Hey everyone! Here's Chapter 28! Hope you enjoy!
RPGPersona: Definitely; after an incident like that, complete and total observation is needed. And yeah, making him talk so soon after an event, especially when he's experiencing so much pain would not be a good idea. And it'll certainly be a good time to think about the situation. Hope you're enjoying the story! :)
Bbrae-4ever fanfics: Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying the story! :)
Please keep reading and reviewing! I really appreciate it! :)
While Raven watched over a sleeping Beast Boy, Cyborg, Robin, and Starfire met together. They all sat in the Main Ops room, lounging sadly on the couch. It was the rainy season in California, so they listened to the pitter patter of the rain against the windows. Soon, they began to discuss.
"What are we going to do? We cannot allow for this pattern to continue," Starfire spoke up, her voice empty from the joy it normally contained.
"I'm not sure. We need to get him to open up. It's obvious that he's keeping a lot from us, and that's hurting him a lot," Robin responded.
"I was thinking about putting him on an antidepressant, at least for the meantime. It may help to stabilize him," Cyborg said.
"Do you even have access to that kind of medication?" Robin asked.
"Sure. I have access to a large variety of different medications, with that being one of them," Cyborg responded.
"And would that help him?" Starfire asked.
"It's possible. Some people react really well to it, some don't. But it's the only thing I can think of at the moment," Cyborg said.
"When he gets out of the infirmary, he can't go back to isolating himself in his room. That would be dangerous. Maybe Raven will allow him to move in with her, at least for a period of time? We'll have to watch him closely for a while to make sure he doesn't do this again," Robin said.
"I'm sure she'll be cool with that," Cyborg said.
"We still need to clean up Beast Boy's room, and also remove anything he could use against himself from it," Robin said.
"We should probably do that soon. He won't be out of the infirmary for at least a week or so, but it'd still be better to go through his room sooner rather than later," Cyborg agreed.
"Might as well do it now," Robin said, and his teammates shakily nodded. They all knew that they would need to do that at some point, but they dreaded it nonetheless. The teens stood up and slowly walked towards their teammate's room. Once they reached it, they paused momentarily before opening the door.
It was eerie inside, as if it came straight from a horror film. Part of the noose still hung from the ceiling, tied to a ceiling fan, while the rest lay messily on the ground. The rope had blood on it from Beast Boy's cuts, which just made it look more horrific. There were bloodstains on his floor; some were older, and some were from his recent attempt. There was the knocked over chair, also covered in some blood. There was the bloody knife that was lying next to the chair, as well as a smaller bloody blade on his nightstand table.
"Oh dear," Starfire said as she peered into the room once again. None of the Titans had gotten a really good look at the room when they last entered it during their friend's attempt because they were so consumed by the event taking place. Now, without that disturbance, they could fully take in the room and all it contained. They walked further into the room and started splitting up.
Cyborg walked over to Beast Boy's desk, which had food scraps and rotten uneaten food on top of it. He picked up the food and threw it into the nearby trashcan. The rest of the desk wasn't fairing too well either. When he looked through the drawers, he found broken remains of pencil sharpeners that were missing the blades.
Starfire inspected his bed. The bottom bunk was messy, but mostly unused. There were a few bloodstains here and there, but nothing major. The top bunk was a different story entirely. When she inspected it, there were quite a few bloodstains covering it. The covers were messy and tangled. There were even bloodstains on the wall adjacent to the bed.
Robin inspected his closet. The door had been flung open with blood on the handle when they first stepped in, so he assumed it would be as good a place as any to search. There wasn't much in it besides uniforms and random items. In the corner, he found quite a bit of blood smeared on the wall and nearby objects, so he assumed that Beast Boy had stored something, presumably the rope, there.
Soon, once they were each done searching their respective areas, they met back at the center of the room where the previous action had taken place. They stared at the bloodied items, still in disbelief of what had happened. Even after the events that had happened with Garfield and the past few months with Beast Boy, it was still hard for them to wrap their heads around the idea that he wasn't as happy and carefree as he seemed. It was now obvious to them that he held inside such a deep pain and sadness, and that his positivity may have just been a mask rather than a reality. That pained them greatly.
Starfire flew up and untied the rope from the ceiling fan and it dropped to the ground. Cyborg picked it up and threw it in the trash with the molded food. Robin picked up the fallen chair, tried to clean up as much blood as possible from it, and put it back upright with the desk. Cyborg picked up the knife and the blade and quickly relocated them to his room for proper disposal at a later time. Starfire tried to clean up the bloodstains from the ground, but was unable to. She, instead, took his bloodied sheets and blankets from his bed and placed them in the washer downstairs to be cleaned. Robin searched the room for any remaining blades or knifes, but couldn't find any. They knew Raven had found a blade and destroyed it a few weeks back, but there were still more broken pencil sharpeners than blades found, which concerned them. They just hoped that he didn't have any hidden blades in his room that they couldn't find. The three teens then searched through the rest of the room in search for anymore items that Beast Boy could use to hurt himself, or worse. They found very little, but removed the items nonetheless. When the room was done being searched, Cyborg took out the trash from his room so he couldn't just rummage through it.
Soon, the room was cleaned and safe-proofed. The three teens returned to the Main Ops room and started preparing a meal. They made five meals with the intention of bringing the two extra meals down to the couple in the infirmary.
"When should we talk with friend Beast Boy?" Starfire asked as she applied a copious amount of mustard to her sandwich. "I cannot think of a proper time to have that discussion."
"We can try again when we bring these sandwiches down. It's been a few hours since he woke up, so he may be a bit more willing to talk," Cyborg responded.
"Doesn't hurt to try. But we can't force it onto him, at least not while he's in this state. We need to get him to open up without stressing him out too much," Robin said, and the teens nodded in agreement. Within a few minutes, all the sandwiches were finished and they made their way back to the infirmary. When they got there, they saw that both Beast Boy and Raven were awake and engaged in a quiet conversation. When they noticed the presence of the teens, they stopped talking. The teens made their way over to the two and took a seat next to them. Cyborg, who was holding their sandwiches as well as his own, handed the food to them.
"Cyborg, I think I can heal him more now. It would allow him to sit up," Raven offered.
Cyborg nodded, taking Beast Boy's sandwich and holding it while he was healed. Raven stood up and set her sandwich down on the chair. She put her hands right above his neck and her light blue energy started flowing through him. After a few seconds, she removed her hands and sat back down. They could see that his neck was less swollen and the bruising wasn't nearly as intense as it was before.
"The ligaments in his neck are completely healed, as is his airway and arteries. The only remaining damage is some bruising and soreness," she explained, "He can now be without his neck and head stabilizer."
Cyborg set the sandwiches down and helped Beast Boy out of the stabilizer. Once that was removed, he unclasped the restraints on his body and helped him sit up slowly.
"You feel okay? Can you sit up?" Cyborg asked as he still held onto his friend's shoulders and back.
"Yeah, I think so," Beast Boy responded, and Cyborg returned to his seat. He handed Beast Boy his sandwich. The teens began to eat their meal in silence, a certain awkwardness still hanging in the air. After a few minutes, the meal was completed, and the uncomfortable silence continued, but was somehow intensified by the lack of activity.
"Uh, Beast Boy," Robin said, "we do need to talk about it, remember?"
"Uhh," Beast Boy started, clearly wanting to avoid that conversation.
"The longer you avoid the conversation, the harder it'll get," Cyborg began, "Besides, I'm not going to let you leave the infirmary, even if you're healed, until you talk with us about it."
"But, uh," Beast boy started again, growing nervous.
"Please, friend Beast Boy, won't you do the opening up to us?" Starfire pleaded, her voice desperate to help her friend.
"I…I don't know how to," Beast Boy admitted, his voice quiet.
"How about we start with the most important matter," Raven spoke up, trying to get the conversation going, "Why did you try to kill yourself this time? What triggered you to go down that path again?"
"I don't know. I wasn't planning on it. I mean, I felt like it, but I wasn't planning on it then. It just kind of…happened," he confessed.
"But why? Why did it happen? What happened that night to lead you to it?" Raven asked.
"I just…I don't know. I felt overwhelmed and my mind was racing. I…cut…because I thought that would make it better, but the feeling didn't go away. The pressure was still there, and it kept getting worse and worse. So I just kept cutting and kept going deeper. I found the rope, but I don't know how it got there. I really don't remember putting it there, but I didn't care. Then I kind of just lost it. I…I remember cutting really deep a few times and then everything kinda went blurry as I set up the rope, and then everything went painful and black really quickly," he explained, refusing to make eye contact with anyone.
"What led you to be so sad for these past few months? Last time, it was because you had recently experienced your parents' deaths and the village ridicule," Raven said, somewhat regretting including the last part. She didn't want to reopen those wounds for him, but she knew it was somewhat unavoidable.
"It just happened. I don't know what caused it. I've felt like this my whole life, but it comes and goes. It's always there though, but it's usually just sitting in the back of my mind. I guess it just got stronger and came back," he explained.
"Your whole life? But you always seem so happy," Cyborg said.
"Yeah. I mean, I do get happy. I don't always fake it. But it's always there. Acting happy is usually enough to keep it back, but not always," Beast Boy said.
"But, friend, what happened to you to make you so saddened in your life?" Starfire said. Beast Boy was silent for a few moments before responding.
"My life hasn't been too easy," he started. He quickly glanced at his teammates faces before turning his attention back to the door. "When I was younger, after my parents died, I basically had to live on my own since I wasn't accepted by the village. I eventually tried to kill myself, but survived. I remember waking up in a pool of my own blood and there were two strangers looking down at me. They had really sloppily stitched me up and saved me. I didn't understand why they did it at the time, but now I do. After that, they took me in. Once I was healed from that, they started to train me. They had somehow found out that I could morph and they wanted to take advantage of that. They were criminals, and they used me to help them rob jewelry stores. After like two years, we got caught and arrested. They went to jail, and I was placed under the legal guardianship of my uncle, Nicholas Galtry. That was worse than any Hell I could've imagined. Living with him was awful. I was kept locked in the dark basement. He would always come downstairs to beat me, among other things that I'd really rather not talk about. He didn't really have me do anything. I was more of a play toy than anything else. After a few years, I escaped. That's when I ended up finding Register again, and I already told you what happened there. After a few years there, I escaped again, and then ended up finding the Doom Patrol. They took me in and adopted me. I didn't really tell them what had happened to me, apart from my parents' deaths. They didn't need to know. One night, they found out that I cut, though, and ended up getting me help. I eventually stopped, or at least they thought I did. I would still do it on occasion, but not nearly as much as before. A few years later, I had a fallout with them and left. Then I found you guys."
The teens were silent for a few seconds, taking in all that information. It was no wonder that he was so depressed; he had had a really hard and dark childhood, one that they had been oblivious to.
"Thank you for telling us, friend," Starfire spoke up quietly. She was nearly on the verge of tears, but forced herself not to let them spill.
"We know it has to be hard to relive those memories, but we're glad that you told us. It's not healthy to keep it all in," Raven said. She was gripping onto his hand tightly.
Beast Boy wouldn't respond. He just stared at the door with a pained, vacant expression on his face.
"Raven's right. Opening up about it is the first step in getting better," Cyborg started, "We're willing to do anything and everything we can to help you out. I was actually planning on starting you on an antidepressant, if that's okay with you."
"Yeah, sure," Beast Boy said, his voice sounding numb and distant.
"Awesome. We'll start the doses tomorrow morning then," Cyborg responded softly.
Robin glanced at the clock and saw that it was nearing midnight. It was hard for him to comprehend that his friend's attempt had taken place only 24 hours ago. The past day had been intense, to say the least.
"It's getting pretty late. How about you get some rest, Beast Boy. Unless you have something else you want to talk about," Robin said.
Beast Boy shook his head no.
"I'll stay here tonight," Raven said. Everyone knew not to argue with her on that point, so they said their goodbyes and left for their individual rooms to settle in for the night.