Wow, I'm glad you guys liked this. Put some of my fears to rest. Okay...well, time for chapter 2.
"Oh thank God, you're awake..."
Raven groggily opened her eyes, her vision coming back into focus. She found herself back in her bedroom, laying in the middle of her bed. A quick inspection showed her that her cloak had been removed and she was just in her leotard. Beast Boy was crouched at the side of their bed, his face worried with dark purple circles under his eyes from a lack of sleep.
Raven groaned a bit as she stirred under her silk sheets, trying to gather her senses again. Memories of Dominic were still all too real and vivid in her head.
"...how..how long was I out for...?" she asked quietly.
"I found you in the alleyway last night and brought you home. Robin and Starfire were asleep so they didn't hear the page and Cyborg is in Steel City with Titans East. You slept all that night and all day long. What happened?" Raven paused for a long moment before sitting up slowly, propping her back against the headboard of her bed. She let his words roll around in her head as she decided on what she should tell him. She couldn't tell him the truth. He would freak knowing his girlfriend was an undead, damned to walk the earth for all eternity. No. He couldn't know. Nobody could.
"I was mugged." she flatly said. Beast Boy looked confused, scratching his head slightly. "Uhh..mugged? Couldn't you just make things all floaty and kick his butt?"
"It wasn't that simple, Gar...he...he shut down my powers somehow. He nullified them. I was defenseless..." she said as her voice trailed off. Beast Boy leaned forward and gave her a reassuring hug, slightly surprised that instead of her normal warm body, she felt cold and distant. Even her hair which had always carried the slight fragrance of rain now seemed null and devoid of life.
The empathic girl stood there for a second with his arms around her, before she slowly enclosed him in her own arms. The two lovers sat there in the blackest night holding on to each other as if they were the only two people in the world. Finally, Beast Boy pulled himself away and planted a soft kiss on Raven's chakra.
"You want some tea?" he asked. Raven forced a small smile on her face. "I'd love nothing more." she said, causing the eager young changeling to run frantically to the kitchen. Raven sat in the bare loneliness of her room trying to fight back the tears that wanted to pour out of her eyes.
Of course she had absolutely no desire for tea in the slightest...her body craved one thing at this moment and it wasn't tea. "No...don't give into the temptation." she thought to herself. "Fight it, Raven. Fight it. Don't give in."
Slowly she made her way out of bed and hesitantly extended her hand and breathed a sigh of relief as her cloak floated towards her, encased in a silhouette of dark energy. "At least I have my powers..." she quietly thought out loud.
Raven made her way out in the kitchen, a glance at the clock on the microwave showing it to be 11:35 PM. Not surprisingly, she didn't feel the slightest bit tired...in fact, she felt very active and alert.
Beast Boy, who look exhausted, was happily buzzing around in the kitchen preparing a hot pot of tea for his beloved. Raven quietly sat down at the table, her hood pulled up to partially hide her face from him. It wasn't long till the pot whistled loudly signifying that the herbal brew was complete.
"Here you go, Rae." he said smiling, sitting the steaming cup and saucer in front of her. Raven looked up at him and smiled as best she could and took a sip of her tea, which she would normally enjoy but the herbal drink seemed flat and bland as if she were drinking warm tap water.
"So...did I do a good job?" he asked, eager for her approval.
"You did great, Gar. It tastes wonderful."
"Awesome! I'm glad you like it! And don't worry Rae, tomorrow we'll find this dude who hurt you and kick his sorry butt! Titans style!" he added, his eyes glowing with a fiery vengeance. "Nobody hurts my girlfriend and expects to get away with it!"
Raven smiled at his enthusiasm and rewarded her green warrior with a soft kiss on the cheek. "I'm sure he'll regret it..." she said gently. Beast Boy grinned, having enjoyed the kiss very much. The two lovers sat there in the kitchen by themselves reminiscing about past battles, funny moments, tender times shared and various other things..whatever subjects their young minds could grasp. For a moment there, Raven felt at peace with her fate finding that Beast Boy's corny jokes and ridiculous sense of humor helped put her troubled mind at ease.
Eventually the clock clicked to 1:48 AM and Beast Boy yawned loudly, stretching his wiry arms towards the ceiling. "I dunno about you Rae, but I think it's bed time. Whadda say?"
She didn't say anything, instead she just took him by the hand and led him to their bedroom, shutting the door behind them. She glanced at their bed, her amethyst eyes focusing on the Transformers sheets Beast Boy had begged her to get for two weeks, with the empath finally obliging if only to shut him up. She wanted to give up, she wanted to fly away and live a life of exile and not expose her friends to what she had become.
Raven felt Beast Boy wrap his arms around her waist, pulling down her hood before kissing the back of her head. "It's ok..." he said "That jerk won't get away. Tomorrow morning I'll tell Robin and, knowing him, he won't sleep or eat till this dude is behind bars." The Azarathian just nodded her head quietly, feeling the tears begin to build up again. Beast Boy let go of her and crawled into bed, the smile on his face letting her know he wanted company.
Being an expert on repressing her emotions, Raven hung up her cloak and crawled into bed next to him, her head resting shortly underneath his.
It wasn't long till Beast Boy was out cold, snoring the soft snore that Raven would normally listen to, the steady rhythm helping her fall asleep. Only she couldn't sleep...not now at least. She shifted a bit trying to close her eyes and drown out the pain that was creeping it's way back up her body and she knew why.
The hunger.
It filled every sense of her body till soon she couldn't think of anything but feeding. With every tick of the clock, the pain increased by an octave, shattering her from the inside out.
"Don't...do it..." she said to herself through clenched teeth. "Don't...do it..." but the hunger was not to be denied. She had to fight it. The urge inside was growing...growing...growing like a monster stalking it's prey.
Raven sat up in bed, still in her leotard, her body shaking slightly. She glanced over at her sleeping beau and how peaceful and at ease he seemed to be and by instinct, she found her eyes wandering to his neck.
"For the love of Azar no!" her mind screamed and she stormed out of her room, hoping that removing the temptation of Beast Boy would help ease the hunger.
It failed.
She sat on the couch in Ops, her knees pulled close to her chest as she sobbed softly to herself. The hunger tore at her soul, gnashing, destroying down any sense of humanity she may have still clung to.
And then slowly, she made her way to the kitchen and opened the freezer. Tears flowing freely down her eyes as she frantically searched for the item in question. She shuffled through boxes of frozen tofu bacon pizzas and glorg-cicles till she found it. A frozen t-bone steak that Cyborg had planned on cooking for dinner.
Raven unwrapped the steak from it's white wrapper and ran her fingers over the hard, frozen meat. Her crying having slowed down a bit, but her breath still ragged and stressed, she slid the now exposed steak in the microwave and with a trembling finger pushed 'THAW.'
What followed was the longest 10 minutes of her entire life. She sat there staring at the microwave, unblinking as she watched it melt away the ice. The microwave finally let out a soft ding that it was done and the empathic girl opened the microwave door and gingerly held the soft meat in her hand. Raven quietly set the steak on the counter top and retrieved a tea cup from the cupboard.
Wiping a tear from her eye, she squeezed as much blood out of the raw steak as she possibly could, hating herself for what she was doing, but desperate for some sort of peace. After a minute or so, the cup was just under halfway full and Raven had her meal. She paused briefly before crying bitterly again to herself and lifting the cup to her lips, drank the blood.
She felt the viscous fluid run down her throat and almost instantly the pain in her body slowly subsided, the raging fire of agony dwindling down to something more tolerable and manageable. She gasped loudly as she hurriedly washed the cup to remove any and all traces of blood. The steak was carefully wrapped in it's white butcher paper and re-inserted back into the freezer.
She slowly walked her way back to bed, her tears drying on her face, her cheeks hot with sorrow. She laid down and curled her body as close to Beast Boy as she possibly could. It was then she made a decision...tomorrow she would tell him. Him and only him. And then at night when he slept, she would leave the Tower and never look back.
"I can't afford to be around him or them or anyone else. I'm...I'm no longer myself. I'm a monster." she thought, weeping bitterly into the night.