Okay, this is my first fanfiction ever, so be nice but honest… I prefer honest to nice, if you're forced to choose.
...now what?
Older, more experienced writer: The disclaimer.
Me: Oh, right! I don't own the characters, scenarios, sets or references used. I'm however using them for the time being and the characters be my marionettes!
Time-Out
by Pharo
Beast Boy stared into the infinity of sea before him. He had been like this for, how long? Ten minutes? Twenty? An hour?
It had felt like an eternity, but that must have been just him. After all, he wasn't used to sitting down and staying still for too long. He was always moving, flying, bouncing, cracking jokes, coming up with new things; even on the rare occasions when he was quiet, it was part of something bigger.
And he wasn't used to being silent when he was outdoors; silent enough to feel the wind on his green hair, or the sea waves ocassionally hitting and ending their lives in the rocks. He sometimes had to squint his eyes because of the brightness of the sun- though there were enough clouds in the sky, they were in constant movement and sometimes left the sky unprotected.
That's life, he thought. The air, the sea, the clouds... everything was in movement but him.
But in reality, he couldn't help it. He couldn't help but replaying the past events in his head again and again.
Raven got mad at him in a nearly regular basis, but this time hadn't been like the others.
You see, neither Raven nor Beast Boy nor anybody else in the team took their fights seriously anymore. It was more like a game, a sport. It was their form of interaction, even if the others hadn't understood at first. Even now, Beast Boy didn't know if they had understood or just plain accepted it.
Problem was, this time it hadn't been a game. He felt like he had stepped out of the rules, when she reacted the way she did. But he didn't know why she had reacted like that.
And that was the reason he was there, thinking. Feeling bad and trying to figure out why she had gotten like that.
Let's start from the beginning. The only thing he had done was taking a necklace he had found in a drawer. It had been in the bottom drawer, hidden inside a folded towel; apart from that, there was absolutely nothing else there. That of course had made him curious.
And curiosity killed the cat. What an irony, considering his present situation.
He was certain he would die if he morphed back now.
What had he been doing in her room, you may ask? Well he'd been exclusively looking for something to steal from her. That in itself was a revenge from the time she ruined his video-games session with Cyborg, which is another story.
The he had hidden the necklace in his room, and wait until she discovered what he had done. It took her shorter than he had thought, even when he knew that by now she probably searched her room every time she entered to see if he had taken anything.
Up to there, it had stayed a game. Raven was ahead of him and he had just wanted to get even. But then she came down in a fit of rage and demanded where was her necklace. Making it clear she wasn't playing anymore.
And that's when the game paused and score vanished.
And all because he had chosen the wrong object to get revenge on his video-games session. The one she had ruined to get revenge on her favorite mug. Which he had broken to get even on his poor ears, which she had pulled one day he was being too lazy for her standars.
And so on and on and on, ever since the day he accidentally fell on her in his rhino form, back in their very first fight with Cinderblock.
But, looking back in the score as he was doing now, he realized something. Lately his revenges had consisted on breaking her stuff; she probably thought he had stolen that necklace to break it and that's why she was so worried. That made sense.
Maybe thinking for long periods of time did work. He'd have to thank Raven later… that is, if she still spoke to him.
It offended him a little that she thought he would break something like that. It was too expensive-looking and to well-kept; it wasn't a simple mug or vase, it looked too important. And that's why he had decided to just hide it.
But it must have been even more important than he had thought; he had understood that immediately. Once she had it back, Raven had calmed down and evolved to the traditional anger he was used to. But it was the primal desperation in her eyes that made him realize his mistake and give it back immediately.
Pherhaps it was a gift? But from whom? Cyborg didn't go giving her jewelry; Robin was the kind of guy who would, but he was probably afraid his girlfriend would get jealous; Starfire would try to buy her something pink and shiny, not antique and sober like this was.
…And Beast Boy was a thoughtless, inmature brat who would buy something for himself before even thinking of giving something nice to his best friends if he ever had the money anyway.
Now this insults were not the narrator's fault, no. It was all Beast Boy throwing verbal daggers at himself.
Beast Boy made a sigh that sounded like a mew. Who could have given her the necklace? Maybe someone outside the Tower. Maybe she had friends besides them. Maybe… maybe she had a boyfriend.
He shook his enormous head, but that didn't stop him from thinking about it. Did Raven have a boyfriend? It wouldn't be a surprise if she had hidden that from them. But he wondered if she realized how dangerous that was.
I mean, Starfire had Robin, and they knew him and were sure he respected her, but if they didn't know Raven's boyfriend, how could they trust that he treated her right? The team had always been protective of their girls, especially of Raven after the whole Malchior thing.
But then again, if he gave her jewelry like that, he was already way better boyfriend than he was friend.
Beast Boy chuckled. Unable to stay sad for too long, his mind had thought of something new. Like how ironic it was that the longest thinking session he had had in his life hadn't even been in his human form.
Then he looked down again, at the rocks. And at the waves that found their death against them. He already felt that was his dying place to. Not emotionally, but because of the position he was in. The position Raven had put him in. Still, he shivered when he embraced that thought.
The sun had dissapeared behind a thick steadiness of clouds a while ago, but he hadn't noticed. The sunny day had turned cloudy, it even looked like it was about to rain.
Beast Boy continued to look down. What would it be like, to really die in there? He shook his head abruptly. What are you thinking?, he scolded himself as his eyes widened. You find out Raven has a boyfriend and already you want to kill yourself?
No, wait. Why was he making this all about her? It was not about her, he was just curious. But it wasn't such an innocent curiosity anymore, his thoughts rather scared him and he tried to get rid of them.
But he couldn't. He couldn't move, and he couldn't stop wondering. What would he feel if he morphed back? How would it be?
Would it be fast, or slow and painful? Would the pain even let him think about time? Would there be pain? Or would he feel nothing? Or maybe just the desperation of not being able to breath, and then nothing.
Would his friends come out, if he screamed? Would he scream and scream without anyone coming out? Would he stay as motionless as he had been for the past hour, and die in silence, leaving everyone to wonder later what had happened?
He couldn't stand the uncertainity; he had to know.
Besides, the moment he stopped being able to breath, he could morph back to his kitten form.
He wouldn't die. He just had to dare test his theories.
Raven reached a full stop and looked up from her book, to the window. She had kept doing this religiously for the past couple of hours, and she always saw the same; Beast Boy, in his kitten form, hanging from the roof by a rope around his neck. She went back to her reading.
You may wonder why he was in such position. Well, it had been her fault really.
It had all started earlier that morning, when he stole from her stuff. After she got mad, he had tried to make her forgive him by giving her 'the face'. It of course didn't change her mood the slightlest, and she simply decided to hang him from the roof for a change.
That kind of punishement differed from her traditional options (such as physical pain infliction that was over in a minute), but she was curious as to what the energetic Beast Boy would do not being able to move for such a long time.
She felt it was like sending a kid to the corner.
If he morphed back to human, the knot would remain the same and it would choke him. He couldn't morph into something heavy either, because the rope was tamarenean and weight didn't break it. Finally, if he intended to morph into something smaller to try and slip off, the spell she had put on the rope would make it decrease with him, ultimately choking him anyhow.
So what was saving him from choking right now? Only his enormous kitten head, that let the rope sustain him without even squeezing his neck at all.
He knew all that. And she knew he knew it. But still, she had deliberatedly hung him from a place that allowed her to see him from the living room, just in case he did something stupid. Every thirty seconds or so, she would look up.
At the beginning, he had tried to entertain himself using the rope as a swing, jumping up and down, or singing off-key in his cat language. Sometimes he would be quiet for a while and then she would hear him laugh a cat laugh.
Still, he probably hadn't realized she was watching him yet.
Raven reached another full stop and looked up. Long ago he had stopped moving, and it worried her a little.
She tilted her head to the side, and watched a bit longer than she usually did. He had been completely quiet and still for the past hour, and she couldn't help but wonder what he would be thinking about, what was going through that giant cat head.
She shrugged internally and resumed her reading. This pharagraph was shorter than other, and as soon as she ended it, she looked up and then down to her book again.
A millisecond later, Raven looked up again as her mind processed what she had just seen.
Her eyes grew wide. Beast Boy wasn't in his kitten form.
The rest of the Titans relaxing in the living room hadn't once looked up at their teammate in the gallows, as they were sure Raven was keeping an eye on him, but they had to look up when Raven suddenly shot up from her seat and sprinted towards the door, leaving one of her favorite books carlessly discarded on the ground.
When they were wondering what had happened, they instinctively looked at the window and got their answer: Beast Boy, human form, was hanging on the rope from his neck, his arms and legs hanging limp, as if he were a zombie.
Meanwhile, Raven was already out; Beast Boy was now tugging down at the rope for air. She quickly sent a wave of dark energy to cut the rope; maybe weight couldn't break it, but a well-directed shot at its weak point could.
The changeling fell to the ground, looking around confused (wasn't that rope unbreakable?), until he saw Raven. Her knees went weak and she kneeled down next to him, trying to still her heart threatening to fly out of her chest. She then realized she had actually ran to there, too altered to fly.
"Beast Boy!" she sounded as if he had given her the shock of her life, as she tried to undo the knot around his neck with shaky hands. "What happened?"
"N-nothing… I'm fine," he could only stutter, overwhelmed by the worry and fear he smelled on her.
"Then why did you morph back? Did you forget-" her voice broke.
Then, the other Titans appeared in the background, all with shock and worry in their faces.
He shook his head briskly, thinking of what to say. "N-no, I just… I was wondering how it'd be like to die."
Raven's enormous violet eyes widened their full size, and Beast Boy immediately damned his choice of words. Before he could explain himself, though, Cyborg burst into the scene.
"Okay, little man, thinking during great extents of time isn't good for you," he said as he lifted him from his shoulders, just as upset as everybody else. "Let's get you inside and have a healthy video games session."
The changeling was dragged inside the Tower, and didn't have the chance to explain anything to the still shocked, worried and now guilty sorceress he was leaving behind.
Raven was alone in the common room. She was looking down at the open book in her hands, but couldn't concentrate on the words. She finally put it down after realizing she had been reading the same line at least five times and she still had no idea what it said.
The sorceress looked torwards the window; now it was raining hard. She couldn't help feeling guilty; after all, she had put a friend's life at risk. She couldn't get rid of the horrible image of his limbs hanging limply and his head lolling forward like a deadman's. She shut her eyes tightly, but that only made her see it more clearly.
She had felt he had things to tell her, but he was with Robin right now, and she didn't want to bother them. Before that, he'd been with Cyborg. None of them had wanted to leave him alone after what had happened.
Raven sighed and opened her book again, as she felt the door swish open. "Hey sis," Cyborg greeted.
"Hi, Cyborg," she replied. The half-robot settled in the couch next to her, and they fell in a comfortable silence.
Even if she still felt guilty, having him with her was comforting, and she soon feel better. She was actually starting to get into her book when the door opened again.
"Raven?" to her surprise, it was Robin's nervous voice who called her, and she immediately looked up in surprise. "Who's with Beast Boy now?"
"I thought you were with him," she responded.
"I was, but he said he had to talk to you, so I went to set up the combat course," Robin explained. "that was at least… fifteen minutes ago."
Raven's eyes widened, and she automatically looked at Cyborg, who was directing a similar look at her.
Beast Boy was alone. Beast Boy had lied to Robin. Normally they wouldn't suspect of their friend, but based on the earlier events, they were afraid.
Next thing Robin knew, Raven was phasing through the ceiling with her dark energy. The last thing she heard was a frantic "Take me!" from Cyborg.
Beast Boy was actually just sitting on the floor, reading old comics from his collection. His back was to the wall, and he could hear the heavy raindrops on his window.
Suddenly he heard a knock on his door. He opened to reveal a rather nervous Raven. "Hi," he greeted, wondering why she would be there.
"Hi," she replied. She looked very relieved now for some reason.
"Did you need something?"
"…No, I just came to check on you."
Beast Boy then understood. "Oh," he said in a tired tone. "You thought I was looking for new ways to kill myself?" That came out harsher than he had intented to, but he was getting tired of everybody not leaving him alone for one second and not even letting him explain what had really happened while they were at it.
Raven nonetheless seemed irritated that he took her worry to joke. Beast Boy noticed and eased the tone of his voice. "I wasn't trying to kill myself."
The sorceress wasn't willing to stop frowning. "What would you think if you saw me hanging from a rope?"
I'd probably die, he thought as he shivered at the mental image. "I swear it's not what it looked like. I-it's just…," she wanted and explanation, he realized when he looked up and saw she had softened her expression to make him feel more at ease. "just…" he had no other choice. "curiosity."
He dropped his arms and Raven raised an eyebrow. "I wanted to try what would happen if I morphed back."
Raven gave him an incredulous look. "What?" he said nothing. "You wanted to… oh God, you're so stupid!!" she covered her eyes and started pacing around his room. She damned his curiosity and damned his childish conviction that he was inmune to everything, that everything in the world would rearrange so that he would never get hurt.
Now, all this cursing and scolding was only spoken in Raven's mind and not to Beast Boy; you could say the insults never reached him, but they actually did.
They reached him when she closed her eyes in frustation, when she walked around exasperated, when she buffed, letting out a little of the worry that poisoned her heart keeping it inside. He knew the only times she was really mad were when she said nothing at all. That was why the changeling always prefered the times when she shouted at him.
He had tried to just stare at his feet, but he couldn't help stealing glances at her; she always made him feel so stupid, so little. Yet she was the only thing that kept him from committing stupidities. This time, she felt she hadn't succeeded, and that was why she was so mad.
Finally she stopped, took a deep breath, and spoke up. "You do realize what could have happened, don't you?"
"Nothing would have happened," he said trying to convince her. "I would have morphed back in a second if you hadn't been there in a half!" then he realized something. "How did you get there so fast, anyway?"
"I was watching you from the living room," she admitted. "Just in case you did something stupid," she shot him a meaningful look. "Star tried to tell me you wouldn't… thanks Azar I listen to my instincs," she added in a whisper, more to herself than to him.
They were quiet for a while.
"Why did you lie to Robin?" Raven asked, although she thought she already knew the answer.
"Wha?" Beast Boy shot up. "I didn't lie to anyone."
"He left you because you told him you had to talk to me," she said. "You didn't."
"I was going to," he explained. "but you weren't in your room and I didn't want to explain to you what had really happened in the main room."
"…Oh." She had thought he had just wanted to get Robin off his back to be alone, which was in itself weird for him. "Sorry."
They were in silence for another while, shorter than the last one.
"Hey, Raven?" Beast Boy asked shyly. She ackowledged him with a look. "…Why did you get so mad?"
"I wasn't really mad, I just wanted to try a new form of punishment. You never seem to learn when I-…"
"No," he interrupted. "I mean… why was that necklace so important?"
When she looked up, a little taken aback, he had his hands in his pockets. "Was it a, gift?" he gave her a meaningful look and hoped she'd get the hint.
She smiled slightly for a second. "Yes."
Beast Boy's head perked up in surprise; he hadn't expected her to answer that. He looked back down immediately, hoping she hadn't noticed and knowing that she had.
"Oh," he said simply. "Should have know," he added in a whisper.
Meanwhile, Raven thought she must have gotten lost somehwere, as she had no idea what she had said to have Beast Boy like that. "Known what?"
He looked at her and blushed. "…That you had a…" he motioned to her so she would understand, but she only placed a hand on her hip and raised a questioning eyebrow. "…boyfriend."
She let her eyes widen, "A boyfriend? I have an expensive necklace and already you think a boyfriendgave it to me?"
He stared at her. "Hey, that's a compliment!" He smiled, mostly out of relief.
"It sounded more like sexist," Raven said dead-panned.
"But then, who is it from?" Beast Boy asked cheerily, though he didn't care much anymore, now the chance of her having a boyfriend was out.
She smiled and searched into her cloak and, to his surprise, took out the precious necklace, the one who had caused all the trouble. Well, kind of.
"It was my mother's," she explained solemly. "I never met her, but my mentor said she had wanted me to have it."
Beast Boy's smile faded as he realized the value of what he has stolen, and why she had been so desperate to have it back. "Oh, I'm… sorry. I knew it was important, but…" he trailed off, having nothing else to say. Fortunately, it went unnoticed, because Raven spoke up again.
"How did you know it was important?"
"It looked it," he said simply, wanting to find out where she was going with this.
"That's why you didn't damage it?" her eyes were smiling now. He nodded. "Well, as long as you have that criteria, I think I won't have to worry so much about my poor stuff that ends up in your hands."
He smiled too. "And if you do, you can always ask for a time-out."
"What?"
"Nothing," he said immedately. Raven wasn't in tune with his sport allusions, and she wasn't keeping a score like he was. At least he thought so.
She let it go. "And I won't have to worry about you trying new things?"
He smiled and blushed. "No more experiments, I swear."
She gave a slight smile in relief that made Beast Boy smile even more. He was so relieved he had cleared himself up; now he might at last have peace from everyone.
"Friend Beast Boy!!!"
The changeling diappeared to the ground by a very worried alien. "You are… unharmed!" she concluded after examining the boy she had knocked over.
"What were you expecting?" Beast Boy asked when she got off him.
"Friend Cyborg said…" she trailed off, and all gazes turned to an exhausted-looking half robot who had just stepped out of the elevator.
Raven vaguely remembered he was also racing to check up on Beast Boy. That had been about half an hour ago, and his room was in the first floor. "What the hell took you this long?"
The cybernetic teen subtly pointed at Starfire and gave her a meaningful look. Raven made an 'O' with her mouth. After seeing his friend was well, against every prediction, Cyborg collapsed on the floor.
Ten days had gone by since Beast Boy's little episode at the gallows, and everything was back to normal again. He had recently started battling with Raven again, after a little half-time.
He was currently playing video-games with Cyborg, waiting for Raven to find out there was something missing in her room. It would seem he always fell back to this recourse, but in his defense, this was the first time he only stole something since the necklace incident; the previous days he had been way more creative, but today he had just woken up lazy.
"BEAST BOY!" He smirked; that was his cue.
But the next words changed the meaning of the shout.
"TIME! OUT!"
His smirk faded. Cyborg had already paused the game, foreseeing his friend would have to run away at any moment, so he just got up and went out of the room.
A second later, Raven walked out of the elevator and looked around the room. Cyborg, although curious about the change of rutine, pointed to the laundry. Raven went in that direction, either not noticing or not caring about Cyborg's confused expression.
Beast Boy kneeled down next to the farthest-away washing machines and opened its door. The only thing inside it, was a ring. That was what Beast Boy had stolen. Probably another gift from Raven's mom.
What does that woman have with expensive jewelry?, he thought as he heard the door open behind him.
"In the washing machine?" Raven's voice asked incredulously.
Beast Boy flashed a toothy smile in her direction. "You would have searched in my room first, right?" He stood up with the ring in his hand.
"I chose the wrong thing to steal again, didn't I?"
"Yep."
"But you won't hang me from the roof this time, will you?"
She half-smiled. "No innovative means of punishment this time."
He smiled too and let the ring fall into her open palm. She turned around to leave when he sopke again. "So, is that another gift from your mom?"
She turned her head and gave him a strange smile. "Um…no, this one is from my boyfriend." And she walked out of the room without looking back.
Only Cyborg heard her snicker as she went back upstairs, what left him even more confused.
Meanwhile, Beast Boy remained in the laundry. He stared after Raven for about three hours; at first, a part of him didn't believe her statement. But then he replayed their conversation of ten days ago, and realized that, she had never denied having a boyfriend.
Tivia: This was formerly called Curiosity Killed The Changeling ;D.
And all the panicking BBxRae-ers out there; don't panick. Raven tells Beast Boy in the non-existent next chapter that she was joking; she does NOT have a boyfriend. She's just messing around with our heads like she always does.
The Lighthouse