Here's chapter six in which we find out if Beast Boy's okay or not. Think he's dead? Well you're dumb then. Think he's naked? Well, maybe you're a little smarter. Bonus points to anyone who can figure out what all the titles of the chapters have in common. Other than being the titles of chapters for this story, of course. On to the story.
Enjoy.
---------
"Where is he cut?" Raven was the first to reach Beast Boy's body. The others were close behind. She checked his pulse and made sure he was breathing before searching his body for wounds. "I don't see any cuts."
"Turn him over," Robin said, reaching his hands under Beast Boy and flipping him onto his stomach. They searched for a moment more before realizing that the only wounds on their green friend's body were minor bruises.
"Then, this isn't…" Starfire was confused. "This is not his blood? Then why has he passed out if it was not from the loss of his fluids?"
"He seems fine, looks like he was just overloaded," Cyborg said, gently slipping his hand under their unconscious friend's body and picking him up. "I guess he just sort of passed out." Cyborg stood and walked through the doors and into the hallway leading away from the common room. "I think we should take him to the infirmary." Starfire, Raven, and Robin were close behind.
"Whose blood could this be?" Raven asked, confused.
"I don't know," Robin said, "but we've got to get it off him."
Cyborg nodded his head in agreement. "We'll have to do some tests to make sure he didn't catch any… diseases."
"If he had gotten into a fight, we he not have called us?" Starfire asked.
"There's something not right about this." Raven stared at Beast Boy's limp body, bouncing slightly in Cyborg's arms. His mouth hung open and Raven could see that there was dry blood at the corners of his lips. Had he… bitten someone?
"Well there's obviously something not right about this, Raven." Cyborg turned his head back to her, "it's not everyday that your best friend shows up covered in blood!" Raven was shocked to see the look on her metal friend's face. He looked completely destroyed. Broken. Gone.
"Calm down, Cyborg," Robin said, "this is horrible, yes, but yelling at Raven isn't going to help anything out."
"Sorry, Rave, but this is really freaky." Cyborg looked down at Beast Boy's face and Starfire brushed away a drop of blood before it had a chance to run into his open mouth.
--------
Raven had always hated the infirmary. But really, what was there to like? No visit was ever pleasant. There were really only two reasons to come here. Either you were hurt, or you were visiting someone else who was hurt. Wonderful. Everything shone with the glean of polished steel. All was kept in precise order. It never harbored the same smells, save perhaps blood or some disgusting medicine.
"We have to get him out of these clothes," Cyborg said, placing Beast Boy's lithe frame on a metal bed that was much too smooth, much too shiny.
"Okay girls," Robin said, turning to Raven and Starfire. "It's guy time now."
"Oh come on, Robin!" Raven glanced back at Beast Boy. Had his eyes been open, this would be the first time he had ever looked at her directly. "It's not like we're here to enjoy the show."
"Yes, Robin," Starfire said nodding her head enthusiastically. "We will not be doing the perverting."
"Come on, guys," Robin was serious, "think about how Beast Boy would feel if he knew you saw him naked."
"Fine," Raven grumbled heading away from Beast Boy and pulling Starfire along behind her. The two exited the room and sat in the uncomfortable chairs parked outside. The lights above them hummed gently. Metallic scrapes like cricket chirps called out from where Starfire's chair met the floor. She was nervously scooting back and forth.
"I wish we could see what was going on," Raven said, wondering how long it would be until Robin and Cyborg were finished.
"Oh!" Starfire's head perked up suddenly. "Raven! There are cameras in the infirmary, yes?" Maybe it was her fractured state, but for some reason it took Raven much longer than it should have to grasp what Starfire was saying. Slowly a smile spread across her face.
"You're a genius, Star," Raven said, standing up and again grabbing the other girl's hand to pull her along.
Located seemingly randomly in Titan's Tower were several computer terminals from which any of the Titan's could access the Tower's main computer. There were a few restrictions on these terminal, they couldn't do all that the main computer could, but they could do what Starfire and Raven needed them for.
"Okay," Raven said, beginning to type at one of the terminals. "We must never breathe a word of this to Beast Boy lest we wish him to explode from embarrassment."
"I do not wish for friend Beast Boy to explode," Starfire said, wondering if this was such a good idea after all. "Maybe we shouldn't…" Raven found the correct camera and the screen flickered for a moment before registering a clear picture of the infirmary.
-------------
"Okay, Robin," Cyborg said, throwing him a washcloth, "we gotta get him out of these clothes, and then we have to wash the rest of the blood off his skin." Robin's face reddened.
"I don't know who's gonna be more embarrassed," Robin sighed, "me, or Beast Boy when he wakes up."
"Come on, man," Cyborg said gently, "we gotta do this." Very carefully Cyborg grabbed Beast Boy's shirt and raised it over his head, yanking it off of him. After a few more minutes and many, many, many embarrassed pauses, Beast Boy lay before the two blushing teens completely naked. "Step two," Cyborg said, reaching out and gently scrubbing away a streak of crusty blood from off of his green friend's arm.
"This is weird," Robin grumbled, working at removing a bloodstain on Beast Boy's wrist.
"I know, but it needs to be done."
"Good thing not much blood soaked through his pants, I don't know if I could go… down there."
"Shut up and wash."
---------------
Silence. Red faces. Mouths open.
"Raven?"
"Yes Starfire?"
"I feel funny."
"Me too."
They had watched the scene quietly. They felt bad for spying, but they needed to know everything was okay. On the screen in front of them Robin and Cyborg had finished with Beast Boy and the latter was pulling a hospital gown around his now no longer hemoglobin stained body.
"I think we can go back now, Star," Raven said, turning away from the screen and heading back to the infirmary.
----------
"You guys can come back in now." The Boy Wonder poked his head out the doors leading to the hallway and found the place to be quite deserted. "Hello?" Up ahead a ways he saw Raven and Starfire round a corner. "Where did you guys go?" He asked.
"We were just…" Starfire started.
"Checking on things," Raven finished. The two pushed passed him and into the infirmary, barring any questions he might have had.
Cyborg had just finished transferring Beast Boy to a non-metallic hospital bed when Raven approached him. "Did you find anything new?" Her eyes were wide and, in Cyborg's opinion, slightly psychotic.
"Just some bruises here and there," he said. "There's a strange one on the back of his neck."
"Hmmm." Raven was curious. She reached over to Beast Boy and gently turned his head away from her so that she could better see this bruise that Cyborg spoke of. "Wow," she said, seeing it for herself. It was similar to a normal bruise in that it was black and blue, but what made this one particularly special was that it seemed to be a perfect circle that radiated out from a single black dot at its center. On Beast Boy's dark skin it was hard to make out, but the dot seemed to be a puncture wound. Raven gasped suddenly as Beast Boy's hand reached up and grabbed hers.
"Rave…"
"Beast Boy?" Raven turned back to the others and called them over quickly. "He's awake," she said, and everyone came rushing to his side.
"Are you okay?
"What happened?"
"Who did this?"
"Shut up!" Cyborg, Starfire, and Robin could have sworn that Raven's eyes went red for a moment. "Shut up," she said again, this time more gently. "Beast Boy?" She asked softly.
Green eyelids slid open slowly. Beast Boy stared up at four smudged faces. Distant noises echoed around him, slow and deep. He felt the bed underneath him, warm, soft, inviting, and for a minute his eyes slid close again. Snap. His eyes again presented themselves as his brain caught up with his body. This time everything was in focus, faces were clear.
"Hey guys," he said quietly, his throat felt like it was full of needles. His lips perked up at the corners and a small smile played out on his face. "What'd I miss?"