Disclaimer: I don't own the Teen Titans.
Author's Note: Do try not to choke on the fluff.
Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem to be more afraid of life than death.
-James F. Bymes
That's A Wrap!
Raven felt a strange sensation as she delved into Beast Boy's memories- it was as if an invisible hook was pulling her along by her sternum. The feeling vanished almost as soon as she identified it, and she found herself standing next to her green team mate.
"Woah," said Beast Boy, rubbing his chest. "That was… funky."
Raven nodded in silent agreement before looking around. Everywhere she looked, there was nothing but an empty white expanse stretching into infinity…
"There I am!" shouted Beast Boy, pointing off into the distance. Raven followed his gaze to see memory-Beast Boy walking towards a door. Running to catch up with the apparition, the pair entered the doorway to the Purgatory Lounge just before it closed.
"So, where are you now?" asked Raven, looking around the crowded waiting room.
"Just around the corner over there," said the changeling, pointing off into the distance. "Right past that biker gang." The pair moved in the direction he had indicated, until their quarry was sighted once more.
"Are you… are you talking to Napoleon Bonaparte?" asked an incredulous Raven.
"More like talking at, to be honest." He paused for a moment before speaking again. "Is that… her?" Beast Boy pointed at the raven-haired woman sitting near the would-be-conqueror of Europe. Her gasp in response was all the answer he needed.
"Go on ahead," he said quietly. "I'll wait back here and give you some privacy." Nodding dumbly, Raven floated towards the changeling's memory-self, her eyes never leaving the woman he sat down next to and began chatting up. As she drew closer, she began to listen in on their conversation.
So, how long have you been here, miss? the green boy asked.
The woman looked him over before extending her hand, seemingly satisfied with her inspection.
A few years, said the woman. And please, call me Angela.
Raven felt her knees tremble, and clutched her cloak tightly around herself instinctively. Tuning out the conversation, she focused intently on the woman's face, studying it…
The half-demon let out a startled squeak when Angela jumped in her seat. Calming herself down, she began to pay more attention to the conversation taking place before her.
Worried about something? her friend asked.
Angela turned away from Beast Boy and looked directly at Raven, heaving a sigh. She spoke very quietly, so that Raven found herself unable to make out what was being said. She could, however, hear Beast Boy's response.
I know what you mean, sort of. There's… this girl that I know who used to be in that situation. All her life, she'd been told that she was destined to be nothing but trouble, but for as long as I've known her she's done everything she could to help people.
Raven unconsciously brought her hand to her chest, feeling very touched at his kind words- she knew immediately who he had been talking about. Even after all he had gone through at her hands…
Finally, the thing that everyone was worried about came… and she beat it. She beat it good, too.The girl's destined for great things- too bad I won't be there to see them.
Suddenly, everything froze in place. Raven's eyes shot open in surprise, before spinning around to look for Beast Boy- the real one.
He was nowhere to be seen.
"Don't worry about your friend," came a soft voice behind her. "We're no longer in his memory, so you won't be able to see him."
Raven jumped and spun back around, coming face to face with…
"Mother…"
A serene smile found its way onto the face of Angela Roth as she looked down at her daughter. "So it's true," she said. "You defeated your father." The smile broke into a full-blown grin an instant before Raven felt herself enveloped in her mother's embrace. "I'm so happy, Raven. I was so worried for you." After a few moments, Angela pulled away to look at her daughter once more. Finally, Raven found her voice and began to speak.
"How… how are you here? How are we talking? I mean, you're-"
"Dead?" interrupted Angela, laughing gently. "Yes, well Trigon isn't the only person around here with a few favors to call in. After your green friend spoke with me, I moved myself up to the front of the line for Judgment. One of the many perks of being in Heaven is being allowed to occasionally speak with loved ones still on Earth." She cleared her throat before continuing in a businesslike tone. "But as much as I would love to sit and idly chat, we have much to discuss, and little time to do it."
Raven snapped out of her reverie and gave her mother a quizzical look. "What do you mean by that?" she asked.
The girl's destined for great things- too bad I won't be there to see them.
Raven's eyebrows shot into her forehead in a mixture of surprise and confusion.
"I mean to speak with you about your green friend, Garfield," began Angela.
Raven could only gape in astonishment as Angela continued her speech.
"Dude…" Beast Boy groaned, suffering from the beginnings of what promised to be a very unpleasant headache. Slowly, his eyes opened, until finally the rested on the figure in front of him, holding his head in her hands.
"Hey Raven, ya there?" The girl in front of him provided no response. "Guess not. Hey Cy? You still here?" he asked.
"Yes, although I wouldn't say it's completely by choice," quipped a voice above him.
Being careful not to disturb the hands resting on his temples, the changeling looked up to see his friend pinned to the ceiling, along with every other object in the medical bay that wasn't nailed down. "Oh hey, what's up?"
Cyborg groaned. "Apparently, I am. You mind telling a poor out-of-the-loop android just what the hell's going on here?"
"Oh," remembered Beast Boy, "that. Yeah, um… so I saw Raven's mom in the afterlife, and Rae wanted to see her, so she's rummaging through my memory."
"Well," started Cyborg, "that explains why everything's all topsy-turvy in here." He paused, as if just realizing something. "Wait a second, you're just letting her go through your memories? Isn't that kinda… private?"
Beast Boy shrugged. "I don't think she's in there anymore, actually- the only memory she would have been interested ran its course, and I trust her not to go poking through the other areas of my mind."
"Good poi-AAAUGH!" A resounding thud was accompanied by a thousand little clatters as Raven emerged from her trance, her powers dropping everything from the ceiling that they had previously held there. Blinking a few times, she regained her bearings. Upon recognizing the changeling in front of her, she froze, eyes wide.
"Hey there, Rae- you alright there?" Before he knew it, the girl had tackled him to the ground into a sitting position and began crying into his shoulder incoherently.
Cyborg stood up and dusted himself off, glanced at the bawling empath, and quickly concluded that his presence was no longer required. "I'll be… somewhere else… if you guys need me." The bewildered Beast Boy gave no sign of acknowledgement as his friend high-tailed it out of the room.
Not knowing what else to do, the changeling tried his best to console the distraught half-demon in his arms. Tentatively, he placed one hand around her back while the other patted the back of her head. After a few minutes, her tears calmed down enough so that she was capable of forming intelligible words.
"I'm such a h-horrible person," she sobbed.
"Nonsense," came the whispered reply. "You're a wonderful person."
"I'm a h-horrible person," she repeated, "and a h-horrible friend to you. I'm always a b-bitch to y-you, and you're always s-so goddamn nice to me, a-and I fucking killed you-"
"Nonsense," he repeated, more forcefully this time. "You're a wonderful person, a terrific friend, I'm usually asking for it, you deserve nothing less, and I'm not dead, so you couldn't have killed me." As he spoke, he felt Raven's grip around his torso tighten, as though she were afraid he would vanish into thin air if she didn't hold onto him tightly enough.
The pair sat together for quite some time, neither moving an inch to disturb the other. Finally, Raven broke the silence. "She feels guilty."
Beast Boy looked down in confusion at the violet-haired girl squeezing the life out of him. "Huh?"
"Anger. She feels remorse for hurting you." She felt Beast Boy's unasked question and answered it. "She's not supposed to feel remorse. It's not part of who she is."
The green boy thought for a second before slowly beginning to stand up. "Well then, we'll have to fix that, won't we?"
Raven stood with him, blinking in confusion. "What are you talking about?" Suddenly she realized what he meant. "No!" she shouted, "I'm not letting you near her again! She's dangerous! What if she attacked you again?"
"I don't know how you talked me into this," Raven muttered darkly. She and Beast Boy were standing at the foot of a hill in the middle of the worst weather either of them had ever seen in their entire lives. A torrential rainstorm had taken up residence in the realm of Anger, bringing with it winds hard enough to sweep either of the Titans off their feet if it weren't for Raven's soul self. At the top of the hill sat a cold concrete building, where the pair assumed Anger was currently residing.
"Because you can't resist the Face," answered Beast Boy. Raven flushed and muttered something under her breath, but didn't bother to deny his assertion. The pair began their ascent of the hill before them when a voice to their side called them to a halt. As one, the two Titans turned to see who had spoken.
"I need to speak with Raven alone, Beast Boy," said Wisdom. "You may continue on to speak with Anger, if you still wish to do so. In fact, it would be best if you did so alone."
Beast Boy turned to continue up the hill, but Raven stopped him in his tracks. "Not a chance, there's not way I'm letting him in there without me. She's dangerous, out of control, and has already hurt him far too much for my taste."
"He would be safer alone, Raven," countered Wisdom, "because she has many reasons to attack you, and a very strong incentive not to attack him."
The half-demon frowned at her brown-cloaked counterpart. "I don't like it one bit."
Wisdom smiled sagely. "Sometimes, what is best and what we want are not the same thing. Beast Boy, you may go if you wish."
Beast Boy turned to Raven, questioningly. She frowned even more before grumpily waving him off. "Alright, but if she kills you again I'm going spend the next month studying necromancy just so I can kick your ass for not listening to me."
The changeling chuckled nervously and dashed up the hill before Raven could change her mind. At the very top, he circled the building, trying to find a way in. Finally, he found a rusty door and kicked it in, happy to be closer to his objective- not to mention out of the reenactment of Noah's flood taking place outside. Walking around, he searched high and low for Anger, finally finding her rocking back and forth facing a wall in a prison cell.
"Hello?" he said as he stepped inside the cell, announcing his presence to the red emotion. She jumped up and backed into a corner, her eyes wide with fright.
"No, no! Stay back!" Immediately, Beast Boy raised his hands in an attempt to calm her down.
"Easy, easy, I'm not going to hurt you." This had no effect on her, and he slowly began to creep forward while being as little of a perceived threat as possible.
"No!" She screamed frantically, halting Beast Boy's forward advance. "I don't want to hurt you!" She threw a nervous glance over to something to the side of him, and he turned to investigate.
It was a picture frame, turned to face the wall. Picking it up, he saw that it was a picture of him. The Beast Boy in the photo was smiling happily at the camera.
"When was this taken?" he asked Anger, who was still trying to make herself as small as possible in the corner.
"J-just after the f-first time y-you came in here, after y-you helped Raven b-beat Trigon."
Beast Boy remembered that very clearly- especially the look on Raven's face after he had suggested he make her some herbal tea. It was the first time he'd ever seen her be… cute. He looked down at the picture again, before noticing that the glass of the frame was liberally spattered with blood. Licking his thumb, he proceeded to clean the frame, until all that was left was wood, glass, and a smiling changeling.
"There we go, that's better, isn't it?" he asked, setting the picture back down where he found it, but facing away from the wall. Anger nodded silently, the expression on her face clearly displaying the shock she felt. She had killed him, and he was comforting her?
Before she was completely aware of what he was doing, she found him sitting down next to her- not quite touching her shoulder with his, but coming close enough that she could, if she chose to.
She did.
"I'm… sorry," she choked out.
"I don't blame you in the least."
"I killed you."
"You weren't yourself."
"It was a terrible thing, even so."
"I forgive you."
"You really should," said Wisdom. "I think you'll find the results to be quite pleasant."
"I… I still can't believe it," stuttered Raven. "I'm not supposed to-"
"Believe it," came a high-pitched voice from behind her. "And whoever told you that 'you weren't supposed to,'" continued Affection, "was a bloody idiot."
Wisdom nodded at her shorter sister. "Affection is right, and she is the expert on such subjects." Suddenly, the brown-clad woman held out her hand and began looking around, confusedly. "When did it stop raining?"
"Feel any better?"
Anger nodded, staring at her hands folded in her lap.
"You know what you need to do now?"
She shook her head.
"You need," he grunted, rising to his feet, "to get outside of this wretched cell." He turned and offered a hand to the girl sitting against the wall.
She shook her head.
"Yes, you do. Come on." He reached down, grabbed her hand, and pulled her to her feet. "It's a beautiful… whatever… outside, and it'd be criminal to spend it cooped up inside." He tried to pull her along, but she adamantly refused to budge. After tugging for a few seconds, he tried a different approach. "Why don't you want to go outside?"
"I'm… afraid."
"Of what?"
She shook her head, not answering the question.
Beast Boy stared at her for a few seconds before making his decision. "Well, I'm not taking 'no' for an answer, so…"
Before she knew it, Anger found herself out in the sun, resting on the shoulders of a five-hundred pound gorilla.
Gingerly setting her down, Beast Boy reverted to his human form. "See? Isn't this much more pleasant than that dark, dank, and fairly run-down prison cell?" He turned away from her, spreading his arms wide towards where he suspected the light was coming from- there wasn't an actual sun to speak of, after all.
"You're absolutely certain?" asked Raven.
"For the millionth time," grumbled Intelligence, Wisdom, Affection, Happy, Brave, and Rude in unison, "YES!"
"He might not…" mumbled Timid.
Raven paled slightly as the shy girl was almost instantly buried underneath a host of frustrated emotions trying to shut her up. The dust cleared, and Timid lay bound and gagged at their feet.
"Well…" said a slightly shocked Raven, "okay then."
The conversation was interrupted by a high-pitched scream coming from the direction of Anger's prison. As one, Raven and her emotional entourage (Timid too) teleported to the scene of the crime.
"Hey girls," said Anger, upon their arrival. She had an evil grin plastered on her face, accompanied by four glowing red eyes.
Sixteen hands crackled with black energy, ready to strike down the rogue-
"My poor tooshie!" cried Beast Boy, hopping around in circles.
Anger raised a slightly bloody patch of cloth, the grin still on her face. "I got a souvenir."
Immediately, Wisdom dashed over to the stricken changeling. "Don't worry, I'll fix you right up." Ignoring her sisters' snickering, she laid a hand on Beast Boy's wound, quickly bringing forth the healing energy to close the cuts left by Anger's enthusiastic collection methods.
The two popped out of the mirror into Raven's room, collapsing on the floor in a heap. Immediately, Raven began apologizing for the trauma her friend had suffered.
"Raven- don't worry about it. It's no big deal, really." He paused for a little bit before letting out a laugh. "It's actually kind of flattering, actually."
Raven felt her knees tremble, and assumed it was because all the blood in her body was currently busy turning her cheeks bright red. Then, remembering the conversation that had taken place outside Anger's prison, she decided to make her move.
"Beast Boy, we need to talk."
Immediately, his sounds of mirth were replaced with a look that screamed "I didn't do it."
Sitting down on her bed, she patted the space beside her, indicating that he sit down. He did.
"This whole fiasco," she began, staring straight ahead, "has made me realize something about myself."
"Same," said Beast Boy, nodding his head as he too, looked straight ahead.
"Now, I've done some thinking, and I think it's time I act on this idea I have."
Beast Boy nodded, focusing intently on the wall in front of him.
"I know I'm not the most outgoing and friendly of people, but I want you to know that even if this… idea… doesn't work as I hope it will, I don't want anything to change between us. You told Timid that I'm your best friend."
He nodded again, and she turned to face him.
"I don't want to be your best friend."
Beast Boy's eyes widened, then fell to the floor as his shoulders rolled forward.
"I want to be something more."
The emerald hero jerked as though he'd been electrically shocked, before twisting around and looking into Raven's eyes.
For once, he didn't say anything. He didn't have to.
That damn smile said all she'd ever need to know.
Two Weeks Later…
"By Azar, it's a beautiful night tonight."
Beast Boy and Raven sat up on the roof, staring up at the stars. Or, at least Raven was staring up at the stars.
"Mmhmm… beautiful…"
Smiling in spite of herself, Raven chided the changeling beside her. "Stop that- I don't even need to use my empathy to figure out what you're looking at."
Beast Boy chuckled, leaning into his slightly taller girlfriend and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "Hey, I've got a ruined uniform that says you're just as dirty as I am."
Raven turned her head away from him to hide her blush. "God only knows what would have happened if we'd been in your head."
She couldn't see it, but she still knew that Beast Boy had paled considerably- quite the feat, in view of his complexion. "And I hope to keep it that way, too." He let out a yawn and looked down at his watch. "Not to change the subject, but we should probably hit the sack- it's getting late, and Robin hasn't really been too keen on 'I was on the roof with my totally gorgeous, awesome, funny-"
"Laying it on a bit thick, aren't we?"
"-smart, and awesome girlfriend all night' as an excuse to skip practice."
"You said 'awesome' twice," said Raven drolly.
"Well... you're just that cool."
Rolling her eyes, the half-demon stood up, with Beast Boy following suit.
"Oh hey, what's that?" Raven's eyes followed Beast Boy's finger over to a small rock sitting on the rooftop. "How'd a rock get all the way up here?"
Raven let a satisfied smirk flash across her face as her boyfriend strolled over to the stone. She hadn't forgotten about all of those ruined cloaks yet.
"Well, it's not supposed to be up here, now is it?" Bending down, the changeling picked up the rock-
-and threw it off the roof. Turning around, he studied his wide-eyed friend.
"I dunno, Raven- I don't think Silly String really suits you." Hearing the beginnings of a growl rumble in her throat, he wasted no time in dashing off into the Tower, laughing maniacally. She wasted no time in giving chase.
She finally caught up with him in the common room- the cackling had left him too winded to run properly. Falling to the ground in front of the couch, he rolled on the ground as she stood over him.
Finally, she had had enough. Reaching down, she grabbed him by the collar, pulled him to his feet, and shut him up in the most direct manner she could think of- kissing him.
"Ahem."
Raven and Beast Boy flew apart, looking around for the source of the noise.
" Garfield?"
In a flash of recognition, Beast Boy turned, trembling, to the giant communications monitor.
"Mento? Sir?"
The helmeted telekinetic raised an eyebrow at his adopted son. "Well, I was calling Robin, but" he looked over at Raven, "this is much more important."
"This?" squeaked Beast Boy, looking over at Raven. She looked like she didn't quite know what to make of the situation- she could tell Beast Boy was feeling anxious about Mento's call, but she didn't know why.
"Yes. This." Mento cleared his throat nervously. "You see, when a, um… half-demon… uh, tolerates a, uh… changeling… very much…"
END