AN: I do not own the Teen Titans, for if I did I would never let it go off the air!
Chapter 8: A Day at the Beach
Raven sat on a large beach blanket under the shade of an umbrella. Even though she was in the shade she still wore a pair of dark sunglasses. In her lap rested her book. She was on the last chapter and was desperate to finish it so that she could go onto the sequel. She had read that the sequel was being made into a movie and would be released the next holiday season. She was wearing, to Beast Boy's shock, a piece of clothing that revealed most of her skin. A bikini! It was black, like most of her clothes, and this exposed her belly button, her back, everything.
It was a bright and sunny day, as well as extremely hot. Beast Boy had suggested that they spend the day at their special beach. Raven thought that it was better than sitting around the tower and agreed. This was the first time in her life that she was spending a day at the beach. After hearing that, Beast Boy would have taken her to the beach whether she agreed or not.
Beast Boy was playing around in the water as numerous animals. He turned into a fish and surveyed the beach from under water. He then became a crab and looked for shells along the bottom of the sea floor.
"Hey Raven I found a really nice one!" he called to her from the water.
"That's great," she said back, not looking up from her book.
He turned into seagull and flew over to her. He turned back to Beast Boy and dropped the shell in a cup, where he had been collecting the really nice ones. "Are you sure you don't want to go for a swim?"
"Not at the moment," she said, flipping the page.
"How about after you're done reading?" he asked sitting down and drying himself off with a towel.
"Maybe, but no promises," she said finally looking up. "I still can't believe you finished it before me."
"Sorry about that," he said looking through his shell collection.
"Oh no, I'm not mad or anything," she said quickly. "I just literally can't believe that you finished a book before me."
"After chapter twenty-nine I just had to see how it ended," he said laughing and putting the cup down. He reached over to the cooler and looked for lunch. "You hungry?"
"A little," she said trying not to get annoyed by his incessant interrupting of her reading.
"Do you want your lunch?" he asked as his hand felt around the ice.
"Sure."
He took out two sandwiches, two cold drinks, and then found the plastic bag with the chips. He placed Ravens sandwich and drink down next to her, her drink a little too close and she shrieked when the cold can touched her skin, and then opened the chips. He sat quite happily under the umbrella eating his lunch, watching the waves lap at the shore and the various birds flying about. It truly was like a paradise on Earth and he prayed that no one else found out about it.
She finally closed her book and sighed happily. She unwrapped her sandwich and began to eat hungrily. In truth, she had been starving but refused to eat until she had finished that damn book. She opened her drink and guzzled half of it down. All of this made Beast Boy giggle to himself. He waited until she was done to talk to her.
"So, did you like the book?"
"Of course," she said wiping her mouth with a napkin.
"Me too. I can't wait to read the sequel."
"I know," she said taking her sunglasses off for a moment. "We should go pick it up tonight."
"Okay, but I think we might be too tired," said Beast Boy.
"Why do you say that?"
"Do you remember how tired we were when we left last time?"
"Yes, but we were playing in the water," she said placing her sunglasses back on and lying back. "So you might be tired, but I'll be just fine."
Beast Boy watched as she completely relaxed. Then an evil idea crept into his mind and he smiled with its wickedness. All of a sudden he scooped her up, causing her to scream with surprise, and ran towards the water.
"What are you doing!" she screamed. "Beast Boy, don't! NO!"
He dove in with her still in his arms. She was flailing about horribly and kicked her way out of his arms. Her sunglasses had been splashed right off her face and were no floating out to sea.
"You jerk!" she screamed and splashed at him. He only smiled and turned into a dolphin. She was about to wade out of the water, but he grabbed the back of her bikini top and began to pull her out deeper. She was really screaming now, but it was more out of surprise and fun than shock and anger. He finally released her and swam about, doing flips and showing off. "You are such an ass."
He turned back to himself and smiled. "How else was I supposed to get you to swim?"
"Do you always have to get what you want?" she asked as she tread the deep water.
"Most of the time." He smiled and dove under the water. Raven simply rolled her eyes and began to swim back to shore. She had gone in the water; he could leave her alone now. She could not have known about the rock that lay on the ocean floor, about three feet from the surface. She actually did see it, and went to swim around it and that was where she made her mistake. A jagged, sharp part of the rock was sticking out and as she turned her right foot to swim around the rock she smashed her foot right into it.
"Ow! Fuck!" she screamed. She went to grab her foot, but the water was still too deep and she couldn't find her footing. She nearly drowned her self in the process of trying to see her poor foot. She looked down through the clear water and saw blood pouring out from it. "Oh shit!" she cried angrily.
Beast Boy had been swimming around a little further out when he smelt blood. Human blood. He had a funny feeling that Raven was the only human near enough for him to smell. He turned into a shark and could now smell it very strongly. He followed the trail and it led him closer to shore. Sure enough he saw Raven trying swim to shallower water. He turned back and swam to her.
"You okay?"
She was crying and looked very frustrated. "I smashed my foot into a rock." Beast Boy looked down into the water and saw blood still coming up from it. Raven was shaking and having a hard time swimming. He wrapped her arm around him and began to swim back to shore.
"It's okay, I've got you," he said as they began to swim.
Ravens foot really hurt and she whimpered with every move of her foot. The salt water did not help. Soon they got to shallow water and Raven was able to put her left foot down to help her balance. She held onto Beast Boy and began to hop out of the water. As she did her good foot stepped on a sharp shell, causing her to scream and fell to her knees.
"God damn it!" she screamed as she fell to the water. She looked at the bottom of her left foot and lucky the shell had not punctured her. "See, this is why I've never spent a day at the beach," she said crying.
Beast Boy helped her up and then picked her up bridal style. She really was a mess and this made him feel awful. He laid her down on the towel and kept her right foot out of the sand. As she sat she continued to whimper.
"Let me take a look at it," said Beast Boy after he had washed his hands off in the cooler of ice water. He took the enflamed foot in his hand to look at it, but his hands were so cold she gasped and jerked away. "Sorry," he said trying not to laugh. He warmed his hands up a little and then took her foot once more. It had been punctured and scraped horribly underneath and he didn't like the look of it. "I think there's a first aid kit in the T-car. I'll be right back." He hopped off and went running to the car.
Raven just lied on the blanket and tried to stop her crying. She had seldom felt pain like this and she felt entitled to cry. She was also shaking from the loss of blood and was cold from the water. Beast Boy returned with the kit and sat down to fix her foot up.
Thankfully Robin had forced him to take a first aid class for such a situation. He was also lucky that he had not slept through the deep cuts section of the class. He took out some rubbing alcohol to clean it, even though it had been in the salt water, but one can never be too careful.
"This is really going to sting," he said as he took the cap off of it. "Are you ready."
She looked at him, very unsure, and then relaxed and nodded. She held her breath and Beast Boy poured it over her cuts. She did not scream, she only winced and clutched the blanket as tight as she could. He blew on her foot to relieve her of the pain. His breath felt ice cold and it sent shivers up her spine. Beast Boy saw goose bumps form on Ravens legs. He tried to remain serious, but couldn't help smiling. Once her foot was dry he placed a large gauze on her foot and then wrapped it up with tape. Once it was covered, Raven felt a little better.
"How's your other foot," he asked.
"It's fine," she said finally lowering her right foot down into the blanket. She was still soaking wet and very cold. She now cursed that wretched umbrella for blocking her from the warm sun.
Beast Boy packed up the first aid kit and put it aside. He grabbed her towel and handed it over to her. She quickly snatched it away from him and covered her poor freezing body. Beast Boy grabbed his own, slightly damp, towel and dried off the best he could.
"You ready to go home?" he asked, already knowing the answer.
"Yes please," she said squeezing the salt water out of her hair, which was getting longer. Beast Boy stood up and began to pack everything up into the car. "Oh, I'll do it," said Raven. She closed her eyes and slowly began to chant. Beast Boy watched as everything turned black and floated to the car. It was all packed neatly and perfectly, as if it were a game of Tetris.
"Well, let me at least help you," he said once everything was packed away.
"Beast Boy, I can fly," she said floating up into the air. Her poor bandaged foot was a little higher than her other foot. Beast Boy ran ahead and opened her door for her. He might not have been able to do much for her that she couldn't do already, but at least he could be polite. "Thanks."
The ride home was pretty quiet. Raven rested her foot on the dash board and hoped that they didn't get in an accident. She felt very tired, just as Beast Boy had predicted, and just wanted to go home. But they didn't go straight home. Beast Boy stopped at the book store and picked up the sequel to Death of the Last Castle of Larnakia, which was The Fallen Kings of Arsmestin. There was only one copy left and he was lucky to find it. He gave it to Raven and she cradled it in her arms the whole ride home.
Of course they were bombarded with questions as soon as they entered. They explained everything as soon as they could sit down. They said that they had spent the day at the beach and Raven had had an accident with a rock. They made sure not to specify which beach. But those questions were nothing compared to the ones Cyborg had lined up for Beast Boy who kept on taking the T-car without permission.
Raven had had a hell of time taking a shower with her bad foot. It wasn't the balancing, she could levitate without a problem, it was keeping the damn thing dry. But she did succeed and was quite happy when she had. Beast Boy was in right after her.
Raven sat on her bed, her wet hair finally long enough to be pulled back with an elastic, and read the back of her new book. She couldn't wait to read it. But she didn't want to read it without Beast Boy. As these thoughts crossed her mind she heard a knock on her door. "Come in."
Beast Boy appeared on the other side of her door and stepped in. "Hey," he said sheepishly.
"Hi," she said back with a small smile.
"How's your foot?" he asked.
"Sore, but okay," she said looking at it. "Thank God you knew how to take care of it."
"Well, you wouldn't have gotten it if I hadn't dragged you out swimming," he said. He felt just terrible.
"Oh it's not your fault," she said casually. "Trust me, if it had been your fault I would have let you know."
Beast Boy smiled and rubbed his arm nervously. "Well, I just wanted to make sure you were okay." He turned to leave.
"Wait!" she said quickly. He turned back and looked at her surprised. "I… I wanted to know if you wanted to read this book with me."
"I do," said Beast Boy. "But I don't have a copy and I don't want you to wait to read it because of me."
"Well, do you want to read this book… with me?" she asked.
At first he wasn't sure what she meant. Then he realized and couldn't help looking as if he had been caught off guard. "Oh! Well, it's up to you," he said nervously. "I mean, I wouldn't want to invade your personal space."
"Don't worry," she said scooting over. "You won't."
Beast Boy slowly went over and sat down next to her on her bed. They got close and Raven opened the new book. Its pages were still flat and crisp. She held the left side of the book and he held the right. They began to read the book, a small smile on both of their faces. And they didn't know why.