Disclaimer: Woo doo doo. (shoves toothpicks in her ears)

Chapter fifteen! The relentless Moonchild keeps burning her writing into your corneas! Enjoy yet another chapter fueled by chai tea. Here, have some! (hands you a steaming cup) Sit back and enjoy the show.

If any of you ever want to chat, you can email me about whatever. I won't bite anyone's head off, I promise! The email is in my bio. It's a long one and I'm too lazy to type it here.

This chapter contains references to the flying navel squid!

Note to ripper-rabbit: It's OK (pats shoulder). I'm sorry about Rachel. I don't know what happened, but I'm sorry you're sad.

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Back in her room, Raven sat silently on her bed, absorbed in her meditation. It wasn't as relaxing as usual. Her mind kept wandering to Beast Boy. She squeezed her eyes shut so tightly that her face quivered.

"Azerath, Metrion, Zinthos," she said fiercely. "Azerath, Metrion, Zinthos. Azerath Metrion Zinthos azerathmetrionzinthos-" she stopped, opening her eyes and allowing herself to fall backward into a cushioned landing on her bed. She stared at the blank ceiling and sighed. "Why can't I make this go away?" she asked herself. She pressed her knuckles into her eye sockets. "What is wrong with me?" she touched the small gemstone on her brow chakra with one finger and sighed.

'You know perfectly what's wrong with you,' said the nasty little voice in the back of her head. 'You are going against everything that you stand for. Your sole objective in life is to avoid emotion at all costs, and look at yourself. You're falling head over heels for Beast Boy of all people. You are pathetic.'

Raven ignored the voice for a moment. "Shut up. Emotions are not something you can always control."

'They should be. You should be in control at all times. Need I remind you of your little problem?'

"I said shut up. I am in control. Maybe I'm choosing to feel this way," Raven said, aware that she was talking to herself but she didn't care. At least she was releasing her feelings to someone.

'If you were choosing to feel this way, you wouldn't be so confused about it,' the voice nagged her. ;You should obliterate all emotion for Beast Boy while there's still time.'

"I can't do that I…I won't do that. I told Starfire that I was going to try and accept and embrace my emotions. So here it goes." she took several deep breaths. "I like Beast Boy. I am hopelessly attracted to Beast Boy. I can't stop thinking about Beast Boy. I need to embrace it. I am completely infatuated with Beast Boy, and I want to feel this way. Emotions are under my control. I can control this."

'You can embrace it now. But what happens when it's something more? What happens if you fall in love with him? Then what? I know you aren't ready for love, Raven. I know you're afraid of love, Raven.'

"Shut up!" Raven yelled, and a book that was sitting on her nightstand flew across the room and hit the wall. She paused, and immediately felt stupid. She was having a heated argument with herself. Wondering if she might be crazy, she sat up.

Love. Wow. Love was something she didn't want to think about right now. What if she did fall in love with Beast Boy? Then what would happen? The thought of the whole thing was terrifying. She didn't want to sit here in the dark and think about it anymore. She quickly slipped onto the floor. She walked over to the book she had accidentally tossed and picked it up, walking out of the room with it up against her chest as though it would offer her some kind of protection.

Raven was deeply perplexed, and she was paying little attention as she walked down the hall. She had been walking for only a few seconds before she ran into something solid and went flying backward onto the ground. She lay there blinking for a moment.

"Oh God Raven, I'm sorry," Beast Boy muttered quickly as he picked himself up off of the ground and retrieved her book. Raven shook her head around a few times and sat up. It took a moment for her to notice that the reason Beast Boy was holding a hand in front of her face was to help her to her feet, and she took it even though she didn't need the help.

"It's fine, really," she said as he handed her book back. She took it quickly and held it against herself again like a shield. Beast Boy was grinning at her, and she resisted a strong impulse to wrap her arms around him. Instead, she smiled slightly back at him, and continued her journey to the living room, noting that Beast Boy was walking along beside her.

"So….uh…whatcha reading?" he asked.

"A collection by Edgar Allan Poe," Raven answered plainly. "I've….read it about a thousand times, I guess."

Beast Boy nodded. He wished he hadn't brought up the topic. Aside from a few comics, he never really read for leisure. But he had a very deep wish somewhere inside to make her like him caused him to do the unthinkable.

"You think maybe I could borrow one of your books sometime?" he asked, sincerely hoping she wasn't going to kill him at the mere mention of him actually having possession of one of her belongings. She didn't deck him, however, and he was surprised.

"Sure," she said, surprising him even further. "You can borrow this one if you want. I know it well enough anyway. It won't be such a horrible tragedy if you destroy it."

Beast Boy wasn't exactly sure if she was joking or serious about him destroying it, but he decided to ignore it and took the book she had been carrying when she held it out to him. He stared at it as though it were a foreign object. It had been so long since he had held a book with any other intent than to throw it that it felt almost strange to him. He wasn't even sure if he liked reading. But he wanted to know. He wanted to have something in common with Raven, see inside something she had seen. He wanted to read the words she had read and have some knowledge inside of his head that would make them have another thing in common. He felt like somehow, if he read something that her eyes had once traveled over and devoured the things that they gave away he would be closer to her. That was something he wanted more than anything else; to be closer to Raven.

"Thanks," he said, still surprised.

"You you seriously want to read that?" Raven asked, looking slightly skeptical.

Beast Boy nodded. "Sure," he said.

The two of them reached the living room and sat down on the sofa. Robin and Cyborg were playing a video game and Starfire was in the kitchen stirring something that was a deep mauve color in a large stew pot. When Beast Boy sat down he cautiously cracked book open and looked at the front page.

For some reason, the words started to suck him in. He was almost captivated. She could hear Raven whispering her mantra at his side as she meditated, and he started to read.

"Yes!" Cyborg said. "I so beat you, Robin!" he was doing a ridiculous little victory dance on the sofa cushion. "Hey BB, you want me to kick your butt now?"

"Uh….sorry Cyborg. I'm reading," Beast Boy said.

"That sounds more disturbing than I thought it would," Raven said.

"Sheesh BB, did you lose part of your mind and replace it with Raven's?" Cyborg asked.

"Yeah, I did. I'm the dreaded flying navel squid!" Beast Boy said, putting the book down. "I'll steal your brain, too!" he leaped on Cyborg's head.

Cyborg let out a shriek of surprise and dropped his controller. Beast Boy dropped back onto the sofa, laughing hysterically.

"You should have seen your face!" he giggled, clutching his stomach.

"Oh, you won't be able to see anybody's face when I'm through with you!" Cyborg said in a mock threatening voice, standing up. Beast Boy made a run for it, but Cyborg made a spectacular jump and grabbed his legs, pulling him down.

"Eeek!" Beast Boy squeaked, pretending to be a little girl. Cyborg grabbed a pillow from the sofa and started hitting Beast Boy with it.

"Come on Robin, join in!" Cyborg said.

"I don't think I-" Robin began. Cyborg threw a pillow into his face. "Oh, it's on!" Robin said, grabbing the pillow and leaping over to where Beast Boy and Cyborg were in on single Matrix-style jump. He started beating the two of them.

"Come on Raven!" Beast Boy (who was now also in possession of a pillow and was waling on the other two) called.

A pillow surrounded by black psychic energy flew into Beast Boy's chest and knocked him backward.

"No fair!" he said, picking himself up. "No powers!"

"If you got 'em, you might as well use 'em," Robin said cheerfully. Another black-encased pillow flew across the room and hit him in the face. Raven sat on the sofa whistling innocently. "I saw that!" Robin said, hurling a pillow at Raven, who stopped it in midair and sent it flying at him.

"Friends, you are killing each other?" Starfire asked in alarm from the doorway. There was a pause.

"Um, no Star. It's a pillow fight. It's fun," Beast Boy said.

"I wish to engage in one of these 'pillow fights'," Starfire said.

Beast Boy happily grabbed a pillow. "Here!" he said, handing it to her. "Just….beat on whoever comes near you with it. It's soft, so you can really put some power into it!" he demonstrated by bringing his pillow down forcefully on Robin's head.

Starfire giggled. "It looks most enjoyable," she said, bapping Cyborg on the arm with her pillow. "Oh, I love it!"

In a matter of seconds, the pillow fight resumed at full force. There was beating and walloping and a great deal more verbs that I am too lazy to type before it all ended with the Titans sitting around sweating and laughing, Starfire just happening to be on Robin's lap.

"That was wondrous! We must have many more of this 'pillow fights' in the future!" she said.

"Yeah. That was awesome!" Beast Boy giggled.

"Yeah. We really gotta let go and be childish more often," Cyborg said.

"It does provide a nice opportunity for me to beat Beast Boy without it being wrong," Raven said, but Beast Boy could tell she didn't mean it.

"Well, it's fun. We can just call it combat training," Robin said, flinging his pillow into Cyborg's face.

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Well, that was a fun chapter. I'll get the next one up pretty soon. Wow, scary, Beast Boy was reading. This has to be a sign of the apocalypse. You really need to watch out for that flying navel squid. You never know when it's gonna get you.