Happy Halloween everyone! Here's Chapter 16! Hope you enjoy!
RPGPersona: Eating regularly is definitely a good thing to do for health and mood regulation, so that in and of itself is certainly an improvement. And isn't bacon always a higher priority than crime fighting? Haha! And things are seemingly almost normal, but the story is far from being over. :)
Bbrae-4ever fanfics: Only time (and chapters) will tell! :)
Please keep reading and reviewing; I really appreciate it! :)
As soon as the Titans arrived back at the tower, Beast Boy went straight up to his room while the rest of the Titans remained in the Main Ops room. He was exhausted, to say the least. And although the gash on his leg wasn't severe, it did hurt and was still bleeding somewhat due to the walking that he had to do on it. As soon as he made it up to his room, he shut the door behind him. He always kept a first aid kit in his room, and due to recent activity, it was constantly kept well stocked with bandages and gauze. He opened up the kit and pulled out disinfectant and gauzes and went to go tend to the wound.
His thigh had already been sore before this morning's battle, but with this added gash, it was starting to get uncomfortable. Luckily, he was used to the pain. What he wasn't quite used to, though, was the stinging of disinfectant on an open wound. He rarely used it on his wounds, but he felt that this one needed it considering it had been injured on a dirty dumpster. He hated disinfectant; the way it stung his skin, his eyes, his nose. It burned uncomfortably in every way possible, and brought back equally painful memories. It reminded him of hospitals, and oh, how he hated hospitals. Hospitals brought nothing but pain and agony; nothing good ever happened there.
Once the wound was properly sterilized, he placed the gauze over it and taped it down using medical tape from the first aid kit. The wound would need to breathe, which the gauze allowed, whereas a Band-Aid would have suffocated it. His uniform had a tear in it as well from where the dumpster had sliced him, and he quickly changed out of it and into a new one. He put the ripped uniform to the side, intending to attempt to sew it back together at one point or another.
Beast Boy then walked over to his bed and climbed onto the top bunk. He was exhausted.
Everyone kept questioning me this morning…was I too obvious? He thought, remembering everyone's interrogation about him and his sudden cheeriness.
I don't know, maybe I was able to convince them. Have I really been as secluded as everyone said?
In the last four days since returning back to the tower, Beast Boy had left his room to be 'social' only twice, not counting this morning. And whenever he did leave his room, he hadn't been himself. He had been quiet, withdrawn. Of course they noticed. How could they not?
They can't know. I have to keep it hidden from Raven. Can't risk her telling the others. How would they react? Would they even accept me?! Would they even…care?
Beast Boy turned over on his side, facing the wall. He clutched onto his blanket tightly, pulling the sheets closer to him as if they would provide comfort to him. He took in deep breaths, trying to calm himself. The thought that they wouldn't accept or care about him was terrifying. These were the people he loved and trusted and he couldn't imagine losing them.
I have to keep this a secret. They can never know…too risky…
He soon drifted off into sleep. His dreams, or rather nightmares, were filled with rapid scenes of his teammates abandoning him, being angry with him, and by far the most petrifying, displaying apathy towards him.
Beast Boy walked into the Main Ops room. It was odd…not like it normally was. The room, the environment. It was too quiet, too still. He looked around confused. On the couch in front of the TV sat the other four Titans. They were all staring into the air before them, as if they were deeply engaged in an activity that Beast Boy was blind to. He walked towards them cautiously. Something told him that this was not right, but he couldn't pin point it. Anxiety bubbled in his stomach, filling his veins and making him tense.
When he approached the Titans, it was if they hadn't even noticed his presence. Even standing in front of them, they remained engaged in their invisible happenings. He soon noticed that they weren't even blinking; they were just staring blankly into the air before them. Their chests were rising, so he knew they were alive. That eased his worries to an extent, but there was still something very off.
"Uh, hey guys," he said, standing before them. They continued to look straight ahead, right through him. "Guys?"
He walked up to Raven and waved his hands in front of her face. She remained unblinking.
"Uh, guys, if this is some sort of joke, it's not that funny. What's going on?"
The silence continued and he stepped away from Raven. He turned and looked at each of them, trying to figure out what the Hell was going on.
"You know what's a joke?" he heard a voice say. He turned towards the voice's owner. It was Cyborg. He was still staring straight ahead, blindly staring, but at least he was speaking. "You."
"What?" Beast Boy said, sure he heard him wrong.
"You're a joke. A freak. I can't believe we let you on this team in the first place. You don't belong here," he retorted. Suddenly, Cyborg turned his head, facing the green changeling. His eyes, or at least his human eye, expressed a consciousness, and lively understanding of what was going on rather than the dull apathy that they expressed mere seconds ago. When he looked at the other Titans, he saw that they too had turned to face the green teen with the same look.
Before Beast Boy could respond, another voice spoke.
"You're weak. How can we trust you on this team if you're this pitiful? Only weak people do what you do," Robin spoke up.
"You bring shame upon this team. You are not worthy to be a Titan," Starfire said.
"You're pathetic. You're worthless. How could you even believe that I ever loved you, you mutant," Raven scolded.
"Wh….what?" Beast Boy said, staring at each of the teens before him.
Cyborg, his best friend, his best bud.
Robin, his leader that although he had trouble with, he admired.
Starfire, one of the kindest, most accepting individuals that he had ever met.
And Raven, the person who he loved with all of his heart and all of his soul.
And they all stared at him with such hate in their eyes, venom in their words.
"Just look at what you've done. How can you even live with yourself?" Cyborg scorned.
Beast Boy looked down at his body. Although it had been clothed moments ago, it was now nearly nude. What little clothing he had on was ripped and torn, covered in blood. His skin was exposed. His arms, his legs, his stomach. All of them were covered in red, angry cuts. Some shallow, some horribly deep. They were bleeding, streaming down his green body.
"It is written all over your body. You are weak, pathetic. You should feel nothing but shame for what you have done," Starfire declared.
"But…but…," Beast Boy was stuttering in disbelief. This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be real.
"No one could ever love a freak like you. Not even me," Raven said, a smirk covering her face. "You're nothing, Beast Boy."
He felt his heart rate speed up, and he felt as if he was chest was about to explode. He felt like he was being suffocated, drowned.
All four Titans were yelling out obscenities at him, but he couldn't make out what anymore. They were all melting together into a blur of disbelief. He felt the world around him start to turn black, and he felt himself sinking lower and lower. Suddenly, everything went completely black.
He bolted up quickly, screaming, his eyes bulging out of his head. His forehead hit something hard, momentarily stunning him. He felt pressure on his shoulder, as if it were holding him still in reality.
His eyes adjusted from the momentary shock, and he saw Raven sitting in front of him on his bed. One of her hands was holding onto his shoulder, the other cradling her forehead.
"Rae…," he uttered, still trying to catch his breath. He realized he was drenched in sweat, making him feel gross.
"Well, I guess you're awake now," she said, somewhat sarcastically.
"Are you okay? Did I hit your forehead?" he asked, connecting the dots. The empath nodded.
"I'm fine. Nothing a little healing won't fix. The real question is are you okay?" she said. Noticing the changeling's confused look on his face, she continued. "You've been cooped up in your room all day since we got back to the tower this morning. That was hours ago. I came here to check on you and found you in a panic on your bed. Did you have a nightmare?"
Nightmare? Was that what it was? Just a dream? All the memories of it flooded back to him.
'You're a freak. Pathetic. Weak.'
It was just a dream. It wasn't real. None of it was real. He felt a relief flood over him, which was obvious to the empath before him. He laid back down on his bed, his breathing calming to something more normal.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Raven asked him, noting his reaction. "It seemed pretty…disturbing."
"No…no…it doesn't matter. Just a dream, no big deal," he said. He tried to smile to please the empath, but his attempted smile appeared more so as an edgy frown. The sweat that had drenched his body had now dried, leaving his skin feeling sticky.
"Seemed like a big deal. But okay. If you don't want to talk about it, I'm not going to force it out of you," she said, studying the boy. She knew that it was a horrible nightmare, but pressing the issue upon him wasn't going to necessarily help. "How's your leg?"
"My…what? Oh, yeah, from the fight earlier," Beast Boy said, still somewhat dazed from the nightmare and trying to sort out what was real and not. "It's fine. I disinfected it and put a gauze over it."
"Can I see it?" Raven asked.
"No, it's fine. It's not that bad," Beast Boy countered.
"I know it's not that bad, but it runs a high risk of infection since it came from the dumpster. I'd like to heal it so that's not an issue anymore," she said.
"I disinfected it. It's fine. Doesn't need to be healed. It's all good," Beast Boy opposed, his words getting somewhat quicker in pace. Raven looked at the boy suspiciously, knowing that he was hiding something.
"Beast Boy," she continued, most sternly than before, "let me see your leg."
The boy visibly paled and began to shake his head.
"No, it's fine. I promise!" he said, his words quickly strung together. He tried to smile again, but failed.
"Beast Boy," Raven continued, not giving up. She moved her hands to his hips where his pants rested.
"Raven," Beast Boy said, his voice fearful, "Please don't."
With that, she pulled down the pant leg on the injured side. As he had said, it was gauzed over, but that wasn't the only thing there. Like his wrists, his thigh had cuts all over it. When she removed the sweaty gauze, it revealed even more wounds in addition to the battle wound. The cuts on his thigh were somewhat deeper than those on his wrist, but weren't critically deep. They looked new, and she knew that he had done them today.
She encased his thigh in blue energy, healing the fight wound as well as the others. They closed up, but the scarring remained. She pulled his pant leg back up and briefly checked his other thigh. It was clean of wounds. She grabbed his wrists, which were resting on the bed on either side of him, and checked them as well. They were covered in cuts and scars, but nothing had been added since their discussion yesterday. It seemed that the only new wounds were on his thigh.
"Beast Boy, look at me," Raven said, and she met his eyes. Like during the previous discovery, he looked embarrassed, terrified. "I thought we agreed that you wouldn't do this again."
"I'm sorry," Beast Boy uttered, his voice barely audible.
"I know you are, Gar, but this is serious. Why did you do this?" she asked, her voice filled with worry.
"I needed to. I can't explain it, but I just had to," he said. He was biting his upper lip as if to keep himself from crying.
"There are better ways to cope, Gar. This isn't a solution; it just makes it worse," Raven said. She held onto both of his hands, bringing them closer to her.
"Are…are you going to tell the others?" he asked. She could feel pure fear radiating off of him.
Raven let out a deep breath, collecting her thoughts.
"They need to know, Gar. This is important. You knew this was coming," she said to him. He didn't respond. He just stared at her, gulping. Soon, he nodded, although it was barely noticeable.
Raven laid down next to him, embracing him. Although she would tell the others, it could wait. He was obviously in distress, and her being present with him was so much more important at the moment. She cuddled up against him, both of them covered by her cloak. She rested her head on his chest, laying her hand on his abdomen. He set an arm around her, resting his hand on her shoulder and pulling her closer to him. Soon, they drifted off into sleep, one much more restful than before.