Hello, old and new friends. This COVID-19 quarantine has me wanting to do something fun, so I'm back reading and writing fanfiction! Who has the energy to emotionally invest in new worlds?

This is an old story being revamped (again). Some passages and scenes will remain the same or highly similar. Changes to key plot points and characterisation will also occur. Get ready for some highly unpopular ships!

This story will be dark, so read with caution and take care of yourself. See end of chapter notes for specific trigger warnings. As always, I don't own anything!

Heady

1. Potent, intoxicating

2. Likely to cause conceit

3. Impetuous, violent.

Malchior was trying to pretend he was not real again. That there had never been a boy, a man or a dragon by his name. No magic. No death. No Rorek, no battle, no book. Not even a concept called time. Certainly no girl named Raven. He had a lot of practice at this, yet somehow his skill appeared to be diminishing.

It did not help that one of the most unhealthy topics for his mind to get stuck on was currently storming around the room, her every noise emphasising the fact he was still alive to hear it. She was muttering as she dressed for the morning. Or at least, he thought that was what she was doing. He had not actually seen her in several years.

The words themselves were muffled by the chest his book was currently locked in, making him more and more desperately interested in whatever it was that had upset her the longer she carried on. He finally made out one word hissed with an unusual amount of venom ("breakfast"), before she slammed her closet door with unnecessary force and walked out of her bedroom, leaving him completely alone.

He knew that he would ruminate on this small clue about her life for hours. It had been his primary hobby for the past few years, after all. In the span of his lifetime, that should have been nothing, but somehow the past few years had seemed longer than most. It reminded him of the first decade in the book, when the rage and fear had been overwhelming and never-ending. One couldn't hold onto that intensity for centuries however. The emotions had eventually dulled, and then he'd been able to become not real for the first time. After that, there had been long stretches of Malchior's imprisonment where he wasn't really present.

Only stimuli outside of the book brought him back, suggesting as it did a chance of escape. When those opportunities inevitably did not pan out, he would stick around to read about the goings on of the new time. In spite of some surprises - the discovery of far off lands, nuclear bombs, the pace of technology lately- Malchior found the same themes mostly repeated themselves. He saw more and more the inevitability of certain things. There was birth, death, war, wealth and revolution. Hope and despair. He would grow bored, and eventually become blessedly not real once again.

But then he had met Raven. Or rather, he'd heard her speaking to the bookseller about taking his book home. He'd been curious of course, as very rarely did he find his way into human hands. But then she'd touched the front cover and her power had pulsed through his prison, filling him with the hope of the living. Feeling a magical signature other than Rorek's influence pressing in on him had been like inhaling fresh air after living an entire lifetime underground.

It had been a fantastic bonus when she actually opened the book and he saw she was both very beautiful and very lonely.

Malchior had been fond of her immediately. Access to all the printed reading material in the world did not compare to human interaction, and beyond that she was intelligent and rather sweet. A little young perhaps. Her crush on him was immediately obvious, and he leant on it heavily in his desperation for a way out. He needed her to help him the same way she needed oxygen. It was not necessarily a conscious choice to breath. It was instinct, just like taking advantage of her insecurities when it seemed like she might back out over distaste for his type of magic.

That didn't mean he felt good about it afterwards. But, really, he hadn't needed to stretch the truth all the much. Raven's friends evidently did not understand or appreciate her, while he truly did think she was a joy to talk to (and look at).

Obviously, he lied about being the dragon. What girl in her right mind would trust a man who led with their greatest fault? He'd planned to tell her later, once he was out of the book. He'd thought they could be friends.

But then the unfortunate accident had occurred. He'd entered the book as a dragon in a state of pure, unadulterated hatred for all of humanity. Out of his mind with power, rage and grief. Of course he was going to come out in the same state. His greatest crime against Raven was his stupidity.

His current feelings for the girl were… complicated. Since she forced him back into captivity, fondness had gown into something else. At times it was much darker, and at times the most pure thing about him. She made him angry, but she also made him ashamed. He grieved for her and missed their talks desperately. He followed her every move with an obsessive devotion that he resented, especially because fresh emotion tethered him to this half-life.

Sometimes, he made love to her all night long in his thoughts.

In short, Raven was his only companion, even though she ignored his existence completely.

Lately Malchior been reading the research on solitary confinement with great interest. It told him what he already knew - that being locked up alone for extended periods was a profound form of psychological torture. The lucky coped by becoming not real, which the experts called dissociation, and which he could no longer achieve. Malchior regularly begged any God that was out there to let him die, sure that even his misdeeds did not deserve this fate.

In all the poems and songs about the hero Rorek, not once was the Sorcerer's deep streak of cruelty acknowledged. When a dog lashed out and bit, you killed it. You did not lock it in a cave to starve to death. You certainly did not curse it to live for eternity, lock it in a cave and then leave it there to suffer!

The thing that drove him most mad was not really Rorek's fault however. It was Raven's.

The bindings she'd cast to imprison him once more were weak. When Malchior flexed his mind, there was a little give.

Another layer to his torture. All day, every day, the desire to needle at that weakness called to him. He was sure that if he tried hard enough he could undo it, thread by magical thread.

But then what?

Raven would only fling him back into the book if he escaped, and likely with stronger bindings.

Worse - what if she did not do so fast enough? Last time, his fondness for her had translated into a draconian need to play with his food, and that had saved her from death. If he got out again things would be different. The dragon inside him was incandescent with rage, and all that was cruel and bitter and entitled about him would merge with that uncontrollable magic to punish Raven for what she had done.

As badly as he wanted out, Malchior did not want to hurt her again. Escape could wait as penance for his lies and lack of foresight. He would see out her stewardship over his book before trying.

Or at least, he would do the best he could.

Malchior sighed without breath, knowing this line of thinking went nowhere good. He returned to the one word he heard clearly from Raven's lips this morning.

Breakfast.

What could be so bad about that? With all of his mental energy he could not envision something more pleasant than the opportunity to eat something.

Raven's tendency to talk to herself was maddening in that it routinely confused him without resolution, but he knew he would be bereft without hearing her voice. The closest he came to rest was hearing her chant during meditation.

Azarath. Metrion. Zynthos.

Repeated until that phrase was all there was in the world.

He resolved to think about that instead.

Raven took a deep breath and entered the common area. Under the raised hood of her cloak, her expression was that of practised neutrality. Inside however, she was humming with bitterness.

The sun hit her eyes, which were unused to the brightness - rarely did she leave her room this early in the day. It contributed to her shock when strong hands took hold of her body and wheeled her in a new direction. She caught a split-second glimpse of Cyborg and Jinx at the breakfast bar before being forced roughly into a seat at the dinky kitchen table by Starfire. As usual, her team mate seemed unaware of her own strength.

"Friend Raven, I am so glad you are joining us! Let me make your food!" the alien princess cried, practically bursting with concentrated enthusiasm.

Raven began to protest, attempting to stand up. "That's not ne-"

"I have already done it." Starfire announced, pushing Raven back down into her chair and presenting a tray piled high with toast. "As the magicians say – Ta da!".

Raven glanced down at the stack of bread, which was consistently burnt but at least slathered in copious amounts of butter. Starfire's cooking improved by inches every year, and for that everyone was very thankful. When she looked back up, Jinx was staring at her over a plate of eggs Benedict. The half-robot had likely lovingly prepared it, as he was the only real chef in the Tower.

This was the first meal that Raven had shared with the team in months. But that was not Starfire's fault.

"Thank you." She said quietly.

Starfire grinned, somewhat manically, and sat directly across from the demoness as if trying to block her view. She happily crunched into a piece of toast without cringing, suggesting she had burnt it so thoroughly because she liked it that way.

"I am glad you have decided to break the nightly fast with us Raven!"

"You already said that."

Joining breakfast had not exactly been her choice. Robin had ordered her to start participating in communal life again under threat of double trainings. Also, he thought she wasn't eating enough. Also, was she sure she didn't want to talk? Promising to make an appearance was really the only way to get him to shut up.

"That is because I am very glad! Would you like to spend some more time together this afternoon? It is almost the time of the festival of friendship on Tameran, and it would be nice to go to the mall of shopping for supplies. I am planning to make us a feast of traditional dishes!" Starfire announced.

"No thanks." Raven said, attempting to glare around her friend. Cyborg and Jinx were talking quietly, ignoring her.

"Perhaps that is just as well. The feast for the festival is normally made by a group of friends, together, but the dishes are complicated and it will be easier to make them myself, as I am the only one who has had them before! The sleme cake, for instance, will require re-baking four times, and I am not sure what earth fruits I can use to-"

Starfire was often talkative, but this was nervous babbling. Raven knew her friend was trying to make things easier on everyone, but found it impossible to even pretend she cared how to make sleme cake while they were in her vicinity.

Raven had loved Cyborg. And yet here he was, sitting and laughing with Jinx instead. It had been a year since their break up, and she knew she should be over it, but it still hurt acutely.

"I think that the festival of friendship is my favourite in the whole Tameran calendar! And we do have a lot of festivals. My second favourite is perhaps the festival of sighs, which is focused on romantic love between-"

The biggest misconception people had about Raven was that she didn't want love. It was true that she was 'different'. An introvert and a realist who hadn't considered the possibility of a romantic relationship until surviving her 16th birthday. But once it was possible, of course she'd wanted it. She wasn't so cut off from her own feelings as to lie to herself about that. Wanting love was the nature of the human condition.

"Not that romance is the most important thing!" Starfire amended a statement that Raven had not even heard, with a shrill tone and a look of fear.

Raven made a vague noise of agreement in an attempt to throw her best friend a bone. She wasn't completely drowning in self-pity – she knew her friends loved her and that Starfire was showing her this right now. It's just that friendship and the kind of love Raven thought about at night were different.

Cyborg was, of course, no longer included in the friendship category. It wasn't just the fact of the break up. It was the way he'd gone about it. At least Malchior had ripped the band-aid off quickly. Plus Raven knew she'd been stupid in that situation, getting so attached to someone she couldn't even touch for a scrap of affection. With Cyborg, she didn't know what she was meant to have done differently. Apparently knowing someone for years didn't mean you could trust them. People changed. That's what had brought them together in the first place. They'd been like siblings, and then Raven had turned 16 safely and could suddenly feel things without endangering lives. She'd stopped hiding so much. She made eye contact more, let her hair grow long so she could tuck it behind one ear and look people in the eye. Sometimes she smiled or even laughed. Cyborg had noticed, and one day while they were working on the T-car, he told her so and kissed her.

No one had ever pictured them together, but once it was happening it made perfect sense. He was one of her closest friends. He was attractive, with a good balance of intelligence and good-humour. He kept things light for the most part, but wasn't afraid of getting serious either. And after years of co-habitation and trauma-bonding he knew her. He knew when to push and when to back off. They'd moved slowly at first, and kept it all a secret from the team. She'd already lost her virginity to a boy in a club just before her 16th birthday (it had been fine), but they didn't want to mess things up. When everyone found out, it was a joyful occasion.

The relationship had lasted about a year, bridging her 17th and 18th birthdays and extending just a few months more. The few months more were when the real problems started. It had never been the most passionate relationship of all time. Cyborg had said once that she scared him with how quiet she could be, how little of her feelings she shared. He thought it odd she never wanted to talk about her childhood and still wouldn't let him hang out in her room. In turn, Raven hated how the one thing he never wanted to talk about was her half-demon side, feeling strangely hurt by his insistence that the human part of her was all that mattered to him. But it hadn't been a big deal until Jinx joined the team after approaching Robin directly, saying she'd changed and wanted to switch sides. At first he was suspicious, but Jinx convinced him to put it to the team for a vote.

For the record, Beastboy had also voted no initially. And to Raven's credit, when the decision to let Jinx join the team was made official, she was not hostile. Raven probably spoke to the pink-haired witch more in those few months than she ever would again, even if they both remained Titans for the rest of their lives.

When Cyborg became distant, Raven hadn't worried. But if she'd known quite how much time he was spending with Jinx, she might have. She didn't think to attribute certain things (that she and Cyborg kept missing opportunities to spend time alone, that old arguments kept getting triggered by happenstance) to the literal bad luck charm that had moved in to the tower. Eventually, Cyborg had sat Raven down and told her he was so so sorry, but he had lingering feelings for Jinx from his time undercover. He hadn't realised until he saw her again. And then he hadn't said anything straight away because he'd needed time to figure out what he wanted. But he was sure now. He wanted Jinx instead.

Raven learned later that Robin had found out what was going on, and given Cyborg an ultimatum – end things with Raven, or Robin would tell her himself.

Raven often wondered what Jinx had that made it worth it for Cyborg to blow up the foundation of the entire team. He still swore that his relationship with her had not been physical while he was still with Raven. His explanation was that his bond with Jinx was different. Special. Raven found this was not much of an explanation at all. Of course, Cyborg had desperately wanted them to retain some kind of friendship going forward. I still love you, he'd said, pleading. Just not like that. Raven had stared blankly back at him, feeling her soul harden. They'd not spoken again outside of work or the thinly veiled insults she sometimes lobbed in their direction since.

Raven was broken out of her reverie by the sound of Beastboy entering the room. He automatically sat down with Cyborg and Jinx, not registering her presence. Although the Titans were desperately sad for her, none of them resented Cyborg and Jinx their happiness, or punished them for it. What can a family do when one of its member genuinely follows his heart? She found their maturity and refusal to take sides infuriating and remained on the team only because:

1. Why should she be the one to leave?

2. Where would she go if she left?

Beastboy let out a peal of laughter at something Jinx said.

"Could you chew quietly?" Raven said, her voice as even as ever but with aggression towards the witch implied.

Jinx's jaw tightened, but she didn't respond. Given her famous hot-headedness, it was remarkable that Raven had not yet been able to provoke her. Hex me, just once, she often thought.

"Sorry Starfire, go on." Raven added, realising she'd interrupted Starfire mid-monologue. Raven knew her behaviour was fast veering towards outright unprofessional but no one had properly told her off for it yet.

"Raven?" Robin asked sharply. "Can I talk to you outside?"

She sighed audibly and followed her leader to the hall, feeling very much the defiant child. He turned back to face her once he was sure they wouldn't be overheard.

"Can you please try and be a little nicer?" He asked, matching her with the tone of a tired mother.

"You're the one who said I need to be around the rest of the team more." Raven pointed out.

"Okay, nice was too strong a word. Can you be a little less aggressive?"

"So I'm the one at fault here?"

Raven knew she was being unfair, but she wanted Robin to be wholly on her side. Jinx felt like Terra reincarnated. She made a better shopping companion for Starfire, was more present in team strategy meetings and trainings, and could actually stand Beastboy's jokes. She even looked more natural with Cyborg.

"That's not what I said. You know, I was serious about the whole, do you want to speak to someone thing."

"I'm not going to a psychologist. Maybe you should suggest it to him, to deal with his love addiction. Or to her, so she can unpack whatever it was that made her a criminal in the first place." Raven said.

There was no therapist in the world equipped to handle her daddy issues anyway.

"I'm not suggesting you're ill. Just that you've been through a lot in the last few years, and that maybe talking to someone neutral would be helpful. So you can adjust."

"I don't need to talk Robin, I need to meditate more so I can cope with being in the room with them."

She hated that she'd used the word cope. She should have said stand.

Robin's eyes softened."Okay. I'm sorry. I think it's good you came today, I really do."

"I am trying."

"I know you're trying."

"Good."

Their talk was interrupted by Robin's cellphone ringing. The way his eyebrows shot up a few seconds in to the call made Raven worried.

"We'll be there soon." he said, in a low voice. He hung up. "That was the chief of police."

"That's unusual."

The police force in Jump rarely communicated directly with the Titans. Understandably, there was a bit of tension and insecurity in that particular relationship too.

"There was a disturbance reported at the docks early this morning. Not an emergency, just a jogger calling in about weird noises. The police were under-staffed so they didn't check it out straight away, but apparently once they got around to it they found a bunch of dead bodies."

"And exactly how many is a bunch?" Raven asked.

"He wasn't specific. More than a few, I guess." he replied grimly.

"This doesn't seem in our purview."

"They chief said there was a lot of… occult stuff? At the scene. They want us to take a look."

"It's probably just someone trying to cover their tracks with a pentagram drawn in blood." she said, though she felt suddenly cold.

Robin nodded. "I hope you're right."

"Better go tell the others." she said, now in business mode. She could face them a lot easier when it came to work.

"Think this is a job for everyone?" he eyed her sceptically.

She smiled wryly, in spite of the sudden turn the day had taken.

"I don't know. Maybe you should let everyone make their own choices and deal with the consequences in their own way."

TW: references to suicide, extreme loneliness, awful break ups.

Will do my best to update weekly if there's interest in it!