Chapter Text
I make it through the day.
That’s pretty much the only way to put it: I make it. I yawn all day and everyone has to keep repeating stuff at me because I never get it the first time and Robin gets all Robiny at me right at the end of the day, talking about Cy’s physicals and stuff. When he corners me after dinner, I finally break down and tell him I’d had some bad dreams the night before. Which is really dumb of me, because he gets even more Robiny. He gets the quiet, serious, concerned sort of Robiny that tells you he’s really worried.
He stares at me so hard I feel like I’m being x-rayed. “Maybe we need another session at our dreamscapes.”
I need that like I need some free, experimental brain surgery. “Nah, I just really need a good night’s sleep.”
He raises an eyebrow at me, then crosses his arms. He knows I’m not telling him something.
I sigh. “I just don’t think it’s serious. Yet.”
The Robin foot tapping begins.
“I swear there’s no monsters or bad guys running loose in my mind. I mean I haven’t really gone exploring very far, but…”
Robin goes completely still. Uh oh, here we are, at the crossroads of concern for me and the angry-guilt-about-mind-Slade thing again. Quick, hunky comic relief guy! Do your thing! “You’re not gonna, like, pounce on me or something, right?”
His arms loosen just a little bit, and he almost smiles. “No. But I’d appreciate some insight into what’s wrong.” One hand goes to my shoulder, squeezing. “Please, Beast Boy.”
I know I can trust him. If this had all gone on earlier in the week, I might have – but I’m a little embarrassed about telling Robin the very last dream I had. So I’m not some sort of super psych reader type, but it popped into my head at some point today that his voice being there means he’s some sort of Dad figure to me, and that’s kinda lame on my part.
I know, I know, if anyone understands daddy issues, it’s Robin. And it’s not like he isn’t all ‘let’s adopt the orphans and be their crazy young authority figure’, Batman-style. But it’s a whole other thing to admit you might be a bigger baby than you let on to your leader. I’ve worked way too hard to make Robin understand he can depend on me! What if he thinks I need babying?
“I’m, ah, having some issues with the mind-body link thing, and my dreams are getting super weird. Beardy dude on a couch with a notepad sort of weird.” His eyes go wide. “But I’m talking it over with Raven. She’s keeping an eye on me.” I don’t want to tell him that she camped out in my room. I know I’ll make it sound weird.
(Why would it sound weird though? And why would it bother me to tell Robin? Or anyone, for that matter)
Raven’s name must be the magic word, because Robin relaxes all the way and lets his arms fall to his sides. “Just as long as someone knows what’s going on. That’s firmly in her camp, too.” He gets thoughtful. “I’ll be…glad to pitch in if you feel like I can be of use though, just so you know.”
Man, it feels all kinds of good when Fearless Leader treats me like an equal. “Sure thing, Fearless Leader!”
Robin shakes his head and laughs as he turns away.
I’m in my bed, digging my back into all the right spots, when my door panel whooshes open and Raven comes striding in.
I scream like a little girl, pulling up my sheets like I’m not in my PJs. “Dude, I could have been naked in here!”
Raven blinks at me serenely, then settles into my desk chair. “It takes you seconds to change, Beast Boy.” She’s in her huge shirt, huge loose shorts getup. Is she staying the night again? I kind of hope she will. Having her around is calming.
“You don’t need to.”
“Sure do.” She’s brought a book with her this time – it’s large, leather bound, black with gold letters, trademark vanilla-y old book smell - and she’s got it open in her lap already. “You slipped away again last night, after I left.”
“Um…”
Raven sighs. “It wasn’t a question. I knew it the minute you came in for breakfast.”
“Well, yeaaaaah. But I’m, like, seconds away from falling dead asleep. Is that really gonna be a problem tonight?” I barely cover a yawn, then go on a little hesitantly. “’Sides, I’d hate to make you stay up late again.”
She just shrugs, eyes glued to her book. It’s her way of telling me what I’m saying is way too dumb for an answer. I feel a little bad being the reason she’ll lose a few hours of sleep to my desk chair, but I’m also glad to have her here.
Weird.
No, wait no, not weird, she’ll make sure I don’t just evaporate like Mara Jade Skywalker. But it’s more than that, too.
Look. I love all my friends. All the Titans are my family. After all this time, we get along like a well-oiled machine does, every part working together no matter how different we are (man, Cyborg would dig this mechanical allegory!). But Cyborg and I can talk for hours, Star and I can manage it too. Robin and I get along best when there’s a physical thing thrown in to focus both our energies, like a sport or even just whacking sand bags in the training room.
Raven and I? OK, so we have our famous comedic duo thing, where she’s the straight woman to my brilliant comic relief, but when that’s off the table, it’s a lot of being quiet together.
You’d think a loudmouth like me would get antsy at that. I thought I would, and I kept trying to fill in her silence when we first met. But sometimes, like right now, it’s just what I need.
I guess it’s just weird that she’s the person I want here right now. Except that doesn’t feel weird either.
Dude, what is wrong with me. Must be the lack of sleep.
I roll onto my side, back facing the wall. I look down on Raven for a while, flipping pages every so often.
“What are you reading?”
Raven’s eyes flick to me, then back to her book. She thinks I’m being a pest. Which I kind of am sometimes when I want her attention, but I’m honestly curious right now.
“No, I mean it. What are you reading?”
“The Necronomicon.”
I gasp. “No way! It actually exists?” Then it occurs to me that no, Garfield, of course Raven’s not reading a wicked book that pumps evil into the world and makes people go mad. “Oh. You got me, I guess.” Welp, this is embarrassing.
But Raven doesn’t look like I’ve embarrassed myself. She raises her head and stares at me. It’s Ravenese for really hella shocked. “You know what the Necronomicon is.”
“Of course! Just because I don’t like reading all those musty tomes doesn’t mean I – OK, it might have come up in comics,” I confess, “But that’s still a valid source! Besides, Lovecraft’s always going on about how his monsters are huge and terrible and ineffable, you can bet your sweet ass that comic writers realized they had a gold mine of big bads, no extra costs! I mean, I can’t believe more comics don’t have some version of the whole ‘sailors accidentally defeating Cthulhu’ thing.”
Without taking her eyes off me, Raven shuts her book. “You’ve read ‘The Call of Ctulhu’? The actual source material?”
“Sure. It was cool. I mean, I thought it started slow, and don’t even get me started on the slurs, but ohhhh man, when they got to the island? I wonder why it’s not a movie yet.” That Lovecraft dude did a pretty decent job talking expeditions, for a dude who never really went on any. I almost tell her I gave ‘At the Mountains of Madness’ a try, but it was too slow and full of science-babble to really get a grip on me. I might, one day, when I’m not enjoying the look on her face.
It’s subtle, like all Raven’s expressions, but I can see the tiny little smile of pleased surprise. “Oh my god. It’ll be locusts and a rain of fire next, won’t it?” She says it all mocking but I can see it in the way her eyes have widened ever so slightly. She is impressed. I’ve impressed Raven. I am the man.
“I know you’ve probably absorbed the whole ‘comics are lowbrow entertainment’ shit, but it’s actually not.”
Raven’s eyebrow rises.
“Well fine, sometimes it’s lowbrow. But there’s real quality plot out there!”
Her other eyebrow joins it.
“I mean it! And there’s something for everyone. Star would totally be an Archie comics girl, those are all about some dude who can’t pick between two girls, and Robin would probably appreciate Detective Conan for all the twists and stuff. And Cy’s more of an equal opportunity guy like me, but he’s a sucker for good characters.”
Raven’s eyebrows have relaxed back to their usual levels. Her stare becomes the slightest bit…shy? “And me?”
“Huh?”
“You seem to have all the others figured out,” she explains, setting her book on my desk, “What would I be?”
I swear, I’m not dense. It just throws me for a loop that Raven really wants my opinion on something so personal. It feels like I’m telling her more stuff than I realize, somehow…not that it’s gonna stop me from telling her.
“I told you yesterday! Or at least I thought it at you. Anyway, you are so a Constantine Hellblazer or a Spawn chick.”
Raven blinks slowly, like a cat when it’s being friendly. She’s listening.
So I don’t want to spoil the entire thing, because I actually hope Raven might actually try reading one of these comics someday. So I explain the premise of Constantine Hellblazer, lingering a little on the things I think she might really like, like how Constantine is a full-blown human being who feels guilty and beats himself up for failing his friends, or how the comics can get really socially aware about how bad justice or the prison system is, or how hollow the TV industry is.
“Huh. That’s really dark. And a lot more…substantial than I thought comics could be.”
I grin. “And that’s not even half of it!” I end up delving a little too deep into some of the arcs, until I can’t get through a whole sentence without yawning. I kind of like Raven’s rapt attention though, so I try to power through it.
Raven notices though. “I think you should sleep.”
“But I haven’t-“ I yawn so big, my jaw cracks, “- even gotten to the best part yet.”
“You can tell me all about it tomorrow. Now get some rest.”
“You’re coming back again tomorrow?” That sounds great, actually. It was real fun to entertain Raven. I'm happy at the thought of keeping her around.
There’s a short silence, and I can’t see her because my eyes closed at some point, but I can still hear her when she says, “fine. I’ll be here.”
The last thing I remember is smiling in the voice’s direction before sleep takes me.
Even though I didn’t get my solid eight hours, I do OK during the day. We have some non-metahuman crimes to deal with, which always gets dealt with faster than the metahuman kind. I even manage to get a nap in after lunch.
(For the record, a metahuman is anyone with more-than-average-human abilities, like me or Raven or even Cyborg. I guess whoever is in charge of paperwork in Jump City PD has classifications and stuff, like how sometimes its aliens like Star, or humans with big tech, like Adonis, but we just call them all 'metahumans' because it's easier. Metahuman robbing a bank? All ours. Human robbing a bank? Not totally our job, but we can do it, and it usually goes down a lot faster than metahuman robberies).
I’m in bed, but way more awake than the night before when Raven comes into my room with her book and one of her pillows. She nods at my hey raven, puts the pillow at her back and settles in with her book.
Yeah, that old chair isn’t exactly comfy. It’s so hard, it's actually handy for when you need to pull all-nighters. I’m gonna ask Cy if there’s a recliner or something I can haul in here.
She’s turned a few pages when she makes a small sound. “So. What was it about John Constantine and his lungs?”
Oh man. Did Christmas come in early or something? “That one was a really good arc. Someone should make it into a serial or a movie or something. Buuut," I say, raising a finger for emphasis, "I can’t spoil the entire series, y’know? How will my evil plan to get you interested in comics work if I just tell you everything?” Eyes still glued to her book, she does her ‘Beast Boy is being such a pain’ lip curl and looks ready to ignore me. Which is so not gonna fly. “But hey, I haven’t told you anything about Spawn.”
She snorts. “I thought you’d made that one up. It isn’t about some tadpole superhero, I hope.”
“Nope. A Spawn is actually a servant of Hell. So this guy Al Simmons, he’s military. But then something happens to him, and…he’s killed. When he wakes up though, he’s in, well, Hell.”
Raven’s head slowly rises from her book. In my head, I’m dancing.
An hour later, Raven’s leaning back in my desk chair, both hands on her abandoned book. Her entire attention’s been on me since I went into Spawn’s whole revenge thing. I can tell by the near-smile on her face that she digs it when I tell her about Spawn-hunting angel, Angela. And her mouth opens just a bit when I get into the whole different dimensions and the Greenworld.
“That’s messy world-building,” she says when I’m done. “I think it kind of detracts from the horror of Hell, having some third place. And the plot sounds all over the place in a few of the issues. But it’s interesting.”
“Yeah, plots are a little more ‘aaaah look at the gruesome monster!” than Constantine. And the plot holes can mess it up really bad in some issues. The art is real cool and creepy though. I can suspend disbelief for it.”
Raven smirks, not unkindly, like she’s a little exasperated that I disagree with her on the finer literary points of comic book worlds, but she likes me anyway. Then her expression shifts to seriousness. Uh oh. I thought she was having fun.
“So…it’s none of my business. But…” She trails off and stares at some random point in my room.
“Go on. Ask me.”
Raven’s gaze finally settles on the foot of my bed, then stares at it hard. “That’s…pretty macabre, Beast Boy. I didn’t know you read it for fun.” Her tone is super neutral, not chastising or judgmental, but is that a hint of worry I see in her eyes?
I might have used some humor to deflect if it were daytime. But it’s one of mine and Raven’s nighttime visit things, I can’t just sidestep the truth, can I?
“Yeah…Spawn’s not for every day. It’s probably not for every month. And not for fun, either. But sometimes, when the day’s been bad, or maybe the whole week, it’s – I guess it’s like putting on a movie and forgetting about how bad everything is, except sometimes, when it’s too bad, you need something sort of bad to balance it out.” Shiiiiit, nothing of what I just said makes any sense! But a memory pops up - a bad one. It should help me explain the whole mess better though. “Um…” I swallow. “Remember the, uh, serial killer?”
Her eyes flit back to me real quick. She nods solemnly.
Jump City has an above average metahuman crime rate - hello, reason Titans Tower is here - but it’s pretty safe for a big city. Sure, bad things happen, bad people, metahuman or otherwise, happen too, and sometimes…well, sometimes even we arrive on the scene and there’s nothing left to do but call the medical examiner. But it’s never big scary headlines, y’know? Even the bad is normal bad, or even not too bad. I mean, have you seen what an ordinary day’s newspapers look like in Gotham? We have it good here.
Anyway, Raven, Cy and I were sent to help the police department of a city a few hours away, after Trigon, but before our super world tour. They had trouble with kids, really young kids, disappearing. It was a crisis. There was a curfew, even talk of cancelling school. You could have made a tuning fork ring itself to pieces from the tension in the air the moment we got out of the car in front of the precinct. And that was with armed cops milling around everywhere.
It was a psycho, not in the hospital way, in the real twisted, sick, hateful kind of way. Not a metahuman, not a demon, just an ordinary human with some real extraordinary evil in him. We caught him. But it was too late for the kids he’d taken.
...I know. Being a superhero is really hard like that sometimes. Kicking villain ass is the easiest part of the whole job - the stuff nobody else sees, that's the hardest. Especially the stuff that reminds you how having super powers sometimes doesn't cut it, and the bad guys can win in ways you just can't fix.
Back in the present, I'm running the edge of my blanket between my fingers “Yeah, tough to forget huh." I sigh. "Once we came back, nothing cheerful would get my mind off of it. It even felt like I was doing something wrong, trying to ignore suffering.”
Raven slow blinks. “I remember.” I could tell that really bothered her back then. I can’t begin to imagine how that shitshow felt to an empath.
(When you think about it, Robin’s really on to something when he says we need to take better care of our mental health. I wonder if we could export the whole mindscape therapy thing to the rest of the Titan network. Maybe even the Justice League. Batman has Alfred, but who gets the rest of those workaholics to sit down and talk about their feelings?)
I fidget with the edge of my blanket a little more. “There was this issue where Spawn went after some sicko who went after kids. Really got him. The art was…” I shudder a little. “But I was totally involved in it. And it helped, in a twisted sort of way.”
Raven’s giving me a look I can’t read. I know she wouldn’t judge me, not for this (though I know she considers stank-ball ‘the height of societal decay of the Western world’, and judges both me and Cy for unleashing it on the Earth). I feel really embarrassed though, like she’s walked in on me naked and looks horrified at what she’s seen.
“Uh…um, but there’s these two real cool cops who aren’t at all twisted and they’re always after Spawn, and one of them even has a family – “
Before I can get on the Babble-Train though, Raven raises a hand. “I get what you mean.” She runs a hand over her book. The silence stretches out so long, I'm about to ask if she's OK when she finally talks again. “I keep a few really bad grimoires. Kind of like real life Necronomicons, except they won’t break your brain. Sometimes I look through them,” she goes on, following a pattern on the cover, “it’s…dark. But it reminds me that I’ve got them, that nobody can invoke anything in them, or perform any of the rituals in them, because I have the only copies.”
“I thought you read all of that to keep tabs on any demons that might be running around.” Raven’s even on the Jump City PD’s speed dial for when things of the ‘occult’ variety are going on.
“That too,” she says, then shrugs. “It’s not very nice work - ”
“ – but someone’s gotta do it,” I finish for her. Just like the bad crimes and the sleepless night, and having to see things a regular teenager wouldn’t ever have to deal with. But that’s why we do it, right? So the regular teenagers can just focus on school and pizza and stuff like that.
(For a split second, I remember Terra, or not Terra, whoever she was, and it doesn’t really hurt. It just smarts a bit. Not just everyone can be a superhero. I just wish she’d been the person I thought she was.
I just wish I’d had someone who’d be my girlfriend and fight alongside me too.)
Raven gives me a small smile. I haven’t seen it before. It feels like I’m seeing the same gentle side of Raven I saw a glimpse of when she hugged me, right after the whole Malchior bullshit.
I don’t mean she’s not gentle always, she’s just usually gentle in a way that isn’t physical, if that makes sense. And OK, she’s not really touching me right now, either. But it almost feels like it.
…dude, is it getting a little warm in here, or is it just me?
I cough and wave my blanket around to distract her from what sure feels like a blush. I hope she’ll think I’m just feeling awkward about being too open. Which makes zero sense, because I’m an open book, but can you fault a guy for trying? I don’t really know why I’m even blushing! Or why the entire moment feels funny!
“Are you OK?”
“Sure! I, ah, just swallowed a dust bunny! Cough, cough!” I’m not convincing anyone here.
“I’m not really into precognitive magic, but I think that might be a sign for you to let a broom in here,” Raven says in a flat tone. She’s giving me an out. Man, she’s awesome.
“What, to fly around in? I thought you just flew without them?”
She yanks the pillow out from behind her back and tosses it at me, dead aim even without her powers. It might be the funny feelings, but I'm sure I catch her giving me a fond look just before the pillow smacks me right in the face.