A/N Funny how many people still read these things years after the show's stopped showing new episodes. I wonder how long it'll last. Probably till the syndicated repeats go away. I can live with that.
Disclaimer – I am naught but a man. And no man is an island. Island Records published some really good music. Music makes the world go round. Round one of a bout has the introductions. Please allow me to introduce myself. Me, Myself, and Irene was a movie with Jim Carrey. Jimmy crack corn and I don't care. I don't own the Teen Titans.
A Year In The Life – August – It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
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Starfire was bored. She'd done her chores and her training, but with Robin out on patrol for the next few hours and not really feeling like cooking anything she'd been lazing on the couch while Raven read in the corner.
"Raven? Do you wish to go to the mall with me?"
"Not really, Star. Last week's trip is still a little too fresh for me."
"I have apologized. And I did not think the make-up would cause such a reaction."
"I'm not mad, but I don't want to risk another rash either." Raven turned a page in her book as she settled back in.
Starfire sighed. "Raven? I have read that a Friendship Day is celebrated on this planet similar to the one of my home."
Raven gave a noise that could've been anything from interest to gas.
"It is not celebrated in the city of Jump, but I am certain it would be acceptable to do so. Do you wish to help me?"
"Maybe later, Star."
Starfire slumped to her side and rolled onto her back so she could stare up at the ceiling. "August is boring."
"What?" Raven said, finally looking up from her book.
"August is boring. In all months other than this one there is at least one day of celebration to look forward to. I have done the searching of the Internet, and the most likely I was able to locate besides the Friendship Day is the Go Topless Day. Robin would not approve of that, I believe."
Raven gave a shocked little cough. "Don't know if I'd be okay with it either. Why is there a Go Topless Day?"
"A man said that since men are allowed to go topless that women should be allowed as well."
"Figures it'd be some guy. Frankly I can live with that particular double standard." Raven tried getting back to her book, but the strange topic had started a thought. "Why were you looking for a holiday for August?"
Starfire tilted her head so she could see Raven and let off a grin. "Robin. He will allow our duties as Titans to interrupt any date we may have planned, but he is always trying his hardest on the holidays."
Raven laughed silently. "Why not just kidnap him? It's not like he's strong enough to get away from you."
Starfire rolled her eyes. "I have done that. Robin has said I am not allowed to do it more than once in the month." She looked thoughtful for a moment. "Is it normal for a boyfriend to fight against the dating as Robin does?"
Raven smiled. "Not really, but you already knew that Robin's not exactly normal, and we're not really regular kids looking for dates either."
"Is it wrong for me to push him?"
"As long as it's not too much, I don't see why it would be. Everybody needs help getting past their limits."
Starfire smiled shyly. "I would like more time to do the kissing." Raven blushed in response. "It is a glorious feeling."
Raven tried to get back to her book, but the sentence she was on was hiding and wouldn't come out.
"Have you done the kissing with Beast Boy yet?" Starfire said, peering over the back of the couch to ensure they were alone.
Raven buried her face in her book. "Can we talk about something else?"
"But you would enjoy it most greatly, Raven! It is so much more than I had believed when I first arrived here."
"Didn't you kiss Robin then, too?"
Starfire giggled. "That is how I do the learning of languages. You already know this."
"Robin wasn't too happy with your last language lesson."
"You are avoiding talking of Beast Boy."
"Yes."
"He has noticed you smiling at him more. I have heard him talking with Cyborg."
Raven looked over the top of her book. She didn't like the way Starfire was looking at her, like she expected Raven to ask for more, but curiosity was winning out. "What did he say?"
"That it makes him happy to see you smiling more. Cyborg believes you are doing the mellowing, but Beast Boy said that it is his humor spreading onto you." Starfire smiled a little more widely as Raven kept her cheeks from rising. "I refrained from correcting him."
Raven scowled at Starfire's giggle. "I liked it better when you got embarrassed whenever Robin and you got too close."
"I was not embarrassed." Starfire said blankly. She continued as Raven quirked an eyebrow. "I was nervous that Robin would push away. On my world, if I liked a boy as I do Robin I would simply tell him and he would be mine."
"You can just tell the guy to be your boyfriend? Doesn't he get a say?"
"Not the boyfriend, he would be mine, my husband. I am the princess and rightful ruler of my people. It is law that the ruler may choose their spouse."
"You want to get married already? Aren't you guys a bit young?"
"This is something I do not understand. I am a woman, he is a man, and we are old enough to protect this city and even the world, yet we are too young. Robin has said this as well."
Raven struggled to keep up. She knew enough history to know that getting married later in life was a much more recent development in modern societies, but still. "Marriage is a really big deal, Star. We don't need to get married for any reason other than because of love. It makes marriage a lot different than it might have been back on your home."
Starfire sighed. "I have been raised as though I would marry young. It was expected that I would either choose another from my people to show strength and unity or that I would choose a people to ally mine with and marry their ruler. If I have been taught the preparation for these things, what would marriage for love make more difficult?"
"Well…Robin hasn't been prepared for that. In fact, I'm pretty Robin's pretty clueless on girls in general. How long were you giving him every signal you could before he did anything about it?"
"Four years."
"See? So maybe you need to teach him so that he's ready if you guys do decide to get married."
Starfire sighed. "I have learned much patience here. It appears as though I must learn more."
"It's not all bad, Star." Raven said smiling. "At least he's your boyfriend now. Seems like you're enjoying that plenty."
"I am." Starfire gave a casual glance over the couch and back to Raven. "Will you marry Beast Boy?"
Raven's book dropped out of her hands. She was ready to start denying everything when she saw that Starfire was teasing her. She threw a cushion at her instead. "Just because I think he looks good doesn't mean I want to get married."
Starfire was still laughing as she tossed the cushion back to Raven. "I did not know you liked his looks. Will you tell me why you have the attraction for him?"
Raven closed her eyes. "Only if you knock it off about kissing and marriage and everything else I'm not ready for yet." Knowing Starfire would agree to almost anything to hear the answer to her question she pressed on. "I don't know why, it's not like he's changed all that much over the years. He's a little taller, a little less skinny, and a little less loud, but…it's like he's figuring out how to be Beast Boy instead of trying to be whatever it was he thought he was supposed to be."
"That is not a very good answer."
Raven glared at Starfire, but only for having seen through her attempt to dodge the question. "Fine, so he's getting pretty handsome, and all the training we do is having a really nice effect on him. You remember when we first saw Aqualad?" Starfire nodded grinning. "Well, he's growing into something like that, only not so thin."
"Yes, Beast Boy has become quite good looking."
Raven smirked. "You'd get mad if I said that about Robin."
Starfire looked sheepish at the accusation. "I feel very…strongly…about Robin. I do not wish to share him." She studied Raven's small smile for a moment. "You do not feel the same about Beast Boy?"
Raven shrugged. "Not really. It's not like I can stop somebody else from noticing him the same way I have."
"And you would not fight for him?"
"I don't know that I'd have a right to. We haven't done anything that's beyond us being friends."
"But you wish to do so."
"Yeah, but he might not want to."
"Then you must choose. I did the restraining of myself with Robin for fear of him running away, but I did not simply wait. You must choose whether you will have a friend or something more."
"What about him? It's not like I can force him."
Starfire smiled confidently. "I do not believe he would need the forcing. There is already the friendship; you are only growing it into more. His choice is not if he can love you, but how much."
"You should check out some of my books on ancient philosophy. You talk about love like the Greeks did."
"Who?"
"The Greeks. They had a few different words for love so they could say what kind of love it was. Love for family or friends, love from a lover, pure love, that sort of thing."
"Most interesting. And which do you feel for Beast Boy?"
Starfire was getting too good at seeing through her attempts to change the subject. "Maybe the second one? I don't really agree with the Greeks. Every kind of interest in someone else doesn't have to be love."
"But you love your friends, and Beast Boy is one of them."
"Yeah, but so is Robin."
Starfire wrinkled her nose at the slight barb. "And I am sure Robin would say he loves all his friends as well, but I would guess that you do not want only that from Beast Boy. Would you not be better served to help him do so? To show him it would be welcome?"
Raven laid her head against the back of the couch. "You realize I have no idea how to do that. In any book I've seen it in it's always the guy who does the courting."
"And were Robin and Beast Boy fully men we would not need to give them the help. They do not yet know that they are desirable. Would you wait for others to notice and act and only hope Beast Boy would choose you? I do not like other women pursuing Robin for fear he will realize he has many choices. Robin cares for me, but I do not know that he would choose me given such options."
The conversation was getting uncomfortable for Raven. Starfire showing self-doubt, especially about whether Robin was really head over heels for her, was scary. Was that what love did to people? Gave them the highs and the lows at the same time?
"Though, I will admit that I believe Robin would choose me." Starfire smiled guiltily. "But I do not wish to wait for him to actually do so, our time is already so constrained."
"But Robin's always liked you like that. He's been yours, married or not, since that first kiss."
Starfire bit her lip happily. "It is getting him to say as such that is hard." She looked over at Raven's wistful expression and creased her brow. "Do you not believe you have such a claim to Beast Boy?"
Raven shook her head.
"Robin and Cyborg have always said you and he were like a married couple already; though without the kissing." She giggled at Raven's cringe. "Beast Boy is always doing the hanging out with you when you are not in your room. He follows you around until you are annoyed and do the shouting."
"It's not like with Robin though. He's never even looked at me like I was a girl. It's always just friendly stuff."
"I am certain that is because he does not know he is allowed. Beast Boy breaks many rules by not thinking or by mistake, but he is good at only breaking them once. You must teach him that there is no 'only friends' rule."
"And how am I supposed to do that?"
"By example." Starfire said with a suggestive grin. "He will not take long. He is not stubborn like Robin."
Raven sat silently mulling everything over while Starfire started counting dots on the ceiling. It wasn't until Cyborg walked into the common room announcing that he'd be making dinner that she realized the sun had lowered quite a bit and that Starfire wasn't sitting across from her any more. This was going to be hard.
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(A/N) Can you believe I've actually written this much in two days? Yeah, it's pretty easy to do that. If I'd written out three or four chapters while still holding down my job and getting enough sleep in that amount of time it'd be much more impressive. Glad you ingrates appreciate the work I've put in.