Chapter 25 – Sunflowers
February 1st 2010, 5:23 pm
"Why couldn't I tell him?"
Raven once again was at Knowledge's Library in Nevermore. The emotion in the yellow cloak was organizing some books in their shelf.
"Why couldn't I say…? You know"
"Same reason as always, Raven…" she answered with a bit of impatience. "You saw the leaves moving and got scared that telling him 'I love you'…"
She shivered, feeling butterflies in the stomach and chills on her arms to the mention of the unsaid words.
"… Would cause something worse"
Raven sighed, frustrated with the emotion and herself, looking around. Then she spotted an object that didn't ordinarily belong in the library.
"What's this?" she pointed to the little orange flower vase, where a green sunflower stood alone.
"Hmm?" Knowledge turned and smiled to see the flower "Oh, that. Affection gave one of these to each one of us after you officially accepted to be Beast Boy's girlfriend."
She got speechless and looked at the flower again, noticing that around it were gardening tools and a yellow watering can.
"Are you taking care of it?"
"Naturally. We all are" Knowledge approached her and took the vase, taking it closer to the window. "A relationship is something that needs constant cares, Raven. Like this flower. It can't come from only one part of your mind. You have to deliver completely if you want it to be healthy and to endure."
"Trim what it needs to be trimmed, water it every day – but not too much. Timidity almost drowned hers the first week" she told, organizing the little tools in a line "Take it to the sun when she needs it and take it back when it's too hot, fertilize it, and change vases as it grows."
"And sometimes" she continued after some seconds "… Talk to it"
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February 5th 2010, 3:40 pm
Beast Boy was at his room, lying on the ground, trying to reach a piece of clothing he had no idea how had went so deep down his dresser, when he heard light knocks on the door.
"Hmm…" he tried to turn, but was so close to reach the clothe he gave up "Come in!"
"Beast Boy?" called a soft voice he knew well "Well, I was hoping to see more of you're the top part of your body"
"Wait, I did it!" he exclaimed and pulled the clothe, getting up. Then he realized he was holding a dirty underwear in front of his girlfriend. He yelled not very manly and stuffed it behind the closet before she could say anything "What's up, gorgeous?"
She blushed, as she always did when he called her that in such a casual tone.
"Not much… I thought we could talk" she said, sitting without ceremony on the bottom of his bunk bed, after removing an empty snack packing of it.
"Did something happen?" he asked, worried.
"No… I just want to talk to you" she said simply, with a totally innocent expression "You know, without doing anything special."
"Well… Sure, okay" he turned into a gorilla and pushed all his things off the bed, leaving only the sheet covering it, which was clean enough. Then he turned back into human and sat across from her.
"How should we start?"
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February 6th 2010, 9:13 am
"Beast Boy! Hey Grass Stain!" yelled Cyborg, knocking heavily on the changeling's door. He heard a kind of movement inside the room, paces and after some seconds, the young man opened the door.
"What do you want, Cyborg?" to the cybernetic man's surprise, even though Beast Boy was annoyed, it didn't look like he had just woke up. He was still in the same clothes he was wearing the previous day and seemed pretty awake.
"Do you recognize this?" he asked, putting a sock in front of him.
"Ugh!" his best friend groaned, covering his nose "It's a dirty sock! What are you getting at?"
"I getting to the fact that last night was your laundry night, but this morning we discovered that everything is at the same place we left!"
"Oh, that's right! I completely forgot about the laundry!" the changeling said, and he seemed honest.
"Well, you…"
"That was my fault, Cyborg" came a voice from behind the door, and it finished opening, revealing Raven, who was dressed and also looked like she hadn't slept "I came here and distracted Beast Boy. We'll do it right away"
Then she pulled her boyfriend by hand and walked quickly towards the laundry room, before the robot man could recover from the shock.
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March 3rd 2010, 5:32 pm
Terra was sitting in her room on the little coach and surfing the internet. She felt a kind of hollow in her chest. The previous night she had broken up with her boyfriend, after come weeks of being ignored by Beast Boy. She didn't know really what upset her the most.
She stuck her hand inside a snack packing and was taking a chip to her lips when someone knocked on her door.
"Friend Terra?" called a feminine voice, and she got up with a sigh.
"Hey, Star" she greeted, opening the door.
"Hello, friend" said the Tamaranean, seeming hesitant and with a different expression "I heard that… You and your boyfriend broke up…"
"Yeah, I kicked him, it wasn't going well" she shrugged, as she didn't really care.
"Are you not upset?" asked Starfire, surprised "I know the end of a relationship is hard and with the current circumstances…"
"What current circumstances?" repeated Terra aggressively.
"Well, the fact of friend Beast Boy being in a stable relation with friend Raven is probably hard to deal…" she realized what was in Starfire's eyes. Pity. This got into her nerves.
"I'm gonna stop you right there, Star. Thank you so much for all your concern" she interrupted her loudly "But you don't have to come here and rub at the poor loner's face that everyone is in such a wonderful relationship!"
"But friend, that wasn't my intention..." started the girl, regretful of her words.
"You're so innocent, you can't even see that Beast Boy's acting is totally false to try and make me jealous…!" she revealed with a forced laugh "Now if you excuse me, I need to take a shower!"
With those words she slammed the door at Starfire's face, who lingered in the hall for some moments, surprised. Then she sighed and walked away.
'I suppose there's nothing I can do for friend Terra after all…' she thought, sad.
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April 11th 2010, 7:14 pm
"Hey Raven!" called a voice, and the empath made an effort not to smile behind her book when Beast Boy approached and kissed her cheek.
"Hi… Did you have fun?" she asked, since the changeling and Cyborg went to an arcade afternoon at the mall.
"Yeah, tons" he answered with a smile "You?"
"Just as usual" she shrugged, returning to her book.
"Wait up!" he asked before she got lost in reading again "I brought you something!"
Raven leaned, curious. Her boyfriend took from her pocket something small and wrapped in brown paper. She took it and ripped it, revealing a little blue coin purse with several tiny crows stamped on it.
"Did you like it?" he questioned, trying to read her expression "I saw it in this new store near the arcade. It was at the window, and it totally reminded me of you!"
"Yes, I loved it" answered the empath, holding the little purse like it was made of glass. "Thanks"
She kissed him on his chin, near his mouth. It was so gratifying to know that Beast Boy thought about her just as much as she thought about him when they were apart…
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When Starfire came to talk to Terra to check on her was the last drop. So she thought Beast Boy and Raven were perfect and she was lonely and sad? She even was a little rude with her and let her suspicions escape – suspicions that, she had to admit, were now coming apart – about Beast Boy trying to make her jealous.
Terra regretted her reaction. Star was a good friend and she felt like, since she cheated on Beast Boy, the rest of the team was slowly departing from her. Staring at her butterfly shaped hairpin, she wondered if that entire nuisance she felt was for still liking Beast Boy or simply not wanting to lose him to Raven.
So she came to the conclusion that it didn't matter. Both reasons lead to the same. She had to do something.
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May 19th 2010, 8:34 pm
"Wait, Raven!" asked Beast Boy, following through the hall. His girlfriend, however, with her hood up and the nose steep, walked faster "Oh, come on!"
He turned into a jaguar, exceed and stood in front of her. The empath gave him a look of scorn and crossed her arms.
"What?" asked dryly.
"What's got into you?" he asked back, annoyed and with a feeling he'd done something wrong, even though he didn't know what. They had just got back from a mission, in which they defeated Plasmum easily, so a bunch of fans approached them. When he was done taking some pictures with some of them, he noticed Raven flying ahead home, all alone. So he turned into an eagle and followed her.
"Nothing" she answered in a tone of 'is clearly something'. "I don't know why you came out of your dear fans just to come talk to me…"
"Is that it?" he exclaimed, understanding it finally. Raven seized the opportunity to go through him again. Of course, he went back to following her. "Raven, we're heroes. You'll have to get used to the fact that I have fans"
Raven didn't even dignify this with an answer, turning and going inside her room. Before she could shut the door, Beast Boy appeared and held it open.
"Fine" she said, next to his face "I don't care"
"You don't see me freadking out like that when I see your fans!" he argued, trying to open the door completely. Raven laughed with no humor.
"I don't have any fan… Maybe some, but they are all much more well behaved than your… your…"
"Raven, that's all they are: fans! I'm not interested in any of them! I like you!" he affirmed, exasperated. "Besides, I know some fans of yours not so well behaved as you think!"
"Do you mean, like kids who cross the street without looking?" she asked with sarcasm. Beast Boy frowned.
"You really don't know how much you're pretty, do you?" he questioned, to what she just rolled her eyes and entered her room.
"Do you have a computer?" he passed the door. She pointed at a black laptop Cyborg had given her some months ago and she had never used. Beast Boy quickly opened it and started to type.
"What are you doing?"
"Proving you wrong on this" he answered, turning the screen to her. Raven forgot about the fact that she was mad and basically all that was in her head when she saw what he showed her.
A Raven fan club site. Pretty explicit.
"What the… Hell…" she mumbled, shocked. "Who did this?"
"One of your crazy fans" he said, trying his hardest not to be pissed off. "Star has one too…"
"But this pictures… and drawings… weirdly accurate…" she muttered, looking at it all. "Take it off!"
"Raven, do you even understand internet? I can't do that!" he explained, nervous "If I could, I would have a long time ago! Do you think I like it?"
Raven didn't answer, still observing the screen in her hands. Then she turned to her boyfriend with a suspicious expression.
"For how long exactly do you know about this thing's existence?"
Beast Boy felt his forehead starting to sweat. The thing with the fans now seemed pretty simple.
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After the battle against Plasmus, Terra had a triumph smile on her face. This time it worked out.
She fell – kind of purposally – of her floating rock fighting against the uncontrolled monster and Beast Boy saved her. He even picked her up in his arms. Then, after the fight was over and the fans came talk to them, she saw Raven leaving before everyone, without a word, and soon BB followed her. Trouble in paradise?
She was sure Raven was mad because the boyfriend saved her. Then they would argue, and he would say he could never let her get hurt just because they were apart, and Raven certainly would demand him not to do that anymore. Soon, they would break up. Or at least, weaken their relationship. That's when she entered, talking with BB like the comprehensive friend.
When the rest of the team arrive home, however, Raven was much more concerned on insisting with Cyborg to take some site down, and Beast Boy didn't seem upset, he only looked at his girlfriend with a fun expression.
What the hell was happening?
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