Imperfection

by PSI-Triforce

My take on 'Perfection' by Jessemudflap; great story, go read it. Inspired by Raven's boundless creativity when it comes to insulting him, Beast Boy decides to write a list of every negative quality that others mention about him. It's just harmless fun. It's not like he's going to start believing them, carrying them around until he collapses under the weight of his despair. Right?

Like most of the bad ideas that somehow found a reliable way into Beast Boy's head, it started with Raven.

One lazy afternoon, he was ruminating – a word which he certainly only knew because of her – on the range of her vocabulary. When Beast Boy spoke casually, he tripped over his words, constantly had to improvise, and interspersed 'like' into every, like, other word that he spoke. Raven, on the other hand, would weave wondrous verbal tapestries apropos of nothing, with no preparation nor forethought. She spoke like a poet who was constantly in the middle of composing their next piece; at least, according to Beast Boy. Raven was so uniquely smart in a way that appeared so effortless, and this was never more obvious to him than when she was talking to him specifically. Namely because if she was talking to him, outside of battle commands and the occasional good morning, she was likely doing one thing.

Insulting him.

He was sure that it wasn't in a way that she intended to be hurtful… probably, and because of this, he was able to find amusement in her descriptions and shrug the words off without taking them in… probably. But it was still remarkable the way she could construct such elaborately creative metaphors, such stunning sesquipedalian sentences, the loquacious lexicon and demonstrably descriptive dialogue at her demonic disposal. He didn't think that she had ever insulted him the same way twice. He was never 'stupid' twice, only the first time; then he was moronic, then idiotic, then foolish, then gullible, then obtuse, then imbecilic, and by then, they had both forgotten when she had last called him stupid.

He was scrambling around in his desk, looking for a journal Robin had given him shortly after they had formed the team. It was mostly unused, save for a few doodles and post-it style reminders that had either passed or been forgotten, but Beast Boy suddenly knew what he wanted to use it for. It would be funny to keep a list of every single term Raven had ever used to insult him. Maybe when the book was full – and he didn't doubt that it would get there eventually – he could gift-wrap it and present it to her, or maybe have his favourite insults copied out in stylish calligraphy, or even embroidered on a cushion of some kind. If she liked it, great! If she didn't like it, she was sure to register her displeasure with yet another term he could fill the book with. It was a win-win! Raven appreciated weird, ironic things like that. Beast Boy didn't really understand them.

And so, turning to the first fresh page, Beast Boy grinned as he wrote down every single synonym for stupid that Raven had ever called him. Ignorant. Half-wit. Dim. Dopey. Dense. Mindless. Witless. Brainless. Brain-dead. Birdbrained. Pea-brained. Doltish. Thick. Vapid. Vacuous. Inept. Short-sighted. Simple. He paused. That just about covered the last forty-eight hours.

By the time he had finished, he had filled an entire page and a half with just negative comments about his lack of intelligence. He felt strangely proud at having remembered so many; and having managed to write them all down without getting a cramp! This would be a fun little side-project for sure. Maybe when he had completed three or four pages, he would show it to Cyborg and they could both have a good chuckle over it. Cyborg had a better memory than he did; he would probably remember some comments that Beast Boy had forgotten.

Somewhere down the hall, Cyborg called out that dinner was ready, and Beast Boy closed the book and placed it back in his desk drawer with a smile. Tomorrow he could write down the comments Raven had made about his hygiene, and then his appearance, and then his fighting skill. By then, he would have probably remembered a few more about his unintelligence too. For just a moment, he recognized that out of context, his friends may have been alarmed at this unusual behaviour, but he shrugged it off. He knew that he was mentally up to the challenge. After all, they were just words. He knew deep down that his friends all cared for him – even Raven – and there was no need to worry about what he was doing.

No need to worry at all.

.

A lesser-appreciated aspect of the eternal Meat VS Tofu debate that Cyborg and Beast Boy were locked into for life, was that despite the fact that Cyborg despised, detested and was generally nauseated by anything vegetarian, he was also a phenomenal chef who took pride in his abilities. And as such, when he placed the plate in front of Beast Boy that evening, despite disagreeing on principle with the mere existence of such a meal… it also looked and smelled unbelievably delicious.

"There we go; one non-meat meatloaf – so I guess just… loaf – for the grass stain," Cyborg pretended to recoil in disgust from the plate. "And four cuts of normal meatloaf for the rest of us, because eating meat is normal!" The smell of the dish was so exquisite that Beast Boy couldn't even bring himself to reply to Cyborg's obvious bait. He was digging into the vegetarian meal before anyone else had even grabbed their knife and fork.

"Mmm…" he moaned to himself, as Raven wrinkled her nose in disgust at the sound, or possibly his table manners. Or both. "You guys don't know what you're missing."

"We do, actually," Cyborg replied, "And that's why we're missing it."

"Beast Boy," Raven interjected, "Just because you can turn into a pig – and frequently smell like one – doesn't mean that you have to eat like one. Would it kill you to chew with your mouth closed?"

Beast Boy meekly obeyed, having been so distracted by how tasty the food was that he didn't even realise he was irritating anyone. But when he did adjust himself without comment, the others seemed a little surprised that he had nothing to say, no comeback to offer, no attempt at a witty remark in Raven's direction, which she would inevitably throw back at him in an even wittier way.

He didn't feel like annoying his friends… but he did need more material.

"But Raven," he replied, after swallowing the latest mouthful of Cyborg's vegetarian concoction, "If I keep my mouth closed… how am I supposed to put the food in?" he grinned cheekily.

Raven rolled her eyes. "On second thoughts, maybe you should just keep your mouth closed altogether. Permanently." He didn't have a comeback to that, and she was more than happy not to say anything further to him for the rest of the meal. She didn't need to. She had already provided him with a wealth of material. As he finished his plate – oddly quieter than usual – the words were already swirling around in his head. Messy eater. Rude. Irritating. Noisy. This was brilliant.

Brilliant.

.

A few days later, Beast Boy had already filled in three more pages with Raven's comments. It really was amazing the way she could tear him to shreds without ever repeating herself. Not that he felt torn to shreds; he felt fine. Perfectly fine.

Raven, Beast Boy and Cyborg were sitting in the Common Room, Raven reading yet another one of her dusty old tomes while the boys did battle with each other in Autoracer 92. Raven's eyes peeked over the book as the volume increased; not just the volume of the game, but of Beast Boy and Cyborg hooting and hollering as they trash-talked each other over every minute detail of the game.

"Beast Boy…" she began quietly, eyes narrow. He used to freeze in fear at that icy cold voice, but now he froze in anticipation of her words.

"Could you turn that stupid game down? Just because you're comfortable lowering your IQ by killing your few remaining brain cells doesn't mean that the rest of us are in a hurry to join you."

"Heh, good one Rae," Beast Boy replied, turning the volume down slightly without any further protest. Both Cyborg and Raven noticed his oddly deferential behaviour. Raven glared at Beast Boy in mild confusion and curiosity, before burying her nose back in her book. She would let him get away with calling her 'Rae', at least for now. Cyborg was a touch more confused, and more openly too, but he quickly refocussed his efforts on Autoracer 92.

Beast Boy was by no means a bad player, but he was somewhat predictable. Cyborg had a small lead, which meant that Beast Boy would doubtlessly try to boost forwards and quickly veer sideways into Cyborg's vehicle, sending it careening off the track. He tried this every single time, and while he occasionally caught Cyborg by surprise – usually while he wasn't paying attention – then Cyborg was most definitely paying attention today. Which is why as they turned a corner at breakneck speeds, he slowed down just enough for Beast Boy to catch up with him, and then veered his own vehicle wildly to the side, where he predicted Beast Boy would have been.

And ordinarily, he would. On any other day, this plan would have worked perfectly. But Beast Boy was preoccupied. Raven's dig at him was verbose, but he didn't know if he could condense it into something that he could write down without losing some of the context. So focussed was he on this, that he was barely paying attention to the game, and as a result, he was just as surprised as Cyborg was when his best friend's vehicle slowed down, veered wildly to the side, and… sailed directly in front of Beast Boy's slow-moving car, crashed through the barriers, sailed off the track and promptly exploded in a small fireball. The sound snapped Beast Boy back to reality, and they both watched – Beast Boy in confusion, Cyborg in shock – as Cyborg's virtual driver exited the wreckage of his car and ran around in a circle, screaming and very much on fire, before collapsing on the ground. "RETIRED!" declared the announcer.

"What… what the hell was that?" Cyborg shrieked in irritation. "You always try to catch up to me, you…" He was surprised by Beast Boy's manoeuvre, but even more surprised by the lack of gloating. Beast Boy seemed just as surprised as he did that his fake-out – if you could call it that – had worked.

"Um… good game?"

Cyborg's human eye narrowed. "You… lousy, no-good, rotten, cheating…" he continued to mumble to himself as he threw his controller back onto the table in front of them. Beast Boy was barely paying attention to his actions; his words had Beast Boy's full attention. He had been so focussed on Raven that he had completely overlooked that his other friends were full of comments too, and Cyborg had just given him four. His friend quickly declared the game 'stupid' and announced that he would never fall for such a trick again, but Beast Boy was barely listening, only repeating Cyborg's previous words in his head. Lousy, no-good, rotten, cheating. Raven would never use words like that, but Cyborg would.

Suddenly aware that the game was over, Beast Boy quickly looked around the room to see who was left. Raven was still reading her tome, and Starfire was sitting at the kitchen table. Starfire. Beast Boy placed his controller down – much more gently than Cyborg had done so – and approached his Tamaranean friend.

"Hey, Star?" he chirped as she put down her book with a smile. Robin had been trying to get her into earthly literature for some time and as luck would have it, she was just as fascinated by the oddest books as she was by the oddest shows and documentaries. She was currently reading an encyclopaedia on the history of curtains.

"Yes, my friend?" she smiled back warmly, always happy to talk. Seemingly always happy to do anything, really. Beast Boy wondered if he was jealous of that.

"I was… thinking about that time I tried to prank Cyborg, and you got caught in the crossfire. With the balloon, and the motor oil," he winced as he recalled the details, his missed target, and how angry and upset she had been.

Starfire winced too, but the smile remained on her face. "Oh! Yes, that was… four months into the formation of the team, correct?" She was right, as always. "That was not a pleasant experience. Tell me, did you ever successfully accomplish revenge upon the intended target?" She looked innocently towards Cyborg.

"Hmm… no! Now that I think about it, I-"

Behind him, Cyborg gulped loudly, made an excuse to leave, and departed from the Common Room as quickly as possible.

"Anyway…" Beast Boy continued, "Um, what was that thing that you called me? A Clorbag?"

This time, Starfire's smile did not remain on her face as she winced. She had clearly not been lying about finding the experience unpleasant.

"… A Clorbag Varblernelk," she recalled sadly, grabbing Beast Boy's hands in her own before he could stop her, "And I was wrong to do so. It is not a nice thing to call someone, especially a friend, and I apologize if my words were hurtful to you."

Beast Boy tried to pull his hands away, only to find that he couldn't – it was sometimes easy to forget that Starfire was possibly thousands of times stronger than him – and so had to settle for reassuring her with words. "What? No, it's fine! I-I totally deserved it. I was being a total… Clorbag. I was just thinking, like… I never asked you what it means."

The subdued smile that had been slowly working its way back onto Starfire's face disappeared again. "I… I am not sure that it has an exact earthly translation, and if it did then I am not sure that I would wish to say it. I regretted saying it to you immensely."

"Oh! No, no, it's… I'm sorry Star, I'm not trying to bring back any bad memories," he apologized, and he was even half-truthful. He certainly wasn't trying to bring back any bad memories for her. "I was just… curious, that's all."

He knew that it was a low blow; if there was one emotion that Starfire knew better than giddy, infectious happiness, it was curiosity. If there was one feeling that she understood, and would be willing to lower her guard for, it was the childish, inquisitive mindset of someone who didn't know something, but wanted to. She shut her book and began to think.

"Well… a Clorbag is simply a generic term for an unpleasant person. I believe the earthly equivalent would be…" she paused, pensively resting her chin in her palm. Jerk. Douchebag. Dick. Beast Boy had written all of these down already. He wondered which option she was going to take. Robin probably wouldn't have appreciated that last one.

Starfire noticed that Raven was still on the other side of the Common Room, and raised her voice to reach her.

"Friend Raven; if you could advise, is my pronunciation of the following term correct? Ass-hole?"

Beast Boy wasn't sure whether to laugh or recoil in horror, and so he did a little of both. Raven dropped her book straight onto the floor and glared at them both, but especially him. Cheeks turning red, she draped herself in her cloak and simply retorted "What the hell are you two talking about over there?" before storming out without even picking up her fallen literature. That made two Titans that Beast Boy had driven from the room; if Robin was here, he could have gone for the hattrick.

He did hope that Raven didn't think that he was trying to teach Starfire naughty words again. He recalled an incident several years ago when he had told her of a specific term that – according to him – was a friendly and commonly-used way of referring to young children. It had been a simple joke, and he had forgotten all about it until months later, at a meet-and-greet held at Jump City Zoo. He still remembered the horrified look on the face of the mayor's wife as she went to shake Starfire's hand, and Starfire accepted, observed her beautiful family, and declared, "Oh, how wonderful of you to bring all of your crotch-goblins here today!"

He shuddered as he remembered the aftermath to that one. He was fairly certain that they were still banned from the mayor's yearly charity gala at the town hall. Robin hadn't been sure what was worse; the damage to their PR, or the hours he'd had to spend trying to explain to Starfire what she had said, only for the Tamaranean to insist, "… I do not understand. Given my understanding of human reproduction, is 'crotch-goblins' not an accurate term?" He was so distracted by this that it took him five more seconds to realise that all those years ago, shortly after first meeting his new family, the most kind-hearted, patient and optimistic woman he had ever met in his life… had called him an asshole?

The Tamaranean in question was a touch perplexed at Raven's exit. "Did I say something off-putting?"

"Well… kind of?" Beast Boy tried to answer diplomatically. "It's not the worst thing in the world, but I wouldn't say that word in front of Robin. Or Cyborg. Or… children. Or probably anyone, really," he attempted to explain. "So… that's what Clorbag means, huh?"

Starfire looked guilty again. "Yes, and once again, I-" Beast Boy shrugged and smiled as he held up a hand and shook his head, indicating that her apology was not necessary.

"So what's a Varblernelk?"

Starfire perked up with a jolt. The Varblernelk would be much more fun to educate her friend on.

"Oh! The Varblernelk… the scourge of children, dread of the warrior, bane of… hygiene." She excitedly began. "The Varblernelk is a fascinating creature; I have never seen one myself in person. To be entirely honest, I am not certain that they exist. Rumours regarding Tamaranean flora and fauna have been known to blur the line between fiction and reality. It may well just be a tale told to scare the younglings, but… what a terrifying tale it is." She was enjoying telling the story, and he was enjoying hearing it.

"So, the Varblernelk is like, a big scary monster?" Beast Boy asked. It would've been oddly nice if she had considered him a big, hulking, fearsome creature.

"Well… not exactly. It is hard to describe without an earthly equivalent, but I believe the closest counterpart on this planet would be… the slug?"

Beast Boy's face fell. "Oh?"

"But a man-sized slug. With sluggy, slimy arms, leaving a trail of goo wherever it goes. And the odour!" Starfire mimed retching. "It is a mixture of raw sewage and decomposing garbage, and that is merely the smell of the trail. If you were to encounter one in person, you would fall unconscious, and probably be severely ill when you wake up."

"So…" Beast Boy awkwardly continued, "It's not like, scary fearsome, you just… wouldn't want to encounter one?"

"Oh, yes," Starfire confirmed with a fervent nod. "To encounter a Varblernelk is a terrible omen. Legends say that they are only located in the deepest, dampest and most toxic and dangerous caverns and swamps in all of Tamaran. But rumour has it that occasionally one will travel nearer to a community, and the people there should lock their doors and close their windows until it returns to the swamp, where it belongs. I do not believe that they even mate with each other, they are simply formed from the waste and then fall to pieces when they are through." 'Sounds like a perfect description for you,' Beast Boy thought to himself. He'd been having those thoughts a lot recently.

"So… a Clorbag Varblernelk-"

"Would be a Varblernelk who intentionally sets out to leave a path of misery and destruction in its wake. An ordinary Varblernelk is unpleasant, but also… pitiful in its own way. I cannot imagine that life being a fulfilling existence. A Clorbag Varblernelk would be acting maliciously."

She grabbed his hands again, gentler this time, to the point where he could have withdrawn his hands if he had wanted to, but he didn't want to.

"You are not a Clorbag Varblernelk, Beast Boy. You are the furthest from the description that I could imagine." Her smile was as sincere as her words felt false; not the way that she was saying them, but the way that he was hearing them. "You are a very dear friend. I am glad that I was able to share this history with you, but I would rather not delve into this matter any further, if that is acceptable to you."

"Oh! Of course, Star!" Beast Boy replied with half-false enthusiasm. "Just… thanks for talking to me about it. Tamaran sure is interesting!" He had not cared the slightest about learning about Tamaranean culture. He had asked for one reason and that reason had been fulfilled. "Let's talk more about it some other time!" he emptily promised. She beamed back at him regardless, whether she believed him, or was just humouring the falsehood.

Beast Boy turned to make his way to his room. Clorbag Varblernelk. An ugly, hideous, slug-like monster that was toxic and smelly and rightfully despised by all until it inevitably died alone.

He grinned to himself as he considered all of the new material he had just found for his book.

.

Beast Boy thudded against the wall, clutching his aching right arm with his left. A glance down while he attempted to clench and unclench his fist confirmed that he was fine – other than some momentary pain and some rather badly-scorched gloves. He had never considered him to be a particularly loathsome villain, but as he took in the view of his team struggling, Beast Boy could only come to the conclusion that he really, truly, sincerely hated fighting Overload.

The only way to beat Overload was to retrieve – through force or via trickery – the computer chip that lay at the heart of his being. Protected by layer upon layer of painful, destructive, and extremely fatal electricity. Robin may have been one of the most-skilled fighters on the team, but a direct hit from something like that could have done much worse than just knock him out. Starfire was pelting their foe with starbolts, but to little effect – Cyborg was doing the same with his sonic cannon, which Overload was shrugging off with similar ease. Robin could only direct from the back, his occasional explosive disks doing little to stop the creature's rampage, while Raven worked defence, trying to contain Overload as much as possible while shielding her teammates. It wasn't the most difficult fight, but it was consistently one of the most annoying.

"B! You okay?" shouted Cyborg over the chaos, having seen his friend take a nasty hit.

Beast Boy nodded tiredly in response, before suddenly realising that Cyborg wouldn't have been able to see that. "Yeah, I'm hanging in there!" he yelled back, shaking off the aches and pains and turning into a falcon to soar into the air again. Nobody knew if Overload had a brain somewhere in that ridiculously persistent chip of his, but he had stopped attacking in areas near easily-accessible water, making it much harder to weaken him. Beast Boy was more capable of taking a hit than Robin was, but couldn't hope to directly end the fight himself, and as such, his role was to serve as a distraction from above, holding the electric behemoth's attention while the others dealt meaningful damage.

A distraction. All you're good for anyway.

Beast Boy couldn't quite pinpoint when these intrusive thoughts had appeared, but at some point, his own psyche seemed more than willing to make its own suggestions to add to that book of his. He could use the help too; Raven hadn't confronted him about anything, but had stopped insulting the boy so often. As a result, it had been more than a week since she had even spoken to him at all. Even earlier in the fight, when he had been a little slow dodging one of Overload's arching bolts of electricity and a psychic black shield had prevented him from being fried, she had gone straight back to the fight without even acknowledging him.

You're not worth acknowledging.

Beast Boy flew erratically through bolts of energy, cawing loudly as he did so in an attempt to gain more attention. Once he had it, he doubled back and barrel-rolled through with pinpoint precision, successfully holding that attention as Overload tried to swat this pesky bird out of the air. His wings felt a little singed, but he was unharmed, and beneath him, Starfire and Cyborg's attacks finally seemed to be taking a toll on Overload's body, which was getting slimmer and weaker. The several electrical tentacles that Beast Boy had avoided merged into one large one as the creature seemed to be getting angry, aiming a huge brute-force attack at the changeling that would have been child's play to avoid. Except…

Just take the hit.

Beast Boy froze. That… that wouldn't help to defeat Overload. That wouldn't help his friends.

I disagree. They would be less preoccupied if they didn't have to worry about protecting your useless butt. Raven's already had to shield you from three attacks.

But even if he got hit, wouldn't that just distract his friends even more?

Then take a bad hit. Put yourself out of commission for a few missions. With any luck, they'll realise how much better they work without you.

That's not true. They wouldn't-

You want to be a hero? You want to help people? Stop holding your team back. Take the hit.

Even if he didn't want to, it was too late. The arc of electricity was heading straight for him with no time to transform. "There you go," his intrusive thought congratulated him prematurely. Beast Boy could only gulp and hope that this wouldn't hurt too badly, before a dark portal appeared before him and a very furious teammate appeared between him and the hazard. He wanted to shout a warning, that Raven was too close, that he wasn't worth it, but unlike him, Raven was ready. A dark shield appeared immediately, nullifying the risk with minimal effort, before she turned to Beast Boy, angrier at him than she was at Overload, and teleported them both safely to the ground, where he quickly transformed back into his human self.

"What the hell was that?" she snapped at him, anger born of worry. "You didn't even try to avoid him. Are you even paying attention?" she continued, placing a hand impatiently on each side of his head as if checking for signs of a concussion.

"I… sorry, um… no. Sorry. I wasn't paying attention." Beast Boy lied in a panic. "Sorry," he added again.

Raven frowned at him. She knew that he was lying, but she couldn't for the life of her understand why. Grabbing her communicator, she began to broadcast a message to the rest of the team. It was just as honest as the message Beast Boy had just given her.

"Beast Boy's injured. It's nothing serious, but I'd like to get him back to the tower."

Starfire was the first to respond, in panic and worry, before vowing to channel those emotions into making Overload pay. Cyborg, equally upset to hear that his friend was supposedly hurt, asked Starfire to leave some of Overload to him. Robin agreed, and simply stated that he trusted Raven's judgement, but asked her to return to the fight as soon as she could, if possible. Before Beast Boy could even protest, Raven had grabbed him by the arms and teleported them both back to the tower, just as she had said she would.

They arrived in the medical bay a moment later; if she was lying, she was being extremely thorough about it. For a moment, Beast Boy wondered if she genuinely did think that he was injured, especially since she had teleported him directly onto one of the sterile white medical bay beds.

"Okay, seriously, what is going on with you?" she demanded impatiently, dispelling that illusion immediately. "I have never seen you freeze up like that in the middle of the fight. If something is distracting you, we need to know." Beast Boy froze, not knowing how to explain, or if he even wanted to explain.

She's beginning to realise how useless you are. Good.

Raven sighed and held the bridge of her nose with her left hand. "Look, I'm not even angry at you, I just… no, yes. Yes, I am angry at you, because you are my friend, and you're going to get yourself hurt. You know better than that. What if you froze up like that against Cinderblock – or Slade?"

You would be dead and they would all finally be spared the burden of your presence.

Beast Boy opened and closed his mouth a few times before eventually settling on a fittingly mediocre explanation. "I'm… sorry, Raven. I just froze up, like you said. I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to worry you." You're not worth worrying about.

Raven's expression softened. "Well, I am worried. You're my friend. I don't want you to get hurt." You've already taken advantage of her good nature by forcing her to pity you.

"Right. And thank you. And… I'm sorry, again." So much for not distracting the team.

Raven's communicator blared out a half-second of static before Robin's voice cut through. "Raven? Overload's been defeated." No thanks to you. "How's Beast Boy?"

Raven glanced back at her teammate, knowing exactly how to answer, but not quite knowing the whole truth, and being uncomfortably aware of it. "Fully-healed," she explained truthfully. "He's fine," she lied.

Clipping her communicator back to her leotard, she impassively strolled towards the exit, seemingly content to leave Beast Boy to his own thoughts. Pausing as she reached the door, she half-glanced, half-glared back in his direction.

"… You know that you can talk to us if something's wrong, don't you?" Concern was technically a positive emotion, which made it difficult for Raven to express so freely, and yet here she was, making the effort.

"Thanks Rae. I know," Beast Boy replied a little too quickly.

Raven frowned. "And yet you aren't." It wasn't cold, just purely logical. But she was gone before he could even respond.

Beast Boy's stomach was troubling him. It was as if several negative emotions were vying for attention at once, but none of them were quite dominating his anxiety. Even his intrusive thoughts were being somewhat quiet, as if they couldn't figure out the most effective way to criticize him. After all, there were so many angles they could have chosen.

One thing was for sure; he had a lot of new material to write down in his book.

.

He wasn't enjoying it any more.

He didn't enjoy keeping a record of every single one of his faults, but he had to. If he didn't write them down, they would coalesce in his head, weighing on his conscience, dragging him down until he could think of nothing else. The only way to expunge them – or at least, to stop them from completely dominating his thoughts – was to write them down. Put them in a form that he could stare at for hours at a time, internalizing what he had only just externalized.

He had long since given up limiting the list to just Raven's comments, although he still imagined her saying each and every one of them. Any comment that had ever been made towards him, whether it was in jest, whether it was from a friend or a villain, whether it was intended to amuse him or tear him down; each and every one of them made its way onto the list.

Useless. Screw-up. Failure.

He scribbled every word down. Had anyone even said these to him? He wasn't sure any more, but he felt it would be dishonest not to include them. Everyone was probably thinking them, anyway. Especially her.

Ugly. Insignificant. Pathetic.

He felt like laughing as he wrote them down, but he didn't. He felt like laughing until he cried. Minus the laughter.

Going to let everyone down. Only tolerated out of pity.

His vision was getting blurry. It was getting harder to make out the words.

Everything would be better for everyone if you were dead.

He put down his pen and brokenly stared at what he had just written, feeling an odd mixture of boundless despair, and a strange pride, as if he had finally cracked the answer to a challenging riddle. And the answer to that riddle was his own indisputable worthlessness. He understood it now. It was almost liberating, to realise how utterly useless he was to everyone around him. He smiled, broken, but sincere, and continued to smile as he carefully closed the notebook and placed it gently back in the top drawer on his desk, as if it was his most prized possession.

He was worthless.

The experiment was over. He didn't need to write them down any more, because he had uncovered the truth. He could stop; he could finally stop. He was an utterly worthless human being. There was nothing even remotely redeeming about his existence.

He headed back to the Common Room, smiling all the way, challenging Cyborg to a race when he arrived on the couch. His best friend agreed, and soon they were whooping and cheering as their virtual cars tore around a racetrack. He could finally enjoy the companionship of his friends again now that he had realised the truth behind it all. When Raven lowered her book and glared at them both, they lowered their volume, and her eyes lingered on Beast Boy for a moment longer than normal, not just in concern, but confusion. He didn't notice. He was too busy being worthless.

When he had lost the race – no surprise there – he almost skipped into the kitchen to offer any assistance to Starfire. She was delighted by his offer, although she remorsefully had to admit that the only help she required now was tidying up after her latest attempt to translate some Tamaranean fare into earthly cuisine. Beast Boy beamed with joy and announced that he would be happy to help, even just by washing dishes. Starfire was a tad surprised, but overjoyed nonetheless, and soon the two of them were scrubbing pots and pans side by side, Beast Boy intentionally putting far more washing up liquid than necessary into the sink so that he could scoop up a handful of suds and blow them into the air, like a snowstorm, much to his and Starfire's amusement. He was happy again. He was worthless.

Now that he had accepted it, he could go back to his life, go back to having fun, go back to being happy. What point was there in being unhappy? What good was there in beating himself up when he never had the chance to be anything but worthless? This was good. This was liberating. He blinked back the tears. He was smiling again; did it really matter that the smile didn't reach his eyes?

This was good.

.

As he walked into his bedroom, Beast Boy ducked into the bathroom and grabbed a towel before emerging again, wiping the sweat from his forehead before tossing it to one side. Training hadn't gone too well today. He smiled in a triumphantly defeated sort of way. Of course it hadn't gone well; he wouldn't be worthless if he wasn't constantly letting everyone around him down, would he? He pulled out his desk chair, opened the drawer containing the precious book, and grabbed it eagerly, placing it open on his desk in anticipation. He didn't know how best to frame some of his flaws today, but he was sure that with enough perseverance, he could at least adequately find a way to put all of his inadequacies into writing. He no longer had to, but he wanted to.

"What's in the book?"

Beast Boy jumped from his seat so fiercely that the chair toppled over, leaping up to the ceiling in the form of a monkey. He recognized the voice, but he hadn't smelled her on the way in. Although, he hadn't been trying to smell her; his room was the last place he would expect for her to visit, especially uninvited. Could he add 'unobservant' to the list? She had spotted the book. How much did she know?

As he landed back on his desk, hopping off as he transformed back into his human form, he took in the demeanour of his unwanted guest. Arms folded. Emotionless as ever, except for a single raised eyebrow at his surprised reaction to her presence. Every animal instinct in his body told him to prepare for fight or flight. She looked utterly ambivalent to be there.

Nodding towards the desk, she repeated her question. "What's in the book, Beast Boy?"

Beast Boy stumbled over the words as they formed in his mouth roughly a second before they formed in his head. He needed to defend himself, but he wasn't used to doing any defending lately. He hadn't thought about it in such a long time; after all, he wasn't worth defending.

"I… think that I'm entitled to a little privacy, Raven," he tried to sound offended by her intrusion. "I thought you of all people would understand that."

"And I thought you of all people would understand the importance of breaching that privacy when you're concerned about a friend," she replied calmly and logically. Beast Boy blinked, not quite sure if she was paying him a compliment, in a roundabout sort of way, regarding his previous behaviour towards her. Raven uncrossed her arms as she admitted the truth.

"You haven't been very sociable lately; you even missed dinner yesterday. And for almost a week now, you return to your room around this time, and… you do something. And I don't know what it is, and normally, I would not care; in fact, I would prefer not to know whatever it is that you do in the 'privacy' of your own room," she wrinkled her nose, "but… you're broadcasting. You are sending out so much…" her neutral expression turned into one of open concern, although to Beast Boy, it looked more like pity, "so much pain, and even if it didn't hurt for me to feel, then it would hurt for me to know that my friend is suffering in silence. So I'm here."

Raven glanced around the room, displaying a hint of the uncomfortableness that she felt. "I've checked, thoroughly, and I am reasonably sure that you're not self-harming. But you came in here, you sat down at your desk, and you went straight for that book. So I'll ask you again; what's in it?"

For once, Beast Boy was truly speechless, and for once, Raven didn't want him to be. He knew that there was no escape; if Raven wanted to know something and the information was available – and it was, it was sitting right there on his desk – then she would stop at nothing to uncover it. He couldn't just hand the book over to her for browsing, but he also knew that he couldn't hide it. So he simply stood, silent and ashamed, until she lost her patience and stepped past him to pick up the offending object and examine it for herself.

"It's…" he mumbled out, in a failed last-ditch attempt to stop her from reading. "It's just words." Cursing himself for how stupid he sounded, he watched Raven's eyes as she opened the book and began to read.

He knew that the first few pages were just doodles and notes, half-finished to-do lists of tasks that had long since been either completed or abandoned, and the occasional reminder of the next film to choose for movie night, or the next game to bug Cyborg to play. Raven's eyes scanned the pages without reaction, until she turned one and they went wide in shock.

Flaws

Her eyes met Beast Boy's for just a moment in a mixture of mostly anger, with just a hint of sadness, as she read each and every word that he had written about himself. His appearance, his personality, everything that made him who he was. Everything that had made him one of the few people on the planet that she was comfortable to call a friend.

She knew that it wouldn't help, but she couldn't help herself. "You idiot," she muttered angrily. "Of all the stupid- why would you possibly do this, hmm? What could possibly make you think that any of these things are true? That you are anything but-" she paused, her voice dropping for a moment, before she restarted her attack. "Who told you these things, and how stupid are you that you actually believed any of them?"

Beast Boy felt the answer rising in the back of his throat. He didn't want to say. He knew that it would be rude to say. It would upset his friend to say.

"Who?" Raven forcefully insisted.

"The smartest person I know," Beast Boy admitted back.

"And who's that?" Raven folded her arms impatiently.

"You." He answered with more venom that he had ever anticipated. The regret was immediate. It wasn't often that Raven was shocked, but that had certainly done it. Her eyes froze for a moment, before they returned to the pages and she flipped through them, scanning for words that she could suddenly recall she had said. He could've sworn he saw a tear well up in the corner of her eye before she blinked it away. Her shock was definitely transforming quickly into sadness. Beast Boy didn't mean to make her feel sad. It wasn't a bad thing that she had said these words to him. She had only been telling the truth. The only reason that word had come out so venomously was because he didn't appreciate that she was now trying to take that truth away from him again. He needed that truth. Acknowledging his worthlessness had freed him, and now she was trying to lock him up again.

"I… see," Raven replied quietly, unusually subdued for her. She turned another page and her eyes went wider than he had ever seen, before boring into his with a chilling rage. He knew why; that was the last page he had written on. His latest addition to the list.

Everything would be better for everyone if you were dead.

This time, Raven didn't blink back the tear that grew in the corner of her eyes, and she let it run down her cheek in full view of him. Without breaking eye contact, and as a few more tears formed and fell, she reached up to the top of the page and slowly, furiously ripped it out of the book. The drawn out, methodical tearing was like nails on a chalkboard to him, but she never once looked away, nor did she blink, until the offending page was in her hands, at which point it was covered in dark magic for a moment, and then burned into nothingness.

"I never said that to you," she accused him righteously.

"I-I know…" he stuttered in an awkward apology. "That… that one was just… me."

Her features softened again as quickly as they had hardened, and now tears were welling up in her eyes for a completely different reason. "… Beast Boy…" she began sympathetically, before her demeanour changed again. Back to her original harshness, she slammed the book shut and threw it back down onto his desk. For several awkward seconds, neither of them talked. Beast Boy idly fidgeted with the pen in his hand.

"Were you going to add anything?" Raven asked coldly. Unsure what to say, not wanting to admit the truth, but knowing full well that she would be able to tell if he was lying, he nodded dumbly.

"Well then… go ahead," she indicated towards the book with disdain. He couldn't tell if it was towards him or his words. His heart began to race. He wanted – needed – the book, but something about writing in it with her watching – with her… approval – felt deeply wrong. He wanted to run, but he knew she would catch him. To hide, but he knew he'd be found. And so, heart beating out of his chest, he nervously took a seat, opened the notebook to its newest page, and tried to recall today's shambolic training practise.

He had failed to keep up with Robin in a hand-to-hand spar. He glanced back at Raven as if to confirm if she genuinely wanted him to continue, but she was merely tapping her foot in impatience. Slow. He scribbled the word out – ironically – rather quickly. When lifting weights earlier, he couldn't help but notice the monumental difference between the pithy loads that he could manage, and the multiple tons that Cyborg and Starfire could lift with seemingly little effort. Scrawny. He would have written 'weak', but he had used that one weeks ago. That had been all. He sat back in his chair, unsure how Raven would respond.

"All done? Good," she announced, taking a step closer and forcefully plucking the pen from his hand, turning to a new page in the notebook, and scribbling something down near the top. She handed the pen back to Beast Boy as she stepped away again.

Qualities

Beast Boy stared at the word as if it was alien to him, then glanced back to Raven, who was looking at him expectantly. "Go on."

The pen was shaking in his hand. Raven rolled her eyes. "Beast Boy, I don't want to have to write them for you, but Azar help me, I will." The edge in her voice drove him to put his pen to paper, but the words just wouldn't flow out. What was there positive to say about him? That he made the others look better in comparison? Raven cleared her throat impatiently and he panicked, writing down the first vaguely positive adjective that he supposed could technically apply to him. Raven leaned over his shoulder and saw what he had written.

Funny

He expected her to voice a disagreement, to sarcastically say that of all the positive attributes he could have plucked from thin air, he just had to choose the one that was objectively incorrect. But she didn't. She seemed satisfied with his answer, and then reclined back again, gesturing back towards the page.

"That's one. I want at least twenty."

Beast Boy let out a choked cough of surprise. Raven was undeterred. "And twenty unique ones too, so now that you've got 'funny', you can't use 'amusing'. You're crafty like that. In fact, put that down. Crafty."

Beast Boy hesitated. "Crafty doesn't sound like a compliment."

Raven paused. "Alright. Make it resourceful instead. And then write down intelligent too."

Beast Boy dropped the pen. "Me? Intelligent? Seriously? Look, Rae-"

"Raven. You lost 'Rae' privileges when you wrote that ridiculous nonsense on the last page."

Beast Boy's heart sank. "… Ok. Sorry. But, see? I wrote something stupid. Does that sound like something a smart person would do?"

Raven's eyes narrowed. "How many species of snake are there in Massachusetts?"

Beast Boy paused, and not because he didn't know the answer. "I'm waiting…" Raven continued. He opened his mouth and closed it again. "I know that you know, and if I have to pull the words out of your throat myself then-"

"Fourteen," Beast Boy reluctantly admitted. "At least, to the best of our knowledge; the government doesn't allow environmental biologists access to military grounds, so potentially more…" he drifted off, while Raven smiled smugly. Admitting defeat, Beast Boy returned to his notebook, although something about writing that compliment down made him feel nauseous for some reason, so he paused. Glancing back to Raven, who seemingly had all of the time in the world to force him to do this, he attempted to get out of this the only way he knew how; self-deprecation.

"Rae…-ven," he concluded when she glared at him, "I don't know if I… I-I mean, I don't think I can even spell intelligent, you know?" he laughed humourlessly.

Raven paused. "Fine."

Beast Boy couldn't believe that this had worked. "Wait, really?"

"Give me the pen and I'll write it. You're taking too long anyway." Ah, there it was. The reason he couldn't believe that it had worked was because it hadn't. Raven snatched the pen from his hands and wrote 'intelligent' in her beautiful cursive handwriting. She paused, before adding 'wise' as well.

"I thought you said no doubles?"

"There's a difference between knowledge and wisdom," she explained, almost tempted to remind him that he had met both of hers in Nevermore. "Knowledge is knowing how many kinds of wasp there are. Wisdom is knowing the exact one to turn into to sneak into Adonis' suit and start stinging." She sidled into his desk chair, nudging him off as he was forced to awkwardly stand.

Before Beast Boy even had a chance to object, she kept going, scribbling more and more words down, commenting on them as she did so. "Heroic. I mean, you're a superhero, so that's just an objective fact. Caring. Friendly. Uplifting to be around; I can't think of a word for that, so I'll just write the whole thing."

Beast Boy's heart was swelling… but not entirely in a good way. "Raven… thank you, but-"

"Righteous. I've always thought that you have the strongest moral compass on the team, honestly," she admitted without shame. "I look up to you for that. We all do."

Beast Boy was beginning to sweat, and his hands felt both lighter and heavier than they were. His throat felt strangely dry. "Hey, let's-let's take a break here, okay?"

"In fact, why don't we look at some of the negatives again, hmm?" Raven said casually, noting Beast Boy's nerves, but not quite knowing how bad they were, or how her words were affecting him. "You wrote 'reckless.' But that's because you're always the first person to jump into battle. So that's brave. Not just brave; courageous. And selfless, too," Raven added them to the list. Beast Boy wanted to tell her to stop – please just stop – but his voice wasn't working, and he didn't know if she would have listened to him if it was.

"I think that 'strategic' is different enough from 'wise.' Not just on the battlefield, but at home. You bring up everyone's spirits, and you always seem to know just what everyone needs to hear. Insightful."

Every word that she said was another stab into his rapidly-expanding heart, and he could not understand why. It wasn't just bashfulness, he felt overwhelmed, as if he was going to die any second now from being crushed under the sheer weight of her expectations.

"S-stop, please," he croaked. She missed the tremor in his voice, or mistook it for something else.

"Good listener," she continued to ignore him. "Good teammate. Good friend." She looked him in the eyes ambivalently. "Good person."

"P… p-please," he begged.

"Supportive. Dependable. Loyal," she continued without listening.

"R… Rae," he mumbled, desperate.

"I don't know anyone I can count on more to always do the right thing."

Always. The right thing.

He broke.

…

"STOP IT!" he screamed, collapsing to his knees as he struggled to breathe. She jumped in her seat, finally aware of the harm that she was causing. He held his head in his hands shamefully, hyperventilating and openly weeping. He couldn't even hear her startled response, asking what was wrong, or when she rose from his chair and cautiously approached.

I can always count on you to do the right thing.

Beast Boy had known from the beginning, on some level, that what he was doing wasn't healthy. That he was indulging his low self-esteem and self-loathing tendencies by creating a checklist documenting every single one of his perceived flaws. That had been obvious from the start. But his imperfections hadn't just served to tear him down, rip him to shreds until maybe he started to believe that was truly, sincerely worthless to the world.

They had also served as a shield from the responsibility.

If he was worthless, then… he could hardly have been faulted for every mistake that he made in battle, could he? Every injury that he took unto himself; or worse, every injury to others that he had failed to prevent. Every time Raven had overexerted herself fixing his mistakes. If he was as useless as he sometimes believed, then… sure, he was still at fault, but could he have ever been expected to do better? If he was truly as bad as they said, with no opportunity to improve, then that somehow alleviated the guilt of every failure, every doubt, every time he had tried to protect someone that he cared about and found himself lacking. He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.

If he really was just a mindless animal, incapable of being anything else, then was it really his fault that he had failed to follow the orders of the Doom Patrol? That he had screwed things up with his surrogate family, after failing to protect his real family? That his uncle had recognized his worthlessness and treated him accordingly, while he failed to resist? That his best efforts hadn't been enough to persuade Terra? That he had just stood there and watched as his parents' boat went over the edge of the waterfall?

You could have saved them you could have saved them you could have saved them all you could have saved Terra you could have saved your parents but you didn't, you didn't and they're dead and it's all your fault, it's all your fault because you could have but you didn't, you worthless failure, you can't follow orders, you made Starfire cry, you gave Cyborg a virus, you drove Raven to Malchior and you are so useless so utterly fucking useless but you're not, you're not useless, and that's even worse because that means that you are choosing to be as pathetic as you are, and you could have stopped this, you could have saved everyone, you killed your parents you worthless animal, it's all your fault and it will always be your fault and it will never stop being your fault that they're dead-

He didn't see Raven kneel down in front of him, and barely reacted when her arms wrapped around his body. He only even vaguely felt it when she gently pushed on the back of his head, directing him to nuzzle into her shoulder. And her voice, softly cutting through his panic attack.

"Sssssshhhh," she soothed, cradling him with care that he would have never expected from her. "Ssshhh, it's okay, it's okay," she whispered. "Just breathe. Just breathe." Don't breathe. Ever. Spare them all the pain of knowing you. You deserve to feel this way. You will always deserve to feel this way.

His arms sprang back to life as he clutched her desperately, as if he was drowning at sea and she was the only thing keeping him above water, afraid that if he let her go for even one second then he would be swept away forever in a sea of despair. He continued sobbing – big, ugly, heaving sobs that wracked his entire body – but she didn't flinch or try to resist, as he would normally expect. She just continued to hold him, gently stroking the back of his head while his tears continued to fall, but his breathing gradually returned to its regular pace.

"Please… please just… stop," he begged between the tears. "It hurts… you're hurting me…" he stammered weakly. "I… I can't-"

"I know, I know. I'm sorry. I've stopped, ok? Just breathe for me. In and out. Focus on it." She gently rubbed his back as she guided him through the nerves, while he slowly and steadily began to focus on each deep breath in and out he took. Don't focus on breathing. Breathing is the last thing you deserve. It was a while before he could do so without stuttering or sobbing, but each attempt came closer and closer until he was almost back to normal, or what passed for normal for him. What a joke. You'll never be normal. And your friends are the ones who will pay the price for it. Look at her. You think she wants to be here for you? She just feels obligated, because unlike you, she's a good person. She sees how worthless you are and she pities you. If you had a shred of decency, you would push her away, push everyone away, spare them the burden of associating with you before finally doing the first heroic thing of your life, and ending it, you miserable- if you don't stop filling my friend's head with this garbage right now, I am going to come in there myself and I will make you WISH that it was possible for a thought to die.

Beast Boy's eyes shot open and his breathing stopped for a moment. That had been Raven's voice. Was he imagining things? She continued to stroke his back as she encouraged him "Hey, keep going. Just breathe. Count them." He did as he was told, eyes closed again as he counted each individual breath, in and out, in and out. The intrusive thoughts, for the moment at least, had stopped.

When he had stopped hyperventilating, Raven slowly got back to her feet, not letting him go one bit. His legs were sleepy, but rose with her to support his weight well enough while she patiently walked him back to his bed, never once letting his head leave the crook of her shoulder as she lowered him gently to his mattress, hoping that a safe and secure surrounding would help to soothe him. He was still sobbing. "I'm here. I'm sorry. I'm here," she crooned softly, pulling away barely for just a moment, only so that she could place a brief but meaningful kiss on his tear-stained cheek. It was a few more minutes before he was once again capable of speech, but while he was crying the entire time, being held so tightly by Raven while she whispered commiserations to him, despite the shame, despite the despair, despite everything… it certainly wasn't the worst few minutes of his life, that was for sure.

As his tears slowed from a stream to just a trickle, he was hesitant to pull away because he didn't know when he would next get the opportunity to be as close to Raven as this. Chiding himself for being so selfish, he forced himself to loosen his grip on her and lean backwards. When he could once again see her face, he saw that she was smiling at him, sadly and sympathetically, before she raised her hands and wiped his tears away with her thumbs.

"S-s-sorry," he started, only for her to silence him with an index finger placed softly against his lips.

"Don't even think about that," she threatened, half-humourously and half-forcefully. She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I thought that I knew what you were upset about, and I didn't."

She looked sincerely apologetic. Beast Boy appreciated it, but didn't want her to look or feel sorry. It wasn't her fault that he was such a mess.

"I… I don't think I knew what I was upset about, really," Beast Boy admitted honestly. Raven gently rubbed his arm.

"… The pressure?" she asked, although they both already knew the answer. Beast Boy silently nodded, more tears appearing in his eyes as he finally admitted it to someone else, but to a greater extent, finally admitted it to himself. "Hey… it's fine. I get it, okay?"

Beast Boy felt like a child – and worried that he probably sounded like one too – but the anxiety bubbled up from his chest and burst out before he could stop it. "E-everyone's counting on me, and I-I'm going to let them all down. Just like I always do."

Before the tears had even started falling again, Raven had pulled him in for another hug, providing him with a literal shoulder to cry on. "You have never let us down," she reassured, stroking the back of his head.

"B-b-but I keep screwing things up. I just keep…" the rest of his confession was drowned out by incoherent sobbing.

Once again, Raven knew that there was a good chance that it wasn't the right thing to say, but she just couldn't help herself. With tears almost rolling down her own cheeks, whether out of sympathy for him or because seeing him in such a state was just that upsetting to her, she said it. "… God, you really are an idiot." He paused, wondering if he had misheard. Not just because of the words, but also because he could hear the smile in her voice.

She gently released him so that she could look him in the eyes again. "Do you really think that not letting someone down means never making any mistakes in your life, ever?" He couldn't formulate a response. He wasn't even entirely sure that he understood the question. Raven rubbed his arm again, but looked deep in thought for a moment. Taking a deep breath, she made her choice.

"When I was six years old…" Raven began. Beast Boy was taken aback. Raven never talked about her past. From the little that her teammates had discovered, it wasn't a happy subject for her.

"Rae, you don't have to-" he tried to assure her.

"Shut it," she commanded with a subdued smile, "I'm telling the story whether you want to hear it or not." Beast Boy obediently shut up, quietly accepting the honour of being deemed worthy to hear more about Raven's history, while his inner depths of despair were lit up ever so slightly at the realisation that she had allowed him to call her by that nickname again.

"When I was six years old," Raven started again, "then the monks of Azarath let me play with the other children, for the very first time. I thought that it was a treat, perhaps, but looking back, I think that they were judging me. It was a test to see how well I could keep my powers under control." Beast Boy listened with a frown, clearly not happy with how the monks of Azarath did things.

"Everything was going well, at first, and then one of the other kids started to annoy me. Calling me names, throwing stones… it was just stupid kid stuff, really," she admitted, clearly still remorseful of what she was about to reveal. "I lashed out and hurt them with my powers. Quite badly, actually. I was worried that I killed them."

"… Did you?" asked Beast Boy in concern. He was more concerned over the ramifications to Raven's mental wellbeing than he was about the health of the bratty little kid who had seen fit to throw stones at her.

Raven's gaze dropped as she idly played with her hands, uncharacteristically awkward for someone as composed as her. "No… I didn't." Beast Boy breathed a small sigh of relief. "But the monks told me that I did."

"What?" Beast Boy cried, teeming with quiet anger on her behalf.

"They told me that I had killed him, and for years, I believed that I had. And they used that to reinforce to me how important it was that I never lost control. My powers were too dangerous for me to slip up, even once. I was too dangerous. I couldn't be allowed to make a single mistake for the rest of my life, or it could spark the release of Trigon, and he would destroy the universe. It was… a lot of pressure," Raven quietly concluded. Beast Boy thought that this was the understatement of the century.

"… How did you find out?" Beast Boy asked. "That he was still alive, I mean."

"A few years later, they let me out again, this time having been trained to completely withhold all of my emotions. I saw him again, and he was fine; a little cautious, but healthy. And I realised what they had done, and why they had done it. They had probably even asked him to antagonize me that first time. But I couldn't be angry with them, because I agreed with their point. I could have killed him. I thought that they had done the right thing. I passed their test this time, but only because I didn't even want to play with the other kids. I could have hurt one of them."

Raven looked back up at Beast Boy, who, unsurprisingly, had not been cheered up by this tale so far. Luckily, Raven knew that the second half was much cheerier than the first.

"Anyway," she continued, a small smile on her face again, "Fast forward a few years, I'm here, it's… our second or third month fighting crime, and we're up against the HIVE. Just Jinx, Gizmo and Mammoth." She could see Beast Boy struggling to remember the occurrence, and coming up short. She didn't mind; that wasn't necessary to the story.

"Starfire swoops in to hit Mammoth, and he catches her fist and throws her into a building. It's the first time I've ever seen Starfire get hurt, and something inside of me just snaps. I picked up the nearest car that I could find and I just threw it, straight at him." While Beast Boy was captivated by Raven's story, Raven was amused at the expression on his face as he desperately tried to recall when this had happened.

"Mammoth jumps out of the way, and the car goes straight through the window of a café. All the way in, until just the back tyres are sticking out of the window. There are people inside the café. Robin freaks out, and I start to freak out, and before I know it, Gizmo has shot me with some electric shock device, and I'm lying on the pavement. We still took down Gizmo and Mammoth, but Jinx escaped. And nobody inside the café was hurt, but they could have been." Raven's face fell slightly as she remembered how she had felt that day.

"On the way back, in the car, I couldn't stop thinking about the monks of Azarath, and how they were right, and how I had lost control and could've gotten someone hurt. Even if everyone was okay; I mean, Robin could have been standing right behind Mammoth and I wouldn't have known. All I could think of was how dangerous I was, and how I couldn't afford to screw up like that ever again." Her face, already rather contemplative, became much more serious for just a second. "If I'm being honest… I was questioning whether I even had a future as a hero."

She pre-emptively held up a hand to stop Beast Boy from making the outraged protests that she reliably knew that he would. He opened his mouth to do so, and then reluctantly closed it again.

"So, that's where my mind is, and Robin… bless him, Robin is trying to be diplomatic, but he's not very good at it. He's asking me what the hell happened, reminding me how lucky I am that no-one got hurt, and how he expected better from me. He's advising me to maybe increase my meditation, asking if I have any advice on how I can adjust the training schedule to better fit my needs, and… all I can do is nod, and keep saying that I'm sorry."

Raven looked back at Beast Boy and almost laughed at how rapt in attention he was, at a story that he was present for, in a role which was about to become much more important. She didn't want him to think that she was teasing, but she had to ask.

"You really don't remember, do you?"

Beast Boy blushed guiltily. "Well… honestly, no, I'm sorry, I-"

"Don't be," she interrupted with a warm smile. "It's…" She couldn't suppress one solitary chuckle at his expense, but not in the way that he was expecting. "Of course you wouldn't remember. To you, this was just an average day. You didn't even think twice about it. It just came naturally to you." She wiped away the last remains of the tears staining his cheeks. "It just proves that you seriously don't realise how important you are to us. To me."

Raven drifted off, clearing her throat and returning to the story. "Suddenly, you butt in. You're not shouting, but you're clearly very angry, and you're telling Robin to…" she paused, wondering how to phrase this in a manner befitting her composure and dignity, "You told him to remove a stick, from a place where it would be extremely uncomfortable for a stick to be located." Beast Boy was blushing again now, for an entirely different reason. "And when he said 'Excuse me?' then you went off on him, explaining that I clearly already felt bad about what had happened, and there was no reason for him to lecture me or try to make me feel worse, and that if anything, he should be thanking me, because we had been a team for three months, and this was the first time you could ever recall seeing me make a mistake of any kind."

Beast Boy wasn't sure if the memories were coming back, or if Raven was just a very engaging storyteller, but he was beginning to recall the events that she was describing.

"Robin tried to defend himself, he tried to say that it wasn't his intent to make me feel any worse – which I completely believe was true – and then… you said something that I've never forgotten." She smiled at him, overflowing with fondness and gratitude.

"You said to him-" he couldn't help but smile as Raven's voice briefly lapsed into a poor imitation of his own. "Dude, Raven has been, like, literally flawless for every single second of every day since we've met her. Of course she was gonna make a mistake eventually; if anything, she's the last out of all of us to do it. So get off her back and give her a break! She's only human. She's allowed to make mistakes every once in a while. Everyone is." Raven let her words – that is, her recollection of his words – sink in, and not just to Beast Boy. Even now, recalling them words helped her immensely. "I don't think I've ever told you how much I needed to hear that, or how much it meant to me. Still means to me," she admitted, almost bashfully.

Unsure of how to react to the words that he had said – words that he could barely even remember saying in the first place – Beast Boy awkwardly scratched the back of his head.

"Well… I mean, I'm sure I could have phrased it better, I-"

"It didn't matter how you phrased it!" Raven cut him off, raising her voice a little forcefully, but in enthusiasm rather than anger, although she still felt a little embarrassed by the outburst just the same. "It didn't matter how you said it, because it was true. And I've tried to deny that, but I just can't. No matter what kind of problems we face – I face – and no matter what kind of dark place I find myself in, and no matter how much I sometimes feel like I want to blame myself, then… I just can't deny the truth of what you said." She grabbed his hands with her own and squeezed them tightly. "We all make mistakes, Beast Boy. Even me… and even you."

He appreciated the story, and her faith in him… but it was also plain to see that it hadn't completely dissuaded his doubts, his anxiety, and his temptation to continue to blame himself for every bad thing that had ever happened to him, or to anyone who he cared about, past or present. Raven was disappointed, but unsurprised. Recovering self-esteem was rarely so simple, and neither was he. But she didn't know how well she could help if she didn't know more.

"How old were you when it happened?" she asked quietly, never letting go of his hands. His face froze in surprise, and she quickly added, "You- you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, but I… I want to know, if that's ok." Raven had never been told what 'it' was, and Beast Boy knew this, and she knew that he knew this, but it was as clear as could be to anyone who was paying attention that he was carrying around a tremendous amount of guilt over something in his childhood that he had caused, or even just failed to prevent. And given that he never discussed his parents…

Beast Boy was reluctant to tell her, but not out of embarrassment or shame, but because he already knew what she would say. And because on some level, he didn't want to hear it; he didn't want to hear that it wasn't his fault (it is) or that there was nothing he could have done (there was) or that his parents wouldn't have wanted him to feel guilty (how would you know? They're dead) and he didn't want to muster the effort to try to fight off these intrusive thoughts, or address how low they had brought him. But she had been honest with him. Raven. She had opened up about herself, to him, and was now asking him to reciprocate. There was no way he could turn her down. The self-loathing he felt for himself was nothing compared to the positive emotions he felt for her.

Taking in a breath, knowing full well that lying was out of the question, Beast Boy quietly admitted the truth.

"… Five."

"FIVE?!" Raven shouted back in surprise, before quickly raising her hands to cover her mouth in embarrassment. "I'm sorry," she apologised hastily, "I didn't mean to…" she shook her head, as if she could somehow shake the embarrassment off of her. "Look, you know that no matter what you were going to say, I was going to tell you that it wasn't your fault. But… five? Seriously? How is a five-year-old supposed to… ?" Her question trailed off as she realised that she still didn't know the specifics of what it was he felt guilt for. She only knew that it wasn't his fault.

Beast Boy would ordinarily be in no rush to share – and he still wasn't – but after Raven had opened up about her own childhood… "We… were on a boat. It went over a waterfall."

"Beast Boy," Raven lowered her head slightly while maintaining eye contact and placing a hand on his leg. "What is a five-year-old supposed to do to stop that?"

Unfortunately, Beast Boy was prepared for that rhetorical question. He had been thinking about it for ten years, after all.

"I could have turned into a big enough fish to stop the boat from going over, while they got out. Or-or I could have turned into a pterodactyl and flown them both to safety. Or, when they were down there, I could have turned into anything with wings and flown down; maybe, maybe they were still alive, and I had gotten them help, instead of just sitting there, all useless and pathetic, I-"

"Stop," Raven commanded, firmly but softly in that magical way that only she knew how. "Of course if you think about it for eleven years then you'll have some ideas. But even then… a fish? You would have gone over the fall too. I doubt a pterodactyl could support the weight of two adults, especially one formed by a five-year-old. And flying down? I…" She didn't have a concrete answer, but she could imagine how much worse some of Beast Boy's problems could have been had he actually seen the bodies. "… I'm glad that you didn't fly down."

She took his hands in her own again. "I'm glad that you didn't endanger yourself, or maybe even throw your life away, trying to save two people – who loved you and wanted you to be safe more than anything – who you just couldn't." She squeezed his hands harder to emphasize her last point "Because you were five, for Azar's sake." Beast Boy had known that she would relentlessly hammer that point home, but the bluntness with which she was doing it couldn't help but make him smile.

"… Hey, remember that kid two weeks ago?" she asked, changing tactics. Beast Boy seemed unable to recall. "We were driving back from a fight with Cinderblock, and we saw smoke – well, you spotted the smoke, actually – and asked Cyborg to check it out. We got to that burning building ten minutes before the fire brigade arrived."

The memories were coming back, and Beast Boy knew exactly where this story was going, but also knew that there was no point trying to dissuade Raven from reminding him.

"There's a kid crying outside, couldn't have been more than seven or eight, pointing at the upstairs window. And before Robin can even say anything, you flew right up there, broke through the window with no hesitation, and came back with that kid's mother." Beast Boy reluctantly nodded. He seemed to recall that afterwards, Raven had not intervened when Robin had read him the riot act for jumping into a dangerous situation unprompted – the entire first floor could have been about to explode, after all – so he wasn't entirely sure where she was going with this.

"Now… what if we had been too late? What if she had already been gone? What would you have done, just patted that kid on the shoulder and say 'Hey, sorry about your mom. I know you're only seven, but just so you know, you probably could have done something to save her from this. Just something to think about,'? Would you have let that kid believe that it was his fault?"

Ah. There it was. "No," Beast Boy replied after some hesitation.

"So what's the difference between you and that kid, Beast Boy?" Raven's logic made perfect sense. But Beast Boy's doubts came from a place where logic was irrelevant.

He stared at his feet as he said it. "… It's always different when it's you."

He expected a witty response. He expected Raven to sigh at his stubbornness. He expected a thorough explanation for how stupid he was being. He half-expected Raven to slap him. Instead, she released his hands, placing hers back in her own lap, and just looked rather pensive. And then, without reprimand, without contradiction, and without even a disagreement, she quietly admitted,

"I understand that feeling perfectly."

In that moment, he felt understood. Because just from her tone of voice, he could tell that she meant it; she truly, sincerely, wholly understood the feeling. And even though she hadn't lifted him up, revealing that she was in the same rut as him was… comforting, somehow. Even if he didn't think that she belonged there.

"I would love more than anything to say something to you that would convince you how silly you were being, how there was nothing you could do, and how you should… stop being so hard on yourself, blaming yourself for things that you had no control over." Raven sighed. "But if I knew what to say, I would have said it to myself a long time ago."

Beast Boy didn't know what to say to that. He wanted to tell her that unlike him, she really was worth something, and incredible, and so smart, and uplifting to be around – but he just couldn't find the words.

"So…" Raven continued, "I'll just have to settle for telling you. Telling you that you are being silly, and you should stop being so hard on yourself, and that…" her face hardened just a touch, "no matter how many stupid things you write in your notebook," her face softened again, "… I truly think that you're perfect."

It was strange. The word still felt wrong to him, but he no longer felt like it was smothering him, crushing him under the weight of the expectations she had placed on him that he knew he wouldn't be able to live up to. It felt… nice. "Thanks, Rae."

"I mean it." She placed her hands on his cheeks and tilted his head up, forcing him to see the complete sincerity with which she was speaking. "You don't need to be flawless in order to be perfect, Beast Boy."

He paused, and then reluctantly nodded. He didn't believe it, and she knew that he didn't believe it, but there wasn't much else she could do; her last attempt at forcing him to acknowledge his positive attributes had reacted in a full-blown panic attack. She gazed into his eyes sadly, wishing that she could fix him. But she of all people knew that emotions could run deep; anxiety and self-loathing especially.

"I really mean it. You're perfect, okay?" she tried once again. He didn't accept it – couldn't accept it – but it did at least make him smile. How could it not? Raven – Raven – was telling him that he was perfect. Even if it wasn't true… it was nice.

"Okay," Beast Boy replied weakly through the smile. Raven smiled back. It was something, at least.

"Good." She hesitated for a moment. "Because ten minutes ago, you said I was the smartest person you knew, so… between the two of us, I'm pretty sure I'm right about this." She knew that she was pushing her luck, but it actually made him laugh, which meant that it was worth it.

"What about you?" Beast Boy asked quietly. It wasn't an accusation, it was… concern.

"What about me?" Raven answered, knowing exactly what he meant, but not wanting to respond unless she absolutely had to.

"Do you know that you're perfect?" he sounded like he meant it, and she didn't need to be an empath to know that he did. He truly, sincerely did.

Raven ran a hand through her hair, tucking a stray lock behind her ear. She wasn't saying it to throw his words back at him. She was saying it to reinforce to him that she really did understand.

"… It's always different when it's you," she quoted back to him with a sad smile.

There was something of a shared acceptance between them. She couldn't fix him, and he couldn't fix her, but they both wanted to. And they were both willing to try. And while Beast Boy had very little faith in himself, knowing that Raven – smart, funny, beautiful Raven – wanted to try to make him feel better, not because she felt pressured to, not because she felt obligated to, but because she genuinely, truly believed that he was actually worth it… for the first time in weeks, Beast Boy actually began to feel somewhat good about himself.

Sensing that he was finally beginning to feel better, and understanding that there was little else to say, Raven turned and began to head for the door, before an idea crossed her mind and caused her to pause. She turned back to face him.

"Hey," she began thoughtfully. "Come to my room after dinner today. Around seven should be fine."

Beast Boy stiffened in mild discomfort, but did not object. "Why?"

"I'm teaching you how to meditate." His eyes widened and his heart swelled – in a positive way this time – as he fully took in what she was saying, and the lengths that she was willing to go in order to help him. Raven had taught Starfire to meditate years earlier during one of their 'Girl Talks', and he knew that she had at least discussed it with Robin. He had asked her quite a few times if she would be willing to teach him, and she had responded in the negative every single time.

"Really?" he replied hopefully.

Honestly, she had been having some doubts about the offer, but seeing that it had genuinely raised his spirits, she smiled. "Yes. It's how I keep some of my more negative thoughts in check. It doesn't get rid of them, but… it helps."

Beast Boy had never really considered if he believed that actions spoke louder than words, but this action spoke volumes. "Y-yeah! I'll see you at seven then!"

Raven frowned jokingly. "You'll see me before seven. You're not missing dinner again."

Beast Boy laughed quietly. "A-alright then! I, um, won't tell anyone, I swear."

Raven frowned again, less jokingly. She knew exactly why he had said that, but acted as though she didn't.

"Why would I care if you told anyone? I'm not embarrassed to spend time with my friend."

And before he could answer, the door was shut. Raven was gone, although the effect of her words lingered long after she had left.

…

Already, he could feel the intrusive thoughts regrouping. It would take far from a single conversation to defeat them; he would probably be stuck with them for life. Or as they would put it, they'd be stuck with him for life. But they weren't as loud any more. And even if what they were saying was true – that he had tricked her into caring about him with his pitiful worthlessness – then… that still didn't change the fact that she cared about him. Raven cared. Suddenly, the weight of the world felt a little less heavy. He found himself looking forward to their meditation session, and not just because he always looked forward to seeing her again.

As if by magic, Beast Boy's door slid open, and Raven popped her head inside again. Beast Boy yelped in mild surprise, and Raven didn't try to suppress the amused smile on her face.

"Oh, and one more thing," she added casually. "If I ever see that stupid book again, I am going to take it, and I am going to show it to Starfire, and I am going to stand there, propping you up, while she pelts you with so many positive words that your heart explodes, okay?" There was an air of humour in her voice, but also undeniable sincerity that came across as mildly threatening. Beast Boy gulped, too nervous to even nod in acknowledgement. Raven took it to mean that her point had been received regardless. "Okay, good." She disappeared, and his door closed again.

Reflecting on how genuinely worse this experience would have been had Starfire discovered his secret – through no fault of her own – and concluding that he did not want to run the risk of that possibility still happening, Beast Boy reluctantly made his way over to the desk where his notebook lay. It was odd; it used to seem powerful to him, almost threatening. Now it was just a silly notebook. What had he ever been afraid of in the first place?

Idly flipping through the pages again, he cringed at the sight of insult after insult. Some of them still hurt, and of those, some hurt because he still believed that they were true, and others because they reminded him of the mindset he had been in when he had believed them. Skipping past the worst of it, he arrived at Raven's handwriting, and found himself cringing for an entirely different reason. Every word had been written with such sincerity, and yet some of them – most of them, really – felt alien to him. He hoped that he could live up to her expectations, but still doubted it.

'Courageous' he read, because he was too stupid to wait before jumping into things. 'Good listener' she had written, because he could rarely think of anything intelligent to add to the conversation. 'Optimistic'; he nearly laughed at the irony. He wanted to appreciate her words, he truly did, but he just couldn't believe many of them. 'Cute' she had scribbled near the bottom of one page, which-

…

Wait a minute. 'Cute'?

Beast Boy read, reread, and read the word again, initially certain that he had been mistaken, and yet there it was. Cute. Her handwriting was far too neat for there to have possibly been a mistake. She had called him cute. Well, written that he was cute, anyway. What… what could she have meant by that? Cute like a puppy, small and silly and energetic? That must have been what she had intended, surely. Although… she had always seemed rather irritated when he was at his silliest and most energetic. But if she hadn't meant 'cute' like that, then she must have-

Beast Boy closed the book. Then he opened it again, just to make sure, and closed it once more. She had called him cute.

… Raven had warned him to get rid of the book, but… there was really no harm in just hiding it at the bottom of his desk drawer again, was there? After all, there were some things in that book – well, really just one thing – that he wouldn't mind having a record of. Something that was well worth the risk of death via anxiety from excessive praise from a Tamaranean. Beast Boy may have been stupid, but only the world's biggest moron would willingly part with a record of Raven – Raven – calling them cute.

Beast Boy placed the book inside of his desk, covered it with a few other things – just because it was well-worth the risk didn't mean that he wanted Raven to find out that he's kept it – and quickly locked the drawer. In a bit of a daze, he stumbled over to his bed and laid down. Raven thought he was cute.

She probably just pities you, there's no way that she meant-

Raven thought he was cute.

She couldn't have meant it that way. I mean, you're green, you have fangs and pointy ears, and-

Doubts and insecurities continued to bubble up under the surface, but Beast Boy could barely hear them. None of them were as important as what he had just discovered.

… Hello? Are you even listening to me? I said-

Raven thought that he was cute.

Beast Boy grinned goofily as he stretched out on his bed. Surely a nap wouldn't hurt before dinner? What was it Raven had said? "Ten minutes ago, you said I was the smartest person you know, so I'm pretty sure I'm right about this." If Raven was right, and she had called him cute, then-

For the first time in a very long time, sleep came easily to Beast Boy. After all, Raven hadn't just soothed his nerves and helped him to confront and subdue his anxieties. She had also given him fuel for some very sweet dreams.

After all, as long as he could believe that he was worth something to someone as amazing as Raven, he would never feel worthless again.

.

An Undisclosed Amount of Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away

.

Like every other building, the schoolhouse was abandoned. The occupants had left long before the creature had arrived. Had anyone stayed, they would have been incapacitated by sickness and overwhelming nausea long before they had ever laid eyes on the thing. And being this up-close and personal to it as it slithered into the empty room and looked around, they would been dead before they hit the floor. The deadly odour was that powerful.

Slowly and sadly, the Varblernelk observed the emptiness, saw nothing of interest, and slithered away again, leaving a trail of mirthless, hopeless slime behind them as they departed.

It had been years before it had seen another living thing; a single bird, from an extreme distance away, which immediately left. If the Varblernelk had been capable of tears, it would have cried. It hadn't asked to be born this way. It hadn't asked to be born at all. This was no life. A life of solitude, loneliness and suffering. Once, it had slowly oozed all the way to the top of a rock pile and slipped off, only to land completely unharmed in a slimy heap at the bottom. It was capable of so little that it couldn't even end its own pitiful existence. And pitiful it was. Almost as much as it was lonely. Almost-

A dead leaf made a crunching sound on the pathway into the now-abandoned village. Except… not a normal crunching sound. More as if it had been smothered in goo. It wasn't entirely unlike some of the sounds that the Varblernelk made, while slowly traversing the wilderness of Tamaran, seeking toxic materials to consume.

The Varblernelk would have blinked, but its eyes required no moisture, being protected by a thin layer of transparent sludge. This must have been some kind of hallucination, surely.

…

The most beautiful sight that the creature had ever seen before. The Varblernelk felt overwhelmed with joy – an alien emotion to the being, in every sense of the word – and disbelief when it was revealed that no; this was truly happening. Its prayers – not that Varblernelks were even really capable of understanding the concept of a higher power, much less organized religion – had finally been answered. There, at the entrance of the village… was the most stunning Varblernelk that the creature had ever seen. It was also the only other Varblernelk that they had ever seen.

Having sensed the impressive stench, the second Varblernelk – bearing an incredibly unpleasant smell of their own, which the first found positively intoxicating – had tracked the foul odour here, and was now face to slimy face with their destiny. It was the first time that either of them had ever met another of their kind.

As if its new companion could sense the original's relief, anxiety and frustration, they slowly slithered in his direction, coating the ground with even more thick, viscous and thoroughly poisonous slime, while the first Varblernelk remained stationary in fear. Unable to speak, unable to reach out, and unable to declare its intentions in any other way as the second Varblernelk slowly came closer and closer. The original was almost frightened, not knowing if this was some kind of attack. Not knowing if Varblernelks were even capable of attacking; how would they know? They had only known one creature their whole life; themselves.

The second Varblernelk arrived at its destination, paused for a moment, and then leaned their slimy, sluggy head forwards and rubbed it against their new friend.

Varblernelks did not have lips, so it was not a kiss. They took in the scent of their surroundings through their skin, so they weren't rubbing noses. But nonetheless, this demonstration of immediate affection was the greatest feeling that the Varblernelk had ever experienced in their entire existence. So great was their happiness, that it took a moment for them to respond, rubbing their head back against their new partner. If the Varblernelk had been capable of tears, it would have been crying again, but for an entirely new reason.

And so, in the ruins of the abandoned Tamaranean outpost, two disgusting creatures found love and companionship in each other's presence. Together, theirs would be a stench that would pierce the heavens.

And if a Clorbag Varblernelk was capable of being accepted, maybe even finding love… then so was anyone.