Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Yay! Part/chapter/…whatever two! This is actually three chapters rolled into one, so I hope it's long enough to keep you all from trying to kill me because of how long I'm taking to post again, if that does happen. (;
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I suppose you could say that was what started it all, but I think that was more just foreshadowing of The Changes. That was something that showed very subtly just what I was going to go through in the near future, but at the time I was too dense to realize it. I was too dense to do anything but pray to high heavens that I hadn't somehow developed a stupid crush on the thickheaded, overly-energetic green time bomb that was my teammate. But I had no idea at the time that the events of that day were only the beginning.
Personally, I think what really started the train of dominos that caused our lives to change, possibly forever, was a combination of two events, two events that took place within twenty minutes of each other. Neither of these events were very pleasant (well…at the time, anyway), and I can't deny how completely and utterly embarrassing they are. But they were the very beginning of what I discovered would be a long and bumpy ride caused by one horrible thing that, being a teen (even a half-demon one) I could not escape: hormones. Before then, I had been able to (for the most part) keep my feelings in check, and abruptness of it all startled me. We had finally finished the repairs on the city, and settled back into our old lives. This was the part where our lives were beginning to go back to normal. And it was nice. We were getting back into the constant rhythm of pizza on Saturdays, me reading and meditating, Beast Boy, Cyborg, and Robin playing video games, Starfire doing God knows what, training every afternoon, fighting the occasional small criminal in the streets. I was starting to become comfortable again. And then, about a week after we had settled back down, it happened. I had been constantly losing a battle against myself about my continuously growing crush on a certain green changeling, and so I don't think anything could have possibly made matters worse than what happened.
The night started with the dream. It happened on what started out as an ordinary night and left me beginning to doubt my sanity. I fell asleep relatively early, a consequence of forgetting to add caffeine to my blend of herbs in my evening tea. It would have been a restful sleep if it had been dreamless. But then, there came the dream. It followed an ordinary dream, caught me off guard. It even started out normal. I was just sitting in my room and then he came in and then it started to trail away from the bounds of sanity. When I woke up, I forced my eyes open, staring straight up at the ceiling. I noticed a wetness and cursed lightly, knowing that this wasn't going to be good. I sat straight up in bed and discovered to my embarrassment that there was a wet spot on my sheets between my legs, one that had soaked out through my leotard and had most certainly come out of me. I knew full well that it wasn't urine, and sat there still a bit shaky as ghostly memories of my dream, still vivid, ran through my head. None of it vague, all of it crystal clear as though still happening before my eyes. Ghostly remembrances of his hands touching me, of my hands touching him, of his body warm to the touch of my hands and the touch of my own body. The feeling of him against me, on top of me, inside of me. Warm and shuddering…the kind of touch that had always seemed so forbidden…him building heat inside of me…
I don't know how other people think, it may be a normal occurrence to them, but it was most certainly not to me. This was just…not something that happened to me. Ever. Pulling my legs up to my chest and staring out the window at the empty nothingness of the bay, I cursed lightly. I felt so…unexplainably dirty. And the worst part was, nothing about the dream had been at all unpleasant. Jesus, wasn't I supposed to be a little disgusted that I'd had a dream about fucking Beast Boy, of all people? Wasn't he supposed to be the one that I couldn't stand? I just couldn't understand how so suddenly he had become the one person I could simply not stop thinking about, when there were plenty of other not quite so immature boys around. And maybe I never made this clear, but I don't do the whole 'crush' thing. I never usually think of someone this much. But when I was meditating, there was Beast Boy's face. When we were all in the living room watching TV, he was the one my eyes wandered to when I wasn't paying attention. In short it was all very, very stupid. And so now I sat there on my bed trying to sort out what I should be feeling about all of this. I decided to focus on more important matters, like the disgusting sticky mess I had made with my pathetic little wet dream that was sticking to my inner thighs and had soiled my leotard pretty obviously. It made me worry about who was doing laundry.
I crawled out of bed, away from my mucky sheets and to the door, in desperate need to shower all of this off. As I slunk down the hallway, I was self-conscious beyond all mortal reason. I was terrified of anyone else being in the hall. 'What if they smell it?' I wondered in panic. But I decided just to play it cool and hope no one came along. Reaching the bathroom door was a relief. Lifting one hand and enshrouding the door in psychic energy, it slid open and I entered, and would have immediately begun to undress if embarrassing thing #2 hadn't happened right then. I was not alone in the bathroom. In fact, Beast Boy was also in the bathroom, which wouldn't have been quite so bad except for a) I was covered with evidence of a pretty intense wet dream and, b) he was completely naked
Beast Boy stood there dripping for a moment. He had obviously just gotten out of the shower, and I was there staring at all 5-feet-something of uncovered Beast Boy body and everything that went along with it. And I mean everything. He stood there staring at me for second as though hoping I wasn't really there. I just stared back for a moment, frozen dead in my tracks, thinking that this was probably just about the worst thing in the world that could have happened just then. It was unclear which of us was the deer and which was the truck with the glaring headlights as we stood there petrified with embarrassment and terror at the situation. After we stood staring at each other for a moment of terrified silence, I could feel myself go beet red and my eyes zoomed for the floor as I backed away (more like stumbled), groping for the door. Both of us were stammering something unintelligible and he was probably blushing almost as much as I was as I got out of there as quickly as I could, and actually ran for my room. When I got there I leaned against the door and shook my head several times, unable to free myself from the image of Beast Boy standing there wearing…nothing. And unable to stop hating myself for not disliking the image. Great, the only thing that could have possibly happened that could make me feel even dirtier than I had before. I don't think I could have felt any more perverted if I had groped him.
Trying to focus on mundane tasks, I slipped out of my leotard and underwear and exchanged them for fresh, unsoiled ones. Then I stood there with the dirty clothing in my hand, desperately searching for something to do with it. I ended up balling it up and shoving it under the bed, deciding to wash it myself when I had laundry duty. I was so desperately afraid that he would find out. The feelings of the dream were harder to wash away than the images and the cum. The way it had made me feel scared me. How being so close to him had brought some kind of ecstatic feeling of belonging. Being generally close to him had, not the fucking part. I'm not that perverted. At least I don't think I am.
I didn't want to think of anything anymore, at least not anything like that. And so I returned myself uneasily to sleep, praying that it wasn't going to force me into another god forsaken sex dream. I didn't want anymore of that on my sheet.
"Goddamn you," I muttered to whatever side of me had decided it was a good idea to dream about doing that with Beast Boy, that secret part of me that really wanted him that badly, and that part of me that (god forbid) really did want him in my pants.
I slept on the floor for the rest of night, just in case.
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It was a few days after the incident before I left my room again. Over the years I had become quite the master of staying in my room for even weeks on end. And it was the good thing about being oh-so-very mysterious, I could do something so completely weird as stay in my room for a few days without making a single appearance and no one would really question it as much as they should have. This was because when I first joined the team, I had put forth a commendable effort to appear so dark and mysterious that everyone would just back off and leave me the hell alone. And it worked pretty well, I think, though I'm guessing Robin knew almost straight off that it was all an act to hide who I really was and saw through it in a moment. And the others figured it out eventually, too, especially after the whole Trigon thing. But there was still such ghost of the whole 'mystery girl' thing hovering over me, and so they never really questioned my strange and sometimes almost inappropriate behavior.
I spent the next two or three days sitting on my bed in a bra and some pajama pants I found in the closet, chewing things over, building card houses with my powers, and generally just being terrified of what would happen if I was faced with Beast Boy again. I didn't eat for all that time. I normally need to, but when I start neglecting my basic human needs, my demon side kicks in and since that side doesn't need food, I can survive for quite a while this way. The only downside is that when my demon side is the one I'm living off of I tend to get a little case of 'PMS' the entire time. Not that I don't usually have one, according to some people. But you'd have an attitude problem too if you had to live with 3 teenage guys 24/7. It's not exactly a picnic.
And so I went undisturbed for three days until I was finally drawn out of hiding by a knock on the door. I ignored it. For a while. I knew it was Robin by the way he refused to accept the fact that I was ignoring his attempts to intrude upon my blissful little embarrassment-free world. "Raven, open the door," he said calmly, and I could imagine him standing patiently with his arms crossed outside the door, waiting for me to give up on being stubborn and speak to him. I knew Robin, and he was most certainly not going to just go away. The whole ignoring thing would have worked on any of the other Titans, but not Robin. "I know you can hear me, Raven."
I sighed and went over to the door. If I humored him, he would go away. I didn't even bother putting a shirt over my bra, because if there's anyone who I know that couldn't see anything to lower their opinion of me any further, it's Robin. He's been my best friend pretty much since I came to Earth from Azarath, and if he ever thinks perverted thoughts about me, he keeps them to himself.
Sure enough, he didn't flinch when he saw me. He was all business. "Raven, you've been in here for three days. When were you planning on coming out?" he asked me, arms crossed, in that classic Robin stance that says 'I know exactly where I stand and nothing anyone says is going to change that'.
"I was thinking maybe next June," I said, letting the sarcasm run freely from my lips, rivers so long dammed by my solitude finally breaking forth and rushing on in their usual path.
"I'm serious," Robin said, though he didn't need to say it, it was pretty obvious by his expression and tone. It always is. It's why he's such a bad liar.
"I don't know," I admitted, shuffling my feet a bit.
Robin was eyeing my hair disheveled from days without combing. I was probably a disgusting sight by now, it had been a while since I'd looked in the mirror. "I'm thinking you should come out now. Have you forgotten you have an actual life to tend to out here?" he asked.
"What if I don't feel like tending to it? What if this life suits me better?" I asked him, just to piss him off. He sighed like a tired father but his unending patience with me was still resilient. Sometimes I really wonder how he puts up with me and my dysfunctional self. I had to hand it to him, he never would give up on me, and the least I could do was humor him. "Okay, okay, I'll be out soon," I said.
"Good," Robin said, no longer looking quite so tired. "See you then." and I let the door shut. Now I was faced with the horrible dread of seeing Beast Boy. But it was something I would have to do sooner or later, and so I forced myself to get dressed. I wasted as much time as I could in the shower and then took way more time than I thought was humanly possible combing my hair, which would have been a lot more effective if I've had a little more hair to comb. I've always been horrible at stalling, and the living room was not far away.
"Yo Rae, where have you been? We were worried you died," Cyborg said when I entered the living room, giving me a cheerful smile as usual. Sometimes he was as bad as Starfire with that whole overwhelming joy thing, but I had to admit that happy people are extremely talented, being able to keep that positive idea about the world through all the shit that happens. I gave him a nod and a fair approximation of what I hoped was a friendly smile before I made a beeline for the sofa and sat down on the farthest end. Starfire beamed at me, but I'm sure the smile I gave back was more of a grimace.
Beast Boy was a few feet away down the enormous expanse of sofa. I caught his eye for a moment, and I think both of us wanted to crawl under a rock and die right about then. We sat in awkward silence for the longest time. I think the rest of the Titans probably wondered what was going on. But there was no way I was going to tell them.
It wasn't until later that I really had to face Beast Boy. I hadn't had to say a word to him all afternoon, and I was starting to think I was home free. But then, of course, when I was headed off toward the kitchen after the others, thinking of getting some herbal tea and maybe an apple or something, a hand clamped onto my arm. I jumped about six feet into the air and whirled around, ready to blast the evil owner of the hand to pieces. When I realized that it was only Beast Boy I dropped my hands, the energy at my fingertips fading away back into my internal well of power.
"Can we talk?" he squeaked. I had half a mind to laugh at his voice because he sounded so ridiculous when he was nervous, but I pushed the laugh back down and gave a solemn nod, at which he dragged me over to the wall. There was something strange about him touching me now, even if it was just a steering hand on my wrist. Strange but nice. I liked the way it felt despite the awkward situation. "Um…ya know what happened a few nights ago?" he asked. I raised an eyebrow. Did he seriously think I was going to forget something like that?"
"Yes," I answered.
He rubbed the back of his head. "Well, I just want to make sure…ya know….that we're still cool?"
I raised an eyebrow once more. "Um…yes, we're I said in my normal apathetic tone. I felt bad for him. I'd never seen anyone look more embarrassed in my life as he stood there rubbing the back of his head like he had OCD or something. I decided to save him and change the subject,
"So what were you doing taking a shower at that time of the night, anyway?" I asked. He shrugged.
"I dunno. Just couldn't sleep, thought it might help."
"I see." this conversation was going nowhere and I wanted desperately for it to be over. I think he did too, because he ended it abruptly.
"Well, I'll talk to ya later, then," he mumbled, his discomfort at talking about the situation that still loomed over our heads like a storm cloud extremely evident. "Glad we're still okay." He hadn't mentioned anything about how horribly embarrassing it had been for both of us or how I was now that much more familiar with his 'little friend', or anything of the sort. So it was true, sometimes he could control his mouth. I nodded gratefully and watched him head off to the kitchen, probably in search of something involving tofu. And as I stood there debating on whether I was in the mood for milk or tea, I told myself that it was all back to normal, it was like nothing had happened, and everything was just fine and dandy. But it wasn't, no matter what I told myself, and it never really would be.
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More soon (: