All The Lies You Want To Hear

By

Teen Tyrant

Part 2: Desperate

As Beast Boy ran back to the open space in the tunnel where he left Raven, he was suddenly deafened with the sound of a gunshot.

Raven! his mind screamed. He turned into a roadrunner and began to haul butt down the tunnel. Please be okay! he silently begged, cursing himself for leaving her alone. If anything happened to her…

He entered the circular area and turned back to human. What he saw shocked him. Raven looked unharmed, but the crystal that had been growing on her had now covered her entire right leg!

He noticed a pistol lying on the ground near the other end of the open space, where the tunnel continued.

"Raven, what happened!" he asked, still concerned about her safety.

Raven turned to him and breathed a sigh of relief, seeming happy to see him. "It was our robber friend. He came down the tunnel and shot at me." she said, angrily. She pointed to the wall behind her and Beast Boy looked.

There was a single bullet hole in the cave wall. Looking at where it was, in relation to where Raven was standing, he could see that the bullet had come close. Very, very close. As in it probably had a couple molecules from her skin on it, close. Too close.

"Jeez, Raven! You almost got killed! How did he miss?" he asked in a panic, his pulse racing as he realized that he could have returned here to see her bleeding to death from a bullet wound.

Raven actually smiled a little. A tired smile. "I was able to summon enough power to knock the gun from his hand right as he pulled the trigger. He turned around and went back down the cave tunnel." she said, pointing to the other opening.

"Did you get a good look at him?" he asked, knowing that neither of them had managed to see the crook's face.

She shook her head. "No. I was too focused on disarming him.".

Beast Boy looked back down at the weird crystal attached to her body. "Well, that thing got a major growth spurt from that. Don't use your power again. I'll stay here with you, so he can't get you." he told her, reassuringly.

Raven nodded. "Thanks. Did you contact the others?" she asked.

Beast Boy shook his head. "No. I couldn't get through to them. Just static, like something is blocking the transmission. .". He stopped and thought about their situation.

"Nothing about this feels right. We just happen to stumble onto a bank robbery, we follow him into a cave that he seems to know his way around in, then you get stuck in some weird crystal-thingy that I've never heard of before, and we can't call for help. It all seems a little too convenient to me." he said, furrowing his eyebrows.

Raven nodded at his assessment. "Me too.".

Beast Boy approached her. "Maybe I can break it. I can give it a try if you want.". he told her.

Raven thought about it for a moment. "I don't think you can. Crystal is one of the hardest substances on earth. But, you might as well give it a shot." she said.

Turning into a gorilla, Beast Boy began to pound on the crystal as hard as he could, trying not to hit Raven, or cause her too much discomfort. He hoped that if he did manage to shatter this crystal open that it would not cut her leg. But it wasn't happening. The crystal didn't break, and Raven told him that she couldn't even feel the blows vibrating through her leg.

He then turned into a Rhino, and began hammering his horn against it, throwing all his wait into the blows. Still to no avail.

Surrendering to defeat, the changeling turned back to a human and slumped to the floor. "Its no good. You were right, I can't break it." he stood up and smiled at her. "But don't worry. I won't leave you here."

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his communicator. "Crystal shatters with the right high-pitched noises, right? Even I know that. Maybe I can rig this thing to put out a signal that will shatter that thing.".

Raven looked skeptical. "You are going to do something technical?" she asked doubtfully.

Beast Boy looked insulted. "Hey, I have been taking notes from Cy. Mental notes, anyway. How hard could it be. Besides, its not like we've got any better ideas.".

He walked over to where the gun lay on the ground and picked it up. Pulling out the magazine, he saw that there was only one bullet left. Apparently, the robber hadn't planned on taking too many shots. Another odd thing about all this.

"I'll just hold on to this for our greedy buddy out there." he said, flicking the safety on.

------

Several hours passed. Beast Boy had been tampering with his communicator for a while now, using small, pointed rocks laying around the area as tools. He still had not come up with a way to make it put out the right signal, but he was hopeful.

Raven had not spoken much, which Beast Boy was grateful for. He needed to concentrate, and would be unable to do so with her usual sarcastic remarks about his technical skill floating around.

The crystal continued to grow. It now covered Raven up to her belly, and she said that the pressure was slowly increasing, which made Beast Boy more and more worried for her. If he couldn't figure this out, or some other way to free her from the crystal, then she'd suffocate from being completely engulfed at the least, or crushed to death at the most. And if he left to go get help, that criminal still wandering the cave would come in and kill her before the crystal did. Having already fired at her once, Beast Boy had no doubt that the creep would do it, too.

He couldn't take the thought of her dying. Although Raven didn't know it, she meant far to much to Beast Boy for him to allow it to happen. This made him more and more determined to get her free.

After a while, Beast Boy set the communicator down in temporary defeat. He looked up at his trapped friend. "I'm sorry Rae, but I need to take a break. Seeing all these wires and things, over and over, its giving me a headache."

Raven only stared down at him. "Beast Boy, I want you to go and get help.".

Beast Boy stood up in an instant. "No way, I'm not leaving you here! Not with that creep roaming around and that thing growing on you, no way, no how!" he answered with finality.

Raven sighed. "Beast Boy, admit it. You're not making any progress at all on that communicator. The longer you stay here, the less time I'll have once you realize the inevitable." she stated calmly.

Beast Boy put his hands on his hips. "And just what is the inevitable?" he asked sarcastically.

Raven stared back coldly. "That you're going to have to leave me here. You need to get help. Robin or Cyborg will have some device to break the crystal, or Starfire can zap it with her starbolts. But the more you allow this thing to grow, the less of a chance I have.".

Beast Boy's mouth hung open. "Raven, what about that guy in there? He already tried to kill you. If I leave you now, he will. I know it! You'll die for sure then, there'll be no point in getting the others. I'm not leaving you! I can figure this out!" he stated in anger and denial as he sat picked up his communicator and tried adjusting it again.

Raven spoke with more force. "Beast Boy, I'll die from this thing constricting me for sure if you don't go. You have to. You're my only hope of getting out. Now I want you to go!".

Beast Boy looked up at her again. "I'm not leaving you here to die. I'm going to protect you, from him and from that.".

"Beast Boy, will you just go!" she shouted at him.

He glared at her. "No! I'm not leaving you. I'm staying with you!".

"Why!" she demanded.

"Because!" he shouted back. Then his face softened as he leaned back against the cave wall and slid down into a sitting position. "I'm in love with you.". he said plainly, looking at the ground.

He looked back up at her to see the look of astonishment on Raven's face. He sighed an looked back to the ground. "So now you know.".

Although he wasn't looking at her, Raven shook her head. "Oh, Beast Boy." she said softly. Then she smiled. "I'm in love with you, too.".

Beast Boy looked up at her in shock. He had wanted to hear those words from her for a long time, but had resigned himself to the fact that he never would. He began thinking of all the little moments that had passed between them all the time they had known each other. Of the dislike they'd originally had for one another, before it really became friendship, and all the little things that made him eventually come to love her.

He thought of all of that, all that they had been through together, and closed his mouth, which had been hanging open with the shock. He looked back up at her face, right into her eyes. He thought about what she had just said to him. In her eyes, he could see the truth. And an expression of sadness, even despair, settled over his features.

And he couldn't help but think to himself, Raven, why are you lying to me?

Continued in Part 3