Another unrelated one-shot. Enjoy.

P.S. The title is misleading ok fair warning lmao

. . .

In Which Someone Dies

. . .

Someone was about to die. That much was for sure. In Robin's young life there'd been countless moments when he was uncertain what the future held, when there were a thousand ways the path might turn, when the nearest bend in the river was shrouded and unclear. This was not one of those moments. Someone was about to die and, god have mercy on his soul, he was gonna make sure it wasn't him.

Even if it meant sacrificing Beast Boy.

So when the automated door to the common room hissed open again behind him, letting in the sound of idle chatter between Cyborg and Starfire, Robin wheeled around, waving his arms frantically in the most unmistakeable 'shut the hell up!' kind of motion a guy could make without making any noise.

"What?" Cyborg twitched in mild amusement. "Cat got the bird's tongue?"

Robin cringed at the volume of Cyborg's voice, and made a desperate slashing motion across his neck. "SHH!" Did he have a death wish?

"Oh, are we playing an early morning game?" Starfire lifted off the ground in delight and clapped her hands together. "This is a most fun development!"

The clap of her hands echoed across the otherwise silent common room, the sound waves glancing off the steps and the rafters, and Robin actually stumbled forward to pry her hands apart. "It's not a game!" Robin hissed through his teeth. Couldn't they see what terrible danger they were all in? This was no time for games! Yet he felt a twinge of guilt as Starfire's face fell.

The guilt disappeared in an onslaught of panic as a new sound drifted across the room from the bottom of the sunken stairs. Leather rustling. A blanket shifting. Someone exhaling loudly.

Robin remembered exactly why he was trying to escape this room.

"We have to get out of here, guys—"

"Wha—why? Robin, what's wrong?"

"Friends!" Robin nearly jumped out of his shoes when Starfire screeched out of nowhere. He snapped his head back toward her and realized she'd finally seen them. "Robin and Cyborg, something wonderful has happened!"

"Starfire, shh!" It was Cyborg who silenced her this time, by clapping a hand over her mouth, effectively muffling her celebratory shrieking. He'd seen too, and he looked like he, for one, had the proper amount of concern. "What the hell, Rob?" he scream-whispered. "What do we do?"

"I don't know!" He was a team leader. This—he wasn't trained to deal with this. This was unprecedented.

"Should we just.. run? Before she wakes up?"

Starfire was still wriggling gleefully, as gleefully as she could while chained to Cyborg's side and unable to make any noise above a millionth of a decibal.

Robin gave a single frazzled shrug. "If we're the ones to wake them up, you know she's going to kill us."

Cyborg's face grew hard, and Robin knew he was coming to the same decision Robin came to the moment he walked into the common room and found Raven and Beast Boy on the couch, fast asleep under the same blanket, her head resting on his chest, his arm draped haphazardly around her waist. Robin had no idea how they'd accidentally done this to themselves, what bizarre set of happenstances had led to this surreal unlikely moment, but one thing was for sure. When Raven woke up to this, whatever this was, someone was going to pay. But... it didn't have to be them who paid.

"Sorry BB," Cyborg muttered.

Robin rested one hand on his mechanized shoulder and nodded solemnly, as if to say, you made the right choice, buddy.

"You should not be sorry for Beast Boy!" In Cyborg's mourning for the imminent loss of his best friend, he'd accidentally slackened his grip on Star. Now she was bouncing across the room toward the pair slowly stirring on the couch. "On my planet this is an occasion that would be celebrated! Our friends have engaged in the making of lo—"

Both Robin and Cyborg tackled her to the floor as one as she reached the couch. It was a good thing Tamaranians had bodies of steel.

The rustling of cloth against leather quickened, and Robin tried to show his apology for behaving so roughly with Starfire with the nicest facial expression he could muster. However, it came off more panicked than anything.

Cyborg was less gentle with her feelings. "Star, no one has engaged in the making of anything! I love you girl but hush for a sec!"

Starfire continued struggling and babbling incomprehensibly under Cyborg's and Robin's hands as they dragged her with them toward the kitchen in a hasty and clumsy retreat. The rustling sounds on the couch had turned into a very deep yawn, and two lanky green arms could be seen stretching over the arm of the couch.

This was about to get messy.

Robin and Cyborg barely dove behind the counter with Starfire in tow before a far more feminine yawn came from the couch.

It was morbid curiosity that forced Robin and Cyborg to peek over the counter. Starfire held perfectly still between them, no longer trying to get free, with a twinkle of rapt awe in her eye, like she was witnessing the birth of a star. Robin and Cyborg had the solemn look of witnesses to a public execution.

They waited.

Raven yawned again.

Would she throw him out the window? Into the bay? Into another dimension?

Beyond the curve of the couch all they could see was the back of BB's head, and his arms hanging off the edge. He stretched them again, and then he said something that shocked everyone.

"Hey. Hey, Rae. Wake up." He gently shook her shoulder, which was just within view. "Sleep well?"

There was a muffled groaning noise in response.

"No, don't go back to sleep," he said suddenly. "Wakes wakey, eggs and bakey. It's breakfast time and everyone's gonna walk in soon and I really don't wanna explain this..."

"I'm tired."

"That's what we get for watching horror movies till the sun came up. Sorry, were you not clear on what an all-nighter marathon was?"

"I was aware," she droned, "I just don't think I was prepared."

"I guess you need more training."

"Don't you dare waggle your eyebrows like that at me this early in the morning."

"Hey now, don't hate me cause you ain't me."

"I'm— oh, I think I'm going to vomit."

"That's just rude. I'm not that annoying."

"No—seriously. Too much licorice, and—popcorn. How do you—live like that? I think I'm— Gar—"

The three eavesdroppers behind the counter snapped out of their trance as the still pair on the couch suddenly floundered to stand up.

"Oh no no no no—no way, you are not throwing up here if I can help it."

"No, don't—"

Beast Boy was now up, and the three in the kitchen had fallen backwards onto the tile into their haste to get out of the potential line of sight.

"Hang on, almost there!"

Beast Boy skidded to a stop around the corner of the countertop.

The three people on the floor stared up at him, and then at Raven, who was equally as flabbergasted as the person carrying her. They looked at each other, and then back at their three friends on the floor who were growing increasingly guilty-looking by the second. The uneasy stares were passed around for another half-moment, until suddenly Raven clasped her hand to her mouth and kicked her legs. Beast Boy rebooted and lurched toward the counter, dropping her to her feet just in time for her to throw up in the sink.

He reached around and grabbed at her falling strands of hair, pulling them away from her face and bunching them awkwardly behind her head. Beast Boy shot the other three a crytic glare as they rose to their feet and edged away. The glare said something like 'say anything at all and I will kill you.'

His demeanor was entirely different when he turned back to Raven, trying to pull more hair away from her face. "Next time we won't eat all the licorice okay?"

"Shut uuuup," Raven groaned, squeezing her eyes shut as she ran the tap.

"Yeah okay," he hummed, apparently completely at ease with being told to shut up. "Someone wanna get her some water?"

The three steadily retreating Titans froze, taken aback at being addressed more directly. It really felt like they were intruding on an intimate moment.

"Yes," Starfire ventured, "I would be glad to."

"And you two," Beast Boy drawled, "you can wipe the smirks off your faces now. We've all gotten sick at one point or another from eating too much candy so I don't even want to hear it."

Cyborg laughed aloud, breaking the horrible tension. "B, that ain't why we're smirkin'!"

Beast Boy didn't seem to hear him. He was shutting off the tap and fishing a hand towel out of a drawer to pass to Raven.

"Th'nks," she mumbled through the fabric of the towel. She dropped it on the sink and slumped out of the kitchen, refusing to grace anyone with her gaze or acknowledge anyone else's existence. "I'll be in bed if anyone needs me." The door slid shut behind her with a hint of finality and a pregnant silence settled on the room. Everyone was staring at one person.

But that person was totally oblivious, and he himself was staring at the door.

"Dang, I hope she's okay... I feel kind of responsible, heh..." After a moment of indecisive fidgeting he finally noticed six eyes boring into him. "What?"

Cyborg rolled his eyes. "Man, just go already! For the love of..."

Beast Boy nervously rubbed the side of his face. "Yeah, maybe we should check on her."

"Maybe," Cyborg egged, and began to unceremoniously shove him toward the door, "you should."

"Yes!" Starfire clamored her agreement and joined in the pushing of BB toward the door. "You should do the checking!"

Amusement sparked across Beast Boy's confused face. "What is it with you guys? I'm going, I'm going. Sheesh." The three of them watched him jog off down the hall to catch up with Raven at the end. He gave one sheepish glance over his shoulder before slipping his arm around her waist to carry some of her weight and balance her teetering steps.

Robin watched it all happen with detached curiosity, and considered that maybe he'd actually been the one to die after all, and had traveled to some crazy alternate dimension where up was down and black was white and Raven and Beast Boy were all but an indisputable item.

Because that was the only way this could seriously be—

A loud crash from the next floor up disrupted Robin's thoughts, and the sound of Raven shouting rang clearly through the layers of wood and insulation. "What did I say about wiggling your eyebrows at me this early in the morning?"

The profound silence that followed could mean only one thing.

"I guess she killed him after all," Robin murmured to Cyborg. And then, like nothing had happened at all, they went about making breakfast. Everything went back to normal in the kitchen.

But upstairs, up was down and black was white.