Huh. I guess this fandom still has a heartbeat left after all. I'll answer all those reviews later tonight. :)
Update 10/8: Reviews have been answered and chapter has a few little corrections.
Anything – anything would be better than this. Robin would rather return to Batman's care than endure another second of this.
"Ss- nngh – op," Beast Boy's voice was raspy and weak, half-words forced out between breathless gasps for air. "-l-ease!"
As cool as the leader of the Teen Titans looked on the outside, on the inside was a hurricane of emotional strain.
Screw whatever the damn clock said, Robin was convinced that this had been going on for hours.
"Stop i-..-it- agh!" the plea and the gasp made him want to hunt down the guy that had done this and tear him to bits himself despite knowing that it would do no good to anyone.
This should never have happened – he should never have let this happen. He should have seen that something was wrong.
Robin had practically grown up in Gotham, a place where criminals both petty and clever ruled the streets. He could read body posture like it was his first language and the number of times he'd seen people pull out guns should have left an imprint on him too strong to ignore.
And yet, after so much time in Jump, after so much time around villains that preferred their own flamboyancy to the simple, ruthless efficiency of weapons like guns, he had somehow fallen out of practice.
Out of the corner of his eye he'd seen the figure but he'd been too busy – with what he couldn't even remember. Whatever it had been hadn't been important enough to allow something like this to happen.
Beast Boy's panting could have echoed in the room. The pained little sounds that cracked out of his extended throat sent shocks of guilt and worry through the raven-haired teenager.
"Damnit," he hissed, lowering his head into his hands. "Cyborg, what are you doing?" Because of Beast Boy's unique, though tenuous, genetic coding, Cyborg couldn't give him the regular dosages of opioids like morphine and oxycodone.
The resident robotic medical technician was more worried about the effectiveness of the antibiotics and though Robin felt similarly he wasn't sure how much longer this could last. Currently, Cyborg was busy trying to engineer medicine specifically for Beast Boy but until then…
"-eaah –un - no-!"
Robin winced.
Until then, it was all he could to make sure Beast Boy wasn't alone.
The youngest member on his team wriggled weakly, pushing his head back into the pillow, clenching and unclenching his fists, and slowly, feebly, kicked his feet like he was trying to push himself away from the pain.
Robin clasped his hands together, the gloves squeaking against each other. He looked over the bed's occupant.
Things had at least been semi-manageable before the fever had taken hold of Beast Boy. Sure, they were down two team members out in the field – Robin wanting at least one person to be with the green changeling at all times – but he could've worked that out. He could have called in a few reinforcements from Titan's West to help fill the gap. But now that both Cyborg and Raven were needed at the tower Robin had been forced to stitch together a working team that could substitute for them in their absence.
As strong as Starfire and Robin were, they couldn't do much without the rest of the team.
Furrowing his brow Robin spent a few moments anticipating the arrival of a few Titans he'd asked to do just that until Beast Boy recovered.
The tendons in the changeling's throat worked a gasp out of his lungs before the word; "-hurt-s"
And that was when Robin had had enough.
Standing with a little more force than was strictly necessary, he flew across the room to the sink and took off his gloves. Quickly washing his hands before taking a towel from one of the lower drawers, he ran it under cold water, half-wrung it out, and briskly returned to the young teen's side.
Robin folded the towel and gently laid it across Beast Boy's eyes, pressing it down snugly. Trapped in the torturous throes of his feverish nightmare the boy's hand shot out and his head pushed back against the pillows.
"No! Don' – ungh," he gasped, chest ballooning outwards with every frantic breath, "Don' -urt…-em!"
A force took hold of Robin that he didn't totally recognize.
He reached out and grabbed his friend's hand firmly, letting green fingers curl around his own with a desperate grip that almost made him wince.
"Easy, Beast Boy," he hushed him, pressing down a little more against the towel and taking a few deep breaths for himself, "You're safe. No-one will hurt you."
The changeling clenched his jaw a moment before releasing it and mumbling indistinctly.
"N-am-eh!" Robin bit his lip, "Stop…Robin!"
Robin just couldn't keep his cool façade anymore – not when his youngest, most inexperienced teammate had started calling to him for help.
"I'm here," it felt like something was squeezing his heart, coiling around it and wringing out all the saturated emotions it had, "I'm right here, BB."
Either it wasn't a sufficient reassurance or his comrade couldn't hear him because his words did nothing to quell Beast Boy's fear-filled struggles.
"Robin – ease-!" he continued his pleading.
"I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere. It'll be ok, I promise you it will." Robin tried fervently to comfort him, wanting so badly to help the friend calling out for him.
Beast Boy needed him.
He needed him and yet all he could do was stand there, holding a cool cloth over his eyes and squeezing his hand like he was the one in pain.
Robin had never in his life felt as helpless as he did right then.
"N-o-!"
The black-haired teen tried to swallow back the painfully thick lump in his throat, gripping Beast Boy's hand tightly.
Nothing could have prepared him for the intensity of the next moment.
"Robin, stop it!" The words burst out the sick changeling like a popping balloon in a quiet room. It was the clearest, loudest, most desperate thing Beast Boy had said and it might as well have torn the poor Titan leader's heart apart. "Pl-eze, don," a mighty gasp filled his sweaty chest, "-urt- nngh!"
The Boy Wonder distinctly felt himself blanch, all the color washing out of his face like a wave of heat that drained down his neck. He almost couldn't swallow past the lump in his throat this time. It felt like he was choking. He gave Beast Boy's hand a squeeze. "Ok," he said thickly, a weight worse than the most crushing of defeats he'd ever experienced settling on his shoulders, "Ok. Ok, I'm sorry. I'll stop. I'll never do it again, I swear. I'm sorry." He bowed his head, shame worming around inside his stomach, "I'm so sorry."
Poor Beast Boy was buried too deeply to hear him.
Everyone :) is :) suffering :)
