Blackberry Tea

Orange and Spice

I don't own the Titans. Maybe one day... sigh.

Raven hovered over to her bedroom, wondering what she would do about Beast Boy. Should she offer him a cup of tea after dinner? No, that would be too obvious. She needed to be a little more inconspicuous than that. Her mind drifted off to an image of Beast Boy cowering before her as she offered him tea. She fought to suppress a shudder as she phased through the door to her bedroom. Inside she found her mug sitting right where she had left last night. She wasn't surprised to see that it was very similar to the one that Beast Boy had; of course this one was missing the inscription but she could understand the confusion. She sat on her desk chair and tapped her fingers idly on the old mug. What to do, what to do? She could just brew him a mug of tea and leave it at his doorstep; a silent message of sorts. No, it was still a bit much. He might take it as a silent threat rather than an offering of good will. All she wanted was to figure out a way to open up a good rapport between them.

Regardless, of how she confronted him, her main concern was that she may seem uncharacteristically desperate for company. She had never made many efforts at that with any of her other team mates. Just laughing with them at breakfast (though her barely audible snickers could barely pass as laughter) had set them on alert. The last thing she wanted was for them to think she was ill with all this abnormal behavior.

It would seem rather out of nowhere for them but it really wasn't. They didn't know the countless hours she had put into training for this. Of course now that Trigon was otherwise disposed of she could be free to use her emotions more but that didn't mean she didn't have to show some restraint. After all, her powers were still linked to her emotions but now free from Trigon's influence she could use about as much restraint as Starfire regularly did. It was an adjustment to say the least. It took her so long to figure out how unrestricted she would be that she felt cheated out of months of possible progress.

She had been overly cautious at the beginning only allowing herself to be slightly happier than normal, allowing herself to feel sadness and fear and not stop them dead in their tracks. She was used to those shackles she had bound her emotions with and now that she was free of the weight she barely knew how to act. Internally allowing herself to feel gave way to slowly allowing those emotions to breach the surface. She would smile almost invisibly, shed a hesitant tear and blush softly on occasion. She didn't believe she'd ever be as expressive as her compatriots; years of hard restrictions would surely combat that tooth and nail but that's not what she really wanted anyway. She wasn't going for affectionate but rather open and approachable.

It was all so new. It was all so strange and yet addictive. She was beginning to grow impatient. All she wanted to do was show off all her progress to her teammates in one swift swoop but the reason in her won out. That was the very reason she hadn't told them about what she was attempting before. At the very start when she had realized what the situation presented she didn't want to give them false hope on account of it not working out. She didn't want to falsely lead them to believe that one of their beloved family members could begin to express emotion like the rest of them. That she could express happiness, express sadness, express anger. That he could possibly express love and she loved them all so much. Now, she finally felt she was well and truly ready to begin opening up to them. She felt incredible excitement and dread at the same time.

Her dream family moment wasn't something she could do overnight so when she discovered she could express more emotions she decided that it would be wise to start small and try her hand one Titan at a time. The perfect option was almost immediately Beast Boy. Though they had tortured each other for years with their very presence she felt he was the perfect starting point. He had been the one who for years never gave up on trying to make her smile. Though that may say more about his ability to take a hint rather than a sign of any underlying noble trait. Regardless, the constant effort he showed was what had originally led her to choose him as her first target. He was the obvious choice and the situation at present granted her the perfect opportunity to begin her trials. He was desperate to please her and she was desperate to connect.