Friday, November11, 2005
A/N: Continuity sucks. If something doesn't quite match up with what happened in the animated show, my answer is "That never happened," okay? Okay. Further, although I'm reading the transcripts now, I'm still unable to watch the show in it's animated glory, so my fics diverge from sometime after Season 2, okay? Okay. Now, feel free to tell me what sucks, and I'll try to correct it.
Disclaimer: No claim to Teen Titans or anything related to it. I wrote the story, but I really don't have claim over that either. At least lemme know when you pilfer it, okay? Okay.
How High, Indeed
See, it started years ago, back when the Titans were working out of an abandoned warehouse, and totally dissed by the local police. There was the occasional superfreak to defend the city from, but whenever they could, Robin, Raven, and Cyborg would bust even the most petty criminal in effort to prove they were worth the millions (and millions) Jump City was pouring into Titan Tower. DupeCon Corp, the company contracted to build the Tower, totally bilked the city anyway, but that's another story. You want to hear about Robin and Cyborg getting high.
It was just after rounding up a couple vandals running amok for Mischief Night. Raven (who was, like, totally not so cool to work with back then--Beast Boy thinks he has it bad?) noted that one of the losers "reeks of booze." Cyborg searched the teen for a wallet to see how old he was. What he found instead...
"Whoa, what do we have here?"
Robin looked at the Ziplock bag of joints. "That's some very specific mischief you were planning on getting into." He was still working on the puns. Turns out he would never be as good at it as Spiderman, but then, Spiderman wasn't real.
"Uh...it ain't mine..." the kid tried.
"There's like, ten of these! Holy crap!" Cyborg wouldn't stop staring at it. Think he never saw pot before.
"Whatever. Police are here." Raven pointed out. "Let's try moving on, unless you want an army of brats burning our warehouse down while you sit here toying with your contraband." She didn't even wait for a response, already walking away without them.
"Rave is way too young to be getting like that," Cyborg watched her walk away.
"She's right. Just give it to the cops so we can go."
"I'm mean, she's like, twelve. And had an attitude all day."
"Cyborg--"
"All month, really. Chicks, man. I mean, don't get me wrong: she's gonna be pretty cute when she gets older, but--"
"Cyborg! Let's go." Finally, Cyborg listened. It wasn't until later he realized he still had the bag.
"You should have turned that in," Raven admonished. "Now it's useless."
"Not useless, it's just not evidence anymore," Cyborg countered.
"We have no use for it," Robin pointed out.
Cyborg gave Robin a strange look. "Of course we do! We need money!"
"What!" Robin couldn't believe his hears. Was Cy suggesting what he thought?
"Do you know what the cops do with this stuff when they confiscate it? The same thing they do with everything else they take--sell it."
Raven leveled Cyborg with a sharp look. "You're an idiot," she finally said.
"You want proof? Here," his finger became a permanent marker and he scribbled "Booyah!--Cy" onto the plastic bag. "I guarantee you we'll see this bag again before the year's out!" He turned the bag in, and before the year was out, the Titans forgot all about it...
It was years later. Beast Boy and Starfire had joined shortly after. Terra had come and gone. A no-named punk attempted a solo heist on the Bank of Perez while the Titans were waiting for Cy to finish making a deposit. Five crime fighters hanging around at the bank, and you continue trying to rob it all on your lonesome. Some people just wanted to go to jail. Starfire, Raven, and BB took off under their own power while Cy and Robin drove no-named doofus to jail.
Later, back at the Tower, Cyborg pulled Robin aside. "You won't believe what that guy had on him."
"What?"
Cyborg pulled out a small ziplock full of joints. Without counting, Robin knew there were ten of them, because scrawled across the front in grayed permanent marker was "Booyah!--Cy."
"Wow," was all Robin could say.
"Man, do you know what this is? Weed!" As if that were news.
"That bag must've sure got around, huh?" Robin mused. He laughed at the memory before turning his mind to training. And thinking up good puns.
"Hash," Cy pressed.
"Yeah."
"Mary Jane."
"Uh-huh."
"Pot."
"Yup."
"Grass."
"Cyborg, are you going anywhere with this?"
Cyborg blinked. "Robin. Don't you want to know?"
Nothing happened for a moment. Neither of them moved, nobody spoke. It was clear they both were thinking about what Cyborg just said. It was clear what Cy was referring to. Robin wanted it to be clear what the not-so-fine line Cy was thinking of breaching was.
"This is a pretty stupid idea you're playing with. This stuff is addictive, and dangerous. You become a liability to this team and I don't have much choice but to drop you."
Cyborg smiled. "I think it's obvious I want to know. But don't you want to know?"
Robin couldn't believe Cyborg! "Didn't you hear me? This stuff is addictive..."
"So's caffeine."
"...And dangerous..."
"Not as dangerous as crime fighting. Say what you want to say, Robin."
"...It's--it's illegal! This is against the law."
"We are above the law, aren't we? Robin, Don't you want to know? It's not fair--I bet your parents got to know. My mom went to Berkeley--I KNOW she got to know! Don't you want to know?"
This was scary. Batman had told him all about this--his parents had warned him. He was supposed to say "no," he was trying to say "no," but his throat locked up and suddenly he was nervous. It was going to happen, and he was going to let it--this was scary.
"That's it!" Cyborg exclaimed, pulling one of the cigarettes out. "I have to know! I can't stand not knowing! How can you stand not knowing?" One of his fingers flipped open and a small flame spat out. He lit the cigarette.
"You won't!" Robin was shocked.
"I'm doing it!"
"You can't!"
"I'm gonna!"
"It's stupid!"
"That, it is!"
"Well not here! Somebody will see you! Oh jeez, they'll smell it!" He led Cyborg back to his room, checking carefully to make sure nobody was in the hallway. "Are you crazy?" Robin berated the elder Titan. "Have you lost your mind?"
"Yes, yes I have!" It was true. There was a wild look in Cyborg's eye. He was seriously going to do this...
"I can't believe it," was all Robin could manage.
"Well believe it, and get outta here!" Cy shot back.
"Wha--?"
"Get outta here, unless you want this smoke in your face! I'm doing this Robin! I'm smoking this weed, man!" He put the joint to his lips and sucked hard, his eyes bulging out like a suffocating fish. Cyborg's eyes began to water. He coughed. Twice. He exhaled and started choking.
"Oh, man!" The metal man cried, his voice sounding odd and strained. "I'm dying! I can't breathe!"
Robin didn't hear him. In his fit, Cyborg had dropped the lit joint onto the floor, onto Robin's Amanda Palmer rug. The Boy wonder scooped up the cigarette before it could ruin his mat.
It was in his hands. He had it right here. Pot. Cyborg had did it--how could Robin stand not knowing? He couldn't! Quickly, before he could change his mind, Grayson to a quick hit.
Cough. "It's...nothing really..." Robin complained.
Cyborg, on the other hand, was just barely on this side of puking his lungs out, "You...you gotta hold it...hold it in your chest..." then back to his coughing fit. "Crap...it burns too..."
Robin tried again...
On a bright sunny day in crisp November, little Cyborg asked his Mommy if he could go see his bestest friend, Little Robin From Down the Street. Mommy said no. She claimed he was s'posed to stay home, cuz relativities were coming over for something about thanks-giving. Isn't that what he did before going to bed? Now he had to do it with relativities too? It wasn't fair! Little Robin From Down the Street got a new Gamestation game and he wanted to see!
Mommy was an ogre. How could She not care about Gamestation? She was always making him pick up toys, and be nice to girls. And She never let him stay up to watch Arsenio Hall! No wonder when She went on speaking 'gagements, Daddy liked Miss Carlyle better! Miss Carlyle let Little Cyborg watch Arsenio!
Little Cyborg went up to his room and cried. He looked up when he heard a knock at the window. It was Numb Nuts the Squirrel!
"Numb Nuts!" Little Cyborg cried. "Mommy's so mean!"
"Kill that bitch," Numb Nuts said. "She better sleep with one eye open, or it's 'Boo-ya!'"
"She's too big and strong! I can't do it alone!"
"I'll tell you the same thing I tell football players: stab Her forty times and peel out in a white Bronco. If that doesn't do it, nothing will!"
"Yes!" So Little Cyborg went downstairs and said he was sorry for getting mad (Mommy was so stupid--he had his fingers crossed!). There was a carving knife Daddy ordered from the TV. Little Cyborg took it. It was bad to touch knives, but if you were going to kill Mommy, you had to break one or two rules.
Then he bided his time. Bid. Bode. Booed? He waited till dark. Just before Leno, Little Cyborg scurried into Mommy and Daddy's room as fast as his little legs could take him and stuck Mommy with the knife. It was funny--just like in the cartoons! Then She started melting!
He was telling this story to Little Robin From Down the Street, who didn't believe him because he said Mommies didn't melt. What did he know? Daddy says that Little Robin From Down the Street's Mommy and Daddy were "hicks," and they used to be "carnies!" Little Cyborg didn't know what those words meant, but Daddy was the smartest-est Daddy in the world, and he cured cancer, and had a lab with potions like Frankenstein, and if he didn't like somebody, it meant they were stupid!
Little Robin From Down the Street got mad for no reason and hit Little Cyborg! They started fighting when they--actually Little Robin From Down the Street--broke a vase! It was the only thing in the whole wide Little Robin From Down the Street's House that wasn't cheap and tacky! The bestest friends looked at each other.
"Look what you did!" Little Robin From Down the Street said--totally making stuff up.
"Hey, don't worry kids! I'm okay!" The vase said. "I'm like Frosty the Snowman! I'll come back once every year to play with you! And you can break my face over and over, every year!"
"Wow!" Little Cyborg exclaimed.
"How does that work?" Little Robin From Down the Street wondered.
"Because you're high, man!" Vase smiled. "You're high, man!
(Because they're always "quacking" jokes!)
"You're high, man!"
(Holy crap, dude!)
"You're high, man!"
(You guys have never laughed at my jokes like this before!)
"You're freaking stoned off your ass!"
"Dude!" Beast Boy celebrated. "I'm killing!"
Little Cyborg and Little Robin couldn't stop laughing! Holy shit, dude! Vase said "They're always 'quacking' jokes(you're high, man)!" They didn't even know what that meant!
"Okay, how 'bout this one?" Beast Boy started another, finally getting to enjoy an appreciative audience.
Little Robin said, "Hey! I have some magic crayons! Let's play!" He opened a drawer and pulled out a couple Crayola Official Super Magic Crayons Made Specially for Little Robin and Little Cyborg. Then he pulled out some plain white paper--not everything can be special. He and Little Cyborg began to draw.
"...I don't get it," Beast Boy observed, not knowing it wasn't a joke. "And you better get that marker off the walls before Raven sees it. She'll have a cow."
"Moooooooooo," Robin answered, running down the hall, marking up the hall in permanent marker along the way.
"Raven's always quacking jokes!" Cyborg laughed.
Suddenly, Robin turned around and realized what Beast Boy said. "Crap! Raven's gonna know! She'll know everything!"
Little Robin's Mommy was gonna find them out! Little Cyborg was gonna go to jail! And it was all Numb Nuts' fault!
"Nice going, Numb Nuts!" Robin yelled at Cyborg.
Beast Boy was confused. "But, dude, you're the one drawing on the walls!"
"Chill, Little Cyborg." Cy tried to calm Robin down.
"I don't get it!" Beast Boy has completely lost. "You guys suck! Or is this one of those 'thinking jokes' Raven's always doing?"
"We're going to go to jail!" Little Cyborg said. "She'll know about the body!"
"What's 'the doobies?'" Beast Boy wondered.
"We need a place to hide!" Little Robin agreed. "Vase, do you know a place to hide from Mommy?"
"'Vaz?'" Beast Boy blinked. "Is that Robin's real name?"
"You, man, you!" Cyborg insisted.
"You want to hide from Raven?"
"Yes! She'll know what we did!"
"...Why don't you just clean it off the walls?"
There was a sound at the far end of the hall. It was Raven. Fie, Fi, Fo, Fommy! I'll tell what Little Cyborg did to his Mommy!
"Run!" Cyborg suggested. He and Robin bolted down the opposite direction, leaving Beast Boy more lost then ever.
Raven walked by, absorbed in a book, and barely notice Beast Boy or the marks all over the walls. After taking a few steps past Robins open door, she stopped and whirled around, eyes wide. "What's that smell?" she demanded.
Whoa. BB knew he didn't fart. That must've been either Robin or Cyborg. "It was those two." He pointed in the direction Robin and Cyborg scampered. "I know you don't believe me, but I swear it was all them! They've lost their freaking minds!"
For a second she just stared at Beast Boy, disbelieving. Robin and Cyborg? Marijuana? "Lost--lost their minds?" She exploded just like Beast Boy expected her to. "Lost their minds? I'll say!" She stomped off in the direction Beast Boy pointed.
"Jeez, Raven," Beast Boy grumbled, "It's just some marks on the walls."
Robin threw a pitcher of water on his face. How did this stuff wear off? Please don't tell me I have to wait for it to stop, he thought. Cyborg began filling the pitcher with water again to splash his own face.
"That didn't do anything," Robin complained, the fear rising in his voice. "Okay...just--just be cool, and maybe she won't know the difference. She doesn't pay attention to us anyway, right? Right?"
Cyborg couldn't answer. He was too busy trying to suck down a pitcher of water. "Man...I'm thirsty as hell, man!"
"Will you quit that!" Robin was beginning to panic. She would know. Cyborg was gonna give them away. Robin would be in the clink before the day was over; shacked up in a cell with a mean-looking guy called "Big T" who would take his pillow, and his lawyer would make him cop a plea for eight years, and Bruce would renounce him, and Starfire would refuse to date him, and his parents would turn over in their graves, and then in the shower he would be so high we would drop the soap and have to just wash with plain water cuz there was no way in HELL he was picking it back up--
"You ain't thirsty?" Cyborg asked dumbly.
"Would you act normal!"
"I'm thirsty." Cyborg seemed to be pondering his thirst as if some complex depth were behind it. "I'm...starving."
Cyborg opened the refrigerator and began to forage. While he began to stuff fistfuls of tofu into his mouth, Robin started crying. His life was over and he couldn't figure out why he couldn't stop freaking out!
"You worry too much!" Little Robin (Numb Nuts) said. "All we have to do is use the Jedi Mime Trick!"
"You're off your freakin' toast!" Little Cyborg said slowly, realizing how stupid an idea it was to listen to the moron next to him. How did he get caught up in this?
"Freeze! Hold it right there!" Detective Enwai Petey ordered. This was it! He was outed! Sleeping with no pillow and plain water showers for the rest of his life!
"We are not the droids you are looking for," Little Robin/Numb Nuts explained, while pretending to be trapped inside a box. Then he pretended to be pulling himself along on a rope.
"Oh...I see..."
Starfire blinked. What was Friend Cyborg talking about? Was this a game? It certainly appeared as if he were having fun of some sort. Starfire was confused. "I shall go see if Beast Boy is doing anything..." she floated away while casting concerned glances behind her.
FIE, FI, FO, FOMMY!
"Robin? Cyborg? Are you in here?"
"Haul!" Cyborg finally advised, and he and Robin made a break for the elevator. It closed just as she saw them. Oh man, from the look on her face, she knew! Robin began crying anew!
"Just play cool, play it cool, just play cool..." the high Flying Grayson repeated to himself aloud.
"Man...I'm baked." Cyborg pointed out as if this was news. The mechanical man sat down on the floor of the elevator and rested his head against the wall. "This is what high feels like."
"High" felt awful! Robin couldn't stop the panic, and now he felt slightly sick. Why did he have to know! Now he was a junkie! Robin began crying again. "This is messed up, Cyborg!", he wailed. "We can't be Titans anymore."
Cyborg laughed. "You sure you ain't hungry? I wants some cheeseburgers. Some Chinese food."
The elevator stopped at the ground level. The door opened, then closed a few seconds later. They stayed inside. Maybe she would think they went outside.
"Beast Boy."
Beast Boy jumped, squealing in shock. Just his luck that it was Raven.
"Were you...drawing on the walls just now?" See, now how come when he did it she noticed?
"Whatever," she shrugged. "If you see Robin or Cyborg, notify me at once, and stall them okay?"
"Uh...sure." He watched Raven storm off again.
She didn't need help finding the two Titans, she just wanted somebody to run interference while she chased them down. Raven looked down again at the empty plastic bag, remembering it from years ago. Those idiots!
Inside the elevator it was quiet. Robin had finally stopped crying, and Cyborg had finally stopped laughing. Their heads began to hurt. "Well," Cyborg sighed. "That was nice..."
Before Robin could start complaining again about how he didn't have such a good time after all, a something slammed into the doors of the elevator, making them cave in and almost break right off.
"Whoa!" Cyborg jumped to his feet.
"It's the battering ram!" Robin panicked. "The cops are breaking in!"
Black tendrils of negative energy slithered into the spaces between the warped doors. "It's Raven!" Cyborg shouted, finally making sense. The doors flew apart, revealing the furious girl.
Robin pulled out a gun with a grappling hook attached to it. He shot it upward and it burst through the hatch on the ceiling flying upward about seventy feet, hooking onto something--Robin didn't care what. He didn't even check to see if it would support him and Cyborg.
"Go-go-gadget hook-on-a-rope-thingy!" Cyborg went back to saying inane things. The two flew through the hatch shooting upward at insane speed. Robin made the mistake of looking down and saw the enraged goth tear through the elevator and levitate up to them.
Whatever the hook had caught hold of, it was no longer making itself useful. Their acceleration upward slowed; Robin's guts flip-flopped. The two ceased to move upward just before a set of doors, and Cyborg had the good sense to pry them open immediately. Robin could feel himself beginning to drop even as Cy pulled him onto the ninth floor.
The pantry. Cyborg held the doors open until Raven--still heading toward them at full speed--had nearly reached them. At the last second he let the doors slam shut. There was a loud boom, a whispered "Ow," then, after a tense silence, the echoed thud of her hitting the ceiling of the elevator down on the ground floor.
"I think we killed Raven," Cyborg didn't sound very concerned. He immediately forgot about it and began to explore the pantry. "You sure you're not hungry?"
"We're junkie murderers?" Robin couldn't believe it. "You know what they do in jail to guys who murder little girls?"
"Uh...same thing they do to everyone else? I'm so washing in plain water only."
Robin sighed.
"I hope I get a little white guy for a cellmate, so I can take his pillow." Cyborg went on.
Robin put his head in his hands.
"You want to be my bitch? You're way too scrawny to defend yourself." Cyborg keep going.
Robin started crying again.
"Man, don't do that when we get to jail. They'll tear open your virgin ass before I can stake a claim on you."
"Hey guys! Whatsup?" Beast Boy had come down to prep for lunch. He walked in, looking at Robin strangely. "What's with him?"
"They're going to tear open his virgin ass," Cyborg repeated.
"Death threats, huh? Get them all the time." BB gave Robin a sympathetic pat on the back. "Starfire's the only one that gets fan mail anymore. Tell you what: I'll make you a special meal."
"Can you make it with this stuff?" Cyborg asked, stuffing his mouth with granola. He tore open a bag of marshmallows and crammed some of those in as well.
Beast Boy gaped in horror at the combination. "Dude, you know nothing about cuisine. All that meat has finally done something to you."
"Maybe we should just go 'fess up," Robin suggested.
Cyborg spat out the granola/marshmallow combination. "To who?" he said while squeezing chocolate syrup down his gullet. "She's dead, I think."
"Who?" Beast Boy tried to catch up. "I thought that Crisis-y Infinite Earth-thing was over?"
Cyborg blinked. "I don't remember any Crisis."
Beast Boy raised his voice. "That's cuz they don't want you to remember! We saved all of existence, then JLA took the credit and wiped our minds, dude!" BB wasn't high or anything--he always bitched about the JLA wiping their minds.
"If they wiped our minds, how do you know about this?" Cyborg was struggling to think logically.
"See, I've got this jawbone, right?--have you ever read 'The Dark Tower?' And then I thought--"
The elevator doors burst open. Beast Boy, knowing it was Raven, snatched a carton of soy milk and ran. A ragged, very pissed off Raven stood before them. "I have a serious headache," she announced. "So I'll make this quick." It wasn't quick at all. Actually, her tirade for well over an hour. There were lots of how-stupid-could-you-be's, how-could-you's, and Cyborg-are-you-listening-to-me's. The more she yelled, the worse her headache got and the more she took it out on them. Robin tried to explain how it was Numb Nut's idea, but Raven just got angrier. "No excuses," she said. She was right. Of course she was right. The guilty Titans tried apologizing, but quickly found there was way too much to say "I'm sorry" for.
"You'll clean the walls, and fix the elevator and doors," Raven decreed, ignoring the blood dripping from her ears. "And you should apologize to Star and Beast Boy for worrying them...and explain why you were acting so strangely."
Cy and Rob hung their heads in shame. To explain to the others what they heck they were doing...but of course, Raven was right again.
"I--I can't think." Raven complained. "I might think about checking you guys into--I--I don't know." She brought her hand to her head. "I'm going to go lay down before it's too late. I trust you won't be on any more escapades today?" Rob and Cy shook their heads; they felt just like children.
Raven started walking away, then stopped at the door. She turned and looked back at the two starting to clean up the mess they (mostly Cyborg) made in the pantry. "What was it like?"
"Huh?"
"What was it like?"
Cyborg shrugged, "Honestly: try it, or don't try it, just don't expect anybody to be able to explain it right." Raven seemed to ponder that for a moment, the dismissed it to go tend to her concussion.
Robin looked down at the empty bag. "Wow, I don't even remember doing them all. We went kind of crazy on this things, huh?"
Cyborg laughed--not the nonsensical, manic laugh from earlier; he was back to himself. "Let's see: We split the first one; I remember that. I had one of my own; I remember that. You had one of your own; I remember that...The other seven?"
Robin had no clue. "I didn't know pot affected your memory so quickly." He went back to sweeping up the granola, then: "Cyborg?"
"Yeah?"
"What, Rob?"
"...It was okay. For a one-time thing, I mean."
Cyborg smiled, "Yeah, that was a heluva experience."
"For a one-time thing."
"Yeah. One time."
Another pause, then Robin asked: "Cyborg?"
"Yeah?"
"Maybe one more time?"
"Hell yes. Not here, though."
The End
Well, Maybe Just a Little More (Epilogue)
"Wow," Starfire murmured, staring up at the ceiling. She slowly blinked her reddened eyes and exhaled the last of the strange plant wraps. It was slightly different from the cigarettes people on TV, magazines, bus stops, and billboards smoked--but WOW! The sensation! Pure exhilaration! Star felt like she was flying, but wasn't sure if she really was or not. She felt...she felt...
"Hungry..."
The End
A/N: I totally do not advocate committing crimes. If you live in Denver, however, just an ounce at a time. If you're rich, you can just go to Europe, I guess.