Until The End of The World Chapter 3: Careless Words, a teen titans fanfic

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans. But I think I have an old green dinosaur somewhere.

AN: Let the disquietude begin.

Until the End of the World

Chapter 3 – Careless Words

"What the heck is her DEAL!" I yelled as I hurled another rock out across the water under the Tower. As nearly always happened, the rock failed to skip and simply plunged under the water's surface.

I had come down here to try and skip some rocks across the calm bay waters a few hours before Raven had come to tell me about her movie pick. I don't know why I tried skipping stones. I had never quite gotten the hang of it and for every one that skipped another hundred or so would sink miserably to the bottom.

When Raven had come to tell me about which movie she had decided to go see I had been startled at how she always seemed to sneak up behind me. I am so used to hearing everything around me move, and yet Raven managed to sneak up on me most of the time. 'Just another one of the things that intrigue me about her,' I thought.

And then she had told me she wanted us to go see Wicked Scary: The Sickening which I have wanted to see since the day I knew they started casting for it. And I got really excited by the prospect. And I managed to shove my foot in my mouth by saying something about Terra. But I didn't think Raven's reaction was at all appropriate. And to top it all off, she had cancelled our date.

"Way to freaking go," I said to myself as I threw another stone out over the water. "I managed to piss her off, get our date cancelled and she probably won't want to go to meditation with me anymore. Why does she have to make it so hard?"

Grumpy, I looked up at the night sky. 'It's late. I should go to bed,' I thought to myself. 'I can try and figure out Raven's deal tomorrow.'

"BZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzT!"

"Mrpph!" I grunted as I reached out to hit the annoyingly loud digital alarm next to my bed. I hated mornings and this was shaping up to be no exception. "Stupid alarm. Why did I set you anyway?"

As I asked the alarm a question I knew it couldn't answer the events of the prior day came back to me. Tea with Raven. Asking her out. And her flying off the handle and canceling our date. "Ah dude," I moaned. I didn't know if I wanted to make a commitment to Raven or anything, but I did know I wanted to find out. And Raven had gotten all weird about it.

"I need to talk to Cyborg," I mumbled to myself as I slipped out of bed. I transformed into a small green cat and stretched out the kinks from my body. Transforming back to my normal self, I walked to the bathroom, knowing that my chat with Cyborg could wait until after I showered and dressed.

'Brilliant idea, waiting until after you showered to find Cyborg,' I thought. 'He's out with Starfire trying to protect his precious Thanksgiving feast from her shopping when I need to talk with someone.'

I was wandering the halls of the Tower wondering what I should do now. I was somewhat surprised when I realized I was stopped in front of Robin's door. 'Well… Talking to Robin is better than talking to no-one. I just hope he's not obsessing over where Slade got off to after the whole world ending thing.'

Before I could rethink what I was doing, I raised my hand and rapped on the door three quick times, each rap generating the annoying "PTing" the Tower doors make.

"Come in, Beast Boy," Robin called from the other side of the door.

I pressed the button that allowed Robin's door to slide open and asked, "Dude, how did you know it was me?" I walked into the room, noting that it was only slightly better lit than Raven's. Robin was sitting at his desk, today's newspaper laying flat with a pair of scissors resting on it.

The boy wonder smiled at me and started counting off points on his fingers, "One, Starfire and Cyborg are shopping for Thanksgiving. Two, Raven almost never knocks on my door, and when she does she always knocks four times. And three, she almost bit my head off this morning when I asked how her evening was. Something about wanting you, some honey and a fire ant hill all in the same place." Robin smiled at me and ask, "So, what did you do to upset her this time?"

"Mind if I like close the door?" I asked even as I pressed the button. Once the door was closed I leaned back on it and said, "I don't even know. I mean, I thought everything was fine and then she bit my head off last night."

Robin looked at me and I had the distinct feeling that he was looking through me. I've seen this look from Robin far too often. Usually he gets it when he's working on a puzzle. 'I'm not going to be able to get out of here until he has the answer he wants,' I thought, feeling more and more like a piece of prey. "Why don't you tell me about what you and Raven did yesterday. Maybe I can help you figure out why she's mad at you."

"Okay, um…" I started to get my thoughts into some semblance of order. "Yesterday Raven and I went to our meditation group. Nothing surprising there." Robin nodded at me. Once I finally asked Raven to join me, it hadn't taken long for the entire team to know that we were going to a meditation group and then tea after.

"Then," I continued, "we went for tea and a soda… We, um, talked about Thanksgiving some, and what Starfire was likely to cook. Please tell me you made her promise not to make any puddings!"

Robin chuckled slightly. "I told her that pudding was not a traditional part of Thanksgiving. And she is trying very hard to follow our traditions. I think we're safe from her pudding this year. What else did you and Raven do yesterday?"

"Um," I could feel the blood going to my face as I spoke, "I kinda asked her to a movie. As a date."

Robin blinked at me. "You finally asked Raven out? Congratulations!"

"Yea I did. Wait! What do you mean, finally?" I protested. Then, smiling to myself I decided to take the offensive. "It didn't take me as long to ask Raven as it took you to ask Star."

"So, um, what did you ask her out to do?" Robin asked, sidestepping the subject of his long-term feelings for Starfire. And his long avoidance of the obvious attraction they had to one another.

"That's that thing, Robin," I said. "I know that Rae is still working out some emotional issues. Like how to express them, now that Trigon was beaten. So I let her pick the movie and time. Then last night she came and told me what we were going to see, and I told her that was great and then she snapped at me and cancelled it."

"Three questions, BB," Robin said. "What movie did she pick, how did you tell her it was a great pick, and when exactly did she snap at you?"

"Well," I said, "she found me on the beach and told me that she had picked Wicked Scary: The Sickening, which I have only wanted to see for like a year and a half. And then I was hugging her and telling her how much I wanted to see it. And she got all 'don't touch me' and I apologized and told her that I was excited because not even Terra would have been willing to go see it with me. And then she bit my head off, cancelled our date and told me to never compare her to Terra."

Robin raised his brows as I finished my tale. "And you're upset with her for blowing up at you," Robin ventured. "And you don't know why she is that way and you with she was different."

"Well, yea, Robin. I mean I didn't do anything!"

"BB, when was the last time anyone mentioned Terra?" Robin asked.

I paused for a moment and started to really think about it. To be honest, I hadn't even visited Terra since before the world ended. And after we had packed up her room, none of us had mentioned her. While that wound was healing, it could still be painful. "I don't know, Robin. It's been a long while."

"I'm not saying that Raven was right to snap at you, Beast Boy. But Raven did have issues with Terra. And the first time she gets mentioned since we defeated Raven's father is by you, while talking with Raven about going out together." Robin paused for a minute before continuing, "I don't know of many situations where two people get in an argument and one of them had no responsibility. Even if Raven is 90 responsible, that leaves you with 10."

I stood there, trying to get my head around what I was hearing. "You're saying that even if Raven went off on one of her moody yelling fits and is mostly to blame, I still did something wrong?"

Robin smiled at me, "I'm quite 'wrong'. But it does take two people to have a misunderstanding. If I were you, I'd think about what I said and see if I needed to make amends. See if you did do something wrong, and then make up for it."

"Um, thanks, Robin," I said. "I guess I have some things to go think about."

As I opened the door, Robin spoke again, "Good luck, BB."

I wandered back to my room after talking to Robin, thinking about what he had said. While it was true that I hadn't meant to hurt Raven, it was obvious that I had. 'If I tossed some clothes on a space heater and burned the Tower down,' I thought, 'I wouldn't have meant to do any harm, but I still would have. And if I burnt the Tower down, I would still say that I was sorry to the others.'

I let myself into my room, knowing that I was going to have to do something for Raven to make up for my careless words.