I'll admit, I had plans for this chapter to go a little bit differently. Not so much with the first scene down below, but the one after the first line break. It was going to be a bit more harsh, but then a few weeks ago I put a little more thought into it. I realized after everything I'd had them gone through, I had to change the reactions to better fit them. So I made changes and made it feel more, right.
Also, I was going to wait on posting this, but hey, I turned 21 today. I might as well give you reader's a gift. I'm going to warn you though, it's not pretty. I had to cut some of the things I normally contain here at the start, because... well, just have a box of tissues handy.
Disclaimer: I'm pretty sure if I owned it, I'd be burned at the stake for doing this...
Chapter Forty: I Hate You!
In the middle of the woods
…
Pshshshsh!
It was still raining hard outside. In fact, it was raining harder than before in the random forest the two heroes were at earlier the middle of the mountains.
…
Boom...
The sound of thunder was heard in the distance.
…
Badum. Badum. Badum. Badum.
A green wolf bounded in long strides through the woods of the valley down below.
"Heh... huh... heh... huh..."
Up close, great drops of water fell off the ends of its fur as it ran. It was panting heavily from exerting itself to go such a far distance. It had scratches along its legs from thorny plants, and clumps of matted fur from various different plants and bushes it had had to run through...
'Are you sure it was this way master?' The Beast asked after the wolf jumped over a large bush.
'I'm pretty sure. I'd turn into a bird and check, but I don't like how close that thunder is sounding dude.' The wolf thought.
'Master, you've been saying that for the past hour. It doesn't sound like that storm is coming closer just yet.' The Beast replied.
… 'Okay, it's also because I really don't like thunder. Happy?' The wolf replied.
The Beast didn't comment.
…
Badum. Badum. Badum... dum. Dum. Dum.
The wolf stopped bounding and slowed down to a walk as it passed one last tree. The rain had thinned down to a small drizzle by then.
'There it is...'
In front of the wolf was a small clearing, and at the other end of the clearing was his and Raven's pocket home.
'I told you so.' The wolf thought smugly.
'I never doubted you for a moment master.' The Beast replied.
The green wolf padded slowly and tiredly across the clearing. 'Liar. You doubted me the whole way here.'
'I was... testing your sense of direction... good job master!'
The wolf rolled its eyes as it finally slowly and tiredly padded up onto the steps of the porch. His already slow pace slowed down even further, before pausing on the top step. His ears perked up. His nose sniffed the air. All his senses were telling him at that moment to turn around and run away. Preferring the storm raging around them than the storm likely waiting inside of the little pocket home.
'Do.. do you think Rae's still mad at us dude?' The wolf thought with uncertainty.
'I don't know. I wasn't expecting our mate to react the way she did back there master.' The Beast responded despondently.
'She reacted almost the same way last time you tried to imply something dude. Don't you remember that?'
…
'Well, she forgave you then. She could forgive you now… if it didn't feel like everything in me was telling us to flee and hide.' The Beast said.
By this point, there was a pause in the rainstorm. The green wolf shook itself to get most of the water off its pelt. Despite the sense of foreboding doom, he decided to try to obtain forgiveness. 'Well then let's hope she's calmed down a little bit so that we can move on and put this all behind us.' The wolf thought hopefully.
The wolf took in one last deep breath, and then it morphed back into Beast Boy. A still soaking wet, yet slightly hopeful looking Beast Boy. Even with the change to his normal form, the sense of danger didn't leave. 'I did have to run thirty-five miles back up the original route we took to find my way back here. It's not like she can punish me even worse.' Beast Boy thought.
'Please, don't jinx us, master.'
He walked up to the door and tried the doorknob. It was locked.
Boom!
The thunder of the storm sounded a lot closer.
'… maybe I should mention now that I'm not fond of lightning either master?' The Beast admitted in slight fear.
Beast Boy didn't take the moment to jab back at the Beast about his earlier criticism of not using his bird forms. 'Okay. Either Rae's showering the mud off right now... or she's going to punish us worse for whatever I did back there.' Beast Boy grimly thought. Again his animal senses were telling him to flee.
He pressed his ear against the door. 'I don't hear running water… I don't hear anything.' He realized. It only made the feeling worse. Especially since he couldn't hear anything going on on the other side with his enhanced hearing. Not even a heartbeat.
He then morphed down into an ant right at the edge of the door and tried to crawl in through the gap underneath…
Bonk.
His tiny green ant head bonked against a dark ethereal barrier.
'Yep, Rae's probably not showering. She knows that I'm out here. And she is definitely mad at me still dude.' Beast Boy thought.
He shrunk even smaller to the size of an amoeba. He looked up and down the really big looking black barrier going along the roof of the door up above to the walls to the sides. He couldn't detect even one single flaw in the wall of black to squeeze into.
'... Whoa, now that's a barrier.' The Beast said.
Beast Boy morphed back into himself outside the doorway. 'I guess our mate wants to leave us out in the middle of this storm tonight master.' The Beast said despondently.
Despite the increasing sense of danger the longer he stood there, Beast Boy steeled up his nerves. 'No. Not until I at least try to apologize for whatever she assumed I did back there.' Beast Boy thought before he raised his hand.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Beast Boy knocked on the door loudly. "Rae, it's me. I want to talk." Beast Boy said.
…
Beast Boy got no response from inside.
Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!
"Raven! I'm wet and cold! Please let me in so we can talk!" Beast Boy yelled.
…
There was still no response.
…
Boom!
The thunder sounded almost overhead.
Beast Boy balled his fists at his sides. 'Master, maybe we should give Raven some time. I don't think now would be the best time-' The Beast was suggesting. Sensing that every animal in the animal kingdom was preferring the lightning storm coming in instead of facing what was on the other side of the door. He even tried using Raven's real name to try and grab his attention.
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
Beast Boy hammered his fist against the door. Leaving one particularly large dent in the nanotechnology in the center of it. "Damn it, Raven! I just had to trudge through thirty-five miles of woodland and mud finding my way back here! I'm cold, I'm tired, and I'm pissed! I have no idea what I did to make you this mad! And you know I don't like being left out in the middle of a thunderstorm! So stop being a coward, grow a damn backbone, and come out here right now so we can settle this like civilized people!" Beast Boy yelled angrily at the door.
…
'Or not.' The Beast finished despondently.
…
Beast Boy took a few steps back from the door and stood at the edge of the porch to calmly wait. 'Just in case I have to run.' He thought.
'You wouldn't be able to outrun her anyways master. Nothing could.' The Beast grimly responded.
'I was joking. I just think maybe if she had her space to herself while we talked this time...'
…
The door finally slid open.
Raven calmly stood in the doorway. Her cloak was wrapped around her, and her hood was over her head, casting most of her face in shadow. Unlike Garfield, she was dry and was no longer covered in mud. If she hadn't been older, she would have looked the same as when he first met her long ago. Despite the calmness that she seemed to have surrounded herself with, he could sense her suppressed anger in the air, and something more familiar… betrayal? Whatever it was, it was coming off her in waves on his senses. Almost like her ethereal dark energy.
Beast Boy internally gulped, and he put his hands up appeasingly in front of him. "Alright Rae, now that you're here, we can talk about what happened-" He started to say.
Raven pulled something from out of her cloak, which made Beast Boy stop speaking. In fact, his heart also stopped.
She was holding his drawing book. It was open, showing the drawing of her naked in the shower.
'How did she get her hands on that!?' He thought in his mind.
'Didn't you leave it near her stuff master?...' The Beast responded.
'Damn it! I thought I hadn't left it out, or left it open!' Beast Boy thought as he stood like a deer caught in the headlights.
…
Raven closed the drawing book. The soft sound of the pages closing sounded like a resounding thunderclap in his ears. "You don't have to explain Gar." Raven finally said. Her voice was as dry and gravelly as desert sand.
Splat.
Raven dropped his drawing book onto the rainy ground at Beast Boy's feet. He quickly picked it up and shook the water off of it. He looked back up at her with fear in his eyes.
"I was this close to thinking what happened back there was an accident… until I discovered that where you left it…" She looked out over the forest, almost as if in contemplation. "I wondered why you've never trusted me to see many of your drawings. Why you safeguarded that book more than your own games…" She turned to look at him with dead eyes. "I guess I know why now." Raven said blandly.
"... … Rae, Raven. I swear it's not what you think-" Beast Boy started to say.
Raven held up a hand, and Beast Boy immediately went silent. His eyes were wide, not just with fear, but something else entirely. Hurt. "You're saying you haven't been secretly viewing me, the way that one monk from Azarath, who I thought was my friend, viewed me long ago. You're saying you can explain why I trusted you with everything about me. Why I've slowly allowed myself to feel around you. When you've had things like this on hand, this whole, time?" Raven slowly, and dryly asked. There was no venom to her tone. It sounded more like she was disappointed in him... It pierced him more than any poison dart of anger ever could.
"But... I... I didn't want that Rae. I've only wanted to be your friend." Beast Boy tried to say honestly.
"No, you haven't. If you did, your emotions wouldn't be such a swirling mess right now." Raven stoically said.
Beast Boy paled. He didn't know if she was bluffing or not, but the serious look on her face was convincing enough to him. 'Oh no, this is getting worse.'
"Tell me the truth Gar. Why is that one drawing of me time stamped for the night we fled Titan's Tower together. Tell me why you have all those other drawings of me. Tell me if you had only wanted to be my friend, then why?" Raven asked. If it wasn't for the calmness in her voice, you would've assumed that she was begging him for an answer. An answer that wouldn't destroy what had been built up not only the past few months, but since the time they met years ago.
…
…
Beast Boy gulped. 'What can I say dude?' Beast Boy thought in desperation. He didn't know how to fix it without making things worse.
'I... I don't know master.' The Beast replied.
…
"Raven… I swear, it... wasn't like that back there… I wasn't, I've never planned on forcing myself on you or anything." He tried to start saying but stopped. He at least hadn't been lying. Now he wanted to blame the drawing being a guy, on puberty, on the animals inside him, maybe even on the Beast. He really wanted to blame the whole mess on him.
He realized whatever came to mind was only an excuse. Even blaming it on the Beast was an excuse. If he had learned anything the last several months, it was that he and the Beast weren't as disconnected as he had thought. The Beast, while a separate entity, still reflected him. His thoughts, his feelings, his wishes... his desires, just at a more base form. And while he'd still deny meat for hopefully the rest of his life, he couldn't deny that he desired the girl in front of him as more than a friend.
'Dude, I don't know what to do!' He thought frantically.
'I don't know master! Just, speak from your heart and get us out of this mess before it gets worse!' The Beast frustratingly said back.
Raven continued to calmly stare at him. It was impossible to tell what she could possibly be feeling or thinking then. But it was almost like the look in her eyes begged for the person she had considered to be her friend, maybe even more, to have some explanation she could believe…
"I don't want to force myself on you Rae…" He hung his head in defeat. "But... I can't deny the drawings… I drew them… I wanted to draw them… I… I…" He choked on his words, and couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence as he had originally phrased it. "... and I didn't realize, or I didn't want to accept that it could hurt you. I'm, I'm sorry Raven." He apologized.
…
He looked up at Raven's hooded face. Only her eyes were betraying her in that moment. They were shocked, and hurt, then disappointed. She could tell this time that he had been honest in part. But she was also able to tell that he was still holding something back. It made her feel sad that she had been willing to share so much about herself with him, and here he was. Still not opening up fully to reveal what was going on inside his head.
She shook her head in disappointment. "You know, I actually felt like things had been going better there for a while, that we were finally starting to get along in our own weird way." Raven said gravely, monotonously, devoid of all emotion.
Beast Boy gulped. "Rae, it has been going better. It can still get better. I mean we, we've been doing so well-" Beast Boy tried to say.
"That was when you had my trust," Raven said flatly, cutting him off. He was left speechless at that. She continued to shake her head. "And all that has flown out the window, Beast Boy," Raven said with finality.
Beast Boy felt like a sword had gone through his heart when she said his hero name instead of the nickname she had used for so long. "Rae, please. I can promise that it won't happen again." He got on his knees. "I can get rid of those drawings in my drawing book if it makes you feel better. I can cook you bacon each morning for the rest of my life. I'll do whatever you ask if it means you forgiving me!" He begged as he clasped his hands in front of him. His eyes begged along with his words for forgiveness.
…
Raven sadly shook her head. "It's Raven. Not Rae."
It was then he finally saw it. In her demeanor. In her face. It was like she had reverted back to the time when they had first lived in the Tower. She was trying to close in on herself again.
"We might still be fugitives together, but you're no longer welcome in my home Beast Boy. As for what you can do for me until we get to Star City, the best you can do, is stay away from me until you're ready to trust me with everything as I trusted you with everything." She said flatly before she turned around.
Raven started to close the door.
"Wait Rae- Raven-" Beast Boy tried to say as he got up to reach for her.
Slam!
Raven's powers slammed the door shut before he could stop her.
Beast Boy stayed standing in front of the doorway. Looking shocked at the layer of nanotechnology that now separated them.
…
Crack! Boom! Pshshshshsh!
Lightning lit up the sky directly up above, and then the rain started to fall down heavily again. Big fat droplets that landed all around on the ground, in his hair, running down his face...
…
Beast Boy, with a face of sadness, looked down at his drawing book in his hands. The rain, which had been so comforting back on the hill before, only added to the depressing atmosphere as fell onto the worn cover of the book. A couple of his own tears slid down his face onto it. Tears that came from months, years of progress with… with… he didn't even know what label to put on Raven. He was scared as to what to label it with.
All he could think about was how everything had been thrown out to the wind in what felt like seconds.
…
'Master?...' The Beast didn't continue. Even he seemed to be in a state of sadness.
Boom!
The thunder sounded loudly again, and Beast Boy didn't move. He stared down at the drawing book for a moment more as it was illuminated by the lightning.
…
Beast Boy's eyes narrowed, and his claws extended out from his gloves.
He started to tear his drawing book apart.
'STUPID!'
There went his childhood drawings.
'IDIOT!'
There went his drawings of the Doom Patrol.
'DUMB!'
The Teen Titans.
'PIECE OF!'
His recent drawings. The starry sky. The mountains. The cities. The Plains.
Raven.
'SH**!'
BOOM!
Lightning streaked across the sky up above. Beast Boy was breathing in and out heavily. Down below him the many drawings he had spent so much of his time on the last few years laid in shreds. Within seconds, hours upon hours, days upon days, maybe even weeks upon weeks of careful, fun work was scattered in little papery pieces that fell into the small puddles of water gathering on the nanobot made porch. Turning them into unrecognizable, unrecoverable wet mush.
Beast Boy glared down in anger at the falling pieces from his hands. Wishing that he could just will them all out of existence. After all that he had done. After everything he had had to suffer through. After everything that he had shared. And she… she… no, he threw it all away...
He glared up at the door. "Go ahead, Raven! Push me out of your life! Don't trust me again! Hate me if you want! I don't care! You hear me! I! Don't! CARE!"
He had to take a shaky breath before continuing.
"I can't believe I ever considered you to be my friend! After everything we've been through as Titans and as fugitives! After all the nights we've spent traveling together! After everything I've done to try and keep you safe! And you really think I didn't trust you?! I've trusted you with my life when it was on the line! I told you things I've never told another human being before! I've let you… see parts of me that I was afraid to show to anyone else... And, and...!" Beast Boy yelled at the doorway.
He paused to take in one last breath. "I HATE YOU RAVEN!"
Boom!
Loud thunder sounded after his words. He continued to glare at the door.
…
After a moment of heavy breathing, he turned around to walk off. His face looked almost primal in that moment, with all his anger in full display. No hiding, no masking, just pure unbridled rage.
He hadn't even gone a step when he stopped at the sight of something at his feet.
Somehow, in the midst of all the shredding, a portion of one of his drawings had survived. Beast Boy picked it up off the ground to examine it.
It was a pencil drawing of Raven's face staring out over the plains. The one he had drawn at Marie's house. It had tear marks along the ends of it where it had been separated from the rest of the drawing, and water spots from the raindrops still falling onto it.
A part of him wanted to just tear it up right then and there… to run away. To leave this whole mess behind altogether and disappear. He could do that. He not only had thousands of small animals to choose from that lived in the ground and fed on plants. He had millions of insects that could easily survive in any habitat. Insects that could live off of almost anything. He could do it. He could hide himself from the League indefinitely if need be.
...
He bowed his head again. He finally let the tears fall from his eyes. He let the sobs escape from his mouth. He let his shoulders and legs shake as his anger fled away, and was replaced with its counterpart; sadness.
He knew he couldn't do that. He could never do that. Not when the reason was behind the door. Even if she didn't want him around anymore...
'I can't let it go... I can't let her go… I can't...' He thought sadly to himself.
…
He morphed twice within the space of a second. An animal, and then himself. The animal wasn't discernable, but after the change, the picture drawing was gone. He didn't know why he was keeping it. Maybe a small part of him hoped things would work out. A part of him hoped that things would get better.
"I HATE YOU RAVEN!" It was like the words had been slapped back into his face. The lie he had yelled in his anger. A lie she had most definitely heard...
He looked back at the pocket home, their pocket home. His sadness came off him in waves of empathy.
"Raven… I'm so sorry… I meant it when I said I've never wanted to hurt you." He whispered sadly.
He faced forward again, and with head hanging down he depressedly walked off their front porch towards the woods.
…
Boom! Pshshshshsh!
The inside of Raven's room was dark. The sound of the pelting rain was constant against the ceiling up above. Nothing could be seen in the room for a moment...
…
Crack! Boom!
A streak of lightning lit up the inside for a brief second, showing Raven sitting on the floor with her back resting against the door. Tears were falling from her eyes. She didn't dare move, she didn't dare speak. She had thought she'd feel better after saying what she had. She thought it'd be better to push him away before something worse happened. Even her emoticlones in the moment had agreed with it.
But she felt worse. She felt, and hurt so much worse.
…
Raven's mental form stepped down onto the hard rock of Nevermore. All around, she could see her mind going out almost as if to infinity and beyond. With her central rock in the middle of it all.
She calmly looked around the circle that was the center of her mind, and waited... and waited...
"Where are they... I thought I called for them to be gathered here already." Raven muttered to herself.
…
After a moment, an emoticlone finally appeared almost hobbling out of a portal in the distance. Raven saw her, and then looked again all around to see if any more would show up. No other portals opened though.
She focused on the only emoticlone approaching her.
Knowledge was still dressed in her yellow robes, and she had her glasses on... but as she got closer, the almost depressed air around her became more apparent. Her glasses were askew, and she had dry tear tracks running down her now calm composed face. She didn't look anything like her normal composed self.
"Knowledge, where're the others? I wanted to talk to all of you here." Raven said dryly when Knowledge was finally close enough.
Knowledge chuckled at that. It wasn't a chuckle for when you found something funny. It was rather more of a sad and hopeless chuckle. "Good luck with that. I already tried talking to the others. Timid is crying about Garfield. Brave is using dummies of him to vent out her anger at being hurt and having our trust broken. Love and Happy are barely functioning because of what he said after we left him in the rain. Wisdom won't leave her realm. Rude is mad at you and everyone else for agreeing with our boneheaded plan. And Rage, I've never seen her look so destroyed before in my entire existence." Knowledge said almost in as dry a voice as Raven.
One of Raven's eyebrows went up at that. "Anddddd why are they acting like that?" Raven asked.
There was a small pause, during which Knowledge's face gathered anger on it.
"You know why." She said venomously.
Raven stared Knowledge down calmly. "No, I don't-" She said.
"Ahahahahaha!"
Knowledge laughed. It was almost sadistic in a way, and it made Raven stop speaking. Knowledge never did portray much of a mood before. And now she seemed to be swinging the insanity spectrum a little bit.
"Of course you know. All this time. All this freaking time that we've been a part of you should make you know better than any of us what it is we're all feeling since what we feel and desire is what you feel and desire! What we know and learn is what you're supposed to have known and learned! And yet you still act like you haven't figured out anything from us! Anything!?" Knowledge yelled at Raven.
Raven glared slightly at her emoticlone. "Are you calling me dumb?" She asked.
"Yes! I might as well use words like blind, shortsighted, selfish, and idiotic while I'm at it, you heartless bitch! Oh, and that last part was what Rude told me to tell you! And you know what-" She paused in her statement. She looked and sounded more and more like the Joker in that moment. "I'm actually starting to agree with her! You really are a heartless bitch." Knowledge said lowly.
Raven crossed her arms. "Well since I'm so dumb and such a bitch, why don't you come out and tell me what's going on?" She wanted to sound brave, in control. But her next words faltered on her. "Why are all of you-, why am I hurting so much from what happened?" Her voice broke at the end. It was the reason why she had wanted to gather them. Everything hurt, and she had went inside her mind wanting it to stop.
"BECAUSE IT DOESN'T MATTER ANYMORE!" Knowledge yelled so loudly the entire central rock shook. Energy covered her ashen hands.
Raven took a step back and got in a defensive stance. A look of slight fear came over her face. It was bad enough that she had to fight against Rage before, but if she had to take on Knowledge in her weakened state, then she didn't know if she'd be able to stand against her. Much less, control her.
Knowledge seethed in front of her and balled her fists over and over again. Energy flashed off her in dark pulse waves onto the ground. "We're all being consumed by guilt, and we can't even fight it because we know you're not the one all the guilt rests on now! We wanted to work with you, and not against you! And now, we can't fight you because we're to blame for suggesting to do what we did to him, after what we thought he did, urgh!" Knowledge started to pull at her hair.
Raven looked around just to make sure none of her other emoticlones were nearby. If Knowledge was this unstable, there was no telling what the others were like. "What? What was it? Was it the drawing, was it what happened on the hill, what?!" Raven asked.
"You know what it is he did! You know exactly what it is you both did! And it went totally against... What every part of us, even what me and Rage wanted! And we threw it all away!" Knowledge yelled. Her purple eyes were starting to fill with tears. "We threw it all away!" She repeated more tearfully.
"What did you want? What did… what did I want?" Raven calmly asked despite her fear of having to fight herself.
Then a surprising change happened.
Knowledge fell to her knees and started to cry. All the energy dissipated off her and was replaced almost as quickly by sadness and guilt. Knowledge buried her face into her hands, weeping into them. Raven dropped the defensive stance.
"I'm sorry, I want to tell you Raven, but I can't..." Knowledge cried in a broken sad voice.
"Why, why can't you tell me?" Raven asked in a more sincere voice. Her own tears joined with her emoticlone's.
Knowledge continued to cry. "Because, because you already know why Raven. You know why we're all hurting. You know why we all feel so guilty... But you don't want to admit it to yourself because it would only make us all hurt more… your darn defense mechanism for every issue regarding emotional stress. And that's the only thing keeping us together now…"
Raven was silent. She looked away, feeling ashamed of herself. She did know why. She had come to examine herself more fully over the last few months, and she knew better what she felt than anyone else. Knowledge was right. She did know. She had heard him yell it at her door, and it wasn't just guilt she felt when she heard him yell it… but because of her defense mechanism to naturally withdraw from situations or people that produced too many negative emotions, even if she was the cause of it, she couldn't bring herself to admit it. Even after all this time, even after all the progress she had made, she was still too much of a coward with facing an emotional problem of that magnitude, because she was afraid she wouldn't be able to handle it… not after what happened with Malchior so long ago. She had at least had him and the others then, now, she was alone...
…
Knowledge sniffed. "It doesn't matter anymore now... we all made the choice to cut off the thing that made us the happiest. And now, now we have to pay the consequences…" Her head hung down. "There's nothing me or the others can do about it besides blaming you for our choices and rebelling... and we haven't wanted that. Not even Rage wants it anymore. We've only wanted to be a part of your life… we only wanted to feel alongside you… until he hurt us." Knowledge said bitterly.
…
After a moment, Raven walked up to her emoticlone and put a shaky hand on her shoulder. "Knowledge. I, I don't want us to hurt. Maybe… maybe there was a reason for what Garfield did that makes sense, if he just hadn't held back whatever it was he was holding back-" Raven tried to say with some tinge of care in her voice. To try and reinstill some hope into herself.
Knowledge weakly pushed Raven's hand off her shoulder and stood back up. She sniffled and tried to adjust her glasses so she could recompose herself in front of Raven. She couldn't stop the tears that were falling from her amethyst eyes behind the glasses though. "Raven. If you really thought there was another reason. If you had really thought there was no other way… if you had wanted to know what it was he was hiding." Her gaze became steely. "Then you wouldn't have said you didn't trust him anymore… you would have tried to work it out instead of hiding away like you always do... and maybe, maybe then he would have never said those things back to us. He would have never said that he... hated... me..."
…
Knowledge didn't finish her sentence, and then she sadly turned around and began to walk off. "I need to be alone." She muttered.
…
Raven stood in shock for a moment. She had said those words a lot before. It seemed so wrong hearing it from a part of her though. "Wait, Knowledge-" Raven called after her.
A portal opened in front of Knowledge, and she disappeared into it without another word. The portal silently closed.
Raven was left alone...
Raven stood in the center of her mind for a moment. She tried to keep a calm look on her face as she looked around her mindscape, trying to see if there was anyone else who was there. But even she couldn't hide the tears, both those falling in her mind and those still falling in the real world.
None of her other emoticlones showed up. Knowledge's words proved to be prophetic.
…
Raven looked down to the ground. 'What happened to me?' Raven thought...
…
She already knew the answer. She just didn't want to admit it. It would only make what had happened moments ago more painful.
…
Boom!
Raven opened her eyes just as thunder sounded outside. She found herself sitting back against her door, surrounded by the darkness of her room. Her eyes scanned the room all around, while her ears listened to the sounds coming from outside.
Boom!
Another lightning bolt lit up the inside of the room. Raven had been looking at the corner where Beast Boy normally slept when the bolt appeared in the night sky. In the light of the lightning bolt, she saw his corner was empty. It was disheartening.
She looked back behind her at the door. The barrier that had been down along the bottom of it was gone.
'Maybe… he tried to sneak in?...' Raven thought almost hopefully.
She started to scan the outside of the house with her powers...
…
Boom!
A spike of fear easily allowed Raven to hone in on Beast Boy's location. From a slightly fractured mental view, she could see a green wolf huddled in a makeshift den a mile away from the home. It had done its best to make a dry area for it to sleep through the night, but the rainwater was still dripping its way into the den. And each burst of lightning only made the wolf cower in its spot. The fact that there was a cave only a few hundred feet away from the home that he could have easily used only disheartened Raven further.
For once, he was going to listen, and for once he was going to keep his distance. When what she needed most was for him to pester her. To beat at her cowardly walls, and to force her into telling him why she had been so mad with him. Why what he'd done had hurt on a scale comparable to her heartbreak over Malchior...
That was it. Plain and simple. This was no heartache. It literally felt like her heart was trying to crush itself in her chest. And it was only made worse because she was the cause of it.
She could also capture the other negative emotions coming from him. He was sad, and depressed, and maybe even a little bit heartbroken himself, she couldn't tell above all the other emotions that swirled constantly around his psyche. Above all that, he felt extremely guilty... and self-loathing…
…
A small part of Raven almost wanted to give in. To buck up, and to go out into the storm. To hug the green wolf close and cry. To tell him she hadn't meant any of it. That she wanted to understand why he had had that drawing. Even if he couldn't, she still wanted to forgive him...
Raven shook her head. She really was too much of a coward with emotions to try and fix this. She feared she had already pushed him too far now. She wasn't sure if she could ever trust him again. Though it was almost dwarfed by her fear of him never trusting her again.
"He's getting what he deserved. It's all his fault this happened." She tried to convince herself.
'...You know what, you're right Raven. He is getting what he deserves. Because our Gar never deserved to be stuck with a bitch like you.' Rude commented lowly in her mind, before quickly withdrawing.
Raven frowned to herself... 'I. I.' She tried to think.
She realized what she'd just said. Even with the guilt and the hurt, she had still felt to justify herself. Her defense mechanism for handling situations like this was thrust fully and utterly into view of her eyes. Her words hit her with something even worse than the guilt and hurt. Even worse than the heartbreak.
Shame.
She really hadn't changed as much as she'd thought she had.
"Oh Gar." She finally allowed herself to cry. Her bed was still fifteen feet in front of her. She didn't feel like going into it though. She didn't feel like finding solace in the thick warm comforter. Not when she could only think of a green wolf, cowering uncomfortably alone in its den. Both of them too sorry and to broken to try and fix what had happened.
As Raven cried, her powers started to trash her room. Her bed was broken into pieces. Her items in the bathroom blew up. The items she had left out of her bottomless bag flew around the room covered in her black ethereal power. Anything and everything that could be grabbed or exploded was done by her powers.
She didn't pay attention to it though. She paid none of it any attention. She was too busy crying in loneliness, despair, and regret...
'We never had our goodnight hug.' She thought sadly.
…
…
"I'm so sorry… I didn't want to hurt you too." She finally whispered.
…
Boom!
Lightning lit up the sky one last time before the scene turned completely black.
Pshshshshsh...
The inside of a dark hallway was shown. A long series of windows ran along one side of it. Rain pelted against the windows...
A streak of lightning appeared a ways away, and the light from it revealed a figure standing in the center of the hallway. A subtle frown was on his face as he watched the storm outside.
"What are you thinking about now honey?" A voice behind him asked.
The figure slightly turned his head. A woman who held a lit candle in a candle holder walked up beside him.
"I'm worried Rita, that's all." The man addressed his wife, before looking back out at the storm.
"What are you worried about Steve? Do you think the storm is unnatural?" Rita asked.
Steve shook his head. "No, it's not the work of the Justice League or any villain. It just... feels like there's something off out there." Steve replied.
Rita looked out the window to examine the storm. "What is it then?" She asked.
…
"For once, I don't know." Steve finally replied.
…
Boom...
Thunder sounded in the distance.
"Maybe we should try getting some sleep. We can think about it more tomorrow morning." Rita suggested.
Steve thought on it for a moment... then he looked to her. "I'll join you in a moment. I just need more time to ponder." Steve finally said.
Rita looked to him. "You promise?" Rita asked.
"Yes dear," Steve replied.
Rita smiled slightly at that and then kissed Steve on the cheek. "See you soon honey." She said before she turned and walked back down the hallway with the candle in her hands.
After a moment, Steve was enshrouded in darkness again. Yet he continued staring out into the storm, almost as if he was searching for something. Something that had been bothering him the last few hours… it was a pair of weak mental signals. But they were coming from far away. Which meant that they had to be really strong at the source. And what he was getting from the mental signals in his mind almost made him want to cry. It was like he could feel his adopted son and his friend's pain from where he was standing.
…
"Beast Boy. What the hell happened to you two?" Mento asked himself.
Author's Notes:
Again, this time, I'll say I'm sorry for writing this. I'm aware of how depressing this chapter is. It depressed me to have to write this. Just know it's not just for the sake of plot. I did it because there were some last critical things I wanted these characters to develop... and to face about themselves. I hope I did it justice...
Till Next Time
Allen Blaster
