The First thing Raven noticed when she walked into Beast Boy's Room was total chaos. Clothes littered the floor, teetering piles of CD's reached towards the ceiling and dusty books lay in disarray amongst slowly decaying food. The old bunk bed had been traded for a large king sized ultrasuede so low to the ground it was partially obscured beneath the mess. In shock of the complete lack of order the girl nearly forgot her reason for coming into the "belly of the beast" .
"Beast Boy!" She called. "Training started ten minutes ago!" She received no answer above the sound of running water. Apparently the boy had finally succumbed to taking a shower. She frowned and sat down on the corner of the unmade bed, cringing in disgust as she flicked a bag of potato chips off the comforter beside her.
To say Raven felt out of place would have been an understatement. Beast boy represented her complete opposite, and his room exemplified that beyond all doubt. She had not been in his bedroom for some time, not since the agreement. Several months ago she had come up with the perfect solution to Beast Boy's habit of invading the sanctity of her own quarters. She had simply begun returning the favor. After the fourth time of finding his room psychically cleaned, his music collection reorganized according to release date and having his underwear placed on a clothesline from one corner of the chamber to the other, he had finally had enough. With Cyborg present as a witness they had both signed a contract declaring that neither would intrude upon the other's living space. The arrangement would never have been broken had it not been for Robin.
The very thought of the Boy Wonder was filling Raven with the urge to hurt someone. Somehow he'd become distracted enough to forget diplomacy, either due to Slade's recent resurfacing or Starfire's new experimentation in even shorter skirts. She'd tried raising her voice but failed to penetrate into the gel protected inner workings of Robin's mind.
Trying her hardest not to touch anything else out of a mix of respect and fear of catching some strange disease, Raven sat completely still and waited for time to pass. Such a thing never goes smoothly. The seconds ticked by slowly until eventually the Goth forced herself to look up from her hands and resurvey the room to help ease the process. She stood, and took a step to her right, only to recoil as the stereo kicked in from her foot's pressure on the remote.
"I'm a twenty first century digital boy! I don't know how to read but I got a lot of toys!"
The loud scream of electric guitar and vocals at full volume rushed over her as Bad Religion's "21st Century" rang through the chamber. She quickly turned the music off and attempted to steady her panic accelerated breathing. Wishing for the hundredth time since she had entered Beast Boy's room that she had never woken up that morning, Raven walked toward a nearby pile of books. "One Hundred Spicy Recipes for the Active Vegan" held no interest for her. The same could be said for "The Melancholy Death Of Oyster Boy". Sighing with exasperation that her beloved literature had betrayed her she sat down on the grimy floor and felt something touch her leg. She rolled her eyes and moved to throw whatever garbage she had brushed against across the room. To her surprise she found a large black leather book, its spine visibly broken in several places, its cover battered and odd papers sticking out from within it.
She gave a small grin, her interest piqued, and opened to the front. "WARNING!" Blared the opening page, "Your sanity may not survive an encounter with the articles within!"
Raven blinked. Oh Yeah. This had to be good. She turned the page and found herself looking at a perfectly rendered ink etching of the human body from several perspectives. It wasn't so much the discovery that her teammate had an artistic side that shocked her, rather the skill with which such a thing had been done. She had suspected the Changeling to be a closet artist ever since seeing his hand drawn blueprints for his long desired moped. She had often forced herself not to comment at his occasionally multicolored fingers, stained with paint, at meals. She doubted any of the others had noticed such details.
Curious she began turning the pages more quickly, staring down at a charcoal drawing of a bat in flight, a sketch of several hands, a close up of a mask and then… Raven stopped. The Image at which she now stared was a pair of violet eyes, painted with a palette of intense watercolor over an ink outline. After a moment, she came to a startling realization. The eyes were her own. She looked in awe at the depiction of the exact angles of light, and the way he had captured a look of silent determination. She marveled at how he could have possibly embodied such detail purely from memory.
Fascinated now, Raven turned the page to find another image of herself, this time while in mid meditation. Her eyes were closed and her cloak flowing serenely over her slender form, casting a shadow over her leotard clad figure. She audibly gasped, feeling herself blushing at how beautiful the drawing made her seem.
"Like what you see?" Came an annoyed voice from behind her. She turned to find Beast Boy wearing only a pair of towels, one tied around his waist and another hanging from his shoulders. Her already pink cheeks grew scarlet as she reached for the hood of her cloak. "What happened to that agreement of ours?" he said without changing his tone. He didn't look mad, but neither did he seem pleased. He appeared defeated, and very tired. Jaded.
Raven looked up at him, all but her eyes hidden in the convenient darkness cast over her face, "Beast Boy?" She asked, voice sounding hollow, "What is this?" She held the book aloft, allowing him to see his work. The titan blinked, his face betraying nothing. He took the towel from around his shoulders and furiously rubbed it over his head to dry his hair.
Expression not changing, he spoke. "From the looks of things, its irrefutable evidence of borderline scary obsession." He stood and turned toward the door back to the bathroom. "That fair enough?" He called as he grabbed his neatly folded uniform off the corner of the crowded bureau.
Raven rushed forward just as the door was closing. "What are you talking about? You can't just leave it at that!" As the entrance to the changeling's bathroom sealed itself, the girl stood staring at the blank metal of the door. She found herself fixating on her teammate's word choice of "Obsession".
When the green teenager emerged from changing, he stood before her silently. Raven took a moment to appreciate the severity of his last growth spurt, placing him more than a head above her own height. Finally she met his gaze, and again could sense a growing apathy. Beast Boy sighed, "What do you want me to say?"
There was a moment of silence as she regained her composure. "Why me?" Raven asked, "Out of anyone in the world, why me?"
"You frighten me." The girl's eyes flashed with anger, but then the other titan continued. "In a good way. You've forced me to ask questions about myself and the world around me that I'd never ponder on my own." Raven opened her mouth to comment but was again silenced by the boy's words. "A year ago if you remember, you were the only one who tried to understand me, when that change happened. There was a darkness inside of myself I would never have been able to fathom that was suddenly running rampant. You fought for me. You never lost faith. For that I felt…. Something."
"Everyone has a dark side Beast Boy, that's nothing to be ashamed of. You've done the same for me more than once."
"Since then though I've felt it in me. Every time I transform into something the primal instincts have become so much more persuasive. So much harder to control. It terrifies me that I might not be strong enough to fight it forever. It's like I can feel him. The beast. Moving inside of me, creeping over the boundaries. Suddenly I've become painfully aware that the line is blurring between the sides of myself." He removed his glove, and held out his exposed, jade hand. "And then recently I discovered this." He twisted his wrist with a grimace and there was a clicking sound as five emerald claws revealed themselves. He held aloft his hand, each of the thin talons shining. "The shift isn't purely psychological. I couldn't do that a year ago."
Beast Boy sank to the floor, eyes not leaving his fingertips. The girl blinked. She hadn't begun to respond when he continued. "You want me to apologize for these drawings? Is that it?"
"Never." Beast Boy looked up in surprise. Raven kneeled and came to his level. She removed the hood from her face and grasped his clawed hand in her own smaller one. "Man or beast, you were the one waiting outside my door when Malchior broke my heart. You're the one who no matter what I say, or how cruel I try to be, sees something worth redeeming. You know my past and the destiny I've tried to defeat and yet you keep trying to make me smile. You make me feel special. That's more than I can say for anyone."
Beast Boy looked down at his hand, and could feel warmth spreading throughout it. Black energy traveled drown Raven's arm and over into his palm. "It hurts you when those come out doesn't it?" She asked. Slowly the barbs sank back to become normal, green fingernails. The boy tightened his grip on the sorceress's hand. Their eyes met. For a moment no one spoke.
"Thanks." Beast Boy smiled, probing the depth of their silence. "We… we make quite a pair don't we?"
Raven slowly helped him to his feet. "That's one way to look at it." Without warning the girl found herself pulled into a tight embrace. The blush returned to her cheeks as her body was squeezed against her friend's.
"I think I might be in love with you." He said in a breathless, nervous voice. In their current position she could feel his heart racing against his chest. Raven allowed herself to grin. Feeling strangely daring she pressed her lips to Beast Boy's softly, testing. They remained that way for a time before Raven broke the connection and instead tightened their embrace.
"This I can live with." She whispered. Beast Boy smiled.
He didn't have the heart to tell her that the others had been in the doorway for the last few moments.
The EndA/N- I just finished doing some "housekeeping" if you will, removing things from the site that I no longer saw a point in keeping up. It occurred to me that although I didn't love this story, it was by far the most popular. I found the original to be a bit clichéd, and very common in the sense that there are hundred like it. Seeing as I believe I've matured as a writer of the course of the last two years, I decided to write this revised version. All though I doubt its has less clichés or that its more unique, it is certainly more me. Regardless, I hope you enjoyed.
Achilles