[I do not own Teen Titans. Take this nerd.]

Ray led Jericho through some strange parts of the city after that, explaining everything he could in good detail and trying his very hardest to make the city sound less terrible than it was. He showed Joey the park, his favorite alleyway shortcuts, and finally, the two made it to a bus stop.

Ray had enough to pay for their tickets this time, and the two sat down in the very back of the bus, waiting and bumping along with the road until they got to wherever this "Hollow Sound Box" place was that Ray kept talking about. Jericho leaned on the window and relaxed, watching as the blurred lights and people of all kinds passed them by.

Jericho suddenly realized that he wasn't afraid, he was in awe. In actuality, the city was beautiful, he'd just needed to learn about the not terrible parts of it. There were people of all kinds - black and white, straight and gay, trans and cis, old and young, rich and poor - and they all lived together in one huge monument to humanity.

People like Ray lived here.

And suddenly Jericho finally found his motivation to actually want to protect this city and it's people.

Ray soon was nudging an earphone at Jericho for them to share. Jericho took the left wire gingerly, looking at it like alien technology before slipping it into his ear.

Jericho was touched at the music playing. Earlier when they were messing around in the park, Jericho had explained his deep and undying passion for music. He'd also explained that it didn't exactly reach out very far. Living on a mountain for so long and away from technology, Jericho had never heard any music other than the songs he played himself. He didn't know what drums sounded like, or a keyboard, or even the length of how well someone could sing. All he knew was his guitar. He was content with it, but now he had an entire new world of music and art and expression and beauty to explore, with no setbacks whatsoever.

Jericho smiled and he leaned over to look at Ray's phone, trying to figure out what was playing. The song Ray had decided to play was almost entirely string instruments, all guitar. The voice that began singing was deep and earthy, natural, no technology in any of it really. It was sweet of Ray to think of Jericho enough to try and find a song familiar to his normal music style.

While Jericho continued attempting to read the name of the band on Ray's phone, he managed to lean his head on Ray in an almost romantic gesture. Ray sucked in a breath for a moment, letting it go and dumbing it down to accidental and platonic, slowing his heart back down.

Ray had to take a moment to remind himself of the world he lived in. Life wasn't a fairytale, and magical, beautiful, perfect blonde boys don't just pop up into your life and immediately fall in love with you and ask you out on a-

Ray suddenly had the revelation that maybe, possibly, perhaps, he may have accidentally taken Joey on a date. Maybe, possibly, perhaps, Joey was enjoying it just as much as Ray was.

Ray smiled in hope.

It didn't take long for Ray to realize that Joey was far too comfortable slumped against him to move away. It also didn't take long for Joey to realize he was far too comfortable to not fall asleep with his hair splayed and his cheek smushed against Ray's shoulder.

Ray sighed and smiled some more. The light of the street lamps buzzing by outside made for a beautiful picture. They danced and twirled and swirled in orange light against Joey's pale skin, and he looked so peaceful when he was asleep.

Suddenly the bus stopped and the two were jerked forward, and Joey simply started walking off the bus as if it were the most normal thing in the world to just fall asleep on your not-so-heterosexual friend who had a not-so-heterosexual crush on you. Maybe it was. It wouldn't surprise Ray. A lot of what Jericho did didn't make a lot of sense.

"Behold, The Hollow Sound Box!" Ray yelled at the top of his lungs, resulting in someone in a building not far from them to shout something crude and explicit at him.

As Jericho walked into the dark building, it finally dawned on him what it was.

It was a music store.

It was beaten and busted down, but electric blue guitars and well kept keyboards line the walls anyway. In the middle of the ceiling, there was a large bowl shaped light bulb that lit up the room in a soft yellow glow, and there were christmas lights that hung down from the ceiling like vines lining every single doorframe and wall. Indie rock music filled the room with a new life, and there were lava lamps and dusty books scattered everywhere. There was also an array of sleeping bags set up in the back of the room.

"Well, I mean, you told me how you were going to spend the night in the city and I thought- you don't have to stay! It's cool if you don't- my friends just helped- I mean-" Ray blubbered, finally coming to a stop at Jericho's thankful smile that Ray had gotten so used to.

"Ray! You're back!" yelled a girl that popped up from behind the counter suddenly.

The girl had wild pink hair and a roller blading costume, and immediately she went to hugging Jericho.

"You're Joey! Ray told me and Mikey a lot about you over the bus ride!" The girl said. Suddenly there were two more boys. One was tall and lanky with dark blue hair, and the other was medium sized with near white hair.

"Joey, these are my friends. This is Mikey and Davis-" Ray said, gesturing over to the weird bunch before him.

"And this is-"

"NISSAN!" All three boys shouted at one time, startling Jericho and making 'Nissan' roll her eyes at their laughter.

"Sorry, ahem, this is Nissa-"

"NEE-SAH!" Nissa interjected for a moment.

"But we call her Nissan to mess with her all the time." Ray explained.

"Which is EXTREMELY RUDE." Nissa said with a glare and a pose with her hands on her hips.

'So I'm not the only person you give horrid nicknames to'. Jericho signed, resulting in the three teens laughing and pointing at Ray in his suspense.

"Yeah, you'll fit in fine with these goons." Ray said with a smile and a roll of his eyes.

The rest of the night - that is, until four in the morning - Jericho had had more fun than he'd ever had in his entire life. He could be himself and do what he wanted around Mikey, Nissa, Davis and Ray. Once he finally confessed to not being happy with his look, Nissa and Davis completely took over. Jericho was a Teen Titans after all, he had to look a certain way for the public. Among his newfound friends however- within the next hour Nissa had taken the liberty of spraying glitter into Joey's hair, doing his eyeliner and his eyeshadow to look like her smoky cat eyes, and she'd let him pick out his own clothes for the first time in forever. Boys weren't supposed to wear makeup, or do their hair, or like the color of Nissa's obnoxious pink pearl fingernail polish, but Joey wasn't supposed to be anything other than what he wanted that night. He'd never felt so alive, so free and full of everything.

Mikey and Davis then helped Joey come up with a suitable music taste. After some experimentation and searching, Joey realized that he loved the sound of the bass guitar. So far he'd fallen in love with The Wombats, Madeon, and, surprisingly, Rob Zombie. The music flooded his system and suddenly, Joey wasn't thinking about being a superhero. Instead of thinking about everything he could be doing - instead of thinking about the fact that he wasn't doing enough - he was thinking about how much fun tomorrow morning would be with his friends. In place of Deathstroke and criminals and his mother, Joey was now heatedly debating with Mikey who the true king of Halloween was - Marilyn Manson or Rob Zombie.

Joey realized that night before he fell asleep among laughter and bundled in a sleeping bag that running off on his own and trusting a green haired street rat was probably the best decision he'd made in a very long time.

[I would just like to say that I didn't plan for a romance to happen here, it just kinda did as I was writing this. Sorry. Read and Review please!]