions: this is the consequence of Raven's. Will she find out exactly what effect she's having (positively and negatively)? Only time will tell!
Eleven reviews for a prologue? Zoutalours! (translation: Hurrah!)
Spade111—Hee, I like the name! And the twist with Little Miss Rage plays a huge part in this story. If you can figure out how, I'll send you a virtual cupcake.
VashTheStampede7123—Firstly, Trigun rocks. Secondly, thank you so much for your review…One of the best compliments you can give an author is that you like their style, and when you write fanfiction getting a review that actually comments on a part of your writing that you can carry over into your original stuff is both rare and excellent. Thanks again!
Daine—Yeah, I guess this story is gonna wind up pretty creepy. But funny! But creepy. /sweatdrops/ Just wait until chapter four or so…Then we'll start getting into the really juicy stuff.
maraina85—Hope this 'actual chapter' didn't let you down! Thanks for the compliment!
someone—Yare, yare! What a mysterious nom de plume! Originality is exactly what I'm aiming for with this; or, at the very least, an original spin on a classic topic. I hope you keep up with your promise and that I hear from you again.
Jade Monsoon—Oh, uh, yeah…I, ah, hate it when writers change pairings at random intervals (/nonchalantly deletes six pages of Raven-Starfire S&M smut/). I am, of course, joking. I agree that fanfiction is, commonly, a rather dicey medium; it has the capacity for great good and great evil, but, because it is far, far easier to simply be evil, it tends to fall to the dark side of the spectrum. However, knowing this tends to inspire me to write even better than I normally would just to knock the competition up a couple of notches. You think you love me? I think I love you. Long, thorough reviews are every aspiring author's dream, and yours was no exception. Also, I sense in you an honest reviewer, who will tell me when I mess up and when I do well. Which I need. Desperately. Because none of my friends like Teen Titans, and thus the only editor I have is myself. If I have you at the very least I can look out for things in the next chapter I upload. In short: please, please, please review again!
And, yes: Bad Moon Rising is an awesome bit of polyphonic goodness in my belly.
The Mad Shoe—Hee, I hope you're nagging feeling proves correct! I at least promise to give this baby my all.
Stella-s55—Glad you approve!
Samieko—Oolala? I like it!
LavaLampLuv—Sadly, if you're anxious for kissy, you're gonna have a long ways to wait. I'm picking this up from where the series is now; and if I'm gonna keep these guys in character, it'll take them a bit to get their acts together. On the plus side, there is some fluff! I mean, its creepy fluff, but still…
roses in bloom—(1) I love your penname. (2) Woot! I've hooked someone! The writer's never-ending quest continues! Now if I can keep you hooked…
Okay, guys, here's the deal: would you rather have short updates (read: 3-4-5 pages) every few days or long updates (read: 8-9-10 pages) every few weeks? I can really do either…My writing style is pretty easily divided when it comes to chapters. I ask this because currently I do have the next chapter written and it was originally a part of this chapter. However, it would've probably taken me at least another day to edit it, and I want to completely re-write the part at the end…
Anyways, I'll let you guys decide what you want in your REVIEWS. Which are very NICE. Like the NICE PEOPLE who REVIEW FANFICS. Especially THIS FANFIC. So you should BE NICE and REVIEW all the fanfiction you read, but particularly THIS FANFICTION.
Um…Please.
With love and steaming cups of Ramen,
Paiga
Next Up: chapter two. In which Raven is not seriously hurt, is not in a good mood, and is not entirely certain we're in any position to lecture her about making stupid decisions.