Disclaimer: I neither own the Teen Titans, nor any particular song which might be mentioned or portrayed in this fic.
Ascension of the Beast
Chapter XII
If You Were to Ignore Me
As the herd of stampeding fangirls rushed forward, Beast Boy could see his life flashing before his eyes. Okay, maybe that was a bit of an overreaction, but certainly it became difficult for him to breathe as the overexcited girls dogpiled him. Gar's thoughts were running a mile a minute. 'Can't morph into anything big, 'cause that might hurt them,' he thought. 'If I go small, they might hurt me. Hmm...what if I go really small?' After barely half a second of thought, the animorph disappeared seemingly into thin air, confusing all of the girls.
"I didn't know he could teleport!" one of the girls said, as the dogpile dissolved itself.
Another girl turned to Rose and asked, "can he transform into any single-cell organisms?" Before Rose could answer, Beast Boy transformed into a mouse and ran across the room, between Rose's feet, and transformed back into a human while cowering behind his white-haired friend.
"Yes," he answered the question himself, "I can shift into microbes too, which I learned this one time I turned myself into an amoeba." Most of the girls were quite entertained by the performance, which gave the changeling mixed feelings. On the one hand, he loved making people happy, but it also reminded him of the possible future Starfire had seen. He really did not want to end up becoming a circus attraction.
Most of the girls were so appeased by the performance that they were now more willing to give the object of their attention some breathing room. For the next couple hours, Beast Boy was made quite busy signing autographs for just about every girl who came up to him with a piece of paper, or a doll, or a t-shirt—as his wrist began to cramp, he was getting ready to curse Robin for talking the team into making merchandising deals to raise extra money. After signing what felt like everything in the room—all of which being done while standing—the changeling finally took the opportunity to rest his feet, settling himself down on the sofa.
Around the room, things had actually settled down quite a bit. Several of the girls were making conversation with each other in one group, and another few were talking to Rose—apparently, although she was by no means idolized by hordes of female fans, there was some large degree of respect for her. Thinking about it, Garfield realized why that made sense: Rose's most significant strengths were skills that anyone could master with proper training. Sure, she had some significant metahuman abilities, like her enhanced mental and physical abilities and her limited precognition, but none of them were accidental. Only a demi-demon could be like Raven, and only a single kid with the bad and good luck of being infected with a disease which literally killed everyone else it ever infected while having ingenious parents who would do anything to save him could be like Beast Boy, but anybody could be like Ravager, which made her a reasonable focus for the imaginations of these normals.
Of course, Rose was quick to point out that it wasn't really a blessing. "Being a superheroine isn't fun," she told her attentive audience, "unless you like watching people you care about die, or be seduced by evil. My uncle kidnapped me and my mother ended up dying in the process of rescuing me. My father was as evil as they come, and so was my oldest brother. Now, all that's left of my blood family are my other older brother and I, and he can't talk because when he was a child someone who was trying to get information out of my father slit his throat and destroyed his vocal chords." She sighed before concluding, "the only advice I can give you is just keep your normal lives. There's too much pain in being a superhero. All of us in the superhero racket—everyone from Superman and Batman, down—have scars. Scars which run so deep, they actually define who we are."
"Even Beast Boy?" one of the girls asked, innocently. Obviously the public had a huge lack of information about his history.
"I don't know his past too well," Ravager noted, honestly. "Of all of the Titans, the only one I know who is anywhere near as secretive about his past as he is would be the first Robin..." The conversation was occurring within earshot of the changeling, and Rose's words caused him to drift into an silent daymare, reliving his past traumas. He never did hear the rest of what his white-haired friend was telling the fangirls.
Moments later, Raven entered the room. She was initially drawn to the room by the emotions her empathic senses were picking up on, but as she entered the room, she was quickly distracted by questions regarding a rather conspicuous fact she noticed: 'why are all of the guests female?' Finding the taco fest to be rather unusual, she desired immediate answers. "Ravager," she used Rose's codename in front of the civilians, "who are all of these girls?"
"Los Angeles Chapter of the Garfield Logan Fan Club," the white-haired Titan answered bluntly, "or, actually, the members who could make it on such short notice." Raven gave an immensely quizzical look in response, not knowing what Rose's angle was. Slade's daughter Rose was indeed. "Well, since you're so insistent about not liking him, I figured we might as well get some girls in here who do."
The impact of the words was inexplicably hard on Raven, but she opted to maintain her stoic demeanor as best she could. Nevertheless, the unidentified feelings she had been experiencing earlier upon Gar's mention of Bette Kane's name began to resurface and she found herself unable to leave the room, as much as she told herself that she had no reason to stay. Her body, emotions and unconscious mind were willing her to stay and observe the interactions between her Beast Boy and these fangirls. For some reason Tokyo kept coming to her mind.
Meanwhile, Garfield was pulled back into reality as he felt the couch cushion to his right sink. Suddenly he found that he was no-longer alone at the sofa, as he had been joined by not one, but two women. One of them sat on the couch beside him, while the other stood before the seat to his left. "Uh...hi," he was somewhat confused, but tried to be friendly nonetheless, "what can I do for you ladies?"
"Just being in your presence is unbelievably awesome," the woman to his right answered, "but we were wondering if maybe you were still up for giving autographs?"
"Sure, I guess. What are your names?" he replied.
"I'm Candi," replied the one who was sitting to his right. He could swear he'd seen Candi somewhere before, but he really couldn't place it. She was quite an attractive woman physically. She had flaxen hair and green eyes, and her skin had a light but alluringly natural tanned tone. He surmised that she probably stood at around 5'6", and although she had a slim waist, her hips were absolutely perfect; he had to guess that she probably had one of those asses that looks like an upside down heart. Her bust was actually too much, though, as each of her breasts was roughly the size of his head. The curious thing was, however, that, although he could tell from the way her nipples tented the fabric of her blouse that she was not wearing a bra, her breasts looked unusually firm and perky for their size, considering they did not presently have any real support. He had to wonder how much was actual mammary and how much was silicone.
"And I'm Candi's cousin Mandy," added the one who was standing. From one good look, he surmised that Mandy was almost certainly an athlete of some form, as the term "athletic" described her body shape to the fullest. Her hair, in contrast to her cousin, was more of a strawberry blonde, and her eyes were blue, while her skin had the exact same tone to it as her cousin's. She appeared to be about 5'5", and although she obviously had a lot more muscle than fat, she by no means looked anything like a female bodybuilder. Her bust was much smaller than that of her cousin—he was guessing she wore a B-cup—but that's not what really got his attention about her. Her skirt was short—short enough that he could see the bottoms of her buttocks while she was standing straight.
His instincts were on fire telling him to steer clear of these girls, but what was he to do? They were fans, and his sense of honor dictated that he had to be grateful to his fans; besides, other than some less than modest apparel choices, he had not really seen anything yet which would justify his gut feeling. But as he looked for the items they wanted him to sign, he realized the curious fact that neither of them was bearing any merchandise or other signable items. "What do you want me to sign?"
"Not so much a what," answered Mandy with a flirty tone to her voice, "more of a where." Smiling, she moved her hand to the back of her skirt and lifted it, revealing her right buttock. She was wearing a thong, and it seemed she seriously wanted him to sign her ass.
"I don't think this is a good idea..."
"Aw, come on Gar," Rose's voice interrupted him from behind. her mischievous smirk was now threatening to become a grin as she and Raven moved into a position immediately behind the changeling's spot on the couch. "Are you really going to turn down a loyal fan?"
He didn't know what Rose's angle was, but he feared at this point it wasn't going to be for his own good. He looked to Raven with a look on his face which essentially begged her to get him out of this, but she was too busy trying to resist the white-haired Titan's attempts to get her to do whatever it was she wanted her to do, to do anything for him. With that, his face took on a somewhat defeated look, as he took the sharpie from Candi's hand and proceeded to sign her cousin's buttock.
"See," Rose commented, "that wasn't so bad, was it?" Raven was actually quicker to shoot the anti-heroine a glare than was Beast Boy, but he wasn't very far behind, shooting the white-haired girl a glare of his own as Mandy sat down beside him.
"And wh..." Gar said while turning to face Candi, but his question was answered before he could even finish the second word of it. While he had been distracted with first signing Mandy's butt, then glaring at Rose, Candi had unbuttoned her blouse to the point where her breasts were completely revealed above her nipples—even the tops of her areolae were visible. Nevertheless, he could only figure that signing breasts was a step more reasonable than signing someone's ass, so he simply shrugged and complied. Raven's unidentified feeling was beginning to strengthen Rage's resolve, but she still held any manifestation of it back.
Rose took Raven aside. "You're not jealous, are you?" the white-haired teen whispered to the grey-skinned empath. Rose knew she was laying it on kind of strong, but she was intent on making Raven face the truth before the end of the night.
To say that Beast Boy felt awkward for the first ten minutes or so after giving Candi and Mandy his autograph would be a gross understatement, but the two girls were intent on continuing their interaction with the object of their admiration. Eventually the uncomfortable feeling wore off as the two engaged him in a more innocent conversation. He learned that Mandy was a 19-year old college freshman who, in confirmation of his initial suspicions, was on an athletic scholarship. Candi was 25, but was suspiciously coy about her occupation, stating only that she was a "performer;" he still, however, could not shake the feeling that he had seen her somewhere before. Apparently the two girls had taken an especially strong liking for the changeling after an incident several years earlier during which he saved the lives of Mandy's parents.
It was also becoming quite obvious that Beast Boy's attentions were divided. After his initial difficulty disappeared, the two girls actually were fairly compelling conversationalists, but the changeling was drifting out of the conversation every five minutes or so as his gaze around the room found Raven. For her part, Raven was actually staring at Beast Boy and the two fangirls as Rose went through the motions of rubbing elbows with the other girls, though Raven's strong feelings at the time blinded her to the fact that he was also occasionally gazing at her. Candi and Mandy were meanwhile becoming frustrated with having to share the changeling's attention with the empath.
"You know," Candi spoke in a seductive tone as she leaned into Beast Boy, running her hand on his inner thigh and deliberately pressing her chest against the side of his arm. "We could take care of any needs you might have," she whispered in his ear, before landing a gentle—but alluring—kiss just below his jawline. He could not suppress his arousal, but the larger of his heads was still ultimately in command.
"Uh," he said in a nervous tone, "I seriously don't think this is a good idea..." Apparently he wasn't the only one having a problem with this interaction, as Raven, for reasons beyond her own comprehension, was beginning to seethe at the sight of the present interactions between the two blondes and her green housemate. The empath was still, however, able to stow her emotions.
"Well," Candi took his left hand and planted it firmly on her own right breast as she responded, "if these don't convince you, we could give you a show." She kissed him just below his pointy ear before giving a look to her cousin—both of them knew what they were going to do.
"I don't..."
"Oh, come on BB," Mandy entered the conversation, but immediately interrupted her own words to run the tip of her tongue along the edge of his left ear. "We only want you to have some fun with us," she said as her hand found and groped his crotch. The smile that took over her face as she did so, without context, would have made someone think she'd won the lottery. She leaned in and began to whisper something into her cousin's ear, but the conversation that resulted was inaudible. Either way, regardless of what they were talking about, the two women gave him a look which could only be described as "hungry," as they came out of their little sidebar.
"Just watch," Candi said, while briefly brushing her own hand between his legs. At that moment the elder of the two women reached over to her cousin and the two began to make out while leaning over him. This situation very quickly created a huge internal conflict for Beast Boy.
"Dude!" said Tamaa, the manifestation of Beast Boy's lust and more sexual desires, "this is so fucking hot!"
"Shut the hell up, Tamaa!" said Mafutu, the manifestation of Beast Boy's senses of anger (albeit, less passionate than the primal rage the Beast is known for), irritability, exacerbation, torment, and, particularly applicable to this situation, disgust, "I think I have to hurl. They're cousins, we're watching incest!"
"I agree with Mafutu," noted Busara, "this spectacle is absolutely abhorrent. Besides, Raven is watching us. Do you really want her to see us getting off to this?"
'Uh...who are you and why are you in my head?!' thought Beast Boy, very confused and quite unaware that he had emoticlones.
"We're your emotions, numbnuts!" replied Mafutu. "You should listen carefully, 'cause this shit's gonna be important."
'Uh, okay.'
"I think master should reject these females," the Beast added, "they are not the mate, and it will anger the mate if master mates with them." Surprisingly, in spite of his primal nature, the Beast appeared to be a fan of monogamy. Or maybe just a fan of not angering Raven's Rage.
"What's it matter?" said Ghamu, the manifestation of the changeling's sadness, anguish, shame, guilt and various other 'low' emotions, "she'll never love us like we love her..." Ghamu's words were interrupted by his own sobbing.
"Exactly," said Tamaa, "she'll never love us, so we might as well get in on some strange!"
"I disagree," said Mpenzi, the manifestation of Gar's more romantic love, affection and longings, "there is always hope that she may return our affections, someday."
"The mate does love us," the Beast interjected. "Trust my instincts!"
"Besides," added Nyonda, the representation of Beast Boy's more platonic love and affection, "even if she doesn't love us romantically, she has affection for us platonically, and we owe it to her not to subject her to undue stress. We know she isn't going to like watching this!"
"Also," added Busara, "have you noticed how much she's been staring at us tonight? But, on an unrelated note, Candi's tramp stamp looks very familiar."
Beast Boy took a more conscious look at Candi's lower back. Leaning in had led the back of her shirt to rise and her jeans to lower, giving him an unobstructed view of the entire region from her butt cleavage to the small of her back. 'Oh my God!' he instantly, upon setting eyes upon the tattoo, realized where he had seen this woman before. On his most recent birthday, Aqualad, Cyborg and a few others among the Titan males decided to throw him a more mature side party to his birthday party, in honor of him becoming an adult. At this side party, they watched a hardcore pornographic film, starring a blonde who had a now very familiar tattoo on her lower back. 'No! It couldn't be!'
"Are you so sure about that?" Busara responded. "This is Los Angeles, you know. And both the woman and her tattoo are perfect matches to the star of that film, and she did say that she's a 'performer'."
This revelation only exacerbated his internal conflict. Tamaa, the gigantic pervert that he naturally was, found it to be insanely attractive. The things that Beast Boy had seen this woman do on film were crazy, and he couldn't help but be curious about a lot of them. Still, he had to hold firm—even if Raven didn't have romantic feelings for him, he did for her, and in recent times he had recognized that it would be disloyal for him to pursue a relationship—or casual sex, for that matter—with another woman while he had feelings for her. And the idea of casual sex really wasn't his thing anyway; he was too loving to base an encounter entirely upon the fulfillment of lust (though he did normally enjoy the morale boost that being the object of women's affection gave him). Additionally, that he had seen Candi perform bareback scenes made him apprehensive at the very least about the safety of doing anything with her.
His mind was made up—he had to find a way to reject the women's advances. But on the same coin, there were some unique problems owing to his situation. For one thing, he had to be courteous in rejecting these women because, regardless of him not wanting to sleep with them, they were fans and he appreciated all of his fans.
"Ladies, please," Beast Boy finally interrupted their over-the-top attempt at turning him on, "I'm sorry, you're both very sexy, but I'm not interested."
"Aw, come on BB," Candi replied, not wanting to let the issue rest, "we're really big fans, and my cousin is a virgin. She's been saving herself for someone special, and she thinks you're special enough."
"We promise, it'll just be this once," Mandy added, "you'll never have to see or hear from us again."
"I'm a virgin too," he admitted, "but I don't want to lose my virginity in a casual encounter."
"How the hell are you still a virgin?" asked a somewhat confused Candi. "As hot as you are, I would have thought some lucky girl would have had you years ago."
"Three could have," he admitted, "but one betrayed me and my friends, another was never ready, and the third one will probably never see me as anything more than just a friend. I've dated other women, but I will only sleep with someone I know I love, and I've only ever been sure with those three." Raven, eavesdropping on the conversation, was obviously able to identify the first girl he listed as having been Terra and the second as Jillian Jackson, but she was curious and stumped about the other. And she was also feeling an inexplicable urge to send that other woman to another dimension.
Candi laughed. "You're seriously telling me you'd only fuck someone you loved? I'm sorry Beast Boy, but I wasn't born yesterday. I know that deep down inside," she groped his crotch, "men are in general perverted and always eager to fuck."
Beast Boy stirred in an attempt to get up, but Candi quickly crossed her leg over his and pinned his shoulder against the backrest of the couch with her forearm. "Please," he said, "just leave me alone."
"You can quit playing hard to get," she told him, "I know you want it. I felt your hard cock. And I'm beginning to find this whole pursuit very aggravating. Just give us what we want already."
"Uh, Ravager," Raven turned to the white-haired Titan, "I think Gar might need help." If Rose had looked at Raven's face at that moment, she would have seen the genuine look of concern in her eyes. Unfortunately, she just figured Raven was trying to come up with an excuse.
"Just admit you're jealous."
"I'm not! I just think he might really be in trouble!"
"Come on Rae, you know that he can handle himself."
But the problem was that he couldn't. Candi's forearm was the least of the binds tying Beast Boy in that moment; there were really two more severe, yet intangible chains holding him in place. As a superhero, Gar could not harm a civilian. As a man of honor, he additionally could not do anything to harm a woman (supervillains excepted, but these girls were hardly supervillains). These rules meant he had to limit the proportion of his attempts to free himself to a point where he could not actually free himself. The fact that he wasn't trying to free himself with his full might was not lost on his de facto captors, either.
"Seriously," Candi said, "you want me to believe that you don't want it, while you're doing nothing to free yourself. I'm not that naive; you could throw me across the room if you wanted to, but you're not. That means you don't really want this to stop. You really do want us."
"No," he replied, "I seriously don't want to have sex with either of you."
Candi sighed. "Well, if you're not done with your little game, we'll just have to keep playing with you, I guess." She leaned in and whispered something to her cousin, who proceeded to rise. Removing an iPod from her purse, she proceeded to plug the device into the stereo as Candi continued to hold Beast Boy down. She cycled through the available playlist and after a moment a song that certainly seemed somewhat anachronistic for a person her age (though not entirely unreasonable) began to play.
As the music began to play, Mandy strutted toward the couch, hips swinging up and down, left and right, in a seductive form. Her eyes conveyed the message of a burning lust on the verge of exploding outright. The young woman climbed upon the couch, her knees landing on either side of the only male in the house. Now Beast Boy was pinned down by Mandy's entire body, so it became unnecessary for her cousin to hold him down. As the lyrics began to play, the 19-year old planted each of her hands to one of his shoulders, holding him in place.
Watching this spectacle, Raven's powers began to manifest a black aura around the light bulb of a nearby floor lamp. The as-of-yet unidentified feeling was growing stronger, and Raven was not sure how long she would be able to hold it back.
I love myself, I want you to love me
When I'm feeling down, I want you above me
I search myself, I want you to find me
I forget myself, I want you to remind me
Mandy planted a kiss on the changeling's lips, but he stubbornly refused to part them as she ran her tongue along them—indeed, he refused even to return the kiss. He only opened his mouth to voice his protest, "please stop," as she moved her mouth to the vicinity of his ear.
"If you're a good boy and do as you're supposed to," she whispered, "I'll give you a very happy ending." She looked in his eyes and, while licking her lips, moved her right hand down to grope his genital region. "But if you're a bad boy and don't do what I want, you will be punished," she whispered before squeezing down to pinch his testicles.
Meanwhile, inside Raven's mindscape, Rage had seen more than enough. "How dare she," the embodiment of all of Raven's anger, hatred and the emotions subordinate thereto spoke. "Get your hands off my Beast! Raven, give me control! Now!"
I don't want anybody else
When I think about you, I touch myself
Oh, I don't want anybody else, oh, no
Oh, no, oh, no
"Help," Beast Boy cried in an agonized squeak. Mandy took control of one of his hands and forced it between her legs. When Beast Boy pulled the hand away almost instantaneously, the girl gave him another painful squeeze to the testes. "Please stop."
"Quit fighting!" she said. "I want you. Quit teasing me with your hard to get routine!" Apparently Mandy's line of thought on the matter was identical to Candi's.
Raven wanted to end the invasion of his dignity, but her denial of having feelings for him and Rose's teasing stopped her from acting. Her emotions were no where near being in conflict, though. "He doesn't want you, bitch! Leave our Beast Boy alone!" said Brave, nearly as angry as Rage herself. Timid and Affection were both sobbing, both out of empathy for Garfield and out of their recognition of a fact that Raven herself had not yet consciously accepted: she wanted him for herself.
Rose, meanwhile, was beginning to wonder if this had gone too far. She thought the changeling could handle himself, but he didn't seem to be enjoying any of this, and his multiple protests were being completely ignored by the girls.
You're the one who makes me coming running
You're the sun who makes me shine
When you're around I'm always laughin',
I want to make you mine
"Nu-uh, bitch, that's my Boo Bear!" Happy joined the fray with an anger that was very unlike her. Then again, this really should not have been a surprise, as it was by now well-documented that Happy was among those emoticlones of Raven's who had most liked Beast Boy. The normally-cheerful emotion was not putting up with this. "Get your own!"
I close my eyes and see you before me
Think I would die if you were to ignore me
A fool could see just how much I adore you
I'd get down on my knees, I'd do anything for you
The lyrics left Raven with a thought she could not reconcile with her denial. As much as she'd tried over the years to maintain that she wanted him to leave her alone, she had always been much more dependent on him emotionally than she'd let on. It was absolute torture on her when Terra and Jillian had distracted his attention from her.
Meanwhile, in a move that constituted a supreme assault against the changeling's dignity, Mandy removed a martingale collar from her purse and placed it around his neck. This was not going well.
I don't want anybody else
When I think about you, I touch myself
Oh, I don't want anybody else, oh, no
Oh, no, oh, no
"Be a good boy," the blonde told Beast Boy as she pulled on the collar's ring. Her voice sounded as if she was talking to a pet dog she was trying to train, or something like that. "When I kiss you, you kiss back. Got it?"
Raven was meanwhile beginning to see the light—figuratively, of course, as her powers made the light bulb her aura had encased explode at that moment. The explosion was not enough to divert everyone's shocked attention from what was happening on the couch, however. She was beginning to realize that she was indeed jealous. And along with her jealous, she realized...
I love myself, I want you to love me
When I feel down, I want you above me
I search myself, I want you to find me
I forget myself, I want you to remind me
...she loved him. Not the momentary crush her 15-year old self had once felt for Aqualad. Not the puppy-love-like feelings that she'd felt for Goth Boy and Jericho in her adolescent years. This was far more powerful a feeling than she had ever had for even Malchior. She loved Beast Boy, she was in love with Beast Boy; not just a simple infatuation, but limerence surfaced as well. As much as it pained her, she also had to recognize this feeling was not transient either; she had been feeling it for years, but until this moment, she never allowed it to penetrate the defenses of her denial. Now her the rampart of her denial had collapsed as though it were a castle made of sand, stricken by the tide. Now she had to face the truth. It would have been overwhelming if she didn't have a more immediate—albeit related—concern to distract her for the moment.
"Please," Beast Boy pleaded with the girl, "I don't want to do any of this. How many times do I..." He was unable to finish his words, as the girl pulled on the collar's ring again to choke him slightly.
"Quit trying to feed me that bullshit," Mandy responded, her voice taking on an aspect of growing anger. "I know you want it. I felt your erection. Quit trying to play pretend for the benefit of the witch."
I don't want anybody else
When I think about you, I touch myself
Oh, I don't want anybody else, oh, no
Oh, no, oh, no
Jealousy and a sense of protectiveness had been taking over the dark empath, but now she had been insulted as well. Her black aura began to encase several objects throughout the room—most notably the stereo—as her emotions grew ever more powerful. Most of the people in the room did not notice this, but Rose Wilson did. Seeing what was happening, Rose recognized at the very least that, whatever the cost, her mission for the night had been accomplished. Now it was only a matter of the aftermath.
Beast Boy, meanwhile, was also quite angry. To insult him was fine, he was used to it, but no one should ever call Raven a witch! Regardless, he still recognized there was nothing he could do. And while these thoughts were running through his head, Mandy forced him into a kiss. Knowing that she'd choke him if he didn't comply, he begrudgingly returned the kiss. As she broke the kiss, the athletic girl began to grind her pelvis into his in a manner that resembled dry humping more than anything. Beast Boy tried to protest, but Mandy once again pulled the ring on his collar. Both Raven and Rose were pretty much sure that enough was enough
I want you, I don't want anybody else
And when I think about you, I touch myself,
Oo, oo, oo oo, ah
Reaching, for the first time, into the changeling's pants, Mandy commanded him, "you're going to fuck me right here and right now, and that's not a request or a proposal." She removed her hand to begin unzipping his fly.
I don't want anybody else
When I think about you, I touch...
At that moment, the stereo exploded. Beast Boy, though very much in shock over what he had just experienced, took this opportunity to make his escape, transforming into cat and running away at full speed as Mandy and Candi both were dazed in confusion over what had just happened. He found safety hiding behind the two female Titans. For Rose, the game was over—she was sure Raven was no-longer in denial, and Candi's and Mandy's advances on her friend had really gone way too far, so she was now on the same page as Raven on the matter of keeping them away from Beast Boy.
The spectacle had left Raven, for her part, absolutely seething in rage. She did not transform fully into her demonic form, but both the pupils and whites of her eyes turned a glowing red and her facial features formed a violent snarl. As the overzealous cousins returned to their senses and lunged toward the direction of the three Titans, Raven blocked their path to Beast Boy, and exclaimed in a frightening demonic growl "mine!" Previously inhibited by her denial, she was now assertively putting her foot down.
Walking toward the cousins, Raven took a threatening tone and posture. "Unless you seek intimate knowledge of why you should fear the dark, leave now! And never return!"
"You heard her," Rose backed Raven up, eyeing Candi and Mandy with a cold look, "leave, and don't ever even think about returning!" Most of the fangirls immediately complied with the demands of the two intimidating women, but the cousins weren't quite so convinced. Raven was sure to escort them out, though. Or, rather, she looked at them threateningly while walking toward them, and they backed themselves out. As Raven dealt with letting the guests out, Rose attended to Beast Boy.
"Hey," she shook the changeling to get his attention, "you okay?"
"I think so," he nodded as he snapped back to reality. "That was just...damn. No matter how many times I told them no..."
"Why didn't you stop them?" Rose asked, in a voice she'd hope didn't sound judgmental.
"Well," Beast Boy began his reply, "there really wasn't anything I could do. I couldn't use my powers, because they're civilians. I couldn't use all of my physical strength, because they're women."
"Did you happen to hear any of what Rae said to them?"
"I was kinda spacing out," Gar replied. "I heard her tell them to leave, but not much else. Why?"
"Oh. No Reason." The white-haired teen was devious enough to orchestrate this entire episode just in order to force Raven into a state of so much jealousy that it became impossible for her to maintain her self-denial about her feelings for the changeling, but she wasn't so inconsiderate in her meddling as to tell Garfield that Raven was possessively attracted to him. Besides, that would probably be too much for him to handle at the moment, and it would really be best if the two navigated the uncharted terrain of their bond by themselves from this point. She did feel a weird twinge of guilt that she would leave both of them knowing that they loved the other, but unaware that the other would even be remotely interested in them, though. Still, she felt her mission for the night was accomplished.
Returning to the room, Raven was not happy. "Rose!" she shouted in an angry tone. "May I have a word with you in private, please?" she asked in a calmer voice, but the twitching of her eyelids gave away enough about the demi-demoness's state of mind that the normally-fearless daughter of Slade Wilson actually gave a nervous gulp before following Raven out of the room.
Sitting alone while trying to gather his thoughts, Beast Boy could hear Raven screaming at Rose. He couldn't actually understand what she was saying, but he didn't really need to; he could tell that Raven was extremely angry and he had a pretty good idea what she was angry about. To be honest, he didn't blame Rose for what happened—he figured she was just trying to give him a good time, and there's no way she could have anticipated the level of craziness that Candi and Mandy would bring to the table.
"I swear," Rose said as the girls re-entered the room, "I had no idea that was going to happen." Beast Boy gave a sigh of relief that Raven hadn't killed the white-haired teen.
"It doesn't matter," replied the empath, still fuming over what happened. "You should have actually vetted the guests," she had a point, although Gar was himself still choosing to be more forgiving. 'I felt his fear,' Raven thought to herself—her empathic senses had momentarily taken a backseat to her own emotional conflict when it was happening, but she was still an empath. She could still feel a very conflicted cocktail of emotions coming from the changeling in the present. "Are you okay, Gar?" she stood next to the seated male, placing her hand on his shoulder.
"At the moment, I'll probably need some time to sort everything out," he replied, "but I'll be okay." Beast Boy rose to his feet and gave a yawn. "I think I'm going to go to bed, actually. Good night, ladies."
As Beast Boy departed, Raven knew he wasn't really confronting what had happened. He had repeatedly said no, but those girls had kept pushing further and further, and if she hadn't have blown up the stereo and intervened they probably would have ended up having sex with him against his consent. Regardless of how one wants to sugarcoat things, he was almost raped. But then, she recognized that perhaps men had to deal with such an issue differently.
She recalled that men are typically unwilling to consider themselves victims of sex crimes, though. It never helped that the standard response when a man claims to have been raped is for it to be taken like a joke, and machismo also had a hand in the matter: it certainly seemed that there was something emasculating about such an experience. The mockery that he certainly would face if any of the male Titans ever found out was itself more than enough for her to understand why he didn't want to confront the matter. She didn't like it, but she understood why he wanted to bury it.
"Okay, I'll let you live," Raven said to the room's only other occupant. "But under one condition: what happened here tonight stays between you, Garfield and I. I don't want you telling anyone about what happened. If I hear anyone joking around about this and find out that, I will send you to a oxygenless dimension. Understand?"
Raven had been known to say such a thing as an idol threat in the past, but when Rose looked in the empath's eye, she found nothing but a cold seriousness; she meant it this time. "Yeah," was the only reply she could muster at this point.
"Good," the empath responded, "because there are certain things that I love doing and certain things that I hate doing, and, while I've never killed a friend before, I'm pretty sure it would be one of the things I would hate doing." Rose looked at her with a face emoting hope. "Yes," Raven added, "we're still friends. I'm just disappointed right now."
"I'm going to go meditate," Raven said as she began towards the door, "it's getting late and I'm going to need to get my emotions under control before I'll be able to sleep." Stepping out of the room, Raven suddenly remembered something and poked her head back in. "Oh, and Rose," she said, "I know what you were trying to do tonight. Don't ever do it again."
"Okay," Rose replied, "but did I accomplish my goal?"
"Well, I wouldn't say that you didn't, but I don't want Gar to know any of this right now. Got it?" Rose nodded, and with that Raven proceeded to her room. She was tempted to take a trip to Nevermore, but decided against it seeing as she already knew what her emotions were feeling. What she really wanted to know was why, but that question could wait. It took just two hours of meditation before Raven gained sufficient control of her emotions to try to sleep—she'd been getting better over the years. Yet, now, as she laid her head down, the final thought on her mind was of the green changeling who unknowingly had her heart.
Author's Notes
Again, I'm not entirely satisfied with the way this chapter turned out, but I don't see it getting better. This seems to have some of the least believable plot elements of the entire work to date, but I wanted to create a dramatic moment to push Raven's jealousy and protectiveness to the point where she could no-longer maintain her denial of her feelings for Beast Boy. Also, when the whole part where Beast Boy was probably a few minutes away from being raped came up, I suddenly found myself having trouble writing it because those kinds of scenes involving males on the receiving end are usually played for laughs, while I wanted to subvert the "Double Standard: Rape, Female on Male" trope. Though, I felt that a complete aversion would have been somewhat unrealistic (in reality, claims of female-on-male rape are often laughed at), but I tried to lampshade things to provide an explanation to why it wasn't treated the same way as it might have been if the genders were reversed. I also invoked the tropes "All Men Are Perverts" and "A Man Is Always Willing" in the rationale behind Candi and Mandy's actions.
Hairul The Nightrage Beast-Nope, not hookers. Just really zealous fangirls. Basically, what Rose was trying to do was use the fangirls to stoke Raven's jealousy to the point where it would undermine her denial, which, as it turned out, worked despite some unfortunate side effects. As far as the BST goes—I will note, however, that it should be presumed that the same passion that underlied the Belligerent Sexual Tension still exists in the time of this story, but has perhaps been forced a little deeper as the two matured.
shugokage-Thanks. I hope it continues to be a good read in future chapters as well.
McDiggity-And here it is, the very next day. :)
Annatheavidreader-Cyborg was gone for the weekend. It just turned out that this particular weekend in the story occupied a hell of a lot of chapters! lol But, yeah, the next chapter will be set a few weeks afterward, so Cyborg will be back in LA by then, although he is not going to have a major role in the chapter (it's going to be more BBRae fluff, but important BBRae fluff at least).
JasonVUK-Well, to be honest, this chapter was the one I was most worried about.