The pebbles under his padded paws crunched as Beast Boy made his way up the cliffside, not minding the meandering patches of frosted grass bordering his trek upwards. Every step upon a boulder was a singular reflection of his past, a regret or some sort of foreshadowing of his future, a future with no answers and no trust. All he could do was swallow his thoughts of hopelessness as the sky began souring into a tangerine sunset.

Everything important in his life seemed to center around this darn cliff.

He laid here once before, pondering the start of a new team, a chance to prove himself to the world. He looked up at the image of the moon every night after, awaiting the construction of his new home as it grew brick by brick.

He had first taken Terra up here years ago. He did not remember much about her anymore—not that he wanted to anyways—so much so that this cliff became his and his only, no longer a mark of some ghost he foolishly crossed paths with so long ago. She had become a blurry face in his head, something he could barely make out in midst of memories of the Doom Patrol and the early Teen Titans. The only reminder she left behind were the jagged stones, surely washed away by the billowing waves to another continent or even a new life.

He felt his head grow hot the more he fixated on his love life, his odd dreams, and the human charade he adopted. So much had changed since the previous summer and he never had the chance to sit with himself and think, not about anyone else but himself.

Everything began to bother him. It first began with an itching in his scalp, then the sweat on his brow. He shifted back into human form. After, all he hyper-fixated on was his straight and rigid posture. It felt eerily unnatural to him, not sitting sprawled all over the floor.

Suddenly self-conscious, he curled up into a ball of limbs, eyes darting to the perimeters of his sockets. It was then that the ground grew fuzzy, the sky engulfed him, and the body he resided in felt alien.

Was it another dream? He sure hoped not. The voodoo stuff was all up Raven's alley. He couldn't live with the crazy shit in his head, the hallucinations or visions or dreams, whatever they were. Robin would send him to a psych ward, and he had enough of hospitals in his life.

His legs relaxed subconsciously while he leaned back onto his elbows to stare at the pretty sky.

Shaking out of this odd trance, Beast Boy rubbed his eyes, trying to make sense of what just happened. Did anything happen? He wasn't nuts. He can't be. His head was screwed on right—he checked immediately afterward. He was the same old, same old Beast Boy. Animal man extraordinaire. The funniest dude he knew. Probably a total chick magnet now that he had a sick set of abs and an extra foot added to him. Heck, he was taller than Robin!

And to boot, he was packing too! He lifted his waistband just to check, just to peep, when out of nowhere he picked up a whoosh of wind, making him clamor to buckle his belt.

"Isn't this quite a sight to see," a familiar, lifeless voice said, "Didn't guess that you'd be one to run away for self-pleasure."

"I wasn't, I swear-" He froze up at the sight of his date landing swannily—he wasn't sure if that was a word—behind him. "Wait, shouldn't I be the one interrogating you?"

"I suppose so."

The back of his neck burned as his claws dug into his palms every second he digested what was in front of him. Raven. Who was gone for so long. What the fuck. "I-" He didn't even know where to begin. The anger he felt hadn't set in completely and he wasn't even sure who he was anymore. "I don't understand."

"Why I left?" Her face softened ever so slightly.

"No, I mean yes, all of this, you, school, the dreams, me, all of it." A cool feeling began to set in as he felt the tip of his toes against the sole of his shoe and the chilly winter breeze brought by Mother Nature. "I just don't, I just don't get it. Why can't I-" He knelt down on the ground as the cool, rough terrain became more apparent in his mind.

"What don't you get?" Raven knelt down beside him, hesitantly reaching for his wrist before flinching as his hands flailed around.

"All of this stupid shit. The past year, heck even the past decade. I feel fucking crazy like I should be locked up and shoc-"

"Beast Boy." He looked up at the sound of her grave tone. "What do you see?"

"I don't understand-"

"What do you see? Tell me, Garfield." She grasped both of his arms, pulling his form open to the blaring sunset.

"The sky, frost, clouds, you, everything," he exasperated.

She shook her head. "Do you hear that?"

"Hear what? All I hear is the wind and my heartbeat and maybe even a couple of cars near the shore." He took the time to look over Raven's shoulder to see dozens of vehicles jammed next to a sparsely populated beach.

"What perfume am I wearing?" He looked at her like she grew a second head.

"I don't know shit about that stuff. Lavender, maybe?"

"Fresh lavender," Raven sighed, tightening her grip on his forearms, "Do you feel this?"

"Feel what?" He shot back.

"My nails, can you feel them?" He looked down at his arms and nodded. "What about the pads of my fingers? Which finger am I pressing harder on?"

"The index, I think."

"Good." She relaxed her grip on him, allowing Beast Boy to slump back onto his knees. Raising her hand, Raven checked the general center of his chest. "You had a panic attack."

"Was that what it was? The floating off the ground shit and the weird dreams? Was that part of it too?" He leaned forward, staring dead straight into her eyes.

Raven blinked before saying, "That must be derealization, but I don't know what you mean by 'the weird dreams.'"

"I'm talking about the ones I get once in a while, where I'm stuck in the body of myself or Malchior and I can't control what I say and I just have to let it happen like I'm in some fucked up virtual reality shit and-"

"Malchior?" She raised a brow. "What do you mean you were stuck in Malchior's body?"

He took a dry breath, clearing his throat before beginning. "So I was in the gym, and you poofed," he did the jazz hands, "and suddenly I'm not in the gym. I'm a skinny, papery dude caressing your face and talking to you like I was from the Medieval Ages. And I think he was about to teach you a light repelling spell before I found myself on the gym floor." He looked up to see Raven, slack-jawed. "You think I'm insane, don't you?"

"No, I don't know-" Her hands flew to her temples as she avoided his gaze. "And you had more of these dreams previously?"

"Yeah, but I don't even know if I'd consider them dreams because half the time, I wake up and find myself standing and startled like I was in some kind of trance." The moment he finished, he caught a flash of recognition in the girl's eyes. "You know something."

She opened her mouth and mumbled incoherent words, inaudible to even his ears.

"Tell me." He scooted closer to her, grabbing her by the upper arms and shaking her frozen form gently.

Her head fell against his shoulder before shaking and raising up again. "Later." He attempted to protest before she interrupted. "Now is not the time."

"Why can't you just-"

"Garfield, I promise I'll explain myself afterwards." Raven pulled away, shuddering slightly at the now cold breeze wafting past the space between them. "I came here to apologize. I noticed how upset you were earlier."

"Yeah, I was pretty mad." Beast Boy paused. "But not anymore. I-I don't know why." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I remember wanting nothing to do with you, but now I feel like, like I suspected it all along."

"Suspected what?"

"Your identity. I knew I was shocked and furious in the moment, but now I don't really care." He blinked, confused with his predicament. "I just don't get why you did what you did."

"Redundancy," she murmured before continuing, "It's a long story. All of it. Running away and your dreams are a part of it. I know you're supposed to be angry at me, possibly enraged seeing as you previously had a horrible temper, but you can't feel any of that now."

"But why?" He groaned softly, frustrated with all of Raven's vague implications and way too subtle hints.

"I can't feel any strong emotions from you. I usually do, but I guess that you're still numb from the derealization."

"So like you on a good day?" He joked before catching a wince from the sorceress.

"Yes, like me."

"It just feels so weird, not being happy or sad or angry or anything. I don't like it."

"And why is that?"

"Everything about me is full of emotion and feelings, like the beast and-" He stopped mid-sentence as he caught the eye of Raven a foot away from him. He trailed his gaze from the tip of her nose to the curve of her jaw, as if he was memorizing each and every piece of her face.

The warm sun made her pale, grey skin look warm and full of life, which he definitely thought before but never realized all those years of pestering her. His heart thumped against his chest, making Beast Boy inhale the wonderful floral scent, not because he liked to stop and smell the roses but because it was her, and only her.

She looked like an angel on earth to him, someone so mesmerizing that he didn't dare try to look away.

A burning grudge was on the back of his mind, now remembering the sight of her leaving him against the stark, blazing sun. He possessively grabbed her shoulders, looking up and down just to make sure he wasn't dreaming before leaning in.

Raven looked quite startled, freezing in his arms as he approached, before wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him in for a kiss.

The moment was quickly gone as Raven's corsage exploded in their faces.

He flew back in surprise, licking his lips to taste something fragrant and sweet.

The apparent tone shift in this chapter. It is purposeful.

I am still unsure if this fiction is even legible because of how I wrote each chapter at such different times. Please do let me know if you spot an inconsistency early on.

-Catisa~Orsilla