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aleksatia · 15 days ago

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🖤 Sylus – Five Years Later

The first in a series of stories exploring MC’s return after five years of silence. Others are coming soon — links will be added as they’re published.

Original ask that sparked this continuation.

CW/TW: emotional whiplash, estranged parent dynamics, mentions of past abandonment, grief & regret, yelling / intense arguments, emotional manipulation (mild-to-moderate), parental guilt, references to alcoholism (brief), weapon mention (non-violent context, antique firearm), implied past trauma While inspired by the original characters and lore of the game, this is a personal interpretation. Some aspects of character behavior, relationships, or world-building may differ from canon — especially given the five-year time gap and the impact of traumatic events. Consider it an alternate emotional timeline, shaped by growth, grief, and what-ifs.

Rafayel | Caleb | Zayne (coming soon) | Xavier (coming soon)

(He never lets go. Not really. So when the world bends just enough for their paths to cross again—he grabs the thread like a man who’s been drowning for five goddamn years.)

The scent shouldn’t have hit him like that.

Bergamot and peach — too specific to be coincidence, too cruel to be real. It lanced through the mall’s artificial air, slicing straight into the part of him that had learned to rot in silence.

He stopped mid-step, black gift bag swinging at his side like dead weight. He hadn’t meant to be here. Just killing time before a meeting, maybe grabbing some pointless toy for Kieran’s son.

But that scent.

He followed it — not fast, not frantic. Just... pulled. Like gravity had shifted without asking his permission.

He rounded a corner. Walked past the blinding colors of a candy kiosk. Ignored the buzzing arcades. Stepped into the glow of the children’s department, bathed in too much light.

And then he saw him.

White hair, soft and unbrushed. Crimson eyes.

Staring down at a plastic capsule, tiny fingers struggling to pry it open, cheeks puffed in sheer, adorable defiance. The boy looked up and grinned at someone just out of view.

And then—there you were.

Crouched beside him, arms around your knees. That necklace still at your throat. Your hair longer. Your posture calmer. But it was you.

He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

You looked up. Met his eyes.

The world didn’t fall apart. It just... recoiled.

Your lips parted. He couldn’t tell if it was shock or guilt. Maybe both.

He took a step forward. Controlled. Precise. Like walking through fire and pretending it didn’t burn.

“Well,” he said, voice rough, cool, razor-sharp. “Isn’t this adorable.”

You didn’t answer.

He tilted his head, gaze dragging from the boy to you.

“You got taller,” he added, tone almost conversational. “I always said you needed better posture.”

Still, silence.

He smiled — the wrong kind of smile.

“And here I thought you were dead. Would’ve sent flowers. Or a bottle of wine. Maybe danced on your grave. Depends on the day.”

You stood slowly, one hand resting lightly against the child’s back. Protective. Subtle.

“I wasn’t hiding from you,” you said.

“No?” he murmured. “Just... the rest of reality?”

You didn’t answer that.

His eyes dropped again. To the boy. Then back up. He didn’t ask. Not out loud. Didn’t have to.

Your expression answered for you.

He exhaled once, slow, through his nose. Then laughed. Just a little.

“Of course,” he muttered. “Why not. Five years of silence, and now I get the full soap opera.”

He took another step, voice dipping low.

“Tell me something,” he said. “Was it worth it? The running? The silence? Did it help you sleep?”

You stared at him, steady.

“I did what I had to do.”

“Sure,” he said, nodding, the sarcasm now soft, silky. “And now you’re back in broad daylight, in my city, with my blood standing in front of capsule machines. Very covert.”

His fingers twitched slightly at his side. Not from rage — from restraint.

The boy turned.

“Mom?”

Your breath hitched.

“Come here, sweetheart.”

Small feet padded over. A tiny hand found yours without hesitation. Sylus watched it like a punch to the ribs.

The boy blinked up at him.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

Your voice was quiet. Even.

“Someone I used to know.”

Something in Sylus’s jaw clicked. He crouched down, not too close. Not yet.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hi,” the boy replied.

“What’d you get?”

A capsule was held up proudly. “Tiny raven with red eyes!”

Of course. Sylus stared at it, almost amused.

“Good taste,” he said. “I used to have one just like that.”

The boy beamed.

Sylus rose to his full height again, gaze flicking to you — sharp now, cooled over, dangerous.

“This conversation’s not over.”

Your grip on the boy tightened, imperceptibly.

“I know.”

He didn’t linger. Just turned. Walked away like it cost him nothing.

But you saw it — the slight tremble in his fingers. And for the first time in five years — you knew: he wouldn't sleep tonight. And neither would you.

***

He doesn’t sleep. Not because of nightmares — those he’s made peace with years ago — but because of you. Because you were real again. Present. Breathing the same air. And now the silence he once ruled feels like a cage made of your absence.

He paces his study like an animal too big for its den, the whiskey glass untouched on the desk, sweating against the dark wood. The documents in front of him blur, ignored. His body is wired, restless, his mind clawing at thoughts it doesn’t know what to do with. He used to find solace in this room. Now it’s just another echo chamber.

You came back. Just like that. No warning. No apologies. As if you hadn’t torn him apart and scattered the pieces across five fucking years. And you didn’t come alone. You brought his son.

His son.

The words twist inside him like a blade. Rage flares hot and sharp — not just at you, but at himself. At the way he still aches for you. At the way his hands trembled the moment your eyes met his. You don’t get to come back like this. Not after he worshipped you. Not after he handed over every part of himself — the power, the silence, the vulnerability — and let you keep it like it was nothing.

You, who once ruled him with a smile and a whisper. You, who made the most dangerous man in the city gentle. You, who he let in so deeply that even now, after everything, his instincts still tilt toward you.

He should hate you. He wants to.

But all he can think about is the boy’s eyes — his eyes — and the fact that he didn’t know. You hid it from him. You stole that from him. And yet, the second he saw your face, all he wanted was to feel the warmth of your body again.

No. This can’t be impulsive. He tells himself that. Over and over. He has to be careful now. Strategic. This isn’t just about you anymore. There’s too much at stake. A child. Blood of his blood. If he moves wrong, if he rushes this, he could lose everything before he’s even had the chance to hold it.

You came back so openly, so carelessly — as if you knew. As if you were daring him to act.

But this isn’t a reunion. It’s a chess game. And he intends to win.

Still, all the logic in the world can’t stop the pull. His body moves before his mind can catch it. He throws on his jacket, crosses the hall in long, deliberate strides. He ignores the way his pulse hammers, the way his breath shortens. He tells himself this is reconnaissance. Observation. That he won’t knock on your door, won’t say your name, won’t touch you.

But he’s already walking to the car, and he knows — he’s lying.

Because it’s already too late. You’re a gravity he never escaped. And he’s hurtling back toward you like a star on its last, burning descent.

***

You hadn’t heard the door. You were sure you’d locked it — triple-checked, in fact. But when you stepped barefoot into the living room, the shadows shifted. And he was there.

Sylus.

Sitting in the armchair by the window, so still he might’ve been carved from shadow. His face half-hidden in darkness, but his eyes — those eyes — watched you with the slow, dangerous heat of banked coals. As if he were waiting for something. As if he’d already decided what it was.

You clutched your son’s sweatshirt to your chest, still warm from sleep, still soft with safety. Your fingers curled into the fabric like it might shield you from the inevitable.

Your throat closed around a breath you forgot to take.

“I should’ve known you’d find a way in,” you said. Not angry. Not even surprised. Just… tired. But not the kind of tired sleep could fix.

The silence stretched. And then—

“Why.” His voice was low. Steady. But there was nothing calm about it.

“Why come back?”

You hesitated. Sat down at the edge of the couch, careful to keep distance between you. Close enough to feel the tension, far enough to pretend it couldn’t touch you. Your grip tightened on the tiny sleeve in your lap.

“I didn’t have a choice,” you said quietly.

A lie. And you both knew it.

He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just watched.

The air between you hung thick with everything unspoken — all the years, all the damage, all the silence that had grown teeth.

You tried again, voice thinner now. “Money was running out. And I didn’t want him to grow up in places that... don’t let kids be kids.”

Still no answer.

You looked down, as if the floor could save you.

“But that’s not really why I came back.”

There was a shift in the dark — barely perceptible, but enough. A muscle in his jaw, maybe. Or the faintest tilt of his head.

“I kept dreaming,” you said. “That he’d start asking questions. About who he is. Where he came from. Why he can hear footsteps down the hall before they happen. Why his teachers can’t meet his eyes. Why he knows when I’m lying, even when I don’t.”

You paused. Swallowed.

“I didn’t know what I’d say.”

For a long, breathless moment, there was nothing. And then:

“Thought maybe I was dead?”

You laughed — bitter, small, nothing like real humor.

“No. That would’ve been easier.”

He still didn’t move, but something in the room recoiled anyway. Maybe it was you.

You turned toward him, carefully, like stepping toward a storm you once loved.

“I thought if I stayed gone long enough, you’d forget. Or hate me enough not to care.”

He leaned forward slowly, like something waking up. The light from the hallway carved across his face, catching the sharp edge of his cheekbone, the faint scar at his jaw. He looked older. Not in his body — in his bones. In the way ruin settles behind the eyes and builds a kingdom there.

“Do I look like a man who forgets?” he said.

God, the way he said it. Like the last bell before a burial.

You didn’t answer.

“You ran,” he said. “Took my son. Hid him from me. For five years.”

“I had to,” you said, a little too fast. “You know I had to.”

“Say it.”

You met his eyes, barely.

“I didn’t want to raise him in your world.”

There was a pause. Then:

“He is my world.”

That broke something in you. The sweatshirt slipped from your lap, forgotten.

“I know,” you whispered. “I know.”

You stood before you meant to, took two small steps forward before you could stop yourself. A mistake. A betrayal of your own walls. Still, your hand lifted — hesitated — and reached out. Just barely. Fingertips grazing the side of his.

He didn’t flinch. But he didn’t hold you back either.

Not yet.

His breath caught, brushing your wrist like memory.

“I could’ve loved you softer,” he said. “But you were never meant for soft things.”

Your eyes burned. You couldn’t speak for a moment. And when you did, your voice was almost gone.

“Maybe I’m not. But he is.”

And still, beneath all of it — the guilt, the weariness, the regret that howled behind your ribs — you waited for the part that scared you most. The part where he would turn cold. Where he would say the thing you feared since the moment you left.

The part where he would take your son from your arms and never look back.

You knew he wouldn’t hurt you. Not you. Not the boy.

And still, that fear clawed at you like a curse.

So you did what fear makes people do — you attacked. With silence, with half-truths, with distance you didn’t want. You kept the mask on as long as you could, clung to it like armor, because if it slipped — if he saw how badly you still wanted to crawl into his arms and sleep like you used to, when he would whisper in that deep, velvet voice and stroke your hair until the nightmares went quiet — he might use it against you.

He might leave.

And you… you had no idea how to survive that again.

***

The night he left, you didn’t sleep.

You just lay beside your son, one hand curled protectively around his small, warm frame, the other pressed to your chest like it might keep your ribs from collapsing inward. Every breath felt like it came with splinters. He slept soundly, unaware. Safe in a world that you had built with trembling hands and stubborn silence.

By morning, Sylus hadn’t returned.

But Luke and Kieran had.

They didn’t knock. Didn’t speak. Just entered with the quiet precision of men who used to be part of your life — before you made them ghosts.

Their arms were full. Boxes, bags, toys, medicine, books. Clothes in every size. Food you hadn’t even realized you needed. And a black card, placed on the kitchen table like a detonator.

“From him,” Luke said, voice clipped, eyes avoiding yours.

You opened your mouth. To say thank you, maybe. Or I’m sorry. Or how have you been.

But Kieran was already turning away.

“Don’t,” he muttered. Not cruel. Not cold. Just done.

And it hit you, like it hadn’t hit you until that moment — not just guilt, not just regret.

You didn’t just run from him.

You ran from them too. The only people who had ever stayed. The only ones who’d held space for you when you were nothing but sharp edges and unfinished grief.

Now they wouldn't even look at you.

You stood there, frozen, surrounded by things you didn’t ask for — abundance you hadn’t earned — while your son laughed on the floor, tangled in a new toy, as if the world wasn’t cracked beneath your feet.

You didn’t cry. You didn’t scream.

But something broke. Quietly. Deeply.

Your pride was already bleeding. Your shame had nowhere left to hide. And still, it wasn’t the card that pushed you over the edge. It wasn’t the gifts or the silence or even the anger simmering in Luke’s shoulders.

It was the absence.

It was the fact that he didn’t come himself.

That he sent others. That he kept his distance — like you were already something to be managed, not faced.

And it shouldn’t have hurt. You’d told yourself a thousand times you didn’t want to see him. That this wasn’t about him. That you didn’t need his money or his empire or the echo of what you used to be.

But the truth — the ugly, humiliating truth — was this: you didn’t want his wealth.

You wanted him.

His voice. His arms. The way he used to pull you close and whisper things that made the dark quiet. The way he used to tuck you in like a secret, like something too rare to risk losing. You wanted him. And you hated yourself for it.

So you moved before you could think. Before the fear, the shame, the rational voice could stop you.

You grabbed your coat. Your keys.

Tara, bless her, had shown up just minutes before, arms full of groceries and soft reassurances, promising to stay the night if you needed to rest. You told her you’d be gone for a few hours. That everything was fine.

You kissed your son’s head — maybe a little too long, maybe a little too tight — and walked out the door without another word.

And then you drove.

Not because you knew what you were going to say.

But because if you didn’t see him now, if you didn’t make him look at you — you might shatter into pieces too small to ever come back together.

***

His estate was still the same.

Too grand. Too silent. Still heavy with ghosts you left behind.

The guards moved aside the moment they saw your face. No hesitation. No questions. Just doors opening like jaws — welcoming you back into the mouth of a beast you once dared to call home.

You didn’t knock.

You didn’t hesitate.

You stormed into the room mid-meeting — a rupture in the polished calm — slicing through tailored suits, cigar smoke, and the tight, brutal quiet of dangerous men interrupted. Every head turned.

Including his.

Sylus sat at the head like a monarch grown colder with time. Glass in hand. Eyes unreadable. And that stillness — the kind that wasn’t calm, just leashed violence.

He saw you. Took you in.

And didn’t blink.

“Out,” he said.

Just one word. Soft. Absolute.

And the bosses of N109 — men who’d burned cities, bled kings, slaughtered empires — obeyed without a sound.

The door clicked shut behind the last of them.

You stood there. Just the two of you now. Five years of silence between your ribs. His name lodged somewhere behind your teeth.

You stepped forward, fists clenched.

“So this is how it’s going to be?” you snapped. “You send your men with toys and blank checks and think that counts? You think that makes you a father?”

He arched a brow. Slowly. And then — God help you — he laughed.

It was low. Mocking. Bone-deep with disbelief.

“You’re angry?” he said, with a cruel sort of wonder. “That’s rich.”

“I’m serious—”

“Oh, I can see that. Look at you,” he gestured to you with his glass, casual, vicious. “Marching in here like I haven’t been erased from his life. Like you didn’t take a scalpel to the past and cut me out clean. And now what — two days after a chance encounter, suddenly I’m not doing enough?”

His smile was the kind that used to make people flinch.

“What exactly were you expecting? Balloons? A welcome-home banner? Me groveling for the right to meet the child you kept hidden like some dirty secret?”

You flushed. Heat crawled up your throat.

“That’s not what I—”

“No?” he cut in, voice quieter now, colder. “Because from where I’m standing, you vanish for five years, show up with a son that wears my face, and get pissed when I don’t instantly fall into step like nothing happened.”

You stared at him, stunned. But he wasn’t done.

“You don’t get to paint me as the absentee,” he said, each word deliberate, venomous. “You built that absence. You enforced it. You chose it.”

You swallowed, but your voice cracked anyway.

“I didn’t have a choice.”

He laughed again, but there was no humor in it. Just razor-sharp ache.

“Oh, come on, kitten. You always had choices. You were the clever one, remember? The strategist. The girl who read people like maps and always knew the way out. So tell me—what part of your master plan involved disappearing with my son and calling it love?”

“I was protecting him.”

“From me?” His voice dropped, dangerously soft. “Because you thought I’d do what, exactly? Teach him how to hold a knife? Make him my little monster?”

You didn’t answer fast enough.

He stepped forward, eyes burning now.

“You don’t get to disappear, reappear, and accuse me of being a bad father in the same breath. You don’t get to bury me in silence and then demand I dance the role you left me.”

And then, softer, darker:

“You think I wanted this? To send strangers to the doorstep of the boy I didn’t even know existed?”

Your mouth opened. Nothing came out.

He stared at you — not with hate, but with something worse. Hurt twisted so deep it no longer bled. It just settled.

“You think I wouldn’t have taught him to live?”

Your lips part. No sound.

“I would’ve taught him how to breathe in a world that eats soft things alive,” he says. “I would’ve taught him how to survive it. How to carry your laugh like a shield. How to fight for it. How to protect it.”

He’s not shouting. But each word cuts deeper than a scream.

“I would’ve laid down my empire for him,” he says. “I would’ve bled for every step he took.”

He pauses — just long enough for the weight of it to hit — and then:

“But you didn’t just take him from me.”

His voice lowers, rough and hollow.

“You took me from him. You took you from us. You didn’t just rewrite the story — you burned the whole fucking book before we even had a chance to open it.”

He steps closer, and you don’t move.

“You didn’t trust me with him. Fine. But you didn’t trust me with you either. And you—” his voice catches, jaw tightening, “you didn’t even give yourself the chance to know what it could’ve been like.”

His eyes are glass now. And every word is a knife he’s too tired to stop from falling.

“You robbed all three of us.”

You try to speak, but the words catch somewhere in your throat. A hard knot of guilt and grief you can’t seem to swallow. You want to say his name. Just his name.

But before you can, his voice changes.

It’s no longer cold. No longer composed.

It’s blistering.

“Do you know what I did the day I realized you were gone?” he says — and now it’s breathless, like the memory itself is suffocating him. “Do you?”

You don’t answer. You can’t.

So he does it for you.

“I drank,” he bites. “I tore the city apart. I hunted ghosts. I played the organ until the walls bled. Until the sound felt like your scream in my skull.”

You sway. He sees it. Doesn’t care.

“I sat in your chair,” he hisses, “and begged it to creak. Just once. Just once, like you were still in it.”

Your knees buckle.

Still, he doesn’t move to catch you.

“I watched videos of you sleeping,” he says, hoarse now. “Kept that ugly little mug you always hated — because your lipstick was still on the rim.”

You cover your mouth with both hands as your breath shatters open.

“I slept in our bed fully clothed,” he whispers, “because I couldn’t let the sheets forget your shape.”

He finally takes one step forward — and then stops. Something in him splinters.

With a growl pulled straight from his chest, he turns and hurls the whiskey glass into the fireplace.

It explodes in flame and glass, the sound like a gunshot, like a scream. Fire licks up the wall as the liquor catches, dancing high and fast.

You flinch. Cover your face.

But not from fear. From shame.

You drop to your knees, hands shaking uncontrollably, sobs raking through your ribs. You can’t see through the tears anymore, and your voice is barely there when you whisper—

“I didn’t know how to love you without losing myself.”

There’s silence for a beat. The kind that hurts worse than screaming.

Then his voice — softer now. Almost gentle. Still raw.

“Kitten,” he says. “Was I really such a monster that you had to vanish with a newborn? Cage yourself in pain and loneliness for five years?”

You can’t look up.

“Did it help?” he asks. “Did it ever help?”

Your voice comes out choked.

“No... no,” you cry. “It felt like I was dying every second. I called for you every night. I prayed you’d come.”

He exhales sharply through his nose.

“Maybe your pride didn’t let you call loud enough.”

His words hit like lashes — and they’re meant to. You hear the fury under them. The wound he’s trying to cauterize with cruelty.

“And now what?” he snaps. “You think I’ll just let you use me again? Let you touch me again? And then vanish with my son all over again? Is that the plan?”

“Sylus, please...”

Your voice cracks as the sobs take over. The panic. The helplessness. You’re unraveling at the seams.

“Please don’t do this. Please—” You clutch at your chest, as if trying to physically hold your heart together. “You’re cutting me open— You’re cutting me alive— I made a mistake— so many mistakes— I didn’t know how to come back— I was scared— I was so scared— I didn’t know how to fix it, I didn’t— I never— I never—”

You can’t breathe. The words collapse.

But one thing pushes through.

“I never stopped loving you.”

Everything halts.

His expression breaks. Not shatters — breaks, quietly, like a fault line slipping beneath the surface.

And then he’s moving.

Down to the floor. To you.

His knees hit the marble hard. He doesn’t feel it.

His arms are around you in the next second, pulling you in, wrapping you up like a shield against everything — even himself. Even your shared grief.

You sob into his chest, into his collar, into the hollow beneath his jaw that still smells like night and memory and danger and home. Your body convulses with it, trembling like the child you once were in his arms.

And he holds you. Tight.

Because there’s nothing else left to do.

And now, with you in his arms again — trembling, broken, real — something in him gives way.

Not all at once. Slowly. Inevitably.

You feel it before he even realizes it’s happening: the way his muscles start to loosen, the way the sharp lines of rage soften, his breath slowing against your temple as his hands begin to move. Hesitant at first. Then helpless.

He’s touching your hair — slowly, gently — like he forgot what softness felt like. His fingers slip through the strands, curl at the nape of your neck, anchor there. One hand presses against your spine, the other strokes up your back, down again, grounding you with each motion like he’s trying to memorize the shape of your grief against his skin.

Your sobs soak through his shirt, seep down to his chest, dampen his collar and slide down his neck. And he lets it happen. Welcomes the burn. Because after five years of silence, your tears feel like the only thing real.

You cling to him like the world’s collapsing again — but this time you’re dragging him into the rubble with you. Your arms around his shoulders. Your knees curled against his sides. Your legs wrapping around him like instinct. Like survival.

He doesn’t flinch.

He welcomes the ache of it. Every breathless grab. Every tremor in your limbs. Every desperate mark your body makes against his.

Because it means you’re here.

Because it means he still feels something.

And then your voice — a wrecked, shaking thing — finds its way through the ruin:

“I came back… because… because I couldn’t give him what he deserves. I tried. I tried so hard to be everything. But how can I show him joy, or love, or hope — when I live in the ashes of something beautiful I destroyed?”

Your voice cracks.

“How can I teach him love, when the only thing left in me is the bitter taste of everything I ruined?”

His arms tighten around you.

Your voice drops to a whisper.

“I know I don’t deserve forgiveness. Not now. Maybe not ever. I don’t even know how to fix myself. Let alone… heal you.”

You press your face into his chest, as if that could protect you from what you’re about to say.

“But please,” you whisper. “Please help me find the path back. What do I do? What do I say to make you stop hating me?”

There’s a pause.

A long, dangerous pause.

Then he exhales slowly — like the weight of your question cracked something inside his chest.

His lips find your temple.

Tentative. Testing.

He lingers there, breathing in the scent of you, like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to want this.

Then he moves. A little bolder now.

Your hairline. The crown of your head. Your forehead. The slope of your cheek. His lips brush over each point like it’s a litany. Like he’s not kissing you, but praying through you.

He kisses your nose. Your brow. Your eyelids.

And then—your lips.

Or almost. Just close enough for his breath to mix with yours.

Each kiss a scar he’s trying to erase with his lips. Each touch a memory he’s begging not to lose again.

He doesn’t say your name.

He devours it.

“I hate that I still love you like this,” he breathes between kisses. “I hate that even now, after everything, all I want is you.”

You gasp. Half-sob.

“I hate that just being here… makes me want to forgive you.”

And then he’s kissing you, not like before. Not like memory. Not like longing.

Like a man drowning. Like someone trying to inhale every second he lost, burn it into his lungs before it’s torn away again.

You kiss him back — shattering into him, against him, with him. Arms tight. Mouth hungry. Breath wrecked.

Because this isn’t peace. This is survival.

When he finally pulls back, it’s only just enough to breathe.

His forehead presses against yours. His voice shakes.

“I’m not ready to forgive,” he says. “But I can’t go another day without trying.”

Your eyes stay closed. Your lips tremble.

“That’s all I want.”

He exhales — broken. Guttural. Human in a way he never lets himself be.

“I missed you so much it ruined me.”

And you say it — softly, clearly, the last shard of your heart finally offered:

“I came back to help you rebuild.”

***

A month later.

The dining room is too big for three people.

The chandelier still glitters like a threat. The long table could seat fifteen warlords. The silverware looks like it costs more than most apartments.

But tonight, with one small boy seated on a velvet cushion, feet not even reaching the chair rung, and a half-eaten pile of mashed potatoes in front of him — it somehow feels… livable.

You watch him with a kind of cautious awe.

He’s trying so hard to be proper. Sitting straight. Using both hands to hold the fork. Stealing glances at the towering ceilings and flickering wall sconces like they might come alive. Every now and then he glances at you — checking if he’s doing this right.

And then there’s the raven.

Mephisto — jet-black, silent, elegant — perched on the edge of a nearby armchair, watching your son like a curious god. Your boy is enchanted. He keeps whispering questions at him, occasionally offering a green bean as tribute.

Mephisto doesn’t flinch. Just cocks his head like he’s listening.

You’re barely touching your food. Too busy memorizing.

The way your son laughs softly at the bird. The way the candlelight flickers against the long mahogany floors. The quiet.

God, the quiet.

You don’t realize you’ve zoned out until footsteps echo down the hall.

Sylus appears in the doorway — sleeves rolled, collar undone, a worn copy of Somewhere in the Sky in one hand.

“He’s out,” he says, voice low, warm. “Fought it like a gladiator. I barely survived.”

You smile.

He crosses the room, setting the book on the sideboard. Loosens his shoulders like someone still unused to relaxing.

“Apparently,” he adds, deadpan, “the only thing he truly cares about in this mansion is the antique rifle mounted over the fireplace.”

Your blood runs cold.

“You didn’t.”

“I did,” he replies, reaching for the wine. “I told him if he managed to fall asleep on his own tonight, he could hold it — under supervision.”

You stare.

“Are you insane?”

He pours. Slowly. Deliberately. A touch of amusement in his eyes.

“He fell asleep in two minutes.”

He passes you a glass. You take it like it might explode. He clinks his own against yours and sits beside you.

There’s a pause. The kind that tastes like something new, but gentle.

And then, without looking at you:

“I like being a father.”

You glance over.

He’s staring into his glass. But the corner of his mouth twitches, like he almost doesn’t believe he said it out loud.

“It’s because it’s still new,” you say softly. “Still shiny.”

He shakes his head.

“No. It’s because he’s mine.”

A beat.

“And because when he runs into a room, he doesn’t hesitate. Like he belongs there.”

Your throat catches. You take a sip of wine just to avoid answering.

He leans back, drapes one arm across the back of the chair, and looks at you like he’s about to say something dangerous.

And he does.

“So.”

You blink.

“How do you feel about making a daughter?”

You choke on the wine.

He doesn’t laugh. Just smiles — that smile. The slow, calculated one that used to mean someone was about to lose a war.

“You’re not serious.”

“I’m entirely serious, kitten” he says. “We could use someone to balance out the chaos. She’d keep him in line.”

“She’d own you in three weeks.”

“I’d let her,” he says, completely unbothered.

You shake your head, laughing into your glass.

“You realize we’re barely functional as it is?”

“And yet, here we are,” he murmurs, “functioning.”

The silence that follows is soft. Safe. Domestic in a way neither of you knows what to do with.

You lean your head on his shoulder.

And for the first time in years — no one is running. No one is bleeding. No one is apologizing.

Just this: Candlelight. A boy upstairs dreaming of ravens and rifles. And the possibility — for once — of something beautiful not ending in fire.

#love and deepspace #lads #sylus love and deepspace #sylus lads #sylus x reader #sylus and mc #sylus x you #storytelling #fanfic #fanfiction #angst #hurt/comfort #emotional #trauma #conflict #grief #second chances

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aleksatia · 15 days ago

Text

💗 Rafayel – Five Years Later

The second in a series of stories exploring MC’s return after five years of silence. Others are coming soon — links will be added as they’re published.

Original ask that sparked this continuation.

Sylus | Caleb | Zayne (coming soon) | Xavier (coming soon)

CW/TW: Trauma & PTSD themes, Implied past abduction, Betrayal / emotional manipulation, Poisoning & near-death experience, Violence (including one execution-style kill), Self-sacrifice, Intense emotional conflict, References to grief, guilt, and long-term separation, Complex relationship dynamics, Themes of forgiveness and healing While inspired by the original characters and lore of the game, this is a personal interpretation. Some aspects of character behavior, relationships, or world-building may differ from canon — especially given the five-year time gap and the impact of traumatic events. Consider it an alternate emotional timeline, shaped by growth, grief, and what-ifs.

(He taught himself silence. Learned to paint with absence, to breathe through longing. But when your shadow crossed his path again — living, breaking, real — the stillness inside him remembered how to shatter.)

The thing about disappearing is — if you do it right — no one comes looking.

Not because they don’t care. But because you made it easier to pretend you were never real in the first place.

You left the sea behind. The salt. The songs. The man with sunlight in his laugh and grief in his hands. You traded it all for concrete, steel, smoke. Somewhere between New Madrid and the Eleventh Sector, you stopped being a person and became a profile: Level 3, Tactical Division, Close Range Neutralization. Specializing in high-value body retention.

A shadow with a badge. A ghost on retainer.

It suited you.

You didn’t drink anymore. You didn’t play games. You didn’t say his name.

“Client arrival is in twenty minutes,” crackles the comm in your ear. "Full week assignment. High confidentiality. Zero contact protocol unless engaged."

You glance at your reflection in the elevator’s gold trim.

Eyes colder. Shoulders straighter. Gun holstered under a matte jacket that still smells faintly of last week’s adrenaline. You're not the girl who once cried into coral bedsheets. You're her replacement.

The hotel smells like money. That antiseptic richness meant to distract from the emptiness.

You position yourself in the lobby near the marble fountain — half concealed, half obvious. Just enough to look like part of the architecture. Just enough to see everything.

The concierge nods. The manager paces. The staff adjust flowers no one will notice.

Then: the cars. Black, sleek, ghost-silent.

Doors open.

Two assistants spill out first. Press, probably. One on a tablet, one on comms. Then a manager — with a face oddly familiar, like a half-forgotten memory trying to surface. Then—

Your heart forgets how to be a muscle.

He steps out like the city belongs to him. Like time bent itself around his absence.

Still tall. Still too elegant for the world he’s forced to live in. Purple waves of hair tied back. Sunglasses sliding down a nose built for poetry. He’s wearing that long beige coat he used to throw over your shoulders when nights got too cold, and his cologne hits you like déjà vu dipped in seawater and regret.

Your mouth is dry. Your hands are ice.

He doesn’t look at you.

Not yet.

You do what you were trained to do: you check for threats. Scan exits. Ignore your pulse.

He walks through the lobby as if unaware. As if untouched. But when he passes, just before the elevator closes — he turns his head.

And smiles.

Like sin. Like summer. Like he knew it would be you.

Then—

“Hello again, Ms. Bodyguard.”

***

The suite was silent. Too silent for something this expensive.

No music. No hum of ventilation. Just the hush of carpet under your boots, and the faint, distant rhythm of city breath outside the window.

You stood near the corner, hands behind your back, spine too straight. Default position. Default you.

He was across the room, jacket already off, sleeves rolled. Moving like someone who was used to being observed. Not by the public — by ghosts.

The wine had already been poured. He handed you a glass like it was part of the ritual. You didn’t take it.

He arched an eyebrow.

“I’m working,” you said.

He didn’t insist. Just smiled, faintly.

Of course.

He used to fill every room — all noise and color and heat. But now, somehow, he'd grown quiet. Not in absence — in weight. Like a masterpiece in a gallery. Like the only rose in a field of thorns. You could look away, but you’d still feel him. Like a crosshair you couldn’t shake.

The window beside you looked out over the city — not that you were looking. Your eyes were trained on his reflection in the glass. Even blurred by distance and light, you could tell: he hadn’t broken. But he’d bent.

Harder than most things could survive.

His voice came low, like something remembered instead of spoken.

“You weren’t always stone.”

You didn’t answer.

He crossed the room without hurry. You didn’t move.

His eyes found yours — not searching, just… waiting. Like the question wasn’t whether you’d speak. It was whether you still could.

“And yet here you are,” he murmured, “standing in my suite like you were carved to fit the corner.”

You felt the words land somewhere deep in the ribs. You didn’t flinch. Didn’t speak.

He took a slow sip from his glass. The color of the wine caught in the light — the same shade he used to mix on his palette when painting you in shadow.

“I saw the new series,” you said, voice even.

He glanced at you over the rim.

“Did you?”

“Less gold. More... grief.”

A pause. Then a smile — dry, almost kind.

“I ran out of yellow.”

That made your throat tighten. You looked away before it showed.

He studied you. Not your face — your posture. Your silences. You weren’t hiding emotion. You were holding it.

Like a soldier holding a wound closed with one hand.

“And you,” he said, softly. “Still chasing bullets?”

“I don’t chase. I shield.”

“Of course you do.”

He stepped closer. Not enough to touch. But enough that you could feel him again. That impossible warmth, wrapped in restraint.

He looked at you like an old painting. The kind you see once, remember forever, and never find again.

“You followed me,” he said, almost offhand. “Even after you left.”

You didn’t deny it.

“I had to know you were… functioning.”

He laughed — quiet, empty.

“Functioning,” he repeated. “Right.”

You searched his face for anger. You didn’t find it. Only something slower. Older.

Like ash.

“How have you been?” you asked.

It was a mistake. The question hung in the air like smoke from a match — small, stupid, but dangerous.

He stared at you for a long moment.

Then the glass in his hand cracked. A clean, bright sound. Like winter splitting.

The wine didn’t spill. He didn’t move.

“You left,” he said.

Not bitter. Not accusing.

Just: you left.

“And now you want to ask if I’ve been well?”

You shifted. Just enough to register discomfort. Nothing more.

He looked at the flame creeping along his knuckles — Evol, awake and restless. He closed his fist, and the fire vanished like breath from a mirror.

“What did I do?” he asked, quieter now. “What sin did I commit to earn a silent goodbye?”

You drew breath through your nose. Measured.

“I was tired.”

“Of what?”

You looked at him.

“Of being a story you told instead of a person you knew.”

That did it.

Not an explosion. Not a slam. Just a shift. Like something in his chest cracked, and he had no hands free to hold it in place.

He turned. Slowly. Set the broken glass down. No sound. No shatter.

Then he walked to the adjoining door, pressed it open.

“You’ll stay here,” he said.

A simple guest room. Clean, unpersonalized. Quiet.

He didn’t look at you when he added:

“You’re my shadow for the week. No leaving. No exceptions.”

“And if I object?”

He paused at the threshold. Then turned. Finally met your eyes again.

“You won’t,” he said.

Not a command. Just a prophecy.

***

The days blurred.

They stretched long — drawn out by tension and silence — and yet they flew past with the quiet cruelty of something you couldn’t stop. You caught yourself counting minutes. Not until the assignment ended — but until he left again.

You told yourself it was duty. But no. You knew. The closer it got, the more it scared you.

You’d thought you’d buried the past. That five years had been enough to cauterize what you felt. Enough to flatten grief into dull, predictable weight. You’d taught yourself not to cry. Not to ache. Not to wake up reaching for a voice that wasn’t there.

But now—

Now the thought of losing him again bled through you like poison Slow. Sharp. Relentless.

For the first time, you truly wondered — had you made the worst mistake of your life?

You’d always known leaving was cowardice. A reaction. A wound reacting to pressure. You’d told yourself it was necessary — that you couldn’t survive another secret, another lie, another impossible moment in his orbit.

But now, as you stood in his shadow again, you returned to the one truth you kept avoiding. It wasn’t just the secrets. It wasn’t just his careful, curated nonchalance. It wasn’t even the things he didn’t say.

It was that moment — the one you could never forget.

The Nest. The kidnapping. The deal he’d made behind your back.

The betrayal.

The man who once made you feel like a myth had handed you over like a pawn. And you’d left. Because you couldn’t find a version of yourself that could love him and survive it.

But now…

Now you knew. The price you both paid for your fear had been too high.

***

He treated you like a shadow. Professional. Polite. Silent.

He didn’t try to speak. Didn’t joke. Didn’t prod. Whatever playful gleam had once lived in him now belonged to the stage.

You watched him wear charm like a costume — perfectly tailored, easily removed.

The real man?

He wore quieter things now. No more garish brands. No flash. Just silk-lined precision. Weight without noise. Like he’d stopped needing to be seen in order to feel powerful.

And yet — you felt it. The way his gaze burned across rooms. The way silence wrapped around you both like a loaded pause.

Something was coming. You didn’t know what.

Only that it would not be small.

***

Then came the reception.

A charity event. Wealth, power, and politics pretending to like each other in the same room. He handed you your role the night before — not as a request.

You weren’t the bodyguard tonight. You were his date.

No one must suspect otherwise. His reputation demanded it.

And so here you were:

Draped in sea-glass velvet, cut to glide and cling. Your hair swept into soft, impossible waves. Sapphires at your ears, your throat. Everything felt too heavy. Too expensive. Even your heels were a weapon you didn’t know how to use. You hated how they made you move — slow, deliberate. Exposed.

The car slid to a stop. He stepped out first — a vision in black and steel. Then he turned, offered you a hand.

You took it. His skin was cold.

But the touch — the touch burned. Like nothing had ever healed.

Cameras. Screams. Flashing lights.

Your instincts screamed — scan the crowd. Find the threat. Always the threat. But his fingers tightened around yours. Hard.

He leaned in, breath against your ear — warm, familiar, furious.

“Smile, for fuck’s sake.”

You did.

Not for the cameras. Not for the cause.

But because you knew — the storm wasn’t over. It was just beginning.

***

You played the part well.

Neutral. Polished. Cold enough to earn whispers you never heard, but felt just behind your back.

No one dared speak them aloud, of course. They looked at you and said the compliments to him.

“She’s stunning.”

“Such a refined presence.”

“As if she was made to be on your arm.”

As if your face belonged to him. As if your silence was his design.

In some twisted way, maybe it was.

You didn’t remember how you got here. One minute you were cataloguing exits with your eyes, tracking the crowd with practiced ease —

The next —

You were dancing.

His hand on your waist, the other guiding yours. Everything too close, too warm, too practiced.

The chandelier above cast a slow rain of light. The room turned gently, spinning around its own silence.

His touch wasn’t tender. It was intentional.

“Your expression,” he murmured, “is slowly assassinating my reputation.”

You didn’t look at him. “Your reputation as what, exactly?”

He paused. Just a second.Then:

“A man of appetites.”

You tilted your head slightly. “How poetic.”

“I thought so,” he said. “Though the press prefers playboy.”

A beat.

“So you’ve read it,” you said.

“I have someone who clips the good parts.”

“Must be a short list.”

He smiled — not kindly. “Normally, I’m seen with far more… expressive company.”

“Then why break tradition?”

His fingers flexed slightly at your waist.

“I suppose I wanted something quieter.” A beat. “Something that might bite back.”

Your gaze flicked to him. Just once. A sharpened glance.

“And how does this help your image?”

“It doesn’t.” He leaned in, voice a thread. “But it’s not always about image, is it?”

You could feel it — the heat building between syllables. Not passion. Not yet.

Just tension. Waiting.

You moved together like two creatures pretending not to hunt each other. Each step precise. Each breath withheld.

“You used to enjoy this sort of thing,” he said, voice soft now, too close. “Crowds. Light. Being seen.”

“I used to believe in things,” you replied.

He said nothing. But his hand curled tighter against your spine.

For a second, you let the silence say everything.

Then—

You noticed it.

The way his eyes had started slipping away from you. Again and again — to a single shape on the edge of the room. A man. Grey suit. Clean line. Controlled posture.

You knew that look.

The dance ended, but you weren’t let go. He took your arm, like a gentleman.

But you knew better.

***

The garden was colder than it had any right to be. The kind of cold that wasn’t about temperature — it was about distance. About the way stone walls and sculpted hedges swallowed sound and left only the weight of footsteps behind.

You followed him without a word. Because you already knew.

You’d seen his eyes stray to the man in the grey suit half a dozen times during the reception. Not nervous glances — calculated ones. Not curiosity — confirmation.

And now here you were, walking straight into the web.

The man waited by the marble fountain, one hand resting casually in his pocket, the other holding a glass of something expensive and unnecessary. His smile was pleasant. His suit was quiet money. His name was carved into memory from the briefings you used to skim with more detachment.

Elias Varrick. Publicly: philanthropist, investor, art collector, father of four. Privately: suspected ties to high-level biotech experimentation, classified marine acquisitions, and several quiet disappearances.

All rumors, of course. Nothing on paper. Nothing proven.

Still — you knew. Your gut always knew.

But you didn’t know what Rafayel knew. Not yet.

They greeted each other like old acquaintances. A handshake that looked effortless. Painless.

“I thought it best to deliver the piece myself,” Rafayel said. His voice had its old rhythm — slow, warm, dipped in charm.

You watched him as he spoke. Not the words — the tone.

Polite. Polished. Performing.

“That kind of personal art,” he added, “deserves a personal hand.”

Varrick smiled wider. “Very kind of you. My family will love it. We’re planning to hang it in the main lounge — the one where we gather in the evenings. My wife, the children, my mother. It’s where we live.”

And that’s when it happened.

You didn’t freeze. Not outwardly. But something inside you did.

That phrase. The way he said it — we live here.

You didn’t hear a lie. That was the problem. You heard sincerity.

You saw the portrait — Rafayel’s portrait — hanging above a mantel. You saw children playing on a rug beneath it. An old woman sipping tea in a chair nearby. You saw innocence. Unaware. Wrapped around a weapon.

And suddenly, all the scattered images connected. The rumors. The names. The “environmental” fund. The experimental projects tied to Lemurians. The disappearances.

He wasn’t here for charity.

Rafayel was hunting. And you were holding his arm like a lover while he did it.

It wasn’t the lie that made you pull away. It was the memory of all the ones that came before.

You stepped back. A breath lodged in your throat.

“I need a moment,” you murmured.

He turned. “Wait—”

You didn’t let him finish.

“Don’t.”

You turned away.

You needed air. Space. Time. You needed to stop hearing the echo of his voice in your chest, the one that said it’s different now, even when you knew it wasn’t.

But he followed. Of course he followed.

“Let me explain—”

“No,” you snapped, more sharply than intended. “No more explaining. That’s always the beginning of the lie.”

He reached for your arm. You stopped him with a look.

“I want to know one thing,” you said. Your voice was low, barely steady. “That painting… it’s a weapon, isn’t it?”

He hesitated. Just a breath. But it was enough.

“Not here,” he said softly. “Please.”

“There are children in that house, Rafayel. Children. How can you guarantee there won’t be innocent blood?”

His jaw tensed. The silence between you vibrated with unsaid things. Then:

“Come with me,” he said. “I’ll explain everything. But not in public.”

“Answer me.”

“I said not here,” he whispered. Not angry. Not cold. Just—desperate. Controlled. And that — more than anything — told you what you needed to know.

And that’s when it happened. The movement was too fast.

You heard it before you saw it — a hiss of compressed air.

Then the glint of metal. Then the needle, already buried in the side of Rafayel’s neck.

Everything shattered.

Rafayel stumbled, hand flying to the injection point. His eyes widened — not with pain. With realization.

Varrick stepped back with chilling calm, adjusting his cuff.

“I knew it was you,” he said simply. “The moment I saw your face, lemurian. I knew you were the one behind Raymond’s death.”

You didn’t wait for orders. Didn’t need permission.

You drew and fired — one shot. Silent. Precise. Varrick collapsed with a grunt of pain, clutching his leg.

You were on him in three strides. Knee in his chest. Barrel to his throat.

“What was in it?” you growled.

His breath rattled, half from the pain, half from the thrill of it all. He was enjoying this — the game, the brink.

“I’m not—”

You slammed the muzzle harder against his neck.

“Tell me. Or I swear, I’ll have your lungs painting that lovely family room of yours by morning.”

He laughed, blood in his teeth.

“Requiem Coral,” he gasped. “Gen-modified. Synthetic compound. It bonds to Lemurian blood — slow neural degeneration. Burns out the body one nerve at a time. Quite poetic, really.”

You stared at him. Then you fired again.

Between the eyes.

No poetry. Just silence.

***

You found Rafayel still upright. Barely. His pupils were uneven. Sweat glistened on his temple. His balance was shot.

You got under his arm, bore half his weight.

“No hospital,” he muttered.

“I’m not a moron,” you snapped. “We’re going home.”

You drove with one hand clenched around the wheel, the other wrapped tightly around his — clammy now, fingers twitching less and less.

The city blurred past like water through glass, useless. Silent.

He was slumped in the seat beside you, head tilted back, jaw clenched.

“Is this your version of a confession?” he muttered, voice paper-thin. “Waiting ‘til I’m half-dead to finally hold my hand?”

“Shut up,” you hissed.

He smiled — barely. “So harsh. Romance really is dead.”

You tightened your grip on his hand. His skin was cold.

“Don’t do that,” you said. “Don’t talk like you’re not about to die.”

“I mean, statistically—”

“I said shut up.”

Your voice cracked on the last word.

The rest of the ride was agony. You didn’t feel the road. You didn’t feel the turns. You felt him — fading beside you. His breath going shallow. His body heavy.

And all you could do was drive faster.

***

Your home wasn’t built for tenderness. It wasn’t a place to recover. It was a place to survive.

The door slammed behind you, and you half-dragged, half-carried him to the medical bench. He tried to help. He couldn’t.

He collapsed like a broken marionette, breathing hard, sweat cold on his brow.

You moved by instinct.

Antitoxin. Anti-inflammatories. Burn stabilizer. Anything. Everything.

Tubes. IV. Scanners.

Your hands didn’t shake — until you realized that nothing was working. His vitals dipped. Once. Again.

No improvement. And you weren’t a doctor. You weren’t a biotech. You were a weapon.

You could take a man apart in thirty seconds, but this — this—

You couldn’t fix this.

You hovered over him, swallowing panic, shoving down the scream forming in your throat.

He opened his eyes — only halfway. Saw the mess you were making. He lifted one trembling hand, and caught your wrist.

“Stop,” he whispered. “You’ll do more harm than good.”

You shook your head violently. “No. No, I can— I just need time—”

“There is no time.”

His voice was barely there.

“I don’t— I don’t know how to stop it,” you said, broken. “I don’t know how to fight it—how to save you—”

“Then listen.”

His eyes found yours.

“If this is it…” His breath caught. “If I’m not waking up from this—”

“Raf, no—”

“Then I want the truth.”

He looked at you like a man watching his own shadow disappear. Like someone who knew there was no second chance this time.

“No secrets. No lies. Nothing between us.”

You froze. And something inside you cracked.

The words came out on a sob.

“I know.”

He blinked slowly. “Know what?”

“I know you sold me out. N109 Zone. Five years ago.”

The air stopped moving. His lips parted, but no sound came.

You looked down, ashamed and shaking.

“I found the records. I connected the drops, the timing. You handed me over.”

There was a long pause. Then, suddenly — he laughed. A ragged, broken sound that became a cough.

“Oh, you—God.”

His smile was pained. Too pained.

“You wanted to reach Onichynus, remember?”

You looked up.

“There’s no easy road there. No clean path.”

He coughed again, winced, and gripped your hand tighter.

“I was watching. If things had gone wrong, I would’ve stepped in. I wouldn’t have let them break you.”

Your lips trembled. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I didn’t trust myself not to stop you. I didn’t want you to look at me like you are right now.”

He coughed again — something wet in the sound now.

“I never betrayed you.”

His hand drifted to your chest, barely touching.

“You were always my heart.” He smiled faintly. “And when you left… you took it with you.”

You crumpled. Your hands went to his face, cold and pale, and your voice shattered into pieces.

“I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I thought— I thought you used me. Manipulated me. Like everyone else.”

His eyes stayed on yours.

“I would’ve died for you.”

“I know. I know now.”

Tears streamed down your face.

“I took your heart, Raf, but mine—” You pressed a hand to his chest. “Mine never left you. I… still love you.”

Your voice broke like a body under fire.

“God, I never stopped loving you.”

You leaned down, kissed his lips — dry, cold, still his. Your tears landed on his skin.

“Please,” you whispered. “Fight. Just… fight. Tell me what to do. Anything. Because if you die— if you leave me now— I swear—”

“I’m already leaving,” he said.

A beat. A breath.

“I don’t think anything can stop it.”

You shook your head. “No—”

“But there’s something you can do.”

You stilled.

“Take me to the sea,” he whispered.

His eyes were almost closed.

“If I die… I want the ocean to take my last breath.”

***

You helped him into the water, one arm steady around his waist, the other gripping his wrist as if holding on could somehow hold him here.

The sea was cold, even for nightfall. Each wave climbed higher, tasting skin and memory as it came. Rafayel leaned into you, too light, too quiet. His steps were uncertain, but not from fear. He wasn’t afraid. He was done.

By the time the water reached his chest, he stopped.

His breath caught. Not sharply — softly, like a curtain falling.

For a moment, under the pale gleam of moonlight, he closed his eyes. His features relaxed. And it struck you — how little color remained in his face. How glass-like his skin looked. Almost translucent. Almost not there.

You opened your mouth to speak, but the words never found shape.

Because he let go.

He stepped back. And before you could stop him, before you could tighten your grip — he slipped beneath the surface and vanished.

No sound. No splash. Just absence.

“Rafayel.”

Your voice wavered, swallowed instantly by the dark. Then louder—

“RAFAYEL!”

But there was only the sea.

You surged forward, boots stumbling, breath catching in your throat as you threw yourself into the waves.

Cold bit into your spine. Your jacket dragged you down. Salt stung your eyes. None of it mattered.

You dove.

Once, five years ago, it had been the same. Different ocean. Same cold. Same fear.

You remembered that too well — sinking below the surface on a job gone wrong, your lungs seizing, your vision narrowing. And just before the dark closed in, it had been him who pulled you out. His arms, his breath, his voice.

Breathe, cutie. Come on. Breathe.

And now—

Now it was your turn to find him.

You kicked downward, deeper, into the black.

You couldn’t see. The moonlight didn’t reach this far. But you didn’t need to see. You needed to find.

The water grew colder the further you went. Each stroke slower, weaker. The pressure in your chest building, blooming like fire. Your hands swept forward, wide, desperate — fingers searching for fabric, for skin, for anything.

You found nothing.

The panic came slowly. Not like a scream, but like a slow tightening, a noose drawn carefully across your ribs. Your lungs began to burn. Your mind whispered it was too far. Too late. But your body refused to listen.

You kept going.

Until your arms stopped obeying. Until your legs stopped kicking.

Until your last exhale slipped from between your lips, and with it, the only word that still meant anything.

“Rafayel,” you mouthed.

And sank.

Everything stilled.

Time, sensation, thought.

And just as the darkness began to take you—

Something changed.

A pulse. Not from the sea. From inside.

Evol. Dormant until now — roared awake. But not with power. With purpose.

It didn’t surge to protect you. It didn’t scream in defense. It answered something quieter. Deeper.

A wish.

You weren’t trying to save yourself. You weren’t trying to rise.

You were trying to give him your heart back. To pour your strength into his veins. To reignite the spark inside him — even if it meant extinguishing your own.

Let me give it back. Let him live. Let me take the weight.

That was the prayer beneath your ribs, and Evol obeyed.

It moved through you like liquid fire, searing down to your bones, pulling from every corner of your being. It hurt. God, it hurt — not like dying, but like unraveling. You were emptying yourself willingly. Not out of fear. Out of love.

And then — resonance.

Not just from you. From him. Like something in the darkness roared back.

No. Not her. Not this way.

You felt it — a pull in the opposite direction. Not rejection. Not resistance. Reciprocity.

His Evol flared back — instinctive, involuntary, desperate. Refusing the gift. Refusing the cost.

He wouldn’t let you die for him. And you — you couldn’t let him die for you.

And so you were pulled. Not rising. Not flying.

Drawn back. Both of you. Together.

Because even now, even here — at the edge of everything — neither of you could bear to leave the other behind.

***

You came back coughing.

The world hit in pieces — salt on your lips, sand beneath your palms, the weight of your own chest struggling to rise.

And then—

Arms.

Not the ocean’s. His.

He was holding you. Soaked. Shaking. Alive.

His heartbeat thudded beneath your ear, ragged but real. His breath skimmed your temple. His fingers gripped your shoulders like he wasn’t sure whether to anchor you — or himself.

You opened your eyes. The sky swam above you, vast and starless.

And Rafayel’s face was there. Pale with exhaustion, hair clinging wet to his skin, eyes too bright in the dark.

You reached up, touched his cheek with trembling fingers. He leaned into it.

No words passed between you. There was nothing to explain.

“This,” you whispered, voice torn to ribbons, “is exactly where I want to be when I die.”

His mouth twitched, a ghost of a smile breaking through.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he murmured, “next time we die.”

Your breath caught somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

“Raf…”

He hushed you with his thumb against your cheek, his gaze steady and quiet.

“It’s over.”

You shook your head. “But how—”

He didn’t answer right away.

Only looked at you, and for the first time in what felt like lifetimes, you saw it— light. Faint, buried, but alive in him.

“Cutie,” he said softly, “how could I keep dying when you needed me this much?”

The sound you made was broken, wild — grief and love tangled into one. You folded into him, arms tight around his shoulders, burying your face in his neck.

“Then you’ll have to live,” you whispered, choked, “for a long, long time. Because I need you. Every day. Every second. Every stupid heartbeat.”

He laughed — quiet and hoarse, and it felt like sunlight after rain.

“Another eternity, then. Sounds like a curse. Or a blessing. Maybe both.”

You pulled back just enough to see his face. Moonlight caught the water on his skin, and you felt like crying again.

“I was such a fool,” you said. “You shouldn’t have brought me back. I ruined everything. I wasted so much—”

“I’m not arguing,” he cut in gently. “But I figured… maybe you’d want to fix your behavior.”

A huff escaped you. Wet, shaky. Almost a smile.

“Will you let me try?” you asked. “Will you—can you forgive me?”

He didn’t even blink.

“Sweetheart,” he said, cupping your face in both hands, “this was never about forgiveness. Not really. Not about second chances or fresh starts.”

His thumbs brushed away the tears you didn’t realize were falling.

“We’re us. Flawed. Messy. Brilliant and brutal in equal measure. We hurt each other. And we heal each other.”

His voice dropped to a whisper.

“I forgave you a long time ago. I was only angry because I didn’t understand. I thought maybe—if I’d been softer. Or warmer. Or better—maybe you would’ve stayed.”

You closed your eyes, tears slipping free.

“I never left you,” you said. “Not really.”

“I know.”

He leaned forward. And kissed you.

Once — soft and slow, like breathing. Then again — deeper, like memory.

And when you kissed him back, there was no anger left. No questions. Just the weight of five years falling away between your mouths.

You broke away just long enough to murmur, “We almost died.”

He kissed the corner of your mouth.

“We’re always almost dying.”

You laughed, breathless.

“This is a terrible time—”

“There’s no better one,” he said. “You never know which kiss is the last. Which night is the edge.”

He pulled you to him again.

And beneath the moon, on wet sand and shaking limbs, you gave yourselves back — completely. No hesitation. No conditions.

It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t clean. But it was real.

You loved him like you remembered how. And he held you like he never forgot.

And this time, it didn’t feel like the end.

It felt like the beginning.

***

You woke to the sound of brush against canvas.

Soft, rhythmic. A whisper of motion. It tugged at something in your memory, something half-forgotten.

For a long moment, you didn’t move. Didn’t even open your eyes.

There was warmth on your skin — sun, blankets, and something else. You inhaled. Salt. Linens. Paint.

And him.

When you finally blinked into the light, it took a moment to understand where you were.

The room was high-ceilinged, the windows cracked open to the hush of waves. The bed was too big, sheets still tangled, your body aching pleasantly in ways that reminded you — yes, it was real.

Last night was real.

And then—

“Don’t move.”

His voice. Low. Focused. Familiar in a way that made your chest ache.

You turned your head slightly, and there he was.

Rafayel. Sitting on a low stool near the foot of the bed, bare feet braced against the floor, shirt half-unbuttoned, canvas before him. A brush in one hand, a palette balanced on his thigh.

You blinked at him. “What… are you doing?”

“I said don’t move.” He didn’t look up. “You’ll ruin the pose.”

“I wasn’t posing,” you mumbled, rubbing your eyes. “I was sleeping. Possibly drooling.”

He finally glanced at you. A glint in his eyes — amusement.

“You were beautiful. Are. I wanted to keep this one.”

“Raf,” you said, stretching with a grimace, “I probably look like a tangled sea urchin. There’s still sand in places sand should never be. I need a shower.”

“If you let me finish, we’ll shower together.”

Your brows lifted. “Tempting bribe.”

“I know.” He smirked. “Also—note to self: never again sex on sand.”

“The ocean was too cold,” you teased.

“Not in my arms.”

That stopped you for a breath.

You smiled. A small, stunned thing.

And somewhere in the middle of smiling and remembering and wanting to kiss him again, you noticed something on the canvas. You squinted.

“Wait... is that yellow?”

He flinched. The brush stuttered.

And then—he groaned, deep and dramatic. “Dammit. Now I have to start over.”

You sat up on your elbows, eyes wide. “Was that my fault?”

He stood slowly, brush still in hand. “You moved. You talked. You ruined my masterwork.”

You grinned. “Your nude beach goddess masterwork?”

“Yes,” he said solemnly. “It was going to hang in the Met.”

“Well, in that case—” you started.

But before you could escape, he lunged — grabbed your ankle, yanked you toward the edge of the bed with a playfully feral grin.

You shrieked.

“Raf!”

“You destroyed art!”

“I was the art!”

You kicked. He caught your other foot.

Laughter spilled from your throat — loud, full, aching in your ribs. You couldn’t remember the last time you laughed like this.

He climbed over you, breathless with mock outrage, and you tangled together in the blankets, in limbs, in joy.

You were still gasping when you murmured, “I’m sorry I can’t erase the past. Those five years... they’re etched into us. But I swear, I’ll spend every day trying to heal what I broke.”

His expression softened — all teasing gone.

“Cutie,�� he said quietly, brushing a thumb over your cheekbone, “you still don’t see it, do you?”

You stilled.

“Last night,” he said, “you were ready to give everything. Your Evol, your life, your soul — for me. Even when you thought I wouldn’t survive.”

He leaned his forehead against yours.

“In that moment, I think even the gods cried.”

You closed your eyes.

“My wounds healed the second you chose to stay,” he whispered. “There’s barely even a scar left.”

Then his voice dropped lower.

“Just promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“Never disappear again. Not without giving me the chance to fight for you. Not in this lifetime. Not in any other.”

You didn’t hesitate.

You looked him in the eyes — and felt the weight of every mistake, every mile, every ache that had brought you back here.

And then you said, quietly:

“Even if all the oceans rise, even if this world burns and time eats itself whole — I’ll find you. In every life. I’ll find you, and I’ll stay.”

His lips parted. He didn’t speak.

He just kissed you.

And this time, it wasn’t for survival.

It was for everything else.

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