#qi yu love and deepspace

[dearrafayel]

𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐄, 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐒 & 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐍-𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐄𝐍.

rafayel’s exhibitions seem to leave a trail of mysterious disappearances in its wake.

content. yandere!fem!reader (or mc) x rafayel. dark content. canon divergence. fluff. 9.3k words. established relationship (you’re married). graphic depictions of murder. don’t act like this irl please. sexual content. unprotected (shower) sex. obsessive behaviour. cursing.

notes. two things in life are undeniably true; rafayel for sure gets hard from seeing your 'devotion’ and he curses in lemurian during sex, send tweet.

Rafayel was cursed. That is, if you were to ask any person within the art community. It was, after all, the most recent rumour to circulate amongst the socialites. Lately, every person that was perceived to have stood an inch too close to him, been a tad too friendly, or even hoarded his attention for a bit too long than one would’ve deemed appropriate, had strangely vanished off the face of the earth.

With no trace left behind, the authorities and the victims’ families were left grasping at straws to figure out what exactly had happened to them. Though, the one common denominator had been the fact that all of them attended an exhibition of Rafayel’s before their disappearance. The turn-out had been affected by this over time, but there were plenty of people left who didn’t believe in such a silly superstition—much to Thomas’s relief.

Rafayel himself didn’t particularly care much about the attendance record of his exhibitions, nor about the event in general, really, even before its dwindling popularity. However, the reason for their fears still felt so silly. In no world could Rafayel find a logical reason for someone to target people who’d tried to lay some of their moves on him; or rather, he couldn’t think of a person who’d do such a thing.

He’s keenly aware of anybody that surrounds him, and he certainly hadn’t taken notice of a stalker, so the possibility of an obsessed fan cutting down the competition seemed deluded. As for other romantic options. . .The only one who’d been granted permission to be in such close proximity to him, ever, and whenever their heart desired, was you. You were the one in his heart, but you were far from the jealous type—even if Rafayel sometimes wished you’d be.

To fear something as ridiculous as being murdered simply for being near him was, therefore, bordering on the edge of stupid.

Or so he thought.

Rafayel’s mind short-circuited at the sight in front of him; His darling, plushie-adoring, kitty-card fanatic, public servant of a wife bent over an individual that lay bleeding out on the cold, concrete ground of an alleyway. You kneeled in front of the man—Rafayel recognised him as the waiter that had been a little too close to him for comfort earlier this evening—and twirled your hunter’s knife between your fingers. A peculiar feeling arose in Rafayel’s chest. One he definitely should not be having at such a sight.

Ah. Who would’ve thought? You do have a jealous side.

Rafayel suppressed a smile.

In hindsight, he thought he must have been blind not to notice it sooner. Recently, you’d started coming home later than usual, and always insisted on quickly rinsing yourself off in the shower since you felt grimy from fighting all those wanderers. A believable excuse, truly, though when he asked your colleagues about the increased amount of assignments lately, they were none the wiser. Wanting to have some faith in you and your relationship, he’d simply chalked it up to coincidence—perhaps you and those five, six, alright seven, colleagues he spoke to weren’t assigned on missions together.

Rafayel did anything to avoid thinking of the, increasingly real, possibility of you being unfaithful to him. He didn’t want to believe it—couldn’t believe it. For, even if you express your love for each other in very different ways, Rafayel is sure that you do love him; confirmation of it came as soon as he finished the thought. And as he watched the waiter cough up blood onto the pavement, he could do little about the butterflies that erupted in his stomach.

The part of him that wished to take in the sight before him for a bit longer was quickly defeated by the bubbling excitement he felt at the discovery, and he watched as your movements seized with his first step forward. With the heels of his dress shoes clicking on the ground, his footsteps were loud in the otherwise silent alley.

“How lucky must I be to have such a devoted bodyguard,” he called out, a familiar lilt to his voice. Slowly, as if you couldn’t believe what you’d heard, you turned your head towards him. Rafayel hid another smile, attempting to remove the smugness off his features upon seeing the way your eyes widened and your jaw clenched. “There are very few people who are that committed to their job nowadays.”

You blinked at him. Once, twice. Rafayel tilted his head to the side, not breaking eye-contact.

“. . .What are you doing here?”

A hint of a smile broke through. “I could ask you the same thing, cutie.”

You scrunched your nose up, huffing. “I asked first,” you mumbled. Cute. Your eyes trailed over his figure as he moved closer to you and your victim, never letting a second pass without having him in your line of sight. Your gaze was focused, analytical, as if trying to gauge what he will do next. “What are you doing here, Rafayel?”

He hummed at your question. Acknowledging it, without answering it. A soft, pity-filled sigh slipped past his lips as he crouched down in front of the waiter, and next to you. “Y’Did a real number on the guy,” he commented. The artist frowned in disgust as he poked the man’s face.

The waiter made a sound that resembled a garble, and a plethora of groans were heard throughout the alley as Rafayel’s quick poke seemed to bring the man back to consciousness. He blinked, and started breathing heavily again, panting, nearly, as he realised he hadn’t passed away, yet. Frantically, the man looked around, and flinched when his eyes fell on you—though, they filled with hope when he saw Rafayel.

As soon as they did, Rafayel heard you scoff.

“Rafayel!” The man shouted, or tried to, with his voice as hoarse as it is. He coughed again, and more blood came up with it. Rafayel scrunched his nose up, and inched backwards to prevent it from getting on his shoes. “Ra—Rafayel! P—Please, you. . .you have to help me, she—!”

The waiter reached a hand out for him. A few seconds later, a knife was stabbed through the palm of it.

“None of you have any manners,” you said, chastising him. With narrowed eyes, you looked down upon him as he cradled his palm close to his chest while screaming bloody murder. “Who do you think you are to address him so casually?”

Rafayel’s heart skipped a beat.

It seemed you had taken the time to remember one of his latest pet-peeves; strangers being overly comfortable with him and forgoing all honorifics. In all honesty, Rafayel knew he rambled quite a lot about seemingly everything, so he hadn’t expected you to remember it. Such a considerate wife, he has.

Wails continued to sound through the darkness of the night, and you swiftly grabbed the source of them by the collar and slammed his head into the pavement to make them stop. It was effective. You and Rafayel sat in silence shortly after. He looked at you, a certain sense of glee dancing in his eyes, while you did everything you could to avoid his gaze. Was it wrong to think you had never looked more beautiful to him?

Even though your hair was a bit ruffled, and your fingertips were stained a dark red, and even though there were tiny specks of blood decorating your face—Rafayel fell for you even more.

“So,” he spoke up, and watched as you stiffened. He rested his elbow on one of his thighs, and placed his chin on his hand; glancing at the corpse laying at both of your feet. “What do you usually do with them?”

You turned towards him again. Scarily slowly, just like before. Your eyebrows furrowed, but you didn’t answer him immediately. Every thought you had was reflected in your eyes, visible to Rafayel, and only to Rafayel for the mere fact that he knew you best. You sought to deflect, but quickly gave up on that. Then, you thought about denying, which seemed even sillier. Confused, you decided on staying quiet a little longer.

His lack of reaction was strange. It threw you off. When you finally met his gaze, Rafayel’s restraint broke and a small smile started to form. Without much effort, he could see the gears in your head starting to turn at an even faster speed as they desperately tried making sense of the situation.

“Well?” He goaded. One of his fingers poked your side, but you didn’t squirm away and giggle like you would usually. It helped bring you back to him, mentally, though, and you cracked a tiny smile.

Taking a deep breath, you shifted on your feet. The crouching position you were in was starting to get uncomfortable. “I toss them in the ocean,” you confessed, looking at him. “They’re offerings.”

His eyebrows raised. “Offerings? To whom?”

“The Sea God.”

Rafayel’s eyes darkened. His breath hitched in his throat, and suddenly all he could think of, all he could feel, was you, you and your devotion to him that was so much stronger than he’d initially thought it to be.  His hand cupped your cheek; his thumb caressed it, not caring about the blood that clung to your skin. You gazed into each other’s eyes for a few seconds, and then a few more, until Rafayel let out a shaky sigh and released his hold on you.

He cleared his throat.

“Dibs on the head,” he called out, and finally got up from crouching. You blinked at his sudden departure, entirely dumbfounded as you watched him bent over the body and take a firm grasp of its head. He tilted his own head to the side again when he noticed your lack of movement. “C’mon, it’s not gonna walk itself to the sea, you know? Not anymore.”

“I. . .” You started, but it appeared that your sentence would forever remain unfinished. With a sigh, you interrupted yourself, and with a quick shake of your head, you went and lifted the lower part of the body. Together, you carried the corpse out of the alley, engulfed in the shadows of the night and hidden by it from any prying eyes. You grunted, and Rafayel looked at you. “My car’s over there. We can. . .”

“Gotcha,” he said. Wanting to lessen your apprehension, Rafayel cut in before you could finish your sentence. He knew what needed to be done, anyway.

No further words were exchanged as you walked towards your car. He still kept a watchful eye out for any potential witnesses, but was relieved to find the streets of Linkon entirely deserted. That would certainly make this entire debacle less of a hassle. Once arrived, you wasted little time in opening the trunk. Rafayel raised an eyebrow in surprise.

“Came prepared?” He asked. There were a variety of things in there; a plastic sheet—no doubt so the blood wouldn’t stain—gloves, two clean knives, some cable ties, tape. It made him wonder how often you’d done this. Were there any people he didn’t know of?

You sniffed, and cleared your throat. “What are you? A cop?”

Before he smiled, Rafayel bit his lip. He looked at you from head to toe. “Aren’t you?”

Your tongue poked the inside of your cheek. Amid the tiny sliver of annoyance, he slowly saw a hint of amusement fighting its way onto your face.

“You’re driving,” you said, and threw him the keys. He caught them with practiced ease, having little time to protest. Rafayel laughed softly. Right before taking your seat, you paused to look at him. “And I’m a public servant. Not a cop. You know this.”

He does. Still, Rafayel laughed again. The door to the passenger side closed, and he finally deemed it time to get in the car himself. As he hoisted himself into the driver’s seat, he glanced at you for a few seconds with a small, adoring glint in his eye. It wasn’t long before you caught him, and he took it as a sign that it was time to start driving. To the beach. Ah, the amount of things you’ve done together on a beach. It seemed that, as of today, disposing of a body will now be added to that list.

A few minutes into the drive, Rafayel first felt your eyes on him. Your face still carried faint traces of anxiety, visible to him even if he only glanced your way every now and then. Without a doubt, your mind must still be going at a hundred miles an hour; trying its best to decipher him, trying to gauge whether he truly wasn’t affected by this in the slightest—whether he truly wasn’t disturbed at all. Oh, on the contrary.

Rafayel felt elated.

After staring at him for a little while longer, you finally spoke. It was a question he could have expected to receive, as you’ve never shied away from asking the hard-hitting ones. Seeing you return to your usual antics was a good sign.

“Have you killed before?”

His answer was immediate. “Of course I have.”

Confessing his darkest secret didn’t feel like that big of a deal anymore. In the past, Rafayel thought of you finding out as one of the worst things that could happen to him. Funny how things can change.

You didn’t make a sound after that. Merely staring at him from the passenger seat, blinking every now and then as your mind struggled to comprehend all of the information thrown at it. However, Rafayel wasn’t one to allow uncomfortable silences to appear with you, which mostly stemmed from the fact that he never wanted you to feel uncomfortable when he was near.

“I didn’t have such an obvious pattern, though,” he teased, shooting you a quick glance. The smugness was radiating off of him, and you scoffed. It sounded like music to his ears. “Bit of a rookie mistake.”

Glancing at him, and throwing in the world’s cutest-scariest glare, you shifted in your seat. You grumbled something under your breath, but Rafayel couldn’t quite make out what. “Turn left here,” you said eventually, nodding towards the next cross-road. “It’ll bring you to a cliff.”

He did as he was told. It was hard to stay focused on the road in front of him, especially so with you huffing and puffing all cutely next to him. He’d gaze at you all night if you let him. Well, there was always later. Just as he’d turned back to look at the road, you murmured a sly remark.

“It wasn’t that obvious.”

Rafayel suppressed another smile. “Meh, it was preeetty obvious,” he responded, and watched as you acted offended once again. You, too, hid a smile, though. He was lucky enough to catch it in time. “There’s no need to worry, though, cutie. I’m flattered.”

Something changed within your eyes when he said that. You looked at him, really looked at him. His nonchalance when sitting behind the wheel, the calm exterior he was carrying, the calm interior he was feeling. And then, you laughed—or scoffed—he couldn’t really tell. It sounded like a mixture of the two, giving birth to a sound of disbelief.

“You’re insane,” you concluded.

This time, he let himself smile. “And you aren’t?” He asked, and thoroughly enjoyed seeing the slight fluster on your face when he shot you a quick wink. “Need I remind you whose murder victim is in the trunk?”

You tried your very hardest not to smile, he could see it in the way your tongue poked the inside of your cheek. “Alright, alright, Mr. Rafayel,” you said. “You’ve made your point.”

And all of the sudden, the air felt light again. It shouldn’t be, especially not considering the current situation, but it was—and Rafayel couldn’t get enough of the feeling. He had seen another side of you, and you knew about that other side of him; still, it felt like little had changed. If anything, he felt even closer to you. What more could he need to be on cloud nine?

“Dibs on the head,” you called out quickly, words slightly strung together as you rushed to get them out. Rafayel opened his mouth, pretending to be appalled at your hasty proclamation. He parked the car in one of the many free spots; it was easy, the entire row was empty. Slowly, he turned to face you, looking as if he couldn’t believe what he’d heard. You grinned a bit sheepishly. ���The feet were a pain to carry.”

He narrowed his eyes. “This isn’t even my kill. Why should I get the short end of the stick?”

Your smile turned cheeky. “Because you love me,” you said. It wasn’t a question, more so a statement. A truthful one. “Please?”

“Fiiiine,” Rafayel sighed. He acted as if it were one of begrudging relent, but in all honesty, he’d already decided to indulge you the second you smiled at him. “Oh, the things I do for love.”

Though, with the way you did a short celebration, triumph decorating your face, fists pumping, he couldn’t find it in himself to regret his decision one bit.

As a true gentleman, Rafayel helped you out of the car shortly after. Together, with much more ease than the first time you’d carried the body together—practice really does make perfect—you lifted the corpse towards the very edge of the cliff. Your eyes locked for a second. He glanced between you and the ocean beneath you two, the wild waves hitting the bottom of the cliff. Rafayel waited, and it didn’t take long for the body to land in the deep waters after your nod of confirmation finally came.

A silence hung in the air between you as the corpse floated away, washed away further and further from the shore and towards the Deep Sea. It would never resurface again; Rafayel would make sure of it. He tore his eyes away from the ocean first, which was unusual, as he was normally the one to gaze a little longer at the place he once called home, but he did so regardless—to look at the one he now called home. He huffed, the thought he used to carry now seemed so ridiculous.

“I thought you were cheating on me,” he confessed.

Immediately, you looked at him, the sea long-forgotten. “I could never.”

He smiled. It was so small, any person that wasn’t you wouldn’t even notice the way the corners of his mouth were slightly curled upwards. “I know,” he said, and paused. “It didn’t even feel right. The thought of it, I mean. I just couldn’t comprehend it, but you were acting sooo sketchy, really it’s a miracle you haven’t been cau—Ouch! Hey, hey, hey, I’m not one of your vic—Hey!”

Rafayel laughed. Truly laughed, all while taking the playful hits to his chest. The corners of his eyes crinkled, and a dimple on his right cheek appeared. “Alright, enough, enough,” he said, still chuckling, and grabbed your wrist when you went in for another swipe at him.

You giggled, and if Rafayel had to choose between hearing another siren’s singing, something that has been deemed the most beautiful melody in the world, or your blissful laughter—he would forever choose the latter. With a lovesick smile on his face, he tugged on your wrist and gently guided you towards him. You bumped into his chest, eyes twinkling in the moonlight as your laughter dialled down into a careful smile upon eye-contact with him. For a few seconds, you merely allowed yourselves to get lost in the other’s embrace, relishing in their closeness; and not just on a physical level.

“I’m sorry,” you said, breaking the silence. “For making you feel that way. It was never my intention.”

Rafayel shrugged. “S’okay,” he mumbled, and caressed your cheek. He frowned, noticing the specks of blood that now lay underneath his thumb; dirtying your soft skin. “Trust me, you more than made up for it.”

You huffed, a little flustered still at his discovery. Your cheek felt hot under his touch, which was an indication of your sheepishness. Rafayel wouldn’t have immediately guessed it otherwise. Your sigh in relief captured his attention, slightly popping the peaceful little bubble you two had created together at the cliffside. Quietly, while he was still busy caressing your cheek (and assessing the other spots you’d managed to get blood on), you decided to take the opportunity and ask him what you’d been thinking of since the drive over.

“Who did you kill?”

Rafayel paused for a moment. He wet his lips, thinking about his answer. “. . .Dunno,” he said eventually. It was the truth. “I don’t remember their names. Some of them, I never learned.”

He felt your reach for his hand. Looking down, he smiled as he watched you intertwine them; your smaller hand wrapped around his larger one, and you started playing with his fingers. Cute, again.

“And, why? Why did you. . .”

“The world is filled with bad people,” he said, purposefully keeping his answer a little vague. Your eyebrows furrowed at him, mind hard at work trying to decipher his words. “Some of them try their hand at hurting the ones I hold dear, others think they have the right to stick their nose where it doesn’t belong.”

Rafayel caught the exact moment his words had been figured out. Your features softened, and a small, loving smile took place on your lips. “I see,” you said, clearing your throat. Though you did your best at hiding the flattery you felt, it still didn’t escape his keen eye. Certainly not when he’d been feeling the exact same way all evening.

The only two that Rafayel had killed for; you, and Lemuria. You, and his home. However, the longer he looked at you, the more the line between you and the word ‘home’ started to blur. Rafayel sighed. What a night. His movements seized—his thumb no longer caressing your cheek—instead he moved it so he was cupping your chin. Little by little, he guided you towards him, watching with a fond smile as your eyes fluttered shut, before leaning down and pressing a sweet, lingering kiss to your lips.

That familiar flame that always appeared when you’d allow him to kiss you showed itself again, a fire in him that was so different from the one he’d make himself, so very different from his Evol. Though, it was the one he greatly preferred. Rafayel let out a soft groan against your lips, the sound travelling from his mouth to yours, it seemed, considering you echoed it right back at him. He had to put an end to this, or he’d be taking you right here, on this cliff.

He was panting when he pulled back, as were you. A string of spit connected the two of you, and Rafayel gave you another chaste kiss to get rid of it. You nuzzled your nose against his in response, and it made him smile; brightly, boyishly, and incredibly mischievously. He looked at you again, utterly enamoured.

“Alright,” he cleared his throat. Looking you up and down, he stole another peck in-between his smiles. “Let’s get you home, you insane cutie.”

Rafayel’s reaction, or rather lack thereof, had been a surprise. Not an unwelcome one, no, certainly not, but a surprise nonetheless.

Admittedly, your heart had gotten stuck in your throat upon noticing his arrival in the alleyway, and within seconds, your mind conjured up every possible doomsday-scenario. Fleeting images of your wedding bands laying discarded on the kitchen isle, of your hand being held by his own to force the signing of divorce papers, and of flashing lights as the police came to take you away after Rafayel proclaimed his wife to be a psychopath came rushing in immediately.

Luckily, they stayed just that—Fleeting.

Your ring finger was still, and forever will be, adorned by a personally, hand-carved gemstone that was entirely too big for it. It stayed where it belonged, as did Rafayel’s own ring. The word divorce hadn’t been so much as mentioned, let alone been given serious thought. And the police. . .the police were still left grasping at straws, aimlessly chasing leads that will bring them nowhere.

As for your husband, he was rather touchy. More so than usual. The kiss shared at the cliffside was the suspected denominator, as he started sneaking in lingering touches wherever he could reach after that; a featherlight brush over your thighs as he fastened your seatbelt, a subtle kiss to your cheek as he pulled away from you, and the firm clasp on your hand as soon as you’d gotten out of the car.

Rafayel seemed restless. Again. It’d been a good while since he acted this way, with the most recent occasion being a few years ago in the desert of Aridum. The mere memory of it brought back a familiar ache deep within you. Clearing your throat, you removed yourself from his side upon entering the studio. You shook your head, as if that would make the impure thoughts suddenly disappear.

“I, uhm, I’m going to take a quick shower,” you said. The dried blood clung to your skin, it felt sticky, and gross, and you couldn’t wait to wash it off.

Rafayel hummed, feigning interest in the envelopes that lay on the hallway table. More invitations, no doubt. You sincerely doubted he’d attend any of the exhibitions, but (as of today) it turned out he had a knack for surprising you, so, who knew?

Unable to tear your eyes away immediately, you allowed yourself a moment to admire your husband; his fair complexion, those pretty purple locks that you, at first, believed to be dyed, his delicate features that made you want to kiss him all over, and most of all, the twisted mind that hid behind his angelic exterior. One that perfectly mirrored yours.

You smiled. Oh, how lucky you are.

Looking away from him proved to be a very conscious effort, one that required all your willpower, but one that was carried out nonetheless as your awareness of the filth lathered across your body continued to grow by the second. You needed it off you, now. With that thought, you finally left Rafayel in the entryway and rushed into the main bathroom.

Once inside, your hand hovered over the door handle; over its lock, specifically. After doing this so often, locking the door behind you had become customary—something akin to a reflex. Only on nights like these, did you instantly lock the bathroom to bar Rafayel from entering. Him seeing the blood wash down the drain was a recurrent fear of yours, after all. However, this time things were different.

This time, there was no need to lock the door.

You blinked, still looking at the door handle. Your thoughts ran rampant, almost too fast for even you to keep up with. Your grasp tightened and loosened on the handle, on its lock, tightened, loosened, tightened, loosened, in an endless loop, until you finally decided to push it down and open the door again. It’s hinge made a soft clicking sound, and then the door was left ajar.

Not locked. Not closed but unlocked. Ajar. Something you’d only ever dreamt of doing on a night like this.

The implications of it sent a shiver down your spine, and a subtle excitement started to brew in your stomach. Setting up the bait was always easy, as Rafayel was more than eager to hook himself to anything that even remotely involved you. Though, for tonight, you wondered if it would work its magic like always—if you’d still be able to reel in your prized catch.

Only time would tell.

You exhaled, and walked towards the mirror. Leaning your palms onto the sink, you took a moment to gather yourself and comprehend what exactly had just happened. The waiter, Rafayel, the strange yet surprisingly effective bonding moment of disposing of a body together, the kiss he’d given you on top of that cliff—that kiss, you would never come to understand, you thought, as you scrunched up your nose once you finally laid eyes on your appearance.

It wasn’t that your frazzled state came as a surprise. They were all sights you’d seen before. Yourself covered in someone’s blood, with a murderous glint in your eyes and your hair a tousled mess. No, what surprised you was Rafayel’s willingness to kiss you despite you resembling something that had crawled out of a sewer. What a darling, truly.

The thought of your husband made you smile again. With a silly, lovesick little grin you undressed yourself, and finally sought some much needed reprieve under the soothing, hot stream of the shower. In an instant, all the tension in your muscles disappeared and you breathed a sigh of relief. Slowly, over time, the water underneath your feet started to turn a soft red as the blood came off your skin and washed down the drain. It made you feel much cleaner, even before touching a single bar of soap.

When bringing your hands down and away from your face, your breath hitched in your throat as you suddenly felt a pair of hands settle on your waist. It worked, you thought immediately. Your heart stuttered in excitement, and the familiar flutter of butterflies appeared in your stomach as Rafayel pressed a soft, lingering kiss against your temple. You sighed in relief. It still worked. Your murderous escapades hadn’t deterred him one bit.

His fingers gently collected your hair in their grasp, gathering all the strands before he kissed your (now blood-less) check. “Let me wash your hair,” he whispered, his breath feeling hot on your ear.

“Mhm,” you hummed softly.

He was here. He was here, and he was warm, and gentle, and loving, and that mere fact of the matter sent a thrill up your spine. Rafayel truly didn’t seem to care. If you were a little bolder, you’d dare to say he even enjoyed the revelation he had tonight. Though, it was best not to jump to conclusions. Being flattered was still a far cry from enjoying it. However, it was much better than your initial scenario. A win is a win.

You let out a relieved sigh. Rafayel’s fingers in your hair, massaging your scalp, and carefully rinsing out the shampoo, a gesture so simple, yet it never failed to soothe your fraying nerves. It almost felt like you ascended to Heaven when your darling Lemurian started humming a soft tune. His song echoed through the ever-damp bathroom, the lullaby carried from one of your ears to the other and back again. You’d never understood the appeal of sirens, not until you met your own.

“You always sound so beautiful,” you mumbled in awe. With your eyes closed, your other senses sharpened and you could feel and hear him chuckle against the shell of your ear again.

Rafayel kissed your temple once more. “So I’ve been told,” he said, a teasing lilt to his voice. Teasing, because the only person he ever willingly sang for, and therefore told him such, was right in front of him. You huffed, lips curling up into a smile. “Hair’s all done, my love.”

Your heart skipped a beat. It truly wasn’t fair how easily he could do that to you; Just by uttering a nickname. My love. It wasn’t something he called you on a daily basis. With good reason, as it was usually loaded with meaning, with passion—only uttered on the days where Rafayel felt the all-consuming need to intertwine the essence of his very soul with yours so you two may never part, to crawl underneath your skin and live out his days happily in the confinement of your ribcage if it meant an eternity of being close to you.

You hadn’t expected to hear it today.

Your expression told him as much. With widened eyes, and a hitch in your breathing, you spun around in his arms, frantically searching for his gaze. Rafayel was already looking at you. His eyes carried a swirl of emotion you hadn’t seen in there before, not at the same time. They were warm, and adoring, and happy, and at ease, as if something inside him finally found the missing piece he’d been searching for; they held all that, and more, with bouts of possessiveness shining through, and the piercing glint of them felt as if he was staring straight into the very depths of your soul—as if he was, perhaps for the first time ever, truly seeing you.

All of you. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the darkness you’d tried so hard to hide.

. . .And yet, he never looked away.

You blinked, and so did he. Rafayel brought one hand up to cup your cheek, tilting your face upwards while his other one made sure to firmly situate itself around your waist. He pressed your flush against him, chest to chest, and you released a shaky breath as you felt the hardness of him against your stomach. The longing for him intensified, and your legs started to weaken as you felt bits of his pre-cum staining your wet skin. You wanted him, and it seemed that, even after all of this, he, too still desperately craved you.

“My dearest,” he spoke up again. He kept his gentle hold on your cheek, making it so you couldn’t look away from him even if you tried. That was of no problem to you, as you never felt the desire to do so, anyway. You hummed, eyes briefly fluttering shut in bliss as you felt his other hand caressing your back so very lovingly. “May I…”

“Please,” you choked out. It sounded depraved, and under any other circumstances you might have felt the urge to be embarrassed.

However, it was all Rafayel needed to hear. His lips were on yours before your mind could catch up. They were soft, and familiar, and tasted vaguely of the sweet cotton candy the two of you had snagged on the way home from the art exhibition earlier today. It was a stark contrast to the way he was kissing you; as the kiss was bruising, deep and passionate as if the air in the room could only be given to him through the reprieve of your mouth on his—as if you were the oxygen he breathed. It felt as if he were stealing the air in your lungs and transporting it to his own, as you got more and more out of breath by the second.

“M—hm,” you grunted, as an attempt to catch your breath without having to pull back too much. He felt so incredibly good, and parting from him seemed far worse than succumbing to the lack of air in your lungs.

As always happened whenever Rafayel kissed you, you suddenly became keenly aware of his very being; of the very palpable presence of him, even with your eyes closed, you identified the soft flutter of his lashes against your cheeks, the texture of his skin underneath your fingers, the pressure of his lips against yours, and the roaming of his hands from your waist down to the back of your thighs.

He was here. He was real. And he was yours.

Rafayel pulled back first, the moment so brief that it didn’t even give him the time to gloat about the fact that you desperately chased after him, and gave both of you no more than a second to breath before connecting you two again; deeper this time, as he nudged your mouth open and swiftly slid his tongue inside.

The moan you let out was involuntary, as was the short squeak that slipped out as Rafayel suddenly grabbed the back of your thighs and lifted you off the ground. Your protests got stifled by him deepening the kiss, and he greedily swallowed the mixture of groans and hisses you let out as you felt the cold tiles of the shower wall against your skin. Any complaint you had melted away like snow underneath the sun, completely distracted by the searing onslaught of his lips. And still, you wanted him to be even closer.

Your hands reached up to his hair, and tangled in the wet strands. The gentleness you usually reserved for him was briefly forgotten as you tugged on his locks with a little too much force, the need for him overpowering you. Rafayel let out a groan, and adjusted your legs around his waist. With them firmly wrapped around him, your bodies fully pressed together, you could finally feel him in its entirety.

His heavy, needy cock brushed against your sticky folds, and your breath hitched in your throat as you felt it smear some warm pre-cum against the underside of your ass. When he pulled back from the kiss, Rafayel’s cheeks donned a fiery red colour, his quick pants brushed against your lips, and just as you were about to plead with him to get a move on—he suddenly brought his fingers to your mouth.

Rafayel waited. His digits rested against your lips, waiting for you to open your mouth and welcome them in there like you had done many times before; waiting for you to suck on them, to get them nice and wet before he used them to spread you open and get you ready for him. You didn’t have the heart to tell him that the two of you were underneath the shower and that they, therefore, were already wet.

Though, on a night such as tonight, you didn’t crave his fingers. You craved him.

With a shake of your head, you pushed his fingers away.

It surprised him, clearly, as he tilted his head to the side. “No?” He asked, an eyebrow raised. An amused smirk settled on his lips, and he playfully tapped your lips with his index finger. “You sure?”

“Very,” you said, nearly immediately, and used your hold on his shoulders to pull him tighter against you. It startled him a bit, as he had to adjust his hold on you. You granted him little time to gather his bearings, and grinded your cunt onto the base of his cock. Rafayel stifled a groan, tensing up at the feeling and squeezing the fat of your ass as a reflex. “Your fingers won’t be enough this time. I want you. I want you now, Rafayel.”

In any other circumstances, he’d make you work for it. He would choose to tease you a bit here, throw in a taunt there—this time, however, the neediness you felt was shared.

“Fuck, okay,” he breathed, sighing, as if that would make him catch his breath any faster. “Yeah, okay, c’mere, princess.”

He stole another moan from you with the bruising kiss he pressed against your lips, and another one as he kissed you again, and again, and again, until he pulled back again to rest his forehead against yours. One of his hands trailed downwards, in-between your bodies, and wrapped around his hard cock, its normally soft-ish pink tip now an angry shade of red. He stroked himself a couple of times, and let out a low moan as your hand accompanied his and started moving in sync with him.

Each pump of his cock was joined by another profanity, and when you were confident he’d muttered all the curse words underneath the sun, you lined him up with your entrance—only for him to switch to Lemurian and continue his array of colourful words. Rafayel was forming a knack for surprising you, it seemed.

“Please, just. . .” You trail off, biting down on your lower lip as you felt his tip slowly, painfully slowly, start to breach your entrance. You attempted to guide yourself forward, to feel every part of him within you sooner, but he didn’t allow you to; his firm hold on you prevented you from moving even so much as an inch. “Let me have you, please.”

“You have me,” Rafayel said, tearing his gaze away from where the two of you were slowly becoming one so he could look into your eyes. His lips found yours again, as they have many times this night, and he greedily lapped up every sound you let out as he finally drove himself into you fully. Spit, kisses, soft moans, and high-pitched whimpers got exchanged between the two of you as Rafayel bottomed out inside you. “You got that? You have me. All of me.”

“All of you,” you echoed.

The pink and blue hues in his eyes started swirling together, creating an imagery that once again made you aware of the otherworldly beauty your dear husband possessed—which was a given, of course, as he truly was from another world. You sighed in bliss, and Rafayel started moving at last once he deemed enough time to have passed for you to adjust to him; since you always had to, no matter how often you’d taken him already. The stretch had become familiar, yes, but in no way had it seized to exist.

“All of me,” he confirmed, and started to set a proper pace.

It wasn’t rough, or hard, or fast, but god, was it deep—as if he were pouring a fragment of his very essence into you with each thrust. Pulling out all the way, just to fuck himself in even deeper; over and over and over again. He made sure to savour every little feeling, to feel each and every ridge of your inner walls, and allowing you to feel every vein on his lengthy cock. And even though you’d had sex with Rafayel plenty of times before, somehow this felt as if it were the firs time all over again.

In a way, it was. For the first time, you made love while truly knowing every single inch of the other’s inner workings—while really knowing the other. Leaving that door ajar hadn’t just opened the bathroom door. It left space for a deeper connection to form, for a vulnerability to show that both of you had kept so well-hidden before.

The fear of losing the other.

Whether it was to other people, or to (seemingly) unknown dangers didn’t matter. That fear had driven you both to show exactly how far either of you would go to make sure it would never come to fruition.

Rafayel’s pretty moans graced your ears and pulled you out of your daydream, guiding you back to the present with him and making you aware of the steam that’d started to form in the bathroom. You nearly couldn’t see a thing, only able to make out Rafayel—which was all that you needed to, truly.

“F—Fuck, you feel so good, I. . .” He panted. Another plethora of Lemurian rambles slipped past his lips, and under different circumstances you’d try your hand at understanding it; with your limited but ever-growing knowledge of the language. “Fuck, I—I love you.”

“I love you,” you told him, making sure to push as much of your love for him into those three words. You wanted him to feel it, rather than just hear it. He gave a particularly nasty thrust at that, one that caused his tip to bump into rather sensitive spot of yours. You whined, and dug your nails into his shoulder blades to steady yourself. “So much, yeah? F—fuck, I love you so much, Rafayel.”

He groaned at the feeling of your nails digging into his back. “So much,” he repeated your words. Almost like a mantra. “So much, so much, so much, ah—!” Rafayel rambled, each case followed closely by another rut into your tight heat.

Overcome by pleasure, you nearly missed the way his bond mark started to glow a faint red. Nearly, of course, being the keyword. Your heart immediately fluttered at the sight; At the eternal reminder of his belonging to you. A shaky hand of yours found its way to his collarbone, engulfing the mark as a surge of possessiveness coursed through you.

“All of you,” you mumbled again. You could feel Rafayel’s heartbeat underneath your palm, directly underneath the mark. It was erratic, and it skipped a beat when he gave a harsh thrust upon noticing your hand on his chest. “A—All mine.”

Rafayel placed one of his hands on yours, while the other helped keep you upright. “All, ah, all yours, my love,” he stammered, and you could tell that he started to near his end by the way his grip on your hand started to falter.

But, your darling husband was a romantic down to his very bones, and would rarely allow himself to indulge in the wicked sin of cumming first. It was something he saved for those lust-filled nights where you were in control, with him entirely at your mercy—but, as it was, tonight was not one of those nights. And so, Rafayel slowed down his pace to prolong his release. While his speed went down, the intensity of his thrusts stayed the same. Deep, hard strokes hit into that same, familiar spot within you that only his cock has ever been able to reach.

The hand that had been tenderly wrapped around yours dropped down in-between your legs, seeking out your clit to intensify the euphoria coursing through your veins. Each rub, flick and pinch against it was calculated, given in such a way that Rafayel knew would make you keen under his touch. With him being so intimately familiar with every inch of your body, it didn’t take him particularly long to drive you further towards the edge; and he greedily drank up every one of your moans, even when they’d started to pick up in pitch.

“I’m. . .Raf, I—!” You gasped against his mouth, but he silenced you almost immediately by pressing a firm kiss against your lips.

“I know,” he said, panting against you. Another kiss was given to you, and another, and another, and you squealed as he started picking up the pace again. “I know.”

Because of course he does. There wasn’t a person out there who knew you better than him, nor was there anybody else who knew him better than you.

“Don’t stop, please,” You said. Your voice didn’t make it further than a breathy whisper, with you being nearly out of breath. Both your hands cupped his face and you held him as close to you as possible. “I love you so much.”

Rafayel let out a strangled whine at that. Your walls clenched around him, and your fingers tangled from his nape up into the hairs at the base of his neck. Once there, the soft tugs you gave on them sent a shiver down his spine—and a sharp whimper left him the second you came around him and tugged harshly on the purple-ish strands.

“Ah,” he hissed, the muscles in his body tensing as he felt the way your walls sucked him in with an amount of greed he’d never seen before. “Fu—Love you, l—love you, so. . .ah, f—fuck!”

There was little he could do except for tumble right over the edge alongside you.

Your blissful melody sounded through the bathroom, moans weaving together to create the most beautiful song while the two of you got lost in each other. Rafayel’s hand faltered against your clit, biding you some reprieve to come down from your own high, as he let himself go and filled you up as much as he could.

Long, thick ropes of his cum seeped into you, nearly straight into your womb as Rafayel’s tip sat snug against your cervix. Some of his seed started dripping down your leg as he came, and came, and came, and unloaded every drop of his most intense orgasm to date into you. It almost felt never-ending, but nothing truly is—so when he finally did finish, he was out of breath, a little disoriented and nearly entirely flushed red. His chest was heaving upwards rapidly, and he let out a deep sigh as he rested his forehead against yours.

Neither of you had any air left to give. Still, you sought out the other for a kiss.

It was no longer as charged as before, though. It was soft, and loving, and so delicate; as if both of you were afraid of hurting the other if you were to be too harsh. Rafayel nudged his nose against your own, an action that made you giggle.

It was the only movement between you two for a good while, both of you choosing to relish in the other’s closeness for just a little longer. When it was time to finally pull away from you, Rafayel (begrudgingly) made the first move to.

He pulled out of you slowly, and you nearly let out a whine at the emptiness that washed over you because of it. All that you were left with was his release partially inside you, with the rest of it clinging to the inside of your thighs. Rafayel huffed in amusement, a small entertained smirk curling at the end of his lips as he watched your reaction. Finding it cute, he pressed a sweet kiss to your cheekbone before carefully putting you back onto the ground.

“Careful,” he chirped, noticing how you struggled to remain upright with your shaky legs. One of his hands quickly rested on your waist to steady you, and his smirk widened.

You tried to scoff in annoyance, but failed miserably due to the smile that crept up your face. “Yeah, yeah,” you mumbled instead, watching as Rafayel’s usual bravado gradually made its return; the intensity of the moment you shared slowly fading away.

Though, despite that, you still felt impossibly closer to him.

Rafayel looked at you. His head tilted to the side, and a few of his fingers gently brushed over your collarbone to wipe away a few of the droplets of water laying on your skin. A futile effort, really, as more and more fell on you anyway considering you were still underneath the hot shower.

“Let me wash your body, too,” he said. “Please?”

With all that had happened, you nearly forgot that you’d gotten into the shower to clean yourself. And so, you gave Rafayel a quick nod and watched as he happily reached for the vanilla and caramel-scented soaps and shower gels before getting to work.

He touched your body with the utmost care. Every inch of you got caressed in a way that not just left your skin clean, but also left your heart full. After each part was done, Rafayel pressed a kiss to an area there—from your arms, to your shoulder blades, to your nape, to your lower legs, and to your stomach and thighs. Nevermind that he had to kneel in front of you to reach certain points, he did it without a fuss.

It was clear to you then. Rafayel loved you. Absolutely every part of you was thoroughly adored and revered by the man in front of you.

You felt like the luckiest person in the world.

And then, as if it were simply like any other night, the two of you fell into your familiar routine. With you dressing yourself into one of his shirts, and him only putting on a black pair of boxers, and with the two of you goofing off in front of the bathroom mirror while brushing your teeth. Rafayel dried your hair like he did on every other night and then tucked the two of you into bed, making sure that the covers were snugly wrapped around your bodies.

You sighed, head laying on his chest. The starry sky was entirely visible, with little to no clouds in the way of them, and Rafayel’s sunroof allowing you a perfect view of them.

What a day.

Rafayel held you in his arms. You felt as if that was were you always belonged. Basking in his presence, admiring the stars above you while he gently traced silly patterns on your back (seriously, you thought you’d identified a fish, a butterfly and a squirrel). Though, despite the increasing amount of peacefulness that settled upon you—there was one thing still bothering you.

“How did you know where I was?”

“Hm?” Rafayel hummed, pausing his tracing. It seemed his mind buffered a bit, as it took him a few seconds before he answered. “Oh, there’s a tracker on your car.”

It’s as if you asked him what he’d had for dinner; the airiness in his voice something he’d usually only reserve for the most mundane questions.

“You—!” You stuttered, a little bewildered at the ease with which he made his confession. Though, in hindsight, you shouldn’t have been. It wasn’t the first time. “First it was my suitcase, now it’s my car. . .How many trackers do you have?”

It was meant as a joke.

“Seven, but one of them got destroyed when you decided to walk through a heavy downpour without an umbrella, so, six are left,” Rafayel answered anyway.

You blinked, and he tapped the tip of your nose with a small smile. “You’re insane,” you concluded.

Rafayel tilted his head to the side, with an eyebrow raised. “You kill people who stand too close to me,” he said matter-of-factly.

Heat rose to your cheeks. “I—you—you make me sound so deranged,” you grumbled, attempting to defend yourself at least a little. The warmth on your cheeks spread out to the tips of your ears when you felt Rafayel laugh; it was a knowing laugh, a chuckle that called your bluff. “I’m not! I swear, I’m not entirely unreasonable. Of course, you can speak to other people. Some of them, though. . .”

“Yes?”

He was enjoying this way too much. Too much cheerfulness was in his voice to be considered normal. You didn’t know whether to be relived or find the nearest rock to crawl under out of embarrassment, because, yeah, it did sound a little unhinged. You gently hit him in the chest, as if that would get rid of the smug smile forming on his lips.

“They’re just so rude,” you mumbled, scrunching up your nose. Rafayel hummed in agreement, sensing some truth in your words. “Other than being overly familiar with you, they also bat their eyelashes, touch your arm, playfully hit your chest. . .´

“Like you just did?”

“Yes, exactly, like I just did—your wife,” you said, making sure to put a great emphasis on the very last word of your sentence. Rafayel’s smile grew in size. “And it just seems like they don’t care for that fact at all. Even after I arrive, or even after they see your ring, they don’t seem to be deterred at all.”

Rafayel hummed. He grabbed your hand, intertwining it with his own. “And that bothers you?”

“Immensely,” you said, eyebrows furrowed at the mere thought of it. You glanced at your husband, your previous disdain-filled look making way for a questioning one. “I mean, you’re mine, aren’t you?”

He smiled. Your seeking of reassurance was adorable, and Rafayel would gladly give it to you every single time. With his arms wrapped tightly around you, he held you against his chest and rested his chin on top of your head after pressing a light kiss to your crown. His way of confirming that, yes, he definitely was.

“My crazy wife,” he mumbled, sighing happily. Your inability to deny his statement left you feeling a little sheepish. “Oh, how I adore my crazy wife.”

A crazy wife, and her equally crazy husband.

You snuggled closer to Rafayel, a peaceful smile on your lips.

Yes, the two of you sure make quite the pair.

[cocassedoodles]

He would do this to bully Thomas I swear

[lotusmuses]

we love opera singer tamino.

[umamaki]

tw: NSFW, explicit smut, consensual violence, color system for consent, choking, breath play, hair pulling, dacryphilia, spanking, rough sex, markings (bruises, hickies, biting), bdsm i think, things of that nature

Rafayel doesn’t really hide the fact that he is a violent man. He doesn’t hide it when he sees your cute face and can’t help but feel the most intense cuteness aggression towards you. 

Greets you at his house and immediately has his head in his hands and jaw clenched tight, completely overwhelmed with the surge of emotions. He’s used to acting on his impulses, this is no different. 

The way he kisses you is telling enough. Once he feels your lips on his, a switch flips in his mind and he suddenly can’t get enough of you. Keeping you in place with his large hand holding the back of your head, kissing you with enough pressure that your teeth clash together and you reflexively walk backwards. Devours your lips to where you can’t recover fast enough to reciprocate his kisses.

Loves the way you look now, laying below him, face framed by his two hands leaving a bruising grip on your neck. Thinks it’s even cuter to see you struggle to take in breaths while he fucks the stamina out of you, letting you get a little dizzy before releasing you and fucking you impossibly harder as you try to regain your breath.

Otherwise, his hands are typically squeezing your ass, hips, tits, thighs. Gives him so much satisfaction to see your pretty body covered in darkening marks in the shape of his hands. 

Fucks you rough while the sweetest praises are coming out of his mouth. 

“You’re so cute, baby. You know that?” He coos while ramming his dick into your sopping cunt from behind. Watches your arched form below him, body jerking with each thrust and spank he gives you. Pulls you by your hair so you can turn your head just enough to lock eyes with him as you cum.

Thinks you’re even cuter with tears streaming down your face, makeup all messed up and a whimpering mess because of him. “Awh cutie, don’t cry. I know what’ll make you feel better,” he’ll say with faux comfort, only plunging his cock into you further.

Rafayel’s an artist, but he can’t decide if he likes the process or result of marking you up more. So shameless in how satisfied it makes him, seeing you covered up in developing bruises and bite marks. He’s a perfectionist, makes it all symmetrical. 

“Patience, baby, I haven’t even gotten to your left side yet,” even you’re pawing at his chest from the overstimulation.

He wants you to tell him to stop, tell him to control himself. The problem is, you’re enjoying this just as much as he is. 

“What color.” It’s less of a question and more of a demand, strained through his gritted teeth. Green, you’ll say, and he’ll grasp your chin so you’re looking at him. Makes you say it again, just to make sure his arousal and preoccupation isn’t clouding his hearing. It isn’t. Your color is still green. He gains confidence with the confirmation, makes it his mission that you’ll wake up sore the next morning. 

[mephisto-reporting]

Hearbreak Anniversary with Rafayel

Summary: It was your anniversary with Rafayel. One year of togetherness. But what if he does not show up when you expect him to? What if he was spending it with MC? Pairing: Non MC! Reader x Rafayel Note: MC in this fic goes by the name Lina (my name... so if you are angry, you can be angry at me :3). This oneshot was based on this request. I will write this for the other LADS men too. Content Warning: Fear of abandonment, self worth issues, angst, hurt and slight comfort, Rafayel grovelling, Rafayel POV

The soft glow of the sunset filtered through the gauzy curtains of Rafayel’s studio, painting the space in warm hues of gold and orange. The place smelled faintly of him—a mix of turpentine, salt, and the faint trace of his cologne. You had spent hours here today, your hands busy arranging the decorations you’d so carefully prepared for this special occasion. Sea shells, shimmering like iridescent pearls, lined the edges of the room, their opalescent beauty a nod to the ocean he once called home. Candles flickered softly on every surface, their flames dancing to an unseen rhythm. You’d even managed to find strands of silken seaweed and glass ornaments, hoping to evoke the beauty of his heritage, the beauty of him.

Every corner of his art studio had been dusted, tidied, and then transformed with touches of magic, warmth, and care. You even placed the tiny trinkets and mementos you had kept from your shared moments—little souvenirs from your adventures together, knickknacks that held meaning between the two of you. You wanted him to feel at home, to feel the same sense of belonging that you had with him. You even wore your best clothes, the ones he had once complimented.

Today was your first anniversary. The thought alone sent your heart fluttering, and you’d poured all that love into this space, into this moment.

A few months ago he had told you this was just another day for him. A god’s sense of time was different, fleeting, perhaps even insignificant. But to you, it meant everything. It was a celebration of love that had somehow defied the odds—of a mortal heart tangled with one belonging to something far greater. So you ignored the whispering doubts that crept into the back of your mind, choosing instead to focus on trust. Rafayel had chosen you, not her. No matter how many stories tied them together, no matter the whispered inevitability of their connection, he had assured you. It was you he loved now.

But as the hours passed, that fragile trust began to tremble.

You sat in the chair by the window, smoothing down the dress you’d picked especially for today. Time crawled. The soft golden light of day gave way to a dark, yawning sky, and still, Rafayel didn’t come home. The anniversary dinner, meticulously prepared and carefully plated, sat untouched on the table. Each tick of the clock became a cruel reminder of his absence.

Worry gnawed at you. What if something had happened to him? Perhaps the art sale ran late, or he was caught up with his patrons. But he always came back home, right?

Your heart twisted as you reached for your phone, dialing a number you didn’t want to use but needed to.

“Thomas?” you asked hesitantly, your voice trembling.

“Oh, hey,” Rafayel’s manager greeted casually. “Everything okay?”

“Is Rafayel still at the sale?” You tried to keep the panic from seeping into your tone, but the silence on the other end was damning.

“Uh… no, he left hours ago. Said he was going to grab dinner. Lina was with him.”

Your grip tightened on the phone, your knuckles turning white.

Lina.

The name struck like a knife.

“Thanks, Thomas,” you whispered, hanging up before he could ask anything more.

You sat there, staring at the flickering candles, their light casting long shadows across the studio walls. He was with Lina. On your anniversary. You had trusted him, convinced yourself that you were enough despite the insecurities that had clawed at your heart since the day you met him.

But now, they came roaring to life.

You had known, of course, who Lina was. She was the one linked to the sea god, his past, his history—his heart. You tried not to let it affect you, tried to bury the insecurities that rose whenever she came up in conversation. Rafayel always assured you there was nothing between them. But then why was he with her, of all people, on your anniversary?

Tears blurred your vision as your chest tightened painfully. Lina.

She was everything you were not. Strong, beautiful, a part of Rafayel’s past, his first love. How could you compete with that? How could you compete with someone who had shared so much more with him, someone whose bond with him was carved in the very fabric of his existence? She was a part of him, woven into the his story, while you were… just someone who had stumbled into his life, someone insignificant in comparison.

Lina... The woman who was forever tied to his past. The sea god's bride. The one he’d loved for so long, the one who had always been there, time after time. You had told yourself, time and time again, that it was nothing. That Rafayel was different with you. He had assured you that there was nothing between them anymore.

But if it’s nothing, why is he with her now? On our day.

Your fingers trembled as you held the phone to your ear, but you couldn’t even bring yourself to ask any more questions. The answers were irrelevant now. His absence, her presence, they were all you needed to know.

Tears pooled at the edges of your vision before spilling over, streaking your face like tiny rivers tracing paths through dusted cheeks. It wasn’t fair. Nothing felt fair. He had promised you. He had promised. But promises were like ocean tides, weren’t they? Sweeping away whatever they could, leaving only bits of broken shells behind.

Lina was everything you could never be. She was strong, beautiful, powerful—everything that Rafayel deserved. She had the sea god’s heart, had always had it, and here you were, just a fleeting ripple on the surface, barely a mark to him. She was woven into the fabric of his past, his future. What are you to him? What have you ever been?

The memories of your relationship, the quiet moments of closeness, the laughter shared under the soft, flickering light of his candles, all those moments seemed so... fragile now. Fragile and fleeting. You were nobody. Just a distraction, a place holder. Nothing more.

You stood up abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor like the scratch of claws on stone. The studio, his studio, filled with remnants of him, was suffocating. His scent lingered in the air, the faint trace of his cologne mixing with the oils and paints scattered everywhere. His taste still clung to your lips from the last time you’d kissed him, the memories of his touch branded into your skin. It was all too much. Too much. The studio, so full of him, was now a suffocating reminder of what you had lost. You didn’t want to stay. You couldn’t.

You tried to hold the tears back, but it was useless. Every doubt, every fear you’d bottled up over the months came crashing down, drowning you in their suffocating weight.

This wasn’t love. This was a cruel game, one you couldn’t win.

You couldn’t breathe. You had to get out.

Your legs moved before your mind could catch up, carrying you toward the door. The wind hit your face the moment you stepped outside, cool and biting, but it wasn’t enough to quell the storm raging inside you.

You ran.

The streets blurred into one indistinct smear of light and shadow as you ran aimlessly, your feet pounding against the pavement, carrying you farther and farther from that studio. From him.

Eventually, the pavement gave way to sand, and the sharp tang of the ocean filled the air. The moon hung high above, casting a silver glow over the beach. Your chest heaved, your lungs burning as you collapsed onto the sand, letting the waves crash against the shore in a soothing rhythm that mocked your turmoil. You kept running, further and further away from whitesand bay, along the beach.

You stumbled, falling to your knees in the sand, clutching your arms around yourself. Your chest heaved as the tears fell freely, the sound of the ocean mixing with your sobs. Lina. You could picture them together, her hand in his, the same way they had been for so many years before you. The seagulls cried above you, indifferent to your pain. And in that moment, you realized that the world didn’t stop for you. It never had. You stared out at the endless sea, the dark horizon stretching in front of you.

How could I have been so blind?

The waves crashed against the shore, each one louder than the last. You are nothing to him. The thought echoed in your mind over and over, relentless, until you could barely breathe under the weight of it.

And just when you thought the world couldn’t get any colder, the tears started again. They fell freely now, salt mixing with the salt of the sea.

You had wanted to be enough. But maybe that was a joke after all. But even as your body trembled with the weight of the heartbreak, you knew one thing: You could never go back. Not to him, not to that studio, not to any of it. You were just a wave, crashing onto the shore, and he was the sea god.

The night wrapped itself around you like a suffocating blanket. The cold air bit into your skin, but it wasn’t enough to numb the ache clawing at your chest. Each crashing wave seemed to echo the bitter truth you couldn’t escape: you were never going to be enough for him. You curled tighter into yourself, trembling as the tears continued to flow. The sand clung to your dress, to your damp hands, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. The world had narrowed to the storm raging inside you—a tempest of betrayal, doubt, and misery.

The sharp chill of the ocean breeze whipped your hair against your tear-streaked face, but it was nothing compared to the icy grip of despair coiling around your heart. Every promise he’d made, every word of reassurance, felt like shards of glass now, cutting into the fragile hope you’d built. The waves surged closer, the cold spray dotting your skin. Your sobs mixed with the crashing tide, swallowed up by the vast, indifferent sea.

You hugged yourself tightly, your body shaking as the cold seeped deeper into your bones. Yet, you stayed there, rooted to the spot, as if the ocean could somehow wash away the ache inside you. But no wave could reach that far, no tide could touch the place where your heart ached. You wanted to scream, to shout at the world for the injustice of it all, but the air in your lungs wouldn’t let you. You were too small for this world, too insignificant for him. You would never be the sea. You were just a small wave, lost in the expanse of the tide.

Rafayel’s POV

The door to the studio swung open, and Rafayel stepped inside, laughter trailing after him. “You should’ve seen the look on that shopkeeper’s face when I said we’d take both cakes,” he said, his voice warm and light. He turned to Lina, who chuckled softly as she followed him, holding one of the carefully boxed pastries. “He probably thought we were insane.”

Rafayel kicked the door shut behind him, balancing his own box of confections, his grin still in place. “I can’t wait to see my cutie’s face when she tries these. She’s going to love them.”

But the moment his gaze swept across the room, his laughter faltered and then stopped entirely.

The studio was transformed. Soft candlelight flickered, casting golden hues across the walls. Seashells glimmered like scattered pearls, carefully arranged along the edges of the space. Strands of delicate seaweed draped like garlands, their green silkiness catching the light. Trinkets, small but unmistakably meaningful, dotted the surfaces—each one an ode to moments he had shared with you. The table was set with plates of untouched food, lovingly prepared, and the air held a faint, tantalizing aroma that now felt unbearably heavy.

He froze, the pastry box slipping slightly in his grip. His throat tightened as his eyes roved over every detail, taking in the love and care you had poured into the space. The decorations, the mementos, the effort—it was overwhelming.

“Rafayel?” Lina’s voice broke through the silence. She stepped forward, her brows knitting in concern. “What’s wrong?”

“I…” His voice cracked, and he set the box down on the nearest surface with trembling hands. “I fucked up,” he whispered, barely audible. His fingers grazed one of the seashells, its surface smooth and cool. He trailed his hand over a string of seaweed, the soft texture almost mocking him. “I fucked up bad.”

Lina’s concern deepened. “What are you talking about?”

Rafayel turned toward her, his expression stricken. “The anniversary. Our anniversary. It slipped my mind.” His voice was a low, shaky whisper as he glanced back at the table, the untouched plates, the flickering candles. “She did all of this… for me. For us.”

He called out your name, his voice echoing through the space. “Are you here? Cutie?” His steps quickened as he moved through the studio, searching. The bathroom. The bedroom. The small corner where you sometimes curled up to read. “Are you asleep?” he called, though he knew better. Each empty room was another blow to his gut.

Panic clawed at him as he returned to the main room, his gaze darting to the table again, the small trinkets, the soft glow of candles still burning. The room felt haunted, filled with the ghost of your hope and effort.

“Shit,” he muttered under his breath, running a hand through his hair, gripping it tightly. He grabbed his phone and immediately dialed Thomas.

“Thomas, did she—did she say anything to you? Did she mention where she might go?” Rafayel’s voice was taut with desperation.

Thomas hesitated. “She called me earlier. She asked if you were still at the sale. That’s all she said.”

The weight of Thomas’s words slammed into Rafayel like a wave. You’d called, searching for him, only to learn the truth he had tried to ignore. It had slipped his mind completely. He didn’t know you were setting all of this up. For him. For the both of you.

“Thanks,” Rafayel muttered, ending the call and immediately dialing your number. He paced the studio, his heart racing as the line rang once… twice… three times—

And then he heard it. The faint buzz of your phone, abandoned on the sofa near the window.

“Shit!” Rafayel cursed, grabbing the device and staring at the darkened screen as if it could offer him answers. “Shit, shit, shit!”

He collapsed onto the chair you had once sat in, his head in his hands. Where were you? His gaze drifted to the table again, the untouched dinner, the carefully arranged decorations.

How could he have been so blind? So careless? You had given him everything, and he… he had been too wrapped up in himself, too foolish to see what truly mattered.

Lina hesitated before taking a few careful steps toward Rafayel, watching his every move with growing concern. She’d never seen him like this before. His usual confident, almost cocky demeanor had vanished, leaving only raw distress in its place. He sat slumped in the chair, his phone clutched tightly in his hands, his chest rising and falling with each shaky breath.

"Rafayel..." she began softly, her voice gentle but concerned. "What’s going on? What happened?"

Her hand brushed against his shoulder in an attempt to comfort him, but the instant her fingers made contact with his skin, he flinched as though struck. His body jerked back, his eyes flashing with something wild—something dangerous.  His eyes, usually a mischievous swirl of pink and blue, flared into a startling, unearthly bright blue before he clenched them shut, his jaw tightening.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, his voice hoarse as he pulled away, his fists curling. “Lina, I—sorry. I didn’t mean to—” He forced himself to inhale deeply, reigning in his emotions as the scales receded and his eyes returned to their usual hue. “I’m fine,” he lied, though the tension in his shoulders betrayed him. “I just... I need to find her.”

Lina’s hand hovered uncertainly before falling back to her side. “Rafayel,” she began gently, “her phone’s here. Her purse. Even her car keys. Where could she have gone?”

“I don’t know,” he snapped, the sharpness in his voice born of self-directed frustration. “And that’s what’s driving me insane.” He ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the roots as if the pain could ground him. “She’s out there somewhere, without her coat, without her phone... and it’s freezing tonight.”

Lina straightened, crossing her arms. “Then let me help—”

“No.” His interruption was immediate, his tone brooking no argument. He turned to her, his expression pained but resolute. “This is my fault. I need to fix this myself.”

“But—”

“Please, Lina,” he cut in, softer this time. “If she’s out there, you’ll hear from me. Just… if you see her, let me know. But I have to do this alone.”

After a long, hesitant pause, Lina relented, her lips pressing into a thin line. “Fine. But don’t do anything reckless. I’ll keep my eyes open and let you know if I find anything.”

Rafayel nodded, murmuring his thanks before grabbing his coat and storming out into the night.

The cold air bit at his face as he ran through the streets, his breath forming short puffs in the frigid night. He clutched his phone tightly, the screen glowing as he swiped to a recent photo of you, showing it to every passerby he stopped.

“Have you seen her?” he asked a bewildered man on the corner. “This woman? Please—it’s urgent.”

The man shook his head, muttering an apology before hurrying off. Rafayel grit his teeth, suppressing the wave of panic threatening to consume him. Where are you?

The thought repeated like a drumbeat as he made his way to the beach. The icy wind off the water made him shiver, but he pressed forward, searching desperately. He called your neighbor, pacing along the shoreline as he waited for an answer.

The voice on the other end was soft, a little worried. “No... the lights are off. The door’s locked. I haven’t seen her since this afternoon.”

His heart skipped a beat, the silence that followed pressing like a weight on his chest. Where were you? Where could you have gone? You were working so hard fore him, for the both of you since the afternoon and he wasn’t even there to experience it with you together. He could imagine it, the smile on your face as you placed those shells, the excitement in your movements as you cooked his favorite food. His eyes darted to the horizon, a dark line of water stretching out before him, and his legs moved faster, pushing him toward the shore, toward the place where you sometimes went to escape.

The beach was empty when he arrived, the wind biting at his skin, the waves crashing softly against the sand. He scanned the shoreline, dread filling him as he searched. There was no sign of you, but his heart refused to let go of the hope that you might be here.

He walked for what felt like hours, the weight of the cold creeping into his bones as the night deepened. The autumn air turned chillier, the first hints of winter brushing against his skin. You hadn’t taken your coat. You hadn’t taken anything. What was he thinking? You’d never leave without saying something. So why was he—

His breath hitched as his gaze landed on something ahead. A small lump on the sand.

His heart stopped, the world narrowing down to that single, fragile form crumpled against the cold ground.

“No!” he whispered, his voice raw with emotion. He ran towards you, his legs moving faster than they ever had before, fear propelling him forward. His feet barely touching the ground as he pushed forward, his every step frantic. He reached you within seconds, his pulse hammering in his ears. He knelt beside you, his hands trembling as he gently touched your shoulder.

“Cutie?” he called, his voice cracking. His knees hit the sand as he reached you, and his heart twisted painfully at the sight. You were curled in on yourself, your arms hugging your knees, your face hidden. Tear tracks glistened on your cheeks, even in the dim moonlight, and your body trembled from the cold.

“Shit,” Rafayel hissed, his voice barely a whisper as panic surged again. You were cold, so cold. Damp from the wet sand, your skin pale as if the very life had been drained from you. He pulled off his jacket, draping it around you as gently as he could, his hands still shaking.

Why didn’t I see it? Why didn’t I see how badly she needed me?

He slid his arms around you, his heart aching as he pulled you into his lap, cradling you as though you might break into a thousand pieces. He brushed the strands of hair from your face, his thumb gently caressing your cheek as he whispered your name over and over, praying that you would wake up. That you would hear him. “Fuck,” he breathed, feeling a wave of guilt crash over him. “What did I do? What the hell did I do…”

But he couldn’t. Not now. Now, all he could do was hold you, his arms wrapping around you protectively as he rocked gently, trying to warm you, trying to make everything okay.

“I’m here, okay? I’m here. I’m so sorry, cutie.” he whispered, his voice breaking. His mind raced, but nothing could erase the hollow ache in his chest. The thought of losing you, of failing you—he couldn’t bear it. He wouldn’t. “I’m sorry,” he choked out, the words tumbling from him like a confession he had never intended to make. “I’m so sorry. I fucked up. I messed this up, I—I’m here now.”

He clutched you tighter, trembling with the weight of his regret. The wind cut through the beach, but he barely noticed, too consumed by the sight of you—so still, so fragile, in his arms. His mind raced, scrambling for something, anything, to fix this

Your eyes fluttered open weakly, barely meeting his. You were too exhausted to respond, your body utterly spent.

“Hey,” he whispered, his voice unsteady as he gently tucked his coat tighter around you. “I’ve got you. I’m so sorry.” His thumb brushed the tear-streaked curve of your cheek, his chest aching at the evidence of your heartbreak. “You shouldn’t be out here. It’s too cold...not like this. Not alone,” Rafayel murmured, his voice thick with emotion. His hands trembled as he tried to warm you, his arms sheltering you from the relentless chill of the wind. “I should’ve been there. I should’ve—” He broke off, his throat tightening painfully. Words felt so useless now, but he couldn’t stop them. He needed you to know. “I’m the biggest idiot in the world. I forgot something so important, something that should’ve been at the center of my mind.” His arms slipped beneath you, lifting you effortlessly despite your protests—if there were any.

Your lips moved faintly, but the sound was lost in the cold wind. He leaned closer, his ear near your mouth. “What is it? I’m here. Please... say something.”

“I thought... maybe you'd care,” you whispered, your voice barely audible. The words struck him harder than any physical blow ever could. He felt the sting in his chest, his breath hitching as guilt twisted the knife deeper.

“I do care!” he exclaimed, his voice desperate. “More than anything. I was just... I was so caught up in everything else, and I—I didn’t realize how much you needed me. How much you’ve always been there for me. I messed up, cutie. I know I did.”

You shivered against him, and he shifted to shield you better from the biting wind. “Let me take you home,” he pleaded, his voice softer now. “We’ll fix this. I’ll fix this. I’ll make it right, I swear.”

For a long moment, you didn’t respond, and his heart hammered in his chest. Finally, you gave the faintest of nods, your head resting against his chest. You shivered in his arms, your eyes fluttering shut again, too drained to muster a response. Panic surged in Rafayel as he felt how cold your skin was against his. He shifted, standing with you carefully cradled in his arms, his coat wrapped tightly around you.

“Hey, hey, stay with me,” he pleaded, his voice urgent but soft. “I need you to hold on, okay? Just a little longer. Let’s get you somewhere warm.” He pressed his cheek to your temple for a moment, as though the simple touch might reassure you—and himself—that you were still here with him.

Rafayel didn’t waste a second. He scooped you up gently, careful not to jostle you. The warmth of his jacket wrapped around your frame and the steady rhythm of his heartbeat seemed to soothe some of the tension in your body. He murmured quiet reassurances as he carried you, his voice a constant presence in the cold, empty night. His normally cocky demeanor had shattered into shards of raw vulnerability, replaced by a frantic urgency to get you home—his home. Your breathing was shallow, your limbs slack in his hold, and every uneven step he took felt like walking a tightrope with everything he valued most precariously balanced in his grasp. He adjusted his hold, cradling you tighter against his chest. “Look, I know I’m an idiot sometimes. Fine, most of the time,” he admitted, his words a jumble of nervous energy and shaky humor. “But this isn’t the time to prove me wrong, alright? Just hang on a little longer. I’m taking you home.”

By the time you reached the studio, the candlelight had dimmed, but the room still held the warmth of the love you had poured into it. Rafayel carried you inside. By the time he reached the threshold of his room, his shirt clung to him, drenched from sweat and your tears. He nudged the door open with his shoulder, careful not to jostle you, and hurried inside.

The room was cold and dimly lit, the heater long dormant. He set you down on the bed, fumbling with the blankets to cocoon you in their warmth. Your body trembled, and his chest constricted as he watched you stir faintly before slipping deeper into unconsciousness.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, barely audible at first, as if the walls themselves might condemn him. Then louder, more desperate, his voice cracking. “I’m so damn sorry. I was stupid—so, so stupid. I should’ve seen this coming. Should’ve kept you safe. Should’ve—” He stopped himself, biting down hard on the inside of his cheek to stifle the sob building in his throat. His eyes flickered between his usual hues and that unearthly blue every now and then.

His hands hovered over your face, fingers trembling as he brushed damp strands of hair from your skin. “You’re too good for me, you know that? Too good for someone who screws up as much as I do. But I promise—” His voice broke, the words spilling out in a frenzied rush. “I promise I’ll make it up to you. Il love you, cutie. I love you so much.” And then, because even in his rawest moments he couldn’t help himself, he added with a weak, self-deprecating chuckle, “I am lucky I’m this charming, or I don’t think you’d ever put up with me.”

He turned on the heater, pacing back and forth as he muttered under his breath, berating himself in every way he could think of, his brattiness peeking through as he cursed the broken world that had led to this moment. He glanced at you repeatedly, as if reassuring himself you hadn’t vanished, that you hadn’t slipped through his fingers.

When you stirred, your eyelids fluttering open, he froze mid-step. His usual confident smirk was gone, replaced by wide, guilt-stricken eyes. “You’re awake,” he blurted, his voice filled with relief but tinged with apprehension. “I know I screwed up,” he admitted quietly, his lips brushing against your temple. “But—seriously, who let you do this to yourself, huh? Oh wait, that’s me. Fantastic job, Rafayel. Bravo.” He huffed out a shaky laugh, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, sitting at your bedside. The words spilled out before he could stop them, over and over again. “I’m so, so sorry. This—this isn’t how it was supposed to go. You’re supposed to be mad at me, not like this. Not…” His voice cracked, and he scrubbed a hand down his face, frustration bubbling beneath the surface.

Then, almost instinctively, the mask of bravado slipped back into place. “But, hey, look at you, stealing my bed like it’s your right. I mean, sure, I offered, but still.” His smirk faltered, his voice softening. “You better not make a habit of this, you know? Making me worry this much.”

You shifted, your eyelids fluttering completely open, and the sight of your weary gaze meeting his nearly unraveled him.

“Raf?” Your voice was weak, barely audible, but it was enough to snap him upright.

“Hey, you’re awake!” He forced a grin, though it couldn’t hide the guilt pooling in his eyes. “Good, because I was just about to start serenading you with an apology song. Don’t ask for a refund… the lyrics are terrible.”

You tried to sit up, but he was on you in an instant, gently pressing you back down. “Whoa, whoa, no sudden moves, alright? Just... stay put for once. Let me handle it for a change.”

"Handle what?" you asked, your voice edged with exhaustion and confusion.

His grin wavered, giving way to something more honest, more afraid. “Everything. All of it. I... I screwed up, okay? I’m the idiot who let you get like this, who didn’t see—who didn’t stop—” His words tangled, and he exhaled sharply. “I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry, and I’ll keep saying it until you believe me. Or, you know, until you tell me to shut up. Whichever comes first.”

Your lashes fluttered weakly again, and a barely audible sound escaped your lips. “...Rafayel...?”

His heart soared and broke all at once at the sound of your voice. “I’m here,” he said quickly, leaning closer so you could hear him clearly. “I’m right here. I’ve got you.”

Tears welled in his eyes as you looked up at him, your gaze heavy with exhaustion and something he couldn’t quite name—hurt, maybe, or disappointment. It cut him deeper than any blade ever could.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, his voice a choked whisper. “I know that doesn’t fix this, but I swear, I’ll spend every moment making it up to you if you let me.”

For a moment, silence hung between you, broken only by the hum of the heater and the soft whistle of the wind outside. Finally, you whispered, your voice trembling, “I waited...”

“I know,” he whispered, his tears falling freely now. “You shouldn’t have had to. You deserve better than that, better than me—but I’m begging you, please give me another chance. Don’t give up on me yet.”

Finally, your voice, though weak, broke the quiet. “You forgot... something that meant so much to me.”

Rafayel’s throat tightened, but he nodded, accepting your words. “I know. And I’ll spend as long as it takes to make it up to you. I’ll show you how much you mean to me. I love you,” he whispered against your skin, the words soft but raw with sincerity. “More than anything. More than I can even say. I don’t deserve you, but… please, let me try. Let me make it up to you.”

“Don’t leave me,” he repeated, his voice a breathless whisper, “Not like this.” His voice cracked on the last word, and for a moment, you could see the mask slip—just for a second. Rafayel was scared. Scared of losing you. Scared of failing you. It was the one thing he had never let you see, the one thing he kept locked away in the deep recesses of his heart, but now, it was clear as day.

As you looked at him, something shifted between the two of you—an understanding, perhaps. You could see his desperation, the way he clung to the edges of his composure, trying to hide the vulnerability he never allowed anyone to witness.

I thought... I thought this was everything I could give. Everything I could be..." your own voice cracking.

He shook his head again, his grip never loosening. “You’re so much more than all of this. I’ve been blind, cutie. And now I can see it—see you.” He gently cupped your face in his hands, his thumbs brushing over your cheeks as if to erase every doubt that had taken root there. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for making you feel invisible.”

You closed your eyes for a moment, the tears still staining your face, but the weight of his words was a strange kind of relief. He was here. He saw you now. The storm of emotions inside you hadn’t dissipated, but his presence, the raw sincerity in his voice, made you feel something close to safety.

Rafayel kissed your forehead softly, the gentle pressure of his lips a tender promise. “I’m here, cutie. And I’ll do everything I can to make this right. You won’t feel invisible again.”

You nodded slowly, the tears still flowing, but there was a flicker of hope, however faint. "Just... don't forget again," you whispered.

“I won’t,” he promised, his voice firm, but his eyes were full of vulnerability. "I won’t. Never again."

You didn’t respond immediately, your eyes closing as if you were too weary to respond. But when Rafayel reached for your hand, intertwining his fingers with yours, a faint squeeze answered him. It wasn’t forgiveness, not yet, but it was enough—a thread of hope that he clung to with everything he had. For now, you didn’t pull away, and that was a start.

AN: reblogs, feedback and opinions are appreciated!

[lalunanymph]

ΉΣЯ ΛПD ƬΉΣ ЯIVΣЯ

༊ on the most fertile moon of the year, rafayel finally claims you as his true bride and the mother of his future heirs

✯ warnings; sorta sequel to her and the sea but can be read as a standalone, rafayel x fem!reader, established relationship, MONSTERFUCKING, switch!rafayel, switch!reader, rafayel's lemurian form, sex in a bathtub, reader is coded to be feminine (wears a nightgown), mentions of mermaid genitalia, petnames (my little conch shell, my bride, baby, my love, miss bodyguard), size kink, handjobs, mentions of food, breathplay, breeding, mentions of previous oviposition, dirty talk, praise and degradation, language, let me know if i missed anything

𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐀 𝐋𝐎𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐒𝐄𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐒 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐒𝐓 𝐒𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐇 𝐋𝐄𝐌𝐔𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐍 𝐁𝐎𝐘𝐅𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐃 𝐊𝐄𝐏𝐓 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐘𝐎𝐔.

Like how mashed kelp with prawn hearts were the perfect antidote to third degree burns, or a particularly nasty cold could be healed with sea turtle soup made from the bales found at the heart of Point Nemo’s trenches. 

Another secret? 

Male Lemurians—specifically those of the Sea God kinds like Rafayel—had a special mating ritual. 

You had no idea what you were expecting when your boyfriend called you over to his studio on a random Tuesday morning. As you had a day off from Hunter duties, you decided to drop by and visit, seeing no harm in meeting Rafayel after the innocent text he sent you.

Miss your face, Miss Bodyguard. Care to indulge me with your presence? I wanna show you something coolio lol 

You highly doubted the ‘lol’ at the end of his sentence meant anything innocent, but you had learned a long time ago to figuratively and literally go with the flow when it came to your mermaid boyfriend.

You kicked your bike to a stop by his gravel driveway, staring at the pearly domes of his studio slash home. His front door was left open and you let yourself in, trailing your eyes across the soaring, pristine white walls illuminated by the natural light coming in from Whitesand Bay. 

“Raffie?” Your voice echoes along the empty hallways.

His huge French doors were left open, the salty sea breeze tugging right at your clothes and hair, bringing a chill into the otherwise sun-warmed room. 

“In here.” 

His voice floated from the bedroom and your suspicions flared, wondering what he was up to. 

Ever since that night in the middle of the ocean when he claimed you in his Lemurian form, Rafayel was growing bolder with initiating you into the practices of his endangered people; from the unique seafood feasts he prepared for you down to the different books in a foreign language he loaned you, it seemed as if your boyfriend was eager to show you the full extent of his world and culture. 

With an open heart and an even more curious mind, you padded to his bedroom where you found the entire space open and bright, the brilliant sunlight nearly burning your retinas. You had to squint and shade yourself from the sudden glare, spotting Rafayel waving at you from his huge bathtub in the middle of the room. 

“My little conch shell. There you are.” 

You padded over to him, smiling mischievously at the sight of his slick, and bare chest. The cool, crisp bath water lapped at throat, droplets of water clinging onto the tips of his lilac bangs.

“Did you call me over just to watch you splash around?” you tease, sitting on the bench beside the tub, dipping your fingers into the cool water.

Rafayel snorted and grasped your hand, intertwining his fingers with yours, the skin of his digits slightly pruned from his time spent inside the water. 

“Hardly. I wanted to ask you something… eh, more like, show you something.”

You heard a tremble of uncertainty in his tone which he tried to mask with his usual boyish bravado. Months of dating the elusive Lemurian artist gave you a deeper understanding of his personality, and you could tell behind the breezy invitation to his home, there was a deeper meaning and reason behind his need to have you here.

As if answering your silent, roaring questions, Rafayel turned his indigo gaze to the bright sky opening before the bedroom’s sunroof, the panels pushed to the sides to let in the afternoon heat. 

“Do you know what day it is today?” Rafayel hummed, pressing his lips to the back of your hand. You had to scoot closer to avoid your arm from submerging in the tub, shaking your head with a teasing smile etched on your lips.

“Taco Tuesday?” you joked and he rolled his eyes. “I’m kidding!” you laughed and added breezily, “I’m pretty sure I didn’t forget your birthday or any anniversaries. So, why is today so special?” 

Your boyfriend pointed at the bright sky, and you had to squint to follow the direction of his finger. 

“Do you see the moon there? Looks like a thin piece of cheese?” 

Following his guidance, you noticed the pale circle in the sky; almost see-through like a wisp, close enough to touch the burning sun in the horizon. 

“Uh-huh.”

Rafayel snorted. “Well… today is a very special day for Lemurians because it’s the one time in the entire year when the moon and the sun will collide.” He gauged your reaction, the confusion on your face making him sigh deeply.

“Ugh, humans. Okay, think of it this way—do you know what controls the tides of the sea?” 

A fairly easy question. “The moon,” you retorted, furrowing your brow.

Rafayel nodded sagely, like a professor trying to prove a point. “Okay. And do you know what helps things like plants grow?” 

“The… sun?” You weren’t exactly sure where your lover was going with this, but you played along for his sake.

“Good,” he gets out of the tub and sits on the edge, and you were relieved to find him dressed in a pair of navy blue swimming shorts. Unable to tear your eyes off the water dripping down his muscular thighs, you coughed, feeling your face flush warmly as you mapped the shadows lengthening around the room; a sign of evening arriving.

“What does any of this have to do with the fact that you moved the tub from the living room to your bedroom?” 

Rafayel gently grasped your chin, lifting your face up to meet his sparkling, bright eyes.

“Remember that night when we made love on the cove in Whitesand Bay… when I asked if you were comfortable with me putting my babies in you?” 

You nodded, recalling the night like it was just yesterday. Though a week had passed since your last encounter together with him, you could still smell the sea breeze on your skin, feel the stretch of his mermaid cock almost tearing you apart inside out.

“Well, tonight is what we Lemurians dub the Fertile Moon—the one time of the year where the sun and moon orbit the closest to one another, and their energies are in sync to increase the life force of the ocean and its inhabitants. Do you get what I’m putting down, Miss Bodyguard?”

Your head was spinning, and you’re not sure if you can make out the innuendo behind his fragmented explanations. 

“No… I don’t think so. Can’t you just tell me point blank what it is you want from me?” 

You tried to scowl and sound demanding, but it came off as pouty and petulant instead. 

He grinned, barely able to hide his chuckle when he turned those mirthful, indigo eyes towards you. “What I am saying, my little muse is that tonight is the one night where every Lemurian is encouraged to breed so that… conception and a pregnancy is a guaranteed success.”

The silence after his words rang like the aftermath of a blurted crass remark. 

You blanched, eyes widening when he finally helped you put two and two together.

“Whoa, hold up—tonight is the night?”

Rafayel’s eyes twinkled, and he flickered them momentarily to your relatively flat belly. 

“Remember those eggs I put inside of you? Well, tonight’s their night to shine. I mean, not literally. You’re not going to glow inside out like a pregnant sea monkey. But, if we made love tonight, it’s a 95% success rate of my babies taking...”

He trailed off, letting you absorb this fact. You take in a deep breath, wondering if this day could get any weirder. Though it had been your idea for Rafayel to show you how mermaids bred in the first place, you couldn't help the feeling that you were biting off more than you could chew. 

Absent-mindedly, you touched your stomach, almost as if you were trying to feel the smooth, oval deposits your boyfriend had gifted to you 7 nights ago. But, you could barely detect their outline or their presence, wondering how the biological aspect of everything would work. 

“Hey,” Rafayel touched your cheek, trying to get you to look at him. “Are you alright? Tell me what’s on that pretty mind, lovely.”

“It’s just,” you struggled to speak, and had to take a few, deep breaths to keep calm. “Is this really happening? You really want me to get pregnant with your babies?” 

In response, his violet eyes softened, and Rafayel steps down from the tub, moving towards you and getting to one knee. He grasped your hands, bringing them in his damp ones and squeezed them reassuringly. “You can always say ‘no’, my little muse. I’m not forcing you to carry my eggs if you don’t want to, though I do wish with every fiber of my being that you would. Nothing would make me happier than to know the only woman I’ve ever loved will be the one to carry my heirs and the future of Lemuria inside of her.”

When he said it that way…

The idea of saving an entire civilization appealed to your naturally altruistic nature, and you couldn’t deny the allure of being the one person whom Rafayel trusted to go on this journey with. Besides, your lover would never let anything happen to you—he would be there with you every step of the way to take care of you and the babies, just like he promised before. And you know he will keep his promises till the end of time. 

You nodded. “Alright. The Fertile Moon. Half-Lemurian babies. Let’s do it.” 

Rafayel gently tucked a lock of hair behind your ear, his voice low and gentle. 

“Are you sure? I mean, the choice to decline or accept is yours. I will be gentle, but tonight is one of the nights where I’m afraid nature vs. politeness will not be in play, my little muse.” There was a flash of warning in his eyes. You swallowed hard. 

“What do you mean by that?” 

Rafayel’s grip on your hands tighten, and he exhaled a sigh. “It means I might get… rougher… and if you can bear it, I will make it the most pleasurable night of your life, sweetheart.”

You paused, considering his words. “Will you hurt me?” 

He shook his head instantly. “Never.”

“Will you bite me? Maim me?” 

Rafayel shot you a look of exasperation, shaking his head. “No and no. Absolutely nothing will pierce you… well, not too much.”

The addendum stopped you short, and you gave him a cursory look. Rafayel ups the innocent act, gazing at you with his big, indigo eyes which tug on your heartstrings. 

Eventually, you’re swayed by the look of pure hope in those wondrous orbs and you sigh. 

“Okay. Fine. I’ll do it.”

Sealing the deal and taking him off guard, you lean forward, kissing him fully on his shapely lips. “Let’s make some half-mermaid babies tonight.” 

The chill of the night seeped into your bare skin, the skimpy nightgown you wore barely covering your shins and arms. You had to drive back home and change, returning to Rafayel’s home with your heart in your mouth. 

A part of you considered the repercussions of such a deal—the idea of carrying to term a human baby was already daunting, but now you had to factor in the baby being half-Lemurian into the mix.

The doors swung open, as if sensing you and admitting you within the heart of his space. Once drenched in sunshine and heat, Rafayel’s home was now saturated in shades of night, the windows kept open to let in the illumination of the moon’s rays seeping into the white walls and hardstone floors. You followed a trail of roses he left for you, right to the lip of his bedroom door. Heart thudding a mile a minute, you pressed your palms flat on the intricate wood and pushed it open.

Flickering candlelight danced across the walls, shadows growing with your approach towards the bathtub situated in the middle of the room like a crown jewel. Rafayel is nowhere to be seen, but you felt his presence in this space, watching over you—waiting. 

As per his instructions, you sat at the edge of the large tub, big enough to accommodate one human and one undecidedly non-human person. The warmth of the candles gave you enough courage to lift your head and take a steadying breath.

But, that breath stuttered out into a whispery gasp at the feeling of strong arms wrapping around you. Rafayel’s lips found refuge in the crook of your neck, kissing up and down the delicate column of your throat. His palms spanned around your waist, dragging up and down your sides, committing your outline to his memory. 

“My bride,” he muttered huskily. “You’re here.” 

“Mhm hmm,” your voice trembled, and he could feel the fear rocking you apart. “I’m here… Are you ready?”

Rafayel doesn’t comment on the terror he hears in your tone, or how you’re shaking as if an earthquake is tearing you into two. Gently, he pressed a kiss to your temple, running his hands up and down your stomach in gentle, soothing swoops.

“Relax. It’ll be fine. I’m here and I won’t ever let you go, my bride.”

He turned you around, and you were confronted by the sight of his bare chest peeking from past a pale, purple robe, gossamer thin and clinging onto his muscular torso and arms. A smirk plays on his lips when he realized you were gawking at him, your attention a boost to his ego.

“Like what you see, Miss Bodyguard?” 

Before you could reply, he slipped his fingers in between yours, tugging you closer to the bathtub. Rafayel unties his robe, letting it fall to the ground and you take it as your cue to remove your nightgown, as well. 

Though getting naked in front of Rafayel was something you had done many, many times before, this is the first time you felt a spike of fear run up your spine. Your breathing came out in stuttering exhales, and you managed to slip the diaphanous material off your body, revealing your bare skin to his wandering eyes. The heat of his gaze was like a hot brand, and you could feel it tangibly caressing the expanse of your skin, imprinting your curves onto his artistic eye. 

“You look beautiful, my bride.” 

Rafayel gently guided you into the tub, and you shivered when your toes sank in the water, finding it pleasantly warmed. He got in after you, pulling you close to his chest, hooking his chin over your shoulder. The both of you stayed like this for a little while, holding each other close. The briny scent of the ocean floating in from the wide open sunroof above gave this moment a fairylandish feel, making you think you were in the middle of some fantastical dream.

You felt his lips right on your jugular, kissing over your pulse point and shivered.

“Don’t be afraid,” his voice had taken on a deeper quality, rumbling against your chest. “I won’t hurt you. It will feel good, my bride.” 

Your eyes wandered to the sky, watching the moon burn at her brightest. Rafayel, too, took a moment to absorb the spectacular celestial sight shining from his window, his arms tightening around you.

Something about the romantic and sensual atmosphere finally got to you, and you turned around, straddling yourself on his lap. Your naked cunt bumped against his thigh, and you felt him shiver from the close proximity. 

Tangling your fingers in his hair, you hummed, leaning forward, close enough for your lips to touch, but not fully. “Raffie… I’m not afraid. As long as you’re here, I’m not scared.”

That was his cue to give into his primal, oceanic urges. Hungrily, he claimed your lips, those large hands moving to your waist to drag you flush against his body. 

His quicksilver tongue slipped into your mouth, exploring it slowly; his hands roaming across your body, caressing you with a touch full of desire and need.

“Rafayel…” 

He broke the kiss, leaving a string of spit connecting your lower lip to his, hanging tenuously like a heart about to break. 

Your lover darted his tongue out, lapping at your bottom lip, his teeth following suit to dig into the plush flesh. He repositioned you upon his lap, tangling his fingers in your hair to tilt your face to the side so he could slot his mouth closer to yours.

This kiss under the moonlight, sensual and sweet, stole a part of your soul and refused to give it back. 

Perching you on his strong, muscular thigh, Rafayel dipped his head lower, dragging lazy kisses down your jaw, your collarbone, his warm mouth wrapping around your nipples. His tongue teased them, getting them hard. You squirmed in his lap, getting wetter at his every touch. 

“Feels good, my bride?” He hummed, mouth still latched around your hard flesh and you whimpered, nodding.

Rafayel grinned at your responsiveness, hearing your whispery plea of his name passing your lips. 

His mouth was better than good—it was downright sinful and delicious. It felt like every sensation was amplified tonight, your body keyed up to receive his ministrations. 

Please, you whispered into the dim night illuminated only by candles that bounced off the whiteness of his grin. Touch me more.

“As you wish, my bride.” 

Rafayel paid special attention to your nipples, tweaking them, sucking on them, brushing his thumbs over the hard nubs. Your hips began to drag across the muscular plane of his thigh, rutting and twitching as you struggled to relieve the ache in between your legs.

“More,” you’re desperate to get closer, to feel him deeper in your body; needing to satiate the lust his touches ignited deep inside of you. 

Rafayel hummed, a grin tugging on the corners of his mouth as he tasted your desperation, your need to get off. 

“Mhm, I know,” he mumbled in between sloppy kisses raining down your neck, taking his time to taste your skin. “I know, baby. But, we’re going to take it slow tonight, yeah?” 

Rafayel would be the death of you. His duality would never cease to render you speechless; bratty, pouty boyfriend in one breath and then suddenly, a teasing force of nature determined to get under your skin and leave you begging.

Your whine graced his heated ears, and he chuckled.

Rafayel… no… stop teasing me…

Already begging? Your lover raised his lips to the juncture of your neck, biting down softly to bring the blood up, leaving his mark there. That was quick—thought you’d hold up longer than that. 

Your indignant sounds were masked by his mouth moving back to yours, kissing your protests away.

What was it you wanted to say, my little conch shell? He teased, trailing his fingers down your thighs, igniting goosebumps on your arms. I’m a tease? I’m not giving you what you want? 

He adjusted himself in the tub, the water starting to run cool, sloshing over the edges to dampen the surrounding floor. He lifted you higher into his lap, running his warmed, slightly chapped lips down to your sternum, mapping his way down to the part of you which needed him the most.

You know, I’ve never done this with anyone… Rafayel whispered against your flushed skin, nudging you up further until your pelvis bumped his jaw. You’re always the first one I try new things with… his fingertips glide across your thighs, gently nudging them apart.

You make me feel human—make me feel alive. His words are lost in your skin as he muffled them with his kisses, leaving a trail of heat in between your thighs, leading right to your pulsing core. Rafayel can’t help but chuckle at the sight of your little, twitchy clit, waiting for his tongue or mouth to give her some attention. 

His touches are languid, caressing your knees, your shins and thighs. He moved his fingers to where you needed him the most, focusing his touch on your throbbing clit, rubbing the pad of his thumb over the slick bundle of nerves which seemed to pulse his name with every touch.

“Rafayel,” your moans saturated the air, a blessing to his ears.

“Mhm… yes, my little conch shell? Feels good, doesn’t it?” His indigo eyes looked at you with pure hunger like a deadly current threatening to pull you under. 

Yes, your breathy whimpers boosted his ego, drawing a smirk on his handsome face. The heat that he sets off in your body when he placed his mouth right on your inner thigh was nothing compared to the smoldering flame about to engulf you when he sucked a hickey onto your soft flesh. 

“I can smell you—you’re practically drenched,” Rafayel slurred in between nipping kisses to your thighs, determined to leave his mark wherever he went. I just want to… fuck… he trailed off.

“What?” 

Your breathless question made him laugh.

In answer to your winded curiosity, he brought his mouth closer, right to the apex of your thighs and exhaled, warm breath fanning across your folds.

“I just want to eat you whole.” 

Warmth engulfed your cunt the second he murmured those seductive words, and your head was thrown back, your moan rebounding across the room. 

You were so worked up, it was insane how you haven’t exploded yet. The taste of you saturated his tongue, dripping right onto his chin and Rafayel lapped you up like you were the water of life, drinking you down in desperate gulps. 

Those pretty indigo eyes hazed over, his long lashes obscuring his gaze into half-mast as he worked your pussy over with his mouth. Using a slender finger, Rafayel teased past the tight muscles of your entrance, sinking down to his knuckle, curling it forward in a come hither motion as your hips stuttered and bucked.

Rafayel… oh, fuck…

He grinned at the sound of your trembling moans, and stretched your perfect cunt around a second finger, applying pressure to your golden spots, determined to make you see stars. 

Without warning, you felt the girth of his thigh transforming underneath you, growing slicker, harder. Scale-like. The texture of his wrists you were grasping tightly became harder, the skin toughening and lengthening. 

Water sloshed noisily down the rim of the tub, and from the corner of your eye, you caught the flick of an iridescent tail in mid-air.

Rafayel continued to eat you out, oblivious to your wide eyes and hitched breathing, needing to feel you shatter around his fingers. Latching his lips right to your nub, he traced his name right into your sensitive clit, enjoying how your thighs were tensing and trembling, struggling to hold yourself upright. 

One large palm guided you to ride his tongue, grasping your hip and helping you glide yourself back and forth over the flat of his pink muscle. 

Your fingers curled over the edge of the wide tub, one hand tangling in his hair to hold him closer. 

Fuck, so good, your moans goad him on. So good, Rafayel. More, please… more…

He gave it to you, lapping at your swollen folds, feeling your juices stain his mouth, drip down his jaw. 

The needy twitch of your hips and the tremble in your moans spurred him on to double his speed and precision, racing to get you right to the edge. From the depths of the deep tub, you felt something hard stirring against your thigh, the thick, scaly ridge a familiar rasp as it grazed against your soft skin. 

“I’m close,” your quivering moan made his blood thump harder in his veins. “So close…” 

Your orgasm washed over you like a hot tide, nearly making you buckle and lose your footing. Luckily, Rafayel hurried to clasp his larger, merman hands around your waist, holding you upright and slowly easing you down onto his lap. Your quivering moans go straight to his cock, and he was already hard and ready when you sank into his embrace, the tip of his monster girth poking your lower belly.

Without a second thought, you reached for his length, stroking his Lemurian cock with a loose grip, feeling his entire body constrict under your touch. 

Rafayel expelled a soft groan, the back of his head thumping against the smooth marble of the bathtub’s edge. Scaly and with bumps that felt heavenly between your gummy walls, his cock was a wonder of nature that always left you speechless. Hooded indigo eyes appraised you, and his tongue briefly darted out to touch the corner of his mouth.

“You’re becoming more bold and audacious day by day.” 

Drunk from your orgasm, you managed to give him a grin. “What did you say again—the most pleasurable evening I’ve ever had?” 

Arching a brow, Rafayel snorted. “So, jacking me off is your idea of a pleasurable evening?” 

Your lips touched his ear, warm breath fanning across his skin. “What if I said yes?” 

Putty in your hands and susceptible to your every will, Rafayel had no choice but to let you have your way with him. His hips ticked, pushing his cock further up your weak grip, aching to earn more friction.

“I would say you got me there,” his voice lowered into a husky whisper. “You’re a handful, you know that?” 

“But, I’m all yours to handle.” 

His smooth and low chuckle sparked a shiver up your spine, that hazy grin and heavy lidded eyes making your stomach flip.

“Mhm, that you are, sweetheart.” 

The water rippled from the motions of his hips undulating to match your strokes, a pinch appearing on his brow. Despite having a fear of the water, you felt safe in Rafayel’s arms, letting him hold you close as you continue to pleasure him. 

“Do you want to—”

“I think we should—”

He paused, and you giggled at both your eagerness; the simultaneous need. Rafayel’s eyes twinkled with mischief, reaching out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind your ear. 

Without another word, your lover guided you onto his lap, gently pushing your hand away from his cock and gingerly lifting your hips. 

It started out slow first, with the head of his Lemurian cock slowly breaching you, pushing past the trembling muscle of your spasming cunt. Rafayel was conscious of not slamming into you, knowing you needed time to get used to the sensation of his longer length stretching you out. 

The sensation of his bulbous head sinking through your walls, and the feel of every ridge and bump hitting your swollen spots was enough to draw full body shivers from you. 

“Fuck,” Rafayel shivered, his eyes darkening. 

Your breath tumbled out in a shaky exhale.

Palms flat on his chest, you struggled to sink down on him, the water adding more lubrication to help ease you over his impossibly huge cock. The stretch made sweat bead across your brow and you gasped, rocking your hips forward, trying to take all of him in one go. 

You okay? His mouth on your pulse point soothed you somewhat. 

Nodding, you felt the bite of pain, your muscles protesting.

Rafayel took this chance to play with your nipples, tweaking and tugging on them; when that wasn’t enough, he decided to use his tongue and teeth to get them wet and hard, leaving your body aching for more. His thumb trailed to your clit, rubbing on it as he continued to suckle on your tits, giving them both his undivided attention. 

Your pussy twitched around him and he murmured, let go for me, sweetheart.

The effort it took for you to calm yourself down enough to take him is tremendous, and Rafayel felt a burst of love and adoration for how much you were trying to please him. The hunger you showed to be perfectly good for him incited his need to spoil you even more, and he quickens the circles on your clit, trying to loosen you up so he could bottom out.

Once you were slick enough, Rafayel didn't waste anymore time, guiding you down on the last few inches, kissing you full on the mouth to quell your trembling moans.

“Fuck.” Your cries were intoxicating, driving him mad with desire when he finally sank down to the hilt, a bit of drool dripping from your parted lips. 

Rafayel didn’t hesitate to lap at it, dragging his tongue from your jaw to your chin, tasting the salt of your skin. The moon bathed your skin with pale, silky light, and the artist swore if he wasn’t trying to put his babies in you, he would’ve taken this moment to paint you from scratch. 

A tick of your hips. Your walls trembled around him. 

Guttural groans softened by his lips pressed to your neck reverberated against your skin.

Holy shit, his curses sink past your flesh. Shit, shit—you feel like heaven. 

Please, move. Your begging elicited a hoarse chuckle from the Lemurian.

As you wish, my bride.

Slow, tantric strokes. Rafayel’s grip on your hips was firm and solid. He kept a steady pace, fucking up into you, the tips of his tail flicking past the tub's rim, catching your eye with its iridescent brilliance. 

Every stroke of his ridged cock rubbing against your gummy walls felt like a pulsing nirvana. Throbbing, hot, needy. You were completely Rafayel’s—you belonged fully to the Sea God of your dreams.

Mhm, yeah, he continued to fuck into that same spot, coaxing you with You like that? fuck you like that. Mhm yeah. Uh-huh—good girl. 

The tips of his lilac bangs tickled your neck as he sucked more love bites into your neck, hellbent on marking you up as his own. 

Effortlessly, he turned you in his embrace, encouraging you to press your hands on the bathtub’s edge. This newfound position placed more pressure on your G spot, the tip of his cock nudging that same spot over and over again.

Behind you, Rafayel made it a sport to leave as many hickeys as he could on your nape, your shoulders. The rough scales of his fingertips gripped the plush flesh of your ass, squeezing heartily.

You look so good taking me like this. His rough praise drew goosebumps across your entire body. 

You tipped your head back, dizzy with lust, mouth parting wide open. 

In the dimness of the candlelight, Rafayel’s lilac eyes glimmered like amethysts, his hair shining with an ethereal gleam. 

“My love, do you trust me?” His heated question pressed into the back of your neck pricked your awareness. The stretch and the bite of pain which mingled with pleasure fucked with your mind, drawing you right to the edge where nothing in the world existed beyond you being impaled on his cock.

“Mhm,” your replying moan drew a trembling laugh from him. 

I have something which will make it all feel better… but only if you trust me. 

Rafayel tangled your hair in his fingers, and in this instance, you would’ve done anything for him. 

You nodded.

The pleasure he bestowed on your wrecked body, the gentle way he was asking if he could make you feel even more good, did not prepare you for what he did next. 

One second, your head was tilted back against his chest, and the next, you were plunged face first into the tub water. Your eyes opened wide, your entire body tensing with fear. Eyes burning, you opened your mouth to scream when he yanked you back to the surface, sputtering and crying out his name. 

“Shit.” Rafayel’s movements doubled in speed, fucking up into you like he didn’t respect you one bit. You were panting, gripping the edge of the tub with white knuckles.

“Fuck,” was the only word you could manage to blurt out, the tension in your lower belly tightening.

If it was possible, the sensation of his cock splitting you apart felt even more delirious. Dizzyingly so. 

Your eyes crossed, mouth hanging open, the slick pistoning of his cock in and out of your willing pussy making every nerve ending in your body burst into unending flames.

Raffie… fuck… do it again.

You were pleading for him to hurt you, the taboo nature of such devious desires making your blood pump harder. 

There was no need to tell him twice.

Rafayel grasped the base of your head, and your world disappeared into the bottom of the tub, your body bucking wildly, fighting for oxygen as his cock continued to bulldoze into you. 

He brought you up, and you gasped, coughing loudly. 

Fuck, your voice was gravelly from swallowing some water. Fuck, that was so hot. 

You weren’t the only one who thought so. 

Shit, your lover groaned. I’m close, baby. 

Lavishing you with praise for being so good, Rafayel held you close to his chest, your back bowing to take all of him in. 

You’re amazing, love. My bride, my Queen. You’re going to be the best mother. The best mate. I love you. I love you so much. 

The moonlight scattered across the rippling water, reminding you of that time when he had you right on the seabed and you watched the light breaking above the surface. 

Come for me, my love. His grunts touched the sensitive shell of your ear. Come for me and make me feel good—are you going to be good for me?

Yes, yes. You chant. Yes, I will, Raffie. 

Yes, my bride. Fuck—doing so good. Yeah, yeah. Come, come. Fucking make a mess on me. 

You could never deny Rafayel what he wanted. At his command, you spilled all over him, your muscles tightening, threatening to spit him out of your trembling heat. 

So good, so good for me. Coaxing you through your orgasm, he talked you through it, there for every tremble, every quiver and moan. 

Your pleasure washed over him in waves, and he couldn’t hold back the tide, not when going over and spilling inside of you, claiming you as his, is what he has always wanted since the dawn of time. 

Strings of heat splattered inside of you, filling you to the brim till you thought you could taste him in the back of your throat. 

Rafayel continued to pump his hips, desperately trying to make sure not a single drop goes to waste.

When the comedown hits, it slammed into you hard. The exhaustion mingled with the fatigue of the adrenaline ebbing out of your veins. 

You slumped back into his arms, and Rafayel was careful to slowly ease you off his half-hard cock, holding you close in his embrace. The possessiveness that dripped from his fingertips as they stroked through your hair, the heat of his body, warmed you up in the already cool water. 

The chill permeated through you, though you barely felt it, not when Rafayel was by your side.

A soft kiss was placed on your jaw.

“Was it good?” 

You nodded, hazy and dopey from the rush of hormones. “Beyond perfection.”

Rafayel chuckled at the dopey happiness alighting in your eyes, tightening his grip around your waist, nuzzling his face into your damp neck. Now that his primal instincts were cooling off, he could give your wrecked body the attention it deserved. 

The warmth of his skin seeped into yours. Hard scales turned back to soft flesh, his huge tail transforming into a pair of legs tightening around your midsection, determined to hold you fast to his chest. Languishing in the cool water, you glanced up at the moon, noting a pair of wispy clouds drifting past her luminous facade, reminding you of a couple dancing past a huge celestial spotlight.

Rafayel rubbed your belly with one hand, and you didn’t have to ask him what was on his mind to know his raging thoughts.

Placing your hand upon his, you smile at him over your shoulder. The fall of his lilac hair, the softness in his eyes. It made your heart melt.

“Are you nervous?” 

Your question, seemingly innocent, held a multitude of layers which he could unravel easily enough after having known you for close to a millenia. 

“Of the babies? No,” he answered truthfully. ���But, of how will things change between us? Yeah, I’m terrified.”

You readjusted yourself on his lap, facing him, bringing your arms to wrap around his neck. “Are you afraid I’m gonna leave you once I find out your babies are bulging inside of me?” you tease.

Rafayel’s pout was endearing, and you laughed, pinching his cheek. “Raffie… you’re so silly.”

He huffed, his palms drifting to clasp around your hips, pulling you flush to his chest. “Am I so silly or just worried you might still think I’m a freak?”

Rolling your eyes, you shake your head. “Ouch. You really underestimate me, my love. You’d think I’d let you do this if I didn’t want it?” 

Knowing full well how independent and firm you could be, his worries abated slightly, a smirk worming onto his shapely and perfect lips. 

“Of course not, Miss Bodyguard. You would never do anything if you didn’t love it.”

Your eyes softened. “Well, there’s your answer.” Under the luminous moonlight, your embrace tightened around him, bridging the distance between 800 years and this moment where you and Rafayel would finally be a family.

“I only do it because I love you.”

— rbs and feedback are appreciated !!

©️ all works belong to lalunanymph. do not copy, repost or translate my work across other platforms.

[itscyarue]

when mc is also an artist

he'd never leave you alone-

[ilovemitsuya]

Rafayel has the most kiss count it’s crazy

↑ hes literally tongue kissing MC here btw ↑

for the anon who wanted rafayel here u go ily and thank you💕

[koririchanart]

this is so rafayel core...................

[softbewitcher]

can someone pls help rafayel

[izzlizzwizz]

my fav part of rafayel's main story branch :)

[m00nchildwrites]

Remember when Rafayel asked:

And then he-

Sir, you could step on my neck and I'd say thank you. What kind of question is that!?

[hitoshitoshi]

Thighs [Rafayel x F!Reader 18+]

Summary: Needy and Pathetic Rafayel. That is all. Wc: 123 words.

Rafayel's teeth sank into his bottom lip, drawing blood as he fought to suppress the desperate whimpers threatening to escape. His eye rolled back, head slamming against the headboard as waves of need crashed over him. Trembling hands clawed at your thighs, leaving angry red marks on the soft flesh as he pulled you closer with frantic urgency. His hips bucked wildly, the movements erratic and uncontrolled as his leaking cock slid between your slick and warm puffy folds. "B-Bodyguard," Rafayel gasped, the word barely coherent through his labored breathing. Sweat glistened on his flushed skin as he grounded you down onto his cock, his entire body quivering with unbridled desire. His glazed eyes, desperately met yours in a silent plea for relief.

A/N: Just a tiny draft. May or may not finish it, who knows.

MASTERLIST | TWITTER

[janumun]

A Bond Everlasting (LaDS Rafayel - NSFW)

Rated: NSFW/18+ Pairing: Rafayel/Reader Words: ~17k

Tags: soulmate AU (the red string of fate, with a twist), college setting (and they were roommates), angst with a happy ending, mutual pining, minor violence and action, scent kink, blow job, oral and vaginal sex, facial, multiple orgasms, vaginal fingering, overstimulation, merman knotting, sexual rut/Lemurian sexual cycle

Summary: Rafayel tries — and miserably fails —  to forget the one his red thread weaved against once upon a time, even a decade after its break. Finding her, once more, years later, and residing within the same place as her doesn’t help his cause. 

A/N: A happy very belated birthday gift to you, @chibamari. With all of my love and all of our favorite heartbreak, I hope you enjoy this, darling friend.

I. EBB 

The red string of fate. Rafayel found he truly loathed the concept.  

What was it, truly, if not just the Fates contemptuous scorn upon them?  

Forcing kinship and eternity in between a pair that did not mould against the other. That would, if time given, drift apart as mere bottled wishes left traversing, lonely, across the seas.  

And yet, the manacles remain celebrated, since time immemorial. As legends of the rare, and lucky few, destined to be bonded in harmony.  

Rafayel used to be — once upon a time — part of the same foolery brigade as the rest of them, the day his red thread spun and found itself interweaved against his first, and last, love. To her, he promised a Lemurian’s vow of faithful eternity. 

Until the day that blood-red thread quivered and ruptured apart, weakened by her absence.  

Leaving to Rafayel only the hollow remains of a heart rejected. The brand of its mockery left behind as indelible remains of the severed — useless — string wound against his finger.  

II. FLOW 

Deft, practiced digits streak a brush across canvas; the truculent quality to his paint lines reflecting the agitated knot of Rafayel’s brow and the hand he scrubs through his hair in chagrin at constant-wheeling thoughts. Bold strokes; an amalgamation of bright colors — gentle turquoise and oceanic azure — setting into paper to shape unconscious form to his muse, for his current class.  

It is only when he hears the ripple of applauding gasps behind — “You’re amazing, Senior Rafayel!” — is he knocked back into his senses, angling a stupefied gaze up at what he’s made of his project: originally an interpretation of the depths of the sea, the topic he’d presented his class for the day.  

He notes, in no small proportion of growing aversion, the strokes of his brush having shaped form of a delicate back — hers — against the backdrop of a vast sea, reminiscent of home. His thoughts — he muses in self-derision — having lent unconscious connection in between his place of most comfort to the person who stood as his entire comfort. 

Rafayel’s head throbs with heat, as if knelling the oncoming of a particularly harsh fever. Perhaps his less than perfect health was to blame for his momentary lapse of concentration.  

“Is the lady underwater inspired by anyone in particular, Senior? Your brushwork for her seems particularly passionate.” 

Rafayel’s mouth twitches into an insouciant, cool smile, he directs at his students. “Hmm I’m not sure. Perhaps, she’s inspired by that one mermaid movie they’re currently playing in theatres.”  

“Oh, ‘Aquatic’? I’ve seen it!” 

“Me too! It's really good.”  

“The part where she turns to sea foam—” 

A seamless lie; he lets it steer the focus of conversation away from him and his lapse in concentration. Turning back towards the board to proceed with his lecture.  

Opting to teach a fine arts course to a bunch of junior year students, for extra annual credit, was clearly shaping to be one of the worst decisions he’d ever made.  

Especially so, when the subject in question, he’d offered to teach for, in the first place, remained starkly absent throughout the duration of the lecture.  

III. EBB 

Shouldering open the door to their shared apartment, Rafayel steps inside, staggering under the weight of his stack of the newest arrival of deliveries. The apartment is silent, devoid of the sound of her characteristic pattering footsteps.  

Depositing his packages down against the side of the sofa in the living room, he collapses back into the cushions, tuning a distasteful frown towards the empty kitchen counter. Recounting to mind, the events of this morning, having shepherded him into an entire day of distraction at the University.  

“Ouch.” She hissed, a sound of surprise, wrenching her arm back from the sizzling frying pain at the spits of oil it spewed.  

Rafayel released an exaggerated sigh at the sight, ambling over towards the kitchen. “Let me help.”  

“You know, I’m perfectly capable of fixing breakfast on my own.” She attempted heroic reassurance, even as she easily treaded backwards to let Rafayel replace her at the stove.  

“Yes, yes, I believe you. I'd still like to ensure you don’t burn our apartment to the ground while I’m away at work. My paintings are priceless treasures, you know.” He deftly takes the eggs off the stove and plates them before shoving her share at her. “There you go, Miss All-Capable.” 

“Stop making fun of me.” She smiles in relieved gratitude, moving to set cutlery across the table. “And thank you.” 

Rafayel swivels a puffed smile her way. “Whatever would you do without me?”  

She shakes her head at him, attempting no effort to refute him. “Indeed.” Her fingers brush against his as she moves to pass him his share.  

“Rafayel.” She sweeps a sudden grab at his hand, digits entwining in between his. “You’re a bit warmer than usual. Are you feeling sick?” She smooths a gentle hand across his forehead.  

He feels his face burn darker at the sudden intimacy of their contact. “No, I don’t.” Instinctively jostling away from her touch. “I’m just tired, is all. I was up the entire night, after all.”  

“You really need to fix that terrible habit of yours. A healthy body leads to a healthy mind!” Rafayel can’t tamp back the grin from his face at her chiding. 

“Take better care of yourself. I can’t be here to keep you in check round the clock, you know.” She sighs in resignation.  

“Yes, yes, my noisy Mistress.”  

“Speaking of which,” She begins, just as Rafayel seats himself at the table. "I'll be out late tonight.” 

Rafayel feels his smile frost over; a dreaded, sour feeling immediately spurning at the base of his belly.  

“I have a study date with Caleb.” She does not meet his gaze, forking at her egg.  

Rafayel hears himself speak before he can tuck back his impulsive thoughts. “You sure you should be trusting the man this much? I don’t—” 

“’Like him.’ I know. I don’t know why you’re so biased against him, he’s a good person.”  

The praise dredges bitterness across his tongue; ashy and tepid. His fork nearly stabs at his own food, a disapproving moue he knows is dark upon his face. “Sure,” he intones at last, grappling against his desire to ask her not to go, to spend her day with him instead. “Have fun.” An unfair burden he knows he throws onto her shoulders; he does not possess the right to dictate who she chooses to associate with.  

And yet— 

Rafayel’s gaze deliberately treks the line of red thread adorning his ring finger — treacherously cut off a few centimetres in and dissipating into nothingness. Following the absent line of it; her own finger sits vacant against the wooden table-top. An immeasurable dejection he isn’t able to shuck off, no matter how many times his eyes have witnessed its emptiness.  

Perhaps she is right and he is sick, an inscrutable tremor setting into his fingers as they continue on with the rest of their meal in silence.  

IV. FLOW 

The oncoming dawn encroaches a gradual shell-pink spill of color across the velvet skies as Rafayel’s feverish gaze drags, listless, to the view past the patio windows, the bone-deep ache from the day past yet to recede.  

The angry scrapes of charcoal rushed across paper, forgotten as the unfinished sketch drifts purposeless down onto the floor to join the rest of its discarded predecessors.   

She has yet to return home — Rafayel had stayed up the entire night and remained planted, firm, within their lounge, to make sure he would be there to greet her on her return. She'd never been away from their apartment overnight.  

Rafayel knows because he had — on more occasions than he could count and didn’t wish to acknowledge — found himself crumpled within cool sheets, self-confined to the privacy of his room, listening in to the comforting sounds of her padded, soft movements around their apartment.  

She'd often slip back through their door, close to midnight — she made it a point, always, to return home, no matter the hour — after slaving away hours at the library for her Hunter exam. She'd try for quietude; he knew, so she wouldn’t disturb his absent sleep.  

A gentle clink of mugs at the kitchen counter as she’d make herself a cup of a coffee in preparation of burning the midnight oil.  

Despite having the physical structure of their apartment — a shelter and comfort in name — his room’s four-walled sanctity, it didn’t truly feel warm as a home until the moment she stepped past the threshold and into their shared space.  

And only when he’d hear the soft crinkle of pages turning steadily as she’d settle herself onto the living room sofa to study, would he find himself beckoned into slumber. As if she too, knew on instinct, how her presence aimed to soothe, choosing to make space for her studies right where he could hear her, in the lounge, instead of the confines of her own room. 

Yet now.  

Midnight had come and gone, dawn scraping indigo for approaching light, and no signs of her return.  

A long day behind him endured in feverish unrest and the toll of another sleepless night, doesn’t help disentangle burgeoning thoughts of her within the embrace of another man at that very moment, one not him. He can’t help but sorely curse himself for his ill-thought decision of staying the night up, waiting for her like some sorry love-struck fool.  

Not that he would’ve been able to sleep, either way; a part of him mocked in muted whispers.  

His thread throbs; a nipping bite of rejection and along with it, his body. Languid gaze absently trekking the severed thread, flickering incandescent against his ring finger. The constricting heat of it, as if traversing up his veins along with the fever within his body. Colluding against his heart, as if it wishes to eventually wither him up instead. A slow, bittersweet poison.  

Rafayel feels nauseous.  

He’s beginning to contemplate on retiring for the meagre, precious hours before his upcoming classes for the day — perhaps that bitterly strong liquor she’d stowed into the fridge earlier would help do the trick — just as the door lock clicks open.  

The sound violently startles Rafayel out of winding, unheeded thoughts enough, he springs off the sofa just as she steps foot over the threshold.  

Opening his mouth to put words to turbulent emotions — a million queries — before his questions wither off the tip of his tongue when he fixates a good, long look at her.   

She appears downright exhausted and an instinctual, foreboding spurts forth in him. The look on her careworn face, light-snuffed gaze meeting his — Rafayel thinks, mirrors the state of his own affairs — before it dissipates into stifled surprise. “Rafayel, what’re you doing up—”  

And before he can tamp himself back into composure, Rafayel’s striding the few paces it takes for him to reach her, dragging her into his embrace.  

She stiffens at the contact on instinctual reflex, it chips away at another piece of his heart. Tightens the strangulating hold of his severed thread against his soul.  

He hedges her tighter into his embrace, regardless. Head pitching down onto her shoulder; a hand he smooths down the line of her quivering back before she relaxes into him, at last.  

“Rafayel—” Arms twitching by her side and up as she circles him within her own comfort, returning his warmth in the cling of desperate digits against the back of his shirt.  

“You’re late. You're so late.” he gripes, half-hearted.  

A beat. Two passes. 

“Yeah, I’m sorry.”  

A peculiar relationship; she calls them friends — close — inappropriately so and he’d agreed to be one, to her, if it were the sole thing that allowed him to be by her side. For her to not abandon him once more. A relationship edging something far gnarled than friendship.  

He doesn’t believe even she has a name for what they share, in moments as these, where Rafayel forgets himself and the boundaries he holds himself to. Turns blind to pretenses and masks he fixates, so delicately crafted, for her benefit and the safety of his own heart. 

He is not, however, a man strong enough to ignore the strain of his beloved’s gaze, tiredness rimming her entire being, she feels so brittle in his arms, and it ruins him to not know the cause of it.  

“...Got something on your mind?” He murmurs into her hair. 

“Perhaps.” Her response is slow, halting.  

“Want to tell me what it is?” He breaks away from her, enough to let his eyes scour her face in stern scrutiny.  

A whispered laugh escapes her at his inspection.  

“...Rafayel, how do you feel about an early morning stroll with me?”  

V. EBB 

The shores of Whitesand Bay stretch empty within the wee hours of dawn, quiet, save for the twittering song of birds cutting across the sky and the gentle wash of waves at their bare feet as they amble along the sandy belt. She hasn’t uttered a word since, absent gaze trekking the gradual rise of the sun above the horizon, light flittering its diamonds across the lap of waves.  

The easy access to the sea — and by extension, the remarkable view — was one of the reasons they’d jointly agreed upon renting an apartment this close to Whitesand Bay, two years prior. On any other usual occasion, Rafayel’s fingers would’ve been upon pen and paper, soaking inspiration up and through rough strokes, sketching across paper.  

Now, however, his focus is all but entirely removed from his environment, vision honed in on her by his side.  

“It’s a beautiful view, isn’t it?” She murmurs, gaze still fixated upon the horizon. “I’m not an early riser like you are so I’ve never seen the sunrise here up this close.”  

She's skirting the issue, Rafayel has no mind to force her to spill her heart when she does not wish to. 

For her, he is willing to remain patient.  

Regardless of the consequences to his person.  

He joins in on her flimsy facade.  

“If only I wasn’t a little too aware of the fact.” Tapping a light fist against her temple, he angles a skewed smile down at her. “Despite my very arduous efforts to get you out of bed on multiple occasions, you’ve persisted in your terrible ways, Miss Hunter.” Heaving an exaggerated sigh. “You’re far too stubborn for your own good, I fear.” 

That gets her breaking a smile, the tensed knitted worry within her gaze easing just that tiny bit; Rafayel plucks it up for the small reward it is. “A classic case of the pot calling the kettle black. Like you’re any less bull-headed.” She defends. “Don’t make me recount all the times you nearly gave poor Thomas a heart attack because your paintings weren’t ready even mere hours before the exhibitions they were supposed to be featured in.”  

His mouth pulls into a distasteful moue at that. “Don’t tell me you’re on his side. He refuses to understand the world of difference it causes in between using cherry red or wine on a canvas. If it were up to that simpleton, he’d have me besmirch all my works, just for the sake of those trivial exhibitions.”  

She chuckles. “Now, no need to get so worked-up. You know Thomas cares for you and wishes to have your talent recognized like it deserves to be.” She moves to seat herself by the shore, close to where the waves lick up at the sand. Rafayel follows suit.  

“I know how much passion you pour into your paintings.” Crinkling a gentle smile up at him. “That’s exactly why I love your art so much.” 

Rafayel’s heart catches at his throat at the easy slip of her compliment.  

She's never been sparing with her appreciation of his artworks. 

Ever since she’d chanced upon them a few years back when they’d only shortly been re-united at the time.  

She’d always been generous and open with her admiration.  

His heart, however, wasn’t immune to its traitorous stuttering, every single time at her attentions and praise.  

Perhaps she discerns the look on his face, tapping into his emotions, or realizes the curious intimacy of her statement, she wrenches her gaze away from his. Rafayel swiftly feels the keen loss of it.  

Silence sweeps once more between them, her gaze having drifted back into the seas and with it, the steady droop of her shoulders as she curves in tighter against her huddled knees. “It was a place, similar to this one, where we first met. A lost little human meeting a young Lemurian washed ashore.” Her voice barely hikes above an octave. “I didn’t think Lemurians existed for real before that, and to know I shared a red fate with one...”  

His throat closes against a sharp inhale at her whisper, the first time she’s chosen to address their past severed bond, ever since their reunion.  

Why now. He means to ask. A question that dissipates off the tip of his tongue, un-uttered.  

“We were so young back then and I inadvertently hurt you. Ever since I moved away, and time just passed, regardless...” She pauses. “You must’ve really hated me for that, huh.” She angles a cautious smile at him. 

I did not. Rafayel means to refute and yet his tongue refuses to cooperate.  

She continues on, as if she had long perceived his answer and made peace with his supposed resentment of her, unperturbed by his lack of response. Her reaction vexes him.   

“I’ve hurt someone dear to me again. Caleb—” 

The familiar name spurns bitter within his chest. “Did he do something to you?” His fingers jam against coarse sand, snagging his thread tight against his ring finger. 

“No! No. Caleb’s a good man, he’s been nothing but kind to me.”  

Deep within the recesses of his heart, Rafayel knows it, he knows it only too well; he only wishes he could truly bring himself to hate him.  

“He...” Her fingers tense harsher against her arms. “Last night, he asked me to be his girlfriend.” 

His ring finger throbs; the missing line of its thread seeming to constrict against Rafayel’s neck.  

“I turned him down.” 

A quick, involuntary bite of wicked relief thrums at the back of his breastbone. And yet— 

Why do you look as if your heart is shattering into a million pieces? 

Rafayel’s mouth seems to form words on its own as if he wishes for his own demise. “Do you regret it?” 

Her silence is a dagger that digs pointed, deep in between his ribs, the longer she lets it steep.  

She meets his gaze, a turbulent question within hers, beseeching. “I don’t know… I don’t know if I should.” She looks as if she has more to speak, restive teeth biting into her lip to hold back unsaid thoughts.

Rafayel dares not parse the emotions he sees flittering within her eyes, dares not hope for what he cannot have. Not again, for his heart to fracture once more by setting up false narratives. He has loved and will love still for eternity — he doesn’t, however, have the tenacity to bear being abandoned again. 

And so, he shutters himself, gaze wrenching away from hers, a frown knitting tight against his brow. “Whatever it is that you want, if it makes you happy, I want you to grab onto it for yourself.” Fingers brushing against hers from where they rest within the sand, index and middle lingering longer against the base of her ring finger. Before he moves, carding hesitant digits through the fall of her hair.  

For it is the only way he knows how to love — regardless of broken vows — in her happiness, even if it would never be found by his side. 

VI. FLOW

The dream stirs vivid beneath restless lids — Rafayel hasn’t dreamt of that time of theirs together in so long, a welcome awareness of his mind’s conjuring, he embraces in that moment.   

Perhaps by-products of an exhausted, sick mind. 

Or yearning for an unfulfilled wish.  

A sweet sting of desire, just as the first time he remembers it. He lets himself drown deeper into the abyss of its calling. 

He’d cut a boring class during first semester at college — he could no longer remember the subject — in lieu of chasing the path of an ambitious sparrow within a secluded spot. Located far back along the grounds of the college and protected further underneath the dense foliage of the overgrown greenery as he’d sat perched upon a bench, motionless and silent.  

Save for the smooth rush of his pencil across his journal. Detailing the quest of the bird as it leapt across the grass towards a lazing cat, blissfully dodging the feline’s half-hearted attempt at pawing it away.  

Tranquility rippled only at a surprising intrusion; she’d walked into his private space — she always seemed to find him — and he’d startled at her presence.  

“Oh! Sorry. Rafayel, I thought I—” 

Their relationship on strained ice at the time — neither of them choosing to dig up unfulfilled childhood vows or the break of their fated thread. 

 A hastened apology she’d tripped over, for disturbing him before her eyes had flickered to the open journal in his lap and she’d breathed an awed sound. Called it beautiful — a slip of the tongue, he could tell, from her demeanor.  

They'd gotten back into conversation — albeit halting — after that.  

The moment, a pivotal one, in Rafayel allowing himself to accept her back into his life, both emotionally and physically. 

He recalls the citrus notes to her perfume as she’d tentatively seated herself by his side. The way her hair curled delicate against the curve of her cheek, beckoning Rafayel to dare a hand out and slip it back against her ear. 

The unconscious brush of soft digits against his as she’d moved to accept the proffered journal from him, when she’d asked for permission to view more of his artworks.  

The relief that had sunk into his marrow, body strung far too tight for so long — he felt each ache settle and ease, when she returned to his side. As if their bond still remained.  

As if it had never fractured in the first place. 

She moves to tug the curtains close, clipping back the last shafts of light from Rafayel’s room; his damp brow now decidedly relaxed in restless slumber, after being exposed to the heat of the sun for so long.  

He’s made a habit of drawing his windows open at night, perhaps to relieve the fevered pitch of his body off the cool breeze wafting of the sea. Restive sleeplessness; keeping him tossing until near close to dawn, when she often catches him falling, thankfully, into exhaustive sleep at the end of his long, disturbed nights.  

Rafayel had been out of sorts for nearly two weeks now; a distracted gaze and a listless stride his constant companions. Adamant and mulish in his response, at inquiring of his health, every time, that he was perfectly alright and merely plagued by the weariness of sleepless nights spent on his paintings.  

Barely a day or two into that ridiculous spectacle of his before her patience with him had expired and she’d hauled him off to his room and strong-armed him into bed.  

A rueful smile tugs at her mouth at the recollection of their silly argument then.  

“Hey, ow. Easy, you’ll break me! Aaah... too late. I think I’ve already dislocated my wrist. My life as a painter is done for. Ow.”   

“Rafayel. Shut up unless you want me to gag you as well.”  Forcing the covers over his body; she glowered at him for obedience while she hastened to take his temperature.  

Rafayel’s mouth soured deeper in distaste the longer she fretted over him. Opening his mouth, surely to protest, before she cut him off. “You’re running a low-grade fever.” 

Pressing a gentle hand over his forehead, “Please, rest now.” 

A knot twisted in between Rafayel’s brow at her plea. Threading his fingers against hers. “Alright, alright I will,” he murmured, a gentle thumb he smoothed against her furrowed brow. “So, stop making that face now.”  

His agitation at his prolonged ill-health, however, had manifested in numerous half-finished drafts and rough sketches, he’d filled sheets upon sheets of paper with, littered upon his bed.  

The subject matter of most, inexplicably similar in features; a fact that surprised her, for Rafayel had always been one for continual exploration of a wide variety of subjects in his artworks, rather than one stationary objective.  

She reaches for one such sketch now, discarded by his bedside. Predictably, it is the same subject her eyes have grown accustomed to: the graceful arch of a person’s — a woman’s — back, the cascade of her hair shrouding her gaze from view. It is ethereal, haunting. Lonely.  

And. 

She exhales an unsteady breath. Although a mere unpolished sketch, she feels Rafayel’s longing in the hastened strokes of charcoal across her visage.  An inscrutable sprout of emotion twinges at her chest each time she looks upon this faceless woman, a desire to tear her gaze away from the care put into the strokes and never look at them again and yet, it’s as if her hands are not her own, each time they sift through his sketches to reveal a new one made. She despises it, and the feeling of her selfish loathing itself. Not when she bears reason nor right to feel the way she does.  

The ring finger of her right hand throbs, an echo of her turbulent emotions manifesting in the faint red restraint flickering against the base of her digit before it winks once more out of existence. 

No.  

Her gaze instinctually jumps to Rafayel, his prone form still deep in sleep.  

She'd nearly forgotten the other reason for her undue distress these past couple of days; worry for Rafayel occupying each of her thoughts, leaving little space for much else.

She sinks, weak-kneed, onto the bed, right next to Rafayel. Carding her fingers through the soft brush of his hair, gently thumbing a line down his temple.  

She’d thought her mind was conjuring illusive tricks the first few times she’d caught that fleeting flicker of red across her finger. 

Impossible, for it had been nearly twelve years since she’d lost her bond after being forced away from Rafayel. And then, her eyes had insistently tried tracing the line of it, every time it shimmered against her finger, hoping that it would perhaps.... 

Just maybe, if a miracle were to occur— 

That it would re-connect. Back to the only person she’d ever loved. Back to him, her beautiful Lemurian. That perhaps, he’d grant her another chance. That perhaps there was a sliver of hope that Rafayel would love her back once more.  

Once more. 

 Her yearning dashed in the brutality of a truth, far too incomprehensible to her mind. 

On the day her grandmother caught sight of her glimmering thread before she’d informed her with much joy; a red thread of fate, if once severed, made an appearance once more, within the lifetime of rare, chosen… fortunate individuals. If Fate ever ordained for the individuals to find new love once more. Another love so great, it changed Fate’s threads and course itself.  

“You’re blessed, my darling girl. Most people are happy enough if they get to enjoy even one fated love throughout their lives. But you've found two in your lifetime. It is a joyous thing, my love, do not be sad. Do not weep.” 

“...Perhaps, it is time you let him — let your past go.”  

Like ice curdling within her veins. As if Fate itself were playing upon her a cruel jest. She could never. How could she ever? 

And then, her denials had crumbled entirely, shortly after that dreaded truth.  

Her oldest friend, her sole pillar when she’d lost Rafayel. The person who’d held her close and kept her heart safe—  

When she’d lie in bed all day during her earliest days, screaming from the deluging fever of her bond withering. 

—It was the day her childhood friend, her Caleb confessed.  

Even without the evidence of a corporeal bond connecting them, that had been her last straw.  

She presses her lips against Rafayel’s cheek, overwhelming emotions threatening to surge, unable to resist or hold herself in control. “I could never.” she vows under her breath, fingers stroking down the line of his cheek. “Even if you have let go of me, Rafayel, I’m—” 

She feels the roughened pads of his digits against where she touches his face, perturbed at the sudden movement. His eyes flitter, restless, beneath his lids, grasp tightening upon her wrist. “My beloved bride.”

She tries and yanks herself away from his touch, startled at his unconscious murmuring. Rafayel does not let go, nudging his cheek against the crook of her captured palm.  

“Rafayel.” She urges, her heart stuttering over its beats. “Rafayel, please wake up.”  

At long last, he listens; that beautiful, florid gaze misted with the callings of sleep still, as it focuses on her. He makes an indiscrete sound. “Is it morning already? Agh, my head hurts.” He continues to nuzzle his face against her palm.  

“R-Rafayel! Hey!” She winces, hand unbearably hot within his hold. “Let go of me now. If you’re up, have some breakfast instead. You need the energy, dummy.” 

“Don’t want to let you go. Pamper me more.” And yet, he refuses to heed her lukewarm pleas, extremely wilful in his post-sleep, feverish daze.  

She huffs out a breathless laugh, her apprehension ebbing, gentle, into silence the longer she feels his warmth against her.  

Maybe she is allowed to indulge just a bit longer.  

 VII. EBB 

An errant thread and an inexplicable long spell of heat, as if trudging up a steep path, burgeoning fast towards an inevitable destination he could not quite clutch at. Unsolicited suspicions, as to the true nature of his predicament, incessantly rapping at his thoughts.  

Rafayel feels that dour twist to his brow; darkening his features at the wheeling course of his mind. 

 She’s caught him in similar moods since his “illness” commenced, more times than he can count. The endless time afforded his way, involuntarily threading his thoughts to places he doesn’t wish to visit. He doesn’t wish, ever, to alarm or upset her, setting to ease her thoughts the moment worry mars her features, testing index and middle against the sharp knot at her forehead before his attentions — and hers — are compelled entirely her way.  

That is also something that has shifted in between them, into something entirely different. He’s been unusually attuned to her for the duration of his peculiar period of ill-health.  

She has always been his primary muse, the focal point where all of Rafayel’s tangled thoughts find eventual and inevitable convergence. However, somehow, all of those sensibilities have turned sharper, impossibly aware of... her.  

Unconsciously turning to placations the moment he comprehends her distress. Choosing to bury, in turn; soothe the heat of his body within the scent of hers. Her hands on him when she fusses to take his temperature, her clothes, he takes a surreptitious, lungful breath of, when she moves close to towel the fevered sweat off his body. Truly, he does not understand what is wrong with him.  

Two weeks in now and his need for answers has driven him to near madness. He’s loathe to admit he must consult one, perhaps, more knowledgeable on the subject than he.  

He paces into the lounge, heavy in thought, fingers worrying at the phone in hand. 

“Oh, you’re up. Are you feeling any better?”  Just as she calls over to him from the kitchen counter.  

“Of course,” he fibs, tucking the phone back into the pocket of his trousers. He ambles over to her, dressed neat in her trainee uniform as she works a paring knife around an apple. “What’re you doing?”  

“You should have something healthy to eat while I’m away.”  

“Ah.” He plucks a piece of fruit off the plate next to her, eyeing the peculiar shape. “So, you decided to cut me some apple bunnies.”  The corners of his mouth drag into a skewed grin. “I am not a child, cutie.”  

She makes an inflated motion of surprise, pressing a hand against her chest. “Really?”  

And when he rolls his eyes at her, “Of course you aren’t,” she grins. “I’ve never met any children as stubborn as you.”  

“Cheeky.” He flicks a gentle hand against her forehead.  

His eyes skim towards the wall clock and back towards her neatly pressed outfit. “You have an on-field Hunter’s exam this afternoon, don’t you? You’ll be late if you dawdle any longer. Besides, I can feed myself just fine.”  

She startles a bit as her eyes, too, take note of the hour. Hastily shoving the plate of her fresh cut fruit into his hands. “Alright, I’ll leave. You better eat, then rest up. Don’t exert yourself, alright?”  

She steps past the counter. “Come, Kiki.” A white dutiful ball of fur capers up to her as soon as she calls. Rafayel hedges further against the counter just as the white ball tumbles into her waiting arms.  

“There, what a good girl you are!” She croons over the cat, petting at that little fiend pet of her friend’s. She rises to her feet. 

“I’ll drop her off at Tara’s before heading to the centre.”  

“Good riddance,” Rafayel mutters, blenching just as she moves closer with the cat still in her arms.  

“Rude, I’m sad to see her go so soon.” She pulls a glum face at him.  “Do you want to pet her goodbye before she leaves and you start missing her?”  

“I won’t,” He dissents, even as he braves the tips of his fingers against Kiki’s head in a cautious scritch before snapping his hand right back. “Bye, white menace.”  

Rafayel’s moue of specious disapproval turns deeper with her knowing grin. “Let’s go now that you’ve said your farewells to Uncle Rafayel.” She kisses the top of the cat’s head as it purrs in elated satisfaction at her attentions. 

He quirks a flippant brow at her. “All affections for the furry feline, I see.” 

She laughs, the sound an aching balm against long-wrought nerves. “Why, is my fish jealous of a little kitten? Come here, then.”  

“I am not—!” He sputters, just as her hand curves about the back of his neck and pulls downward, pressing a quick kiss to his forehead.  

The previously simmering, barely tamped warmth of his body bursts forth with a brilliant vengeance, his skin set ablaze at just the graze of her touch. Rafayel has to actively constrain himself from keeling over entirely on the floor from his sudden deluge of emotions. Has to curb the quiver of his arms from wanting to steal that heat back against his body.  

She draws back, just as swift, on her feet. The pink of her cheeks is infectious, enticing. Rafayel stares at her, mute and slack-jawed, even as she backs out of the kitchen and through the front door. “I’ll see you tonight, my little fish!” And then he’s left to his own spiraling thoughts.  

Ah. Rafayel scrubs agitated palms down the length of his face in the ensuing silence of their home. His scarlet thread burns incandescent in his hind-vision, flittering in its sporadic expansion. If only she knew how entirely ruined he was at her feet, alone.  

VIII. FLOW  

“You rejected Caleb’s confession?”  

She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t anticipated Tara’s baffled outburst.  

It was part of the reason why she chose to reveal the ‘news’ to her this unceremoniously, as she gently eased Kiki over into Tara’s arms while they stood at her open front door. She adored Tara but was of no mind to be sat down at length while her best friend grilled the details out of her.  

Not ready for the difficult conversations that would ensue; of her past grievances, the break of her fated thread and how she dreaded, within a dark crevice of her heart, that Caleb might turn out to be the one her Fate was once more, trying to bind her to. How could she even begin to delineate it wasn’t what she wanted?  

No, she wasn’t ready for that conversation with Tara, at all.  

“I’m going to be late for my exam, Tara.” She gives her a contrite smile.  

“Yes, I know, sorry, darling, but… why? I really thought things were well between you too. And I was sure there was something going on—! I— can’t you say?” Her friend’s gaze is weighty, imploring. “Is there... someone else?” Her eyes widen. “Is it—” 

And the longer she’s met with terse silence, the heat of her gaze wanes in gradual realization before, at last, she retreats her onslaught, a troubled groan leaving her lips. “At least tell me you’re alright. I’ve been worried about you.”  

“I know, Tara, I’m sorry. I’m perfectly fine.” She gives her free hand a squeeze before withdrawing back a few steps. “I should really go now.”  

Tara loses another sigh. “You really should. Promise we’ll catch up later?”  

“I promise.” She raises her hand in farewell, jogging down the few steps to her house.  

Tara calls out to her just as she reaches the foot of her stairs. “Good luck, girl! I’m cheering for you.”  

She flashes her friend an appreciative smile.  

With Tara, she really can’t be sure if she meant her encouragement for her qualifying physical exam. Or something else entirely.  

Knowing her friend, it was probably both.  

She reaches the examination centre just under the wire, right as the towering gates to the grounds swing shut behind her and two other late-comers.  

Toggling open her Hunter’s Watch, she hastens to join the formation up ahead of several other students, already lined in neat rows for their on-field Wanderers exam. Sidling in place, into her empty spot, just as the instructor in front drones on the list of rules for the exam, from upon his podium. “You are to form pairs of two, as per your roll numbers and enter your designated Protofields, to commence your exam. Before you begin, make sure...” 

He goes over the structures of the regulations one by one, detailing what actions would mete them points and what would deduct them in case of improper conduct.  

“These Protofields have been simulated under intensively controlled environments and contain a plethora of C and B-grade Wanderers you are to deal with, within the desired time limit. Coordinate with your partner, watch each other’s backs and follow all routine safety regulations. Violators will be disqualified on the spot.” He continues. “Keep within bounds of all marked fields, maintain your senses and you should do well. Lastly, trust your education and the skills you have acquired over the course of these years via means of your perseverance and hard work. May you reign victorious, young Hunters!” With his final words, the crowd disperses, heading towards their designated spots for their exams. 

She taps her fingers against her Hunter’s Watch, pulling up the specifications of the Protofield she is to clear, before setting out. 

 

“Gabriel? Hi.” She calls to her team-mate as she moves to join him, recognizing the man from the same class division as hers.  

He returns her greeting, the two setting to sync their data via their watches within the final minute countdown before their exam commences. The flux nexus, in front, pulses to life upon confirmation of both their identities, filtering its pre-programmed wavelength to project upon the barren field. A kaleidoscopic flitter of energy wheeling across the space once is their only indication of a protofield activated, before the two step forwards, cautious, weapons at the ready.  

“No.” Rafayel’s jaw steels in chagrin, hearing the resigned, gentle finality of the words on the other end of the line.  

“Rafayel...” Talia coaxes.  

“I said no. You’re wrong.” He gnashes out, even as the heat simmers, muggy and suffocating, within his body. Even as he continues to deny the indubitable truth of her words.  

For if he did, he would have to face the looming fate of another horrifying possibility.  

The regret of asking for Talia’s help sits heavy within his throat. Facts she utters in such certitude, it leaves Rafayel irrationally agitated. He knows it is not her fault.  

 He hears her soft sigh on the other end of the line. “You told me you’ve been suffering these bouts of ‘fever’ since the past two weeks, an ‘illness’ that refuses to abate and that your...” She pauses, as if seeking words best to voice her next. “incomplete thread has been showing sporadic signs as of late.” 

“Yes.” His voice is quiet, stiff. 

“Rafayel, you’re experiencing early symptoms of an oncoming rut and you know it. You feel it. You didn’t need to call me, when you’re well-informed on the matter yourself, even if you’ve never experienced it before.” She pauses.  “The only reason you reached out to me is that you wanted me to validate your suspicions, isn’t that right?” 

He does not respond to her astute observation.

“An unmated Lemurian cannot experience sexual cycles the same way as a bonded Lemurian. And as you are well-aware, my thread was long severed.” He refutes, contemptuous. “You know what, forget I asked. You clearly don’t understand what’s wrong with me any better than I do. Sorry for crashing your honeymoon. Goodbye, Talia.”  

“Is your thread truly severed, Rafayel?” Her voice rings, solemn, from the other end of the line, just as Rafayel moves to disconnect the call. He pauses, gaze involuntarily skewing towards his lengthening line of red thread. The frown in between his brow turns severe, as if being coerced to witness a sight against his will.  

“You’re experiencing a re-connection and you’re not allowing yourself the happiness that comes with new love. It’s a rare and beautiful thing, for your red fate to find itself weaved against a new person you would cherish.”  

Rafayel does not have the resolve to discredit her words despite his vehement disagreement; having known her experience the loss of her first love, the agony of her days after. And only years later, had she allowed herself to love once more, a happiness Rafayel was content to stand in observance to, glad at her well-deserved peace.   

He, however, was different from Talia. He’d rather his Fate dissipate entirely than for it to wind itself against a stranger. He was different, for Rafayel knew he would never love again, never cherish another, no matter the decades in between.  

For him, there would never be anyone else. 

A transitory pressure curdles heavy about her shoulders as they pace past the barrier and into the protofield. The familiarity of their training grounds dwindles away, large looming falls of thick trees rising, ominous, to blot the skies. Blanketing twilight, instantaneous, overhead. A slow, sweeping curl of gray, mists about their feet, soaking into the dank ground beneath. 

Beside her, she hears Gabriel’s apprehensive breaths. “I can never get used to this.”  

Weapons at the ready, they trudge a slow, cautious path through the simulated wilderness. Gnarled branches seize and snick at their clothes, the craggy mire beneath, a strenuous trudge to keep upright through; as if the forest itself were alive with wicked intent.  

Gabriel’s firearm is the first to go off in a thunderous shot, breaking a flock of obsidian birds to startle into the skies. She follows suit, breaking into a dash along with him; the dark, hunched figure of a fleet-footed Wanderer she aims her gun at and fires, the shot catching it right against its head. The creature lurches forwards onto its body in a seething screech of sound, following its crackling demise into a spoor of pungent smoke.  

The two maintain their steady pace of weeding the area of Wanderers, most they’re able to dispatch with ease. Reflexes and hard ingrained years of training coming into play, the more battles they win through, setting into an easy rhythm of partnership.  

The Wanderer Gabriel skews his sword through in a final thrust, disintegrates into smoke with a rattling gurgle.  She pauses to survey their surroundings, the deep, metallic skies yet to dissipate entirely: indication of a cleared exam. Up ahead, she spies a peculiar forking at the path, the protofield seeming to disperse into dense, murky mist past the intersection. Gabriel flicks the blood off his sword, moving to join her. “Strange.” 

“Yeah. I don’t think low grade Wanderers can distort protofields to this extent.” She agrees. 

“Likely an A grade, at least. Shouldn’t be harder than what we’ve handled so far.” He pauses. “Besides the fact that this one seems like it can replicate itself into weaker copies, judging from the splice it’s created in the field.” 

She frowns at his conclusion, likely accurate. There shouldn’t be an A grade on the loose within a junior hunter’s exam, to begin with; a Wanderer class reserved only for the final year senior field exam. Signals are, as expected sparse, this deep within the protofield, and with an A grade, at hand, tampering the protofield, the possibility of communications being established sits non-existent, at present. She drops a distress signal onto the Hunter’s site, regardless, moving to join him at the fork.  

“We’ll have to clear out the Wanderer, either way, if we want to leave this protofield.” She swipes her empty magazine for a new one, securing it fast back into her gun.  

“Right.” Gabriel’s own fist tightens against the hilt of his sword. “You take the right, I’ll take the left? The distortion should be obliterated on its own once we eliminate all of its copies. I’ll see you soon, partner.”  

“Right back at you. Good luck.”  

Gabriel flashes a flimsy grin at her before treading onto the left path. A swift heavy oppression belts massive across the field, the compression settling a deafening din to her ears. “Hah, Gabriel, wait—” 

But it’s too late. Her partner’s form, long digested by the roiling clouds of black before she can call him back.  

Something’s not right. An A-grade Wanderer shouldn’t be able to exert that kind of pressure. 

An electromagnetic resonance tremors across the space, as if something rattles at the confines of the protofield from beyond. Wanting in.  

Sweat gathers clammy and unpleasant across the back of her neck, her eyes skittering back towards where Gabriel vanished into the murk.  

She firms a hand around her gun, steeling her spine for courage. Whatever anomaly has occurred within the premises of their exam can be dealt with later. Her first priority; to help Gabriel out in eliminating all of the A-grade's clones and dissipating the distortion in front before they planned their next move. And help would arrive soon, once transmission allowed her distress signal to go through, they just had to hold on until then; she reassures herself.  

Moving forward to stride past the muted obsidian barrier at her right.  

The dark cloak of the Wanderer’s protofield washes across her skin like skidding, frigid fingers of emptiness, it spills an involuntary shiver down her spine.  

The cold, metallic spires of the protofield taper off into the void overhead as she steps onto the main field. A skittering figure, one, two, three; lunge, whip-swift, towards her as soon as they spot her, gaping maws and needle teeth poised to tear into her before her fight or flight reflexes jam in. She empties a volley of bullets into their bodies, sieving clean through the approaching Wanderers. Lobs of inhumane flesh, dissipating as soon as they hit the ground.  

Several far smaller figures melt out of the darkness to aim their attacks at her; one after the other she takes down in swift shots. Breaths trembling harsh and hot, her heart hammering over its frantic beats the longer the fight persists.  

A fatigued mistake; being mere seconds slow to switch her empty gun for another, costs her a hard, long gash sliced through the sleeve of her shoulder by the remaining Wanderer. Fire licks up across her arm in a sudden shock of pain, muted instantaneously underneath the roiling pump of adrenaline. She wrenches a dagger off her leg strap. Twisting her torso about to bring her uninjured arm up in a sharp arc, furiously tearing a split through the last Wanderer with a fierce yell and the remnants of her fraying stamina.  

The Wanderer’s remains snivel into a fire just as it hits the ground, the cool, metallic gloom giving way to the unraveling edges of the original forest once more. 

And just as her eyes adjust to the shadows of the protofield once more, she catches sight of a figure slumped upon the grass, unmoving. “Gabriel!” She yells, forcing her limbs underneath her through the pained grit of bared teeth. Clutching hard at her arm to stopper the slow rivulets of blood flow seeping from the gash before she stumbles across the grass towards the man.  

Her Hunter’s Watch blinks, in indication of a transmission successful — her distress signal. Collapsing to her knees at Gabriel’s side just as her watch flares to life in blaring red, an ominous warning running across the screen.  

S-Grade: Deluge Wyrmlord.   Protofield type: Memory Distortion Solo Hunters, do not engage.  

Her mouth runs dry at the far calls of her name—  

“Special Grade—!” Gabriel’s voice resounds just from across the field. “—Run!” 

The collapsed figure at her feet assimilating into thin air, a trick blanketed over her weary mind, by the workings of a high-class Wanderer.  

She feels that intense bone-crushing pressure creep across her back once more, her breath coming through in fits of raspy air. Fixing the barrel of her gun back across her shoulder, she fires, just as a great, dark talon comes across her face, drowning her in darkness.

The call has barely disconnected when Rafayel tosses the phone aside, staggering onto his feet under the heated weight of his body. His eyes drift — an involuntary reflex — towards that squeamish glow of red, his thread flickering in and out of sight, the extended length of it, an alarming sight. Vexation ticks harsh at his jaw.  

Before he’s able to reign control, the spits of a brilliant vermillion fire spurt forth from tapered digits, rushing across the incorporeal red string, in an effort to blaze the blasted thing off of him entirely.  

The fire dissipates, harmless, as expected, with the absence of a pure solid medium to burn. His thread glimmers to life once more, as if deriding Rafayel with its presence.  

Beyond agitated, fervent digits pluck upwards, summoning his Evol to life for a stronger burst of energy —   

A sudden inundating contraction pierces in vengeance across his heart, sending a bolt of excruciating pain lancing through his chest. Rafayel flounders; violently pitching to his knees from the intensity of its sensations. His breaths are hard to smother past lungs that burn for oxygen and yet refuse to inhale. 

Red throbs, vivid and urgent, across his ring finger, as if the call of a terrible siren, knelling of ill-fate and destruction.  

His own fire, begs to consume, hurtling across his skin, a throat that chokes from the fervid heat of his bond, threatening to annihilate him entirely. He feels his humane features molding against the translucent glimmer of cerulean scales, his human form scattering in response to the irrefragable call of his bond, his mate.  

She’s in danger. 

Alarming apprehension dawns upon his mind, the sole thought of her throttling his mind, his oath promised, urging to call upon the one person her thread connects to, a Fate irrefutable, a bond everlasting.  

No. 

A savage inferno tears across Rafayel’s body — scarlet and florid licks of fire — until it engulfs him entirely, leaving nothing in its wake.  

Silence is all that remains behind. 

IX. EBB  [TW for this chapter: passing mentions of domestic abuse]

White peels back from her field of vision; slowly revealing to her the dreary, stifling atmosphere of an incredibly familiar room. A young girl stands amidst a crowd of mourning adults, some in loud tears. Others who secrete their faces into handkerchiefs and shake their heads in dismay at the “poor orphan”. Nausea wrestles pungent within her belly at the sight.  

Her gaze, involuntarily shepherded, past the throng of mourners and towards the picture of the deceased — she knows that face before she sees it — her absent father who had often left her to her own devices, save for the times he was not actively trying to assault her with stray bottles of alcohol, laying in plain sight or the utensils and plates she used to serve his meals, on days he wore down all of their expenses for another swig of tepid, cheap alcohol.  

She knows the child in front of her now feels neither sadness nor remorse as people who call themselves her relatives step over, one after the other, offering words of specious pity and solace she has no use of.  

It was also the day she’d met her Grandma for the first time.  

The scene in front falls out from beneath her feet, traded for the sounds of defeated shrieks and futile violence in the tiny fists that try and shove off the social workers, from bodily dragging her away from the familiarity of her old house. The young girl screams and screams for Rafayel, begs them not to take her away, that she doesn’t want to live with her Grandma several cities across the seas; a gap so wide, how would she ever find the only person who had meant the entire world to her, once more? She hadn’t even told him she was leaving. They wouldn’t let her leave the house, for fear she might run away.  

Her head throbs in vicious pain, ominous tendrils of rooted fire curling through the recesses of her brain as she watches the girl’s — her — futile resistance. 

A gibbering shadow skates past the edges of her vision. She feels like she’s forgetting something direly important, skirting just past the edge of memory. 

The young girl never told the adults around her of the young Lemurian boy — bonded though they were. She knew of the dark whispers that coiled through the cesspool she lived within, how the Lemurians were a species, well-coveted for how steeply priced their bodies sold for, within the black market. 

Her fierce possession and numbing worry for her vulnerable Lemurian had kept her from ever revealing her thread in another’s presence. For how had any of the adults stepped up to be her protectors, ever, in the young girl’s life? She trusted no one, save for herself and her sole mer-friend. She'd promised him they’d stay together forever; she’d vowed upon the sole pair of glimmering seashells, they’d found sanded within their beach, that she’d marry him when they grew up. She had— 

Obsidian smoke curls about her limbs, seeps into her lungs; a slow, poisonous ingestion. The deep, dark dreary roar of a beast sounds from afar, within the recesses of her memories.  

“You abandoned me.” She whips on her heel, coming face to face with her young Lemurian, eyes listless, lightless.  

“No.” She totters away from the horror of her nightmares manifested.  

An ice-cold hand wraps about her torn sleeve, digits digging deep into her wound. She cries out in instinctive pain, wrenching at her arm in an effort to free it. Her wild gaze meets Rafayel’s. Older, far frigid; the present Rafayel looks at her with an insouciant emptiness, it tears at the heart bruising within her chest. “You abandoned me,” he repeats.  

His hand jams about her throat, lifting her clean off her feet. She throttles violently within his grasp, breaths coming in rapid, tapering hisses. “And then, like the rest of those shameless humans, you thought it wise to appear before my eyes once more.” The pressure upon her wind-pipe increases, bit by bit, forcing tears into wide, panicked eyes. “You wanted to capture me too, didn’t you? You're just like the rest of them.” Rafayel’s just ire, cleaves like knives shoved right beneath her breastbone, bleeding out her heart. 

It’s an illusion, Rafayel would never. A stray whisper catches at her ears.  

“Would I really never? Well, aren't your thoughts so convenient. Admit it, you’ve always known.” Rafayel’s gaze is dark in barely tamped wrath and disgust. “I despise you, you and all your kind.” 

“R-Rafayel...” The dull, grey curl of smoke — previously shifting in wait at the edges of her vision — approaches nearer, her defences swiftly waning underneath his assault. Fingers, she scraps bloody against his grip upon her throat, and yet he refuses to relent.  

“It would be better for you to perish here, no? You'll leave me free to live my own life then. I would no longer be shackled to you like some pet.”  

“Y-You were never—” 

A furious scarlet fire splinters a path through Rafayel — his body distorts out of existence for a moment before he gathers form once more. A surprised brow he raises in question at the interference.  

“Snap out of it!”  

Rafayel?  

Her swimming gaze hones in on her beloved, from across the indifferent Rafayel’s shoulder, surely another wraith of her mind; wide blown panic, turbulent within his gaze.  

“What do you think you’re doing believing that sham?” Another burst of Evol sparks across his fingers, aimed at the other Rafayel.  

“You must trust me, believe in me alone.” Another volley of enraged fire skewers through the Rafayel holding her captive — cleaving past him harmless — the latter views him as if he were an offending impediment. “That thing is not me. It’s trying to devour you!” 

“Shut up,” the colder Rafayel speaks, hand jamming tighter against her throat, causing precious breaths to come through stuttered wheezes.  

The other Rafayel steps forward, a desperate hand he holds outstretched for her; an electromagnetic interference rippling about his body, stalling his further motions. “You have to believe the truth in front of your eyes — believe me — to be free of its prison. I have never, not for a moment, held our past against you.”  

“An imposter,” the cruel one says.  

Rafayel drives another step forwards, through the whipping waves of the scape’s resistance, snicking wounds across his jaw, tearing at his clothes. “I don’t regret meeting you.” The gentle azure of his gaze sparks vivid in a deluge of emotions; misery, panic and hopeful sincerity commingling. You were — you have always been my greatest joy, my only muse.” 

The Rafayel that holds her captive bites out an inhumane bark, eyes fading swiftly into obsidian. “I hate you, I’ve always hated you.”  

“Do you remember,” Rafayel urges, heaving another step closer. “the seashells you used to weave into necklaces and put on me when we first met? You told me they made me seem as brilliant as a Sea God, your Sea God, when you did.”A splintered laugh escapes his mouth at the recollection. “Even when I told you the ocean’s gods didn’t wear necklaces made of shells.” 

His voice breaks, emotions raw and desperate within the throaty catch of it, dragging her down the spiral of fond memories. “And the songs you used to hum for us in that odd, off-note voice when you were happy, you’ve retained that silly habit long even into your adult years now.”  

Emotions spurt and tumble free-fall from the inky desolation of her heart, tearing open at the seams of doubts and guilt.  

“And when you are mad, the reckless storm that gathers at your face is endearing. When you forgive me just as easily, the smile that lights your face...” 

A distant rumble sounds through the scape of your illusions, world crumbling apart at the seams.  

“I remember it all, like irreplaceable ornaments, treasures. Without you, I—” He bites back, harsh, at his words. The curious blue sheen across his face, glimmers. 

Eyes that glisten in moisture that threatens to seep past damp lashes; Rafayel’s eyes fall shut in a scraped plea.  

Emotions fueled by the catch of a distraught mind though he were, his words snag, painful, at her throat, springing tears to flow free-fall, at the comfort of his tender confessions. She, too, remembered all there was to know about him, her Rafayel, because of how she adored him. His words and steadfast affection seeping gentle into her mind now, in swift recollection. 

The great, dark beast in front has long shed its false skins, rattling useless in the face of her realization; it wrenches away from her body as if burned. “Pestilent humans.” As it flees entirely from the scape of illusions, great, dark fractures spilling up the space with its departure. 

She drops towards the disintegrating floor, once released, heaving in great lungfuls of air. Rafayel — the wraith of her mind — lunges forward, snatching her body mid-air against his as they fall, with the demolition of the Wanderer’s illusions shattered from her mind.  

A deluging rush of remembrance; the exam, the Wanderer, of being dragged into darkness by the Deluge Wyrmlord tumbles back into a now clear mind. 

And this Rafayel, having stood witness to all her memories.  

He lands on nimble feet, upon the now revealed protofield of the Wanderer; the weight of his Evol, she feels, scatter into the air.  

“You’re injured.” He mourns softly, fingers glancing gentle against the abrasion of her throat from where the Wanderer choked her, down her bruised arm, the blood long staunched in dark red across the cut. 

“I’ll be fine.” She cradles his face within a careful palm, face softening in overwhelming gratitude. If only she, too, could tell him how much she truly loved him. 

Rafayel makes a skeptical sound of disapproval. A hand, he sifts up into her hair and curls about the back of her head. “Hold still.” And before she can finally think to question why a figment of her mind still persists outside the cast illusion, Rafayel is pressing his lips against hers, mouth moving to part hers until she feels warmth flow into her, the shock of his actions making her throat swallow around him on instinct. 

The dull throb at her arm, the cuts and bruises across her aching legs — breaths that seep in easier, with the patched abrasions of her throat — give way to strength as she witnesses her wounds stitch up, in disbelieving surprise. 

“A Lemurian’s essence holds healing properties,” He breathes, heated against her lips. “our tears, saliva—” He pauses. “You’ll feel better soon.” The fever of his skin beneath her grasping fingertips, his shallow breaths come in quick; the flush across his cheekbones feels much too corporeal to be mere figment of her imagination. 

Her eyes widen in disbelief, mind refusing to comprehend his presence. Restless hands tracing the shape of his firm body underneath hers; his neck, the strength of his shoulders, down the unyielding expanse of a solid chest. 

It just couldn’t be. 

“Are you... real?” She slips a palm about the curve of his cheek, index and finger pinching at the flesh. “You can’t be real, you can’t be here.” 

Rafayel chokes on an incredulous laugh. “What an inane question, can’t you tell, silly girl?” He sounds offended. 

A plethora of questions tumble within her mind as Rafayel bumps his forehead up against hers, moisture glistening like pearls upon his cheeks. “I can sense you. And I felt it, when I nearly lost you.” He grits out the words, chagrined; breath hitching in pain as if reliving a nightmare. 

Her heart shrivels at his admission, aching gaze tracing the outline of his Lemurian features. “But, I... I don’t understand. You look so different, Rafayel, what—” 

A great ominous roar sounds from the center of the protofield, the Wanderer now having recovered from its short rebuttal of having been torn away from its prey.  

Rafayel lets her down onto her feet cautiously. Taking her hand in his, his skin sits unbearably warm against hers, “Questions later. We have to get rid of that Wanderer right now. Come on.” 

She nods at him, the two turning to face the Wanderer before they fixate their stance. Hurtling forth in tandem towards the approaching monster; weapons materializing within firm fists. 

They rush, as one, at the large winged creature, aiming right against the base of its great talons. A shield thrown upon the Wanderer, comes half-way down with their first assault.  

Back against his, she feels him tackle down the monster’s onslaught of weaker Wanderers, unearthly fire blazing away at its minions. A shimmering, amethyst line of fetters gathers form with his Evol, to grasp about the Wanderer’s body as it rages. She feels his breaths coming in harsher, feels the way he tightens his body through each motion of offense against their enemy — in no condition to be fighting off a high-class Wanderer with the weight of his sickness slowing him down.  

She captures Rafayel’s wrist in hers, jolting him backwards. Lunging in front of him to take the Wanderer’s next full-bodied assault. “Rely on me, I’ll fight for us both!” She calls to him over her shoulder. 

She catches his mute moment of surprise, out the corner of her eye before he bursts into quiet laughter. “What a reliable bodyguard.” Curving a palm about her shoulder, his Evol, she feels resonating against hers in harmony. “But if you insist.” Weaving their Evols together to strengthen; the dark fetters that plunge forwards this time, chain about the Wanderer’s girth, firmer, breaking clean through another of its shields.  

The Wyrmlord screeches in crazed agony, ramming a heavy appendage straight for them. The two lunge in opposing directions to avoid the assault; Rafayel, a split second too slow to dodge as its claws catch at the side of his abdomen, tearing at his shirt.  

He hurtles heavily onto the ground, body rolling across the Protofield before he swiftly catches himself, teetering back on to unsteady legs. His pants come in harsher, the scales across his face glimmering in fevered sweat; his body’s condition holding him back.

“Rafayel!” She calls for him on an urgent shout, rushing the Wanderer from its side, to cleave clean through its shield of defense. “Don’t push yourself anymore and stay back! You aren’t well!” 

He shakes his head at her, holding his body high once more. His shallow wound, she sees, stitch up soon after, the incandescent cerulean glow of his scales striking against his features. “It’s not what you think it is.” Rafayel streaks forward just as the Wanderer attempts to take flight for a sweeping offensive. 

He springs for the monster, using the momentum of his run, punting hard off its body; vicious chains of static purple zipping through it, to bring it crashing down onto the ground. The Wanderer’s remaining shield shattered in one critical hit, bringing it down in a violent collision of great, dark wings and a massive scaled body, vulnerable to damage.  

“Now! Rafayel instructs. Coalescing the bulk of his powers into the clench of a fist, he lunges for the Wanderer; her own movements, complimenting against his. Raising their weapons up high, their Evols converge against the other’s in a final, galvanic purple blast of energy. 

The Wanderer screeches one final sound of agony before it skitters lifeless at the ground, its disintegration setting into tattered fragments of energy.

The protofield around them begins to wane, jagged shards of breakage appearing across the domed surface of it, as soon as the Wanderer falls. 

“It’s over.” She exhales, relief plucking sharp across the back of her breastbone.

“Let me take… a moment to catch my breath.” And with the sheer adrenaline of the fight holding him up now, gone, so too does Rafayel’s strength ebb from him entirely, as he pitches onto his feet. “Rafayel!”  Just as she dives forward to catch him within her arms before his body hits the ground. “Hey!”  

Rafayel’s breathing harder, the sweat that dampens his brow far more pronounced with the appearance of his Lemurian features, glimmering scales gradually fanning wider across his skin. “Stay with me, it’s over.”

And then she sees it, the flittering of vivid red, burning against his ring finger. Pulsing harsher with each labored sound of breath he endures through and her breath frosts within her lungs.

She feels the distant pattering of approaching footsteps just as Rafayel’s hot palm curves about her wrist in a possessive hold. “We have to get out of here. I need to get home.”  

The frantic calls of her name echo across the field; she lifts her head to catch sight of a pale-faced Gabriel, waving his hands at her from just across the area. She shouts at him to stay where he is, cradling Rafayel closer to her torso for fear of his scales being seen. 

In this moment, she cannot bring herself to care for anything except providing what Rafayel needs; the frenetic urgency to his words enough to have her obeying without questions asked.  

Calling for her teammate, once more, to let the others know they were both alright and that she’d be back at a later time before Rafayel urges her thoughts back to himself.

“That’s... enough. Come now.” He moans within her embrace, just as Gabriel utters an unintelligible question of confusion. Her Lemurian’s fingers spasming against hers, “Hold tight.” he grinds out, before they’re both engulfed in a florid sea of fire.  

X. FLOOD 

The two of them come crashing onto a hard, polished surface; Rafayel’s arms tightening about her body in protection, just as his shoulder connects with the floor, with their fall. Deposited into the empty safety of his room — she notes in shock — by his Evol already shriveling out of existence.  

He shudders in visible pain beneath her, just as she scrabbles to get off his body. “I’m sorry—” The ferocity of his strength, however, hauls her back, bodies crushed against each in a firm, searing line. 

Rafayel’s pants rattle hot against the skin of her neck; the harsh rise and fall of his chest, she feels burn against her own, even through their clothes. He keeps them enclosed within that sweltering space of silence for several, long moments. 

Reaching her fingers out to comb through his unruly hair, in comfort, the adrenaline of their fight having fast shifted into worry for his health.  

Why had he decided to come after her in the fevered state he was in? How had he even known to come for her? The questions, unanswered, careened about in an endless cycle within her mind. 

Her Rafayel shifts, face sinking deeper against her breasts. Nosing, delicate, at the space exposed by her open collar as he inhales, long. His previous labored breaths seemingly soothed in her proximity, as he continues to breathe her in.

Her next gasp soughs past her lips on a catch of barely tamped sound, Rafayel’s gaze rolls up to meet hers — hot and piercing.  

“Rafayel,” She cups a hand about his warm cheek. “Let’s get you off the floor now, you’ll worsen your fever.”  

He knocks his cheek further into the space of her palm, lashes quivering shut, in comfort. “I told you... it’s not a fever ruining my body.” He repeats the words he’d uttered to her back in the Protofield.  

“It’s you.” Her mind jostles to a screeching halt.  

“What?” 

Rafayel’s body tightens beneath hers, the lean strength of his arms coming about to lift, with an ease entirely unexpected of a sick man. He moves them both onto the expanse of his bed, seating himself down, with her firm on his lap. “I’ve been going through these feverish bouts because you’ve been calling for me.” He heaves. “I’d never experienced them before because we’d never—” his words break. Rafayel’s fingers slip a slow, cautious path along the base of her spine, it makes her shiver above him. “I could’ve lost you,” he murmurs, “back there.” Hauling her close once more to sink his face into the crook of a tense shoulder as he breathes her in deep.

“I’m here now, I’m fine.” She soothes a gentle palm down the line of his back, the mild quivers that take it, muted into rest with her strokes. “Thank you for coming for me earlier.”

“Of course I did.” His grip upon her body tightens. “You called for me.” 

She rakes her fingers through his hair. “I... did not call for you, Rafayel. Even if I did, it’s impossible for you to have heard—”  

“Silly girl.” He captures her hand within his hair, entwining his fingers in between hers. “Do you not see?” Bringing their palms up close together for her to witness—

Red flitters about her ring finger, vivid — her heart jostles over its beats — the line of it longer and far corporeal, glimmering within the dark of his room, spiraling an undulating path up, up.  

Finding its other half, caught against the base of Rafayel’s finger. Her breath seizes within her throat at the sight, wary gaze tracing the line of the previously absent thread against their fingers. Not daring to believe the implications of the sight and what Rafayel too was saying. “How could this— I thought we were—”

“A Lemurian’s very being is set to perceive their beloved, in their entire capacity. Without exception.” He brings their entwined fists up to his mouth, feathering a kiss onto her knuckles apiece. “And I have not changed since the first moment I met you.”  

The heat of his words is within her head, the frenzied hammering of her heart within her throat. She dares not breathe too loud, dares not speak for fear of this precious moment shattering. The inference of his words could not be clearer and yet. A fleeting recollection of the Wanderer’s cast illusion comes to mind, the cold Rafayel’s unforgiving gaze flashing against hers.  

“Has your heart then... changed?” He asks, the wavering azure of his gaze fixated firm upon hers.

She caresses the back of her fingers against his cheek, down the line of his jaw. “It has not, not for a single moment in all these years but—” She whispers. But could you ever forgive me for leaving you on your own? 

“I’m not asking you for anything beyond that. I don’t care for it.” He shifts a thumb against the line of her lips dampened with a nervous swipe of her tongue. “I’m asking to know if the woman I love is willing to accept me again.”  

Her breath hitches within her throat. Turbulent emotions burst forth within her chest at his words, a sweet ache quivering at the back of her breastbone, the magnitude of his words she isn’t able to comprehend. Unable to believe the words she’s been wanting to hear him say, all this time, leaving that beautiful mouth. 

She surges forward onto his lap, desperate to answer the man who’s entrusted his heart so keenly into her hands. “I never stopped in the first place.” She speaks, adamant. Her fingers brush at his face, down the length of his neck to hold. The pads of them grazing the beauty of his scales, glimmering within the moonlight that shafts into the quiet dark of his room through the gauzy curtains. “I’ve loved only you all these years and by god, Rafayel, I don’t think I could ever love anyone but you.” She’s out of breath and dizzy in love, it’s a feeling she never wants to clamber out of, if it means he’d continue to look at her, just the way he is now.

She hears the audible throttle of his breath; a low, anguished sound, as if she’d told him something he’d considered entirely impossible. Rafayel had seemed so sure of her feelings, and yet, he looks at her now, with a relieved sort of devotion and desire. “Which god?” His whisper is sultry, his gaze along with the heat of his skin beneath have her feeling faint within his embrace, the flex of his arm tightening its hold about her waist.  

She tips her head closer, her lips shaping her answer a mere breadth from his. “My Rafayel, my own Sea God.” She braves a kiss against his mouth. “I love you.” She confesses, “I love you so—” 

Rafayel heaves forwards, filching the rest of her words right against the desperate tongue he sweeps into her mouth. Lips moving against each other in a mesh of reckless teeth and tongue, refusing to release from each other. Her fingers catch at the fabric of his collar, in a bid to drag him closer. Rafayel’s palms, a stable hold about the flare of her hips as she bucks against him in instinctual desire at the feeling of his tongue sweeping into her mouth. Her core grazes against the distinct line of his stiff arousal, straining beneath the placket of his trousers.  

Rafayel moans a low, throaty sound against her damp lips. “This is your fault,” he whispers, feverish. “You’re the one who has left me so vulnerable.” 

The turbulent seas within his gaze burn luminous, the gentle florid pinks of his irises swallowed within the blue that takes them. The scarcity of his scales now fleshing a path from his face. Down the graceful arc of his neck and across the expanse of his clavicle. Disappearing just under the line of collar of his shirt. She treks a reverential path about his beautiful Lemurian features; a shuddered exhale leaving Rafayel, in his inexplicable state of heightened sensitivity. “Do you know what’s wrong with me?” He seizes her exploring wrist within his gentle hold, halting her movements. His chest heaves once more in vehement, anguished pants, his skin impossibly hot beneath hers.

“No, tell me what’s happening to you. Why are you—” 

“—so sexually aroused?” He supplies, mouth skewing into a smile with the hot flush of her cheeks.  

“...I was going to ask about your humane features unraveling but that too. You're... burning up.”  

He sighs against her glancing touch, at the scales of his neck. “Each year, when the moon shifts phases and the tides ebb from the shores, bonded Lemurians go through an inevitable period of increased sexual activity. We are,” he pulses a delicate kiss to the inside of her captured wrist. “extremely vulnerable during this time, our base appetites, near insatiable, unless we bear it through with our bonded mates.” 

A streak of desire spurts within her chest, seeping down into her abdomen to pool in between her legs. “So then, all this time, you were...” 

“‘Sick’”, he continues, “because I wasn’t funneling my desires with my mate.” He tugs her close by her imprisoned hand, murmuring, hot, within her ear. “within my mate.” 

A low moan of desire breaks from her lips at his licentious provocation.  

“I’ve never experienced one before.” He confesses heavily. “I wasn’t sure what it was, when it started; the time of the year seemed to coincide with my symptoms but we weren’t bonded... not to my knowledge.” Rafayel’s gaze treks against the shimmering line of their thread, re-connected. “It’s a rarer miracle for it to find itself weaved against the ones it broke in between, more so than it is for the thread to re-emerge in between new lovers.” He laughs; a low self-deprecating sound. “Fate really played me for its fool.”

She murmurs his name, gathering his hand closer to press a reverent kiss against his ring of red at his finger. “I love you, Rafayel.” she reiterates, dragging his wide, wavering gaze back towards herself, letting the irrefutable truth of her words sink in. That it’s not Fate that tugs at the cogs of their bond now, but her feelings, unchanged as they’ve remained.  

“Promise me,” he implores. “Promise you’ll continue to see me the same, no matter how many years pass us by. Promise you’ll stay by my side this time?”  

Her answer rushed, eager, yearning to soothe. “Yes. Yes, I will. I want to stay by your side.” Stealing her arms about the broad strength of his shoulders, to pull closer.  

“Don’t let me go.” Rafayel breathes. Their mouths crush against each other in a consuming kiss; an urgent prayer he makes of her name. 

Each time she squirms atop his lap with the force of his kisses, her increasingly damp core shifts in glancing strokes above his clothed length. Her fingers jolt about Rafayel’s shoulders, sinking harsh into the skin through cloth, with a particularly ruinous lap of his tongue into her mouth.  

Her fingers fly for the clasps of his shirt, rushing down the length of buttons, generously revealing the unyielding expanse of his chest, the line of his toned abdomen. Briefly trekking the warmth of his skin with the pads of inquisitive digits before her mouth follows suit, drifting from Rafayel’s to kiss a path across the firm expanse of his chest. Slicking a gentle tongue right above his heart in devoted gratitude for the one who loves her so wholly. 

She glides a slow palm down his abdomen, appreciating the tremulous clench of muscles, underneath her touch. Her coveting digits pause at the metal clasp of his belt, gaze canting up to meet Rafayel’s in silent request.  

“Yes,” he grinds out, through arduous pants of her name. “It’s yours, I’m yours, do as you please.” She pushes off his lap, dropping onto her knees in between his legs at his affirmation. Rafayel’s breaths hitch higher within his throat, at the snag of her fingers reaching to swiftly undo the fastenings of his belt, pulling it clean from its confines to discard it onto the floor of his room. Her palm slips down the line of his zipper, stimulating him impossibly harder as she works to release him from the confines of his trousers.  

Until Rafayel sits there; her devastatingly alluring Lemurian, near-naked, save for the shirt that sags against broad shoulders, and the remaining modesty of his underwear. She takes a moment to control her shaky breaths before her thumbs slip under the waistband of his final barrier, keeping him from her gaze. Sliding the garment in one careful stroke, down the strength of his legs until she tosses it off to the side. His cock springs to full length, freed from its confines, hard; it curves, slight, towards his abdomen, the gentle slick of minute bluish scales running along the underside of his shaft. A thing of beauty, just as its owner.

The twitch of his length within her grasp is palpable as she moves to work an admiring fist about it. A lone bead of pre-cum sits upon the flared head of his cock; her tongue darts out in instinctual rapacious desire to sweep it into her mouth. The sweet-salt tang of him she hums against, in a soft moan, “I love how you taste.” 

Long, tapered digits thread through the fall of her locks, curving a loose fist at the back of her head. Her eyes traveling up his torso to meet his, bright in aroused impatience. It makes her want to flip that expression over into something entirely different. She tips forwards, lips falling apart to take the head of him into her eager mouth, just as Rafayel rewards her with his first approving groan. Tongue slicking about the head of him to lick, down, at a vein just underneath the flare of his head. His hips judder up into her face with the action, slipping more of him into her welcoming throat. “What’re you doing to me?” He moans, in gravelly rapture. “Your mouth feels divine.”  

She feels the clench of her own abdomen at his praise, wetness seeping further into the cloth of already damp panties. Her mouth slips further down the thick length of him, working him deeper into her throat as she tries and relaxes against the instinctive gagging intrusion of him. A shuddering string of words, he makes of her name, in overwhelming arousal, help her along on his cock. Until she is sliding about the length of him, back and forth, tongue drooling its spit down the expanse of his cock she cannot fit into herself.  

His fingers have tightened into a near-spasm within her hair, not nearly enough it hurts, holding her fixated in place; the pads of his digits tracing soothing, encouraging circles about her scalp as she sucks at his cock. “You’re doing so — agh — so well.” The fingers of his free hand, Rafayel brings to curve, delicate, about her jaw, tipping up; her eyes finding his, on silent instruction.  

He looks entirely gone, the rugged flush of his cheeks enticing as it dashes across his ears. Springs down the crescent of his neck and across the firm expanse of his chest. Rafayel’s cock hits the back of her throat on her next intake; she swallows against the heady swell of him, deliberate, measured, refusing to relent her gaze as she does. It immediately has the effect she desired; Rafayel’s next breath rattling out of his chest on a wrenched groan of pleasure, the blue of those inhuman eyes glistening brilliant as he propels his hips into her, in a reflexive bid for more.

His fingers skid along the underside of her jaw, where mouth meets throat, grazing for the place he knows she has him settled inside. A long, tapered index, he flicks down the line of her neck — she swallows on instinct, dragging another choked moan out of him as reward — before it comes to rest at the buttoned collar of her shirt. “Off.” He murmurs, hazily. Deftly unfastening open the first few buttons before he curves his index beneath her collar to tug. “Take it off. I want to see all of you when I come.” Pooling a blush into her cheeks at his sweetly sensual appeal. 

She pulls her shirt over her head, lured along by the nimble hands that drag her close, reaching around her, to undo the clasp of her bra before he coaxes that too, off her body. Mouth falling slack, cerulean flashing vivid, in flared arousal and want; to witness the heaving tremble of her breasts as she descends on him once more. 

Rafayel eases stray locks of her hair back against her ear to better afford himself the view of pink, moist lips parting to swallow around him once more in renewed enthusiasm. 

Her hands flitter about the length of him, slick slide aided by spit and pre-cum as she moves to work her tongue around the tip; the broad of it she teases at the slit, making Rafayel shudder above her. Slipping, slow and sure, down the generous length of him, insatiable desires flooding in the clench of empty walls, for the brimming taste of him within her throat.

Rafayel’s pants have turned far harsher, sporadic in impending release. She continues to ease her tongue about his length, her palms soothing down the tense muscle of his thighs before she moves to cup her fingers about his balls. “I’m—” Rafayel snaps.  

The skin beneath her fingers tightening, as she sucks about his shaft, to help him along the final stretch of his incoming release, swallowing up to the base of him in one forceful go. Her throat constricting in protest at the rough intrusion. Rafayel groans out loud — frenzied palms pressing at either sides of her head to force her off of his cock, just as he comes in thick, spurting strokes, across her cheeks, her nose; down the curve of her chest.  

“I can’t take it any longer,” he rasps. Hauling her onto her feet by her arm, he tumbles her back onto the cool, crumpled sheets of his bed. 

She barely has but a single moment to catch her breath — more from the surprise of his vehemence — before the shorts of her uniform, are being wrested off her body in the fervent catch of desperate fingers. Rafayel gets the material half-way down her thighs before his long-frayed patience snicks off entirely; a cool rubescent fire licks up clean across the material, blazing the offending cloth away entirely.  

She’s left dumbstruck, pleasure-addled mind wrung in between faint amazement at his precise Evol manipulation and mild offense at his ruination of her uniform. “We’ll get you a new one.” He heaves — as if he’s read her mind — in between kisses laid onto the instep of her bare leg, working up across her calf. “As long as you let me have you right now, I’ll do whatever you want.” 

Her breath seizes within her throat at his sultry request. Rafayel’s palms trace about the shell of her hips, curving about the sides of her abdomen before he caresses them up her stomach, pressing, light, into the yielding flesh. Her body shudders beneath his testing caresses. One of his hands steals down the cusp of her clothed mound, index and middle stroking at her labia above panties, before he skates them in between her folds. The two moan in unison; to feel how drenched she is for him.  

Her body squirms against his, begging for more of that sweet friction. Hips bucking up into his hand to force more of him against her aching slit. Rafayel towers above her, the delectable flush across that slack, sensual expression has her fluttering in on emptiness, her hole aching to be filled completely — as if she too has taken on the fever of his desires, writhing in phantom heat. Her drifting mind wonders for a fleeting moment, if a human bonded to a Lemurian could experience the mind-numbing lust of their cycles, along with their partners. That stray thought, she believes, with each passing second he riles her up in delirious rapture.  

Holding himself above her upon the crook of a folded arm, Rafayel descends for her mouth, covetous tongue savoring a moan against hers. She feels the hot, wet strength of his cock — already firmed to stone once more — rolling against the inside of her thigh. Just as he slips a long, tapered digit past her underwear, to curve it directly against her soaked opening. Her hips jump violently at the contact, her squeal of arousal Rafayel pilfers against a throaty chuckle. “You’re so wet.” Pressing up into her to make his point, the audible squelch of her slick, loud within the quiet night. “Are you enjoying this, my love?” 

“Isn’t,” she gasps, heat gathering, strong, into her face. “isn’t the answer obvious?” 

Rafayel hums, the skew of his smile tugging higher; a slow, relishing tongue he runs across his upper lip, end to end. And before she can think to parse the intention behind that wicked gaze, Rafayel’s palms are cupping about the soft of her ass —  digits pulsing into pliant flesh — to shear her underwear off, lifting her hips up to shove his tongue in between her legs. 

Her next sound leaves her on a shriek of pleasure, blaring stars wheeling across her field of vision. Fervid digits she convulses into the yank of his hair, in a manner that has to hurt and yet Rafayel makes no move to budge back, mouth sinking deeper against the wet flood of her heat. He curves his tongue up against her fluttering walls, sweeping at the slick. Nosing a stifled hum against her clit and that is all it takes for her over-sensitised body to break, spasming into a prompt, violent orgasm that siphons the breath from her lungs and the voice from her throat.  

Dazed in her floating awareness of the scrupulous mouth that continues to suck at her folds, laving away all of her released desire for himself. And when she sinks a quivering hand into tousled locks in whimpered protests of being too sensitive, all Rafayel offers her is an impish chuckle pressed into the soft of her thigh, right beside her mound. “You had your fun, didn’t you? It’s my turn now.” 

With that sensuous warning uttered, his mouth returns its attentions to her weeping slit once more, lips closing about the nub at her apex, sucking gentle at the bead. The jump of her hips Rafayel conquers, in the indolent arm he shackles about her waist, fingers reaching to hold hers across the quivering pliance of her stomach.  

The broad of his tongue laps a path above her entrance, catching at any stray slick that leaks from her before he eases the tip of it back into her slit, relishing the clench of her walls in a throaty groan. He continues to prolong that titillating torture of his, edging his tongue at just the entrance of her pussy, till her body burns once more within the kindled flames of a cresting orgasm.  

“Rafayel, there — hah — right there. Rafayel.”  Sliding that tormenting tongue into her walls once more, to her relief, to the mewls of his name flooding like rain from a parched tongue, the spasm of her fingers she smothers against their entwined digits at her abdomen.  

“Sing higher,” his stuttered groans smothered enthusiastic, into the drench of her slit. Tongue curling up against her frontal walls, in a drag that has her fracturing under his mouth once more. Tears sprung to lust-hazed eyes from the overwhelming arousal wrought upon her body under Rafayel’s dexterous tongue.  

He exhales a pleased sigh against her mound, each heated breath causing shivers to jump across tender skin. A kiss, Rafayel lays right against her swollen clit. 

“Once more.” Her walls clench in wrecked protest, a whimper leaving her throat at his whispered words. “Give me just one more.” He entreats. “I need your taste in my mouth again.” A flitter of kisses he strokes against the line of her pelvis, her mound; dark gaze rolling up to meets hers from in between her legs. She flushes at the intensity of their contact held, without mercy. Her wordless squeeze about her hand given, is all the permission her hungering Lemurian requires to sink back towards her wet heat.  

Tapered digits reach to shape a path about the sensitive bead of her pleasure, pinching in between steady, pleasurable strokes. Before they descend lower, coveting towards her fluttering entrance. Rafayel presses up, gentle, into her walls to coax wetness onto his digits with each drenched thrust of his fingers into her.  

His hand releases from hers, palm drifting up across the plane of her body to cup about a pliant breast. Fingers caressing a circular path about her areola in soft, stimulating strokes and she quivers at the sensation, breaths coming in short, stifled bursts of air.  

Rafayel’s mouth closes about her clit, just as the arch of his fingers hit at a particularly hot, sensitive spot within her pussy; walls spasming about his fingers, swallowing him in. His name soughs past her lips on whimpered gasps with each steady thrust of him up into her walls.  

The pads of his digits tweak about the puckered bead of her breast, thumb denting gentle at the bud, sending a jolt of arousal straight in between her legs.  

Rafayel continues to lap her up, dutiful; his lashes descending in pleased satisfaction just as her third, mind-numbing release crests through her body, leaving her skin a drenched, ruined mess Rafayel sucks at, in throaty moans of delight.  

“Rafayel,” she urges, unable to stand the searing desire he’s put inside her, body hungering for the heat of his cock in desolate emptiness. The overwhelming desire to feel his heat flooding into her, with how long he’s strung her dry for himself. She catches his face in between tremulous digits, pulling him from in between her legs to meet his gaze, dark in fervent desire. “I need you inside me now.”  

Heated obscurity scatters momentarily from his eyes at her fevered request, hips rolling against hers so she feels the hot strength of his arousal brush against her inner thigh; her gasps breaking into the air, at that brief second of contact. Burying her next moan in the vicious bite of teeth at his clavicle, when his cock ghosts across her mound, so close to where she wants him. “If you’re sure you want this...” He groans in ardent murmurs against her mouth.  

Her clambering response is swift and eager. “I want this, I want you.”  

“I’ll let you have me,” he relents in between their wet kisses. “this time, all of me. So drown with me, my beloved bride. Love me.” 

Just as he snaps his hips forwards, the head of his cock pressing her open for himself. The delectable stretch of him, so easy within the drenched warmth of her body as it ravenously sucks at him, all the way in. Rafayel’s searing groan of pleasure, he breaks against her jaw; mouthing, mindless, at the taut skin.  

The union of their bodies, have left them both winded, without breath to draw into aching lungs; several moments they take in between heated gazes and consuming kisses, unmoving. Growing accustomed to this new, exquisite feeling of being so deeply intertwined into each other, she feels she could live like this against him for the rest of her life.  

Until Rafayel begins to move and her world explodes into turbulent sparks of blinding pleasure, unlike anything she’s quite experienced before. His hands are upon her body, covetous digits flittering in between them to touch at dewy skin. Testing his touch against the trembling give of her breasts. Mouth capturing a pert nipple into his mouth, to suck until she keens underneath him.  

Her ankles hook about the base of his spine, dragging Rafayel’s propulsions deeper into her. A stuttered moan, she throttles out of him, at the stimulation before his hand steals about her ass to lift her lower body entirely off the bed. Angling his hips, Rafayel’s thrusts turn impossibly deeper, with the assistance offered in their new position; his pelvis grinding flush against hers on each fevered plunge. “You’re perfect around me, so very — hah — warm,” he grinds out in heedless praise, hips snapping against her harder, in rising intensity, in chase of a hovering orgasm.  

She moans in appreciation around the tongue he slips into her slack mouth in yearning want. “Rafayel,” she chokes out. “I’m so close.”  

“Me too,” he groans, shifting his weight forwards to lean against the crook of his arm at her side. His fingers trek up a path against her slack arm, digits entwining through hers, the line of their red thread flickering in between them both as they approach the crest of their combined pleasures.  

“I love you,” she sobs in between quivering gasps; his gaze crinkling in warmed affection and desire so acute, it drags another whimper out of her.  

“I love you.” Rafayel declares, into the catch of his kisses against her mouth, her cheeks, down the crescent of her jaw. Laving a kiss into the curve of her neck in a worrying bite of teeth, marking her for his own. He switches his pace once more, cock spearing up against her frontal walls in frenzied thrusts. “Come for me,” he beseeches. 

Jaw falling slack in a daze of undulating desire when she obliges at the heated scrap of his words, tumbling over the edge in an orgasm so vehement, her spine arcs clean off the bed. “You’re so good for me.” He worships.

Cresting waves of pleasure, she rides in the hard clench of her walls against Rafayel’s throbbing cock, pulsating hot within her until he too follows soon after. An incomprehensible swell of his cock inside, rising with its pulsations, has her gasping out a low, keening sound at the aching stretch of her pussy, it prolongs her high onto wondrous, searing moments of dizzy elation. Her toes curling into the sheets as the steady bulge of him catches at her walls and snags inside, hot spurts of cum surging into her, so much of it, she feels light-headed from how stuffed he has her. Just as Rafayel’s head falls low, on a loud, long groan of release.

Their damp breaths break against each other’s mouth for several moments that follow after, as they try and muster their senses back to themselves. Her fingers tracing absent, soothing circles along the curve of Rafayel’s spine until his trembling body stills to a gentle lull above her, quieted in the wake of their vehement orgasms.

A strange, fascinating imprint, throbs scarlet right above his heart — in the fleeting likeness of a fish — just as Rafayel’s rattling breaths abate. Captivated fingers she ventures, to trace against the edges of the mark. “...What is this, Rafayel?”  

“A sign of Lemurian loyalty.” A quiet smile tips across his face at the question.

The swell of breathless surprise, she knows is upon her face. “My devotion, here on, it’s yours to do with, as you please.” A kiss he buries into her palm in overwhelming affection. “I’m allowing myself to be trapped by you.” 

A low sob of adoration breaks from her throat at the words, just as the proof of his vow fades fast into his skin. A hand, she brings about his neck, to haul him down against her, to treasure a kiss right above where his heart thrums its beats, elated desire burning warm within her chest.  

Rafayel moves above her, maneuvering their positions until she rests at her side, within the circle of her arms, bodies still conjoined. His cock — she realizes with dazed shock — is still hard within her body. “Are you afraid?” He asks, gentle fingers carding through the mussed tresses of her hair. “I’ll need you much more times before I’m sated, you know.”  

She shakes her head at him, palm moving to cradle against his cheek. “I want all of what you have to give me, Rafayel. I’ll take it all.” 

He drags her closer by the hips at her affirmations; his touch along the back of her ass tending a slow fire back up within her weary body, as he moves to hoist her leg up against the cut of his hip.  

And she lets him show her just how profound a Lemurian’s devotion to his beloved truly runs, throughout the entirety of the night and into the greeting of dawn — a depth as unbounded as that of the Oceans.

End Notes: Tagging as requested: @samanthagnicole , @catboi-anon , @bitches4lifebro

If you’d like to be tagged in my future stories, you can fill this short form here.

You can also find me on Ao3 and twitter, if you’d like to scream with me about hot characters.

[mephisto-reporting]

In Those Little Things With Rafayel

Plot: You adapt and adjust your routines to make your fishie more comfortable, more loved. But little did fishie know that these things were what makes you indispensable to him. This request was the reason for this fic Pairing: Reader x Rafayel (can be MC or non MC) Note: Rafayel and reader are in a relationship. This is purely fluffy. If you want to be included in my taglist, please let me know in DMs, Comments or my inbox.

The art studio smelled faintly of turpentine and paint, a mingling of chaos and creation. Rafayel sat cross-legged on the floor, a canvas propped against his knee, his brush moving with a flourish as streaks of fiery orange and deep indigo merged into a seascape that looked more like a dream than reality. He hummed a low tune to himself, though it faltered as you set a mug of coffee—exactly how he liked it—on the small table by his side.

He didn’t acknowledge you at first, too focused on his painting, but the slight tilt of his head told you he knew you were there.

“You’re predictable, you know,” he said after a moment, his voice dripping with his usual teasing tone. “Let me guess. Coffee, my way?”

“You’re welcome,” you replied, crossing your arms. “And yes. Two sugars, no cream. But I made sure it’s not too hot this time. You complained last time, remember?”

He glanced at you then, his dual-toned eyes catching the light, a spark of amusement dancing in their depths. “Oh, so you do listen. How charming.”

You rolled your eyes but didn’t miss the faint blush that dusted his cheeks. You sat a few feet away, cross-legged on the floor, a book in your lap as you stole glances at him. It had become your routine to quietly occupy yourself while he painted. You knew better than to disturb him when he was in the middle of a creative streak, but you also knew he liked having you nearby. There was something grounding about your presence, something that softened the sharp edges of his usually aloof demeanor.

“Do you ever get tired of just sitting there?” he asked suddenly, his voice breaking the silence. He didn’t look at you, but the faintest smile played at the corner of his lips.

“Do you ever get tired of painting the same thing over and over again?” you shot back, smirking.

“Touché.” He paused, glancing over his shoulder at you. “But for the record, my work is timeless. Yours is… well, questionable at best.”

You rolled your eyes, biting back a laugh. “My ‘questionable’ work brought you snacks, didn’t it?” You gestured to the small plate of fruit and crackers you’d set beside him earlier.

“Hmph,” he muttered, grabbing a piece of fruit and popping it into his mouth. “Fine. I’ll allow it.”

This was how it always went—Rafayel’ s bratty attitude paired with your patience. Over time, you’d learned to see through his barbs and teases, recognizing the warmth he tried so hard to hide. It showed in the small things: how he never truly asked you to leave, how his brushstrokes slowed when he noticed you were watching, how he’d sigh dramatically but let you adjust the light in the studio so he wouldn’t strain his eyes.

And it wasn’t just in the studio. It was in everything you did. You couldn’t pinpoint the moment you’d started making small changes for him, but they had become second nature.

You remembered your last trip abroad. While you had picked up the usual trinkets and souvenirs, you’d gone out of your way to find something special for Rafayel—a small, intricately carved figurine of a Lemurian charm. When you’d handed it to him, his eyes had widened, and for a moment, he’d just stared at it in stunned silence.

“It’s nothing special.” you’d said, trying to downplay it. “I just thought you’d like it.”

He’d scoffed, his ears turning red. “Obviously. You have decent taste, cuite.”

When you’d brought him a rare shell from a coastal village a few months back, he’d stared at it in stunned silence for so long you thought you’d done something wrong.

“Where did you even find this?” he’d asked, holding the shell up to the light.

“I saw it in a shop and thought of you,” you’d replied casually, as though it hadn’t taken half a day of bargaining with a grumpy shopkeeper to convince him to part with it. Rafayel had turned away quickly, muttering something about you being “too much.” though you didn’t miss the way his fingers lingered on the shell, tracing its delicate patterns.

From that moment, it became a habit. Wherever you went, you’d return with something small but thoughtful—a book on ancient Lemurian myths, a sketchpad made from handmade paper, even a piece of driftwood that reminded you of one of his paintings. Each time, his reaction was the same: a scoff, a dramatic roll of his eyes, and a mumbled, “You’re insufferable.” But the way he carefully placed each gift on his shelf told you all you needed to know.

Then there was the time you cooked shellfish for him, even though you were allergic. You remembered how his jaw had dropped when you set the dish down in front of him.

“Are you insane?” he’d asked, staring at you like you’d grown a second head. “You could die just touching this!”

“I’m not that fragile…” you’d replied, laughing at his exaggerated concern. “And I made something else for myself. Relax.”

“Relax?!” he repeated, his voice rising a pitch. “You’re literally risking your life just to feed me! This is madness!”

You’d only shrugged, brushing off his dramatics, but the way he devoured the meal told you he appreciated it more than he let on.

Then there were the major changes you made for him, for things he probably thought went unnoticed by you. Like how you moved your rental apartment from the third floor to the ground floor after you realized his fear of heights. He’d never said it outright, of course, but the way he avoided your balcony like the plague was a dead giveaway. He’d pretended not to notice at first, but one morning, as you sat together on the balcony with coffee, he’d murmured, “You didn’t have to do that, you know.”

“I know,” you’d said, smiling. “But I wanted to.”

He’d gone quiet after that, fiddling with his mug as a faint blush spread across his cheeks.

There were so many moments like these. You’d always make time for his galleries, no matter how busy you were, standing in the crowd with a proud smile as he presented his latest masterpiece. You’d memorized how he liked his coffee, how he sometimes liked snacks while he painted and other times didn’t, and how he’d pout if you didn’t let him go first during a game of Kitty Cards.

And then there was the way he indulged you too, even if he’d never admit it. He’d listen (mostly) patiently when you rambled about your hobbies, offering the occasional sarcastic comment but never actually telling you to stop. He’d pause his painting to help you carry something heavy or fix something in your apartment, grumbling all the while but never refusing.

You were different for him. He’d never say it outright, but you could see it in the way his teasing softened around you, in the way he let you see parts of himself he kept hidden from the rest of the world. To others, he was aloof, cunning, and untouchable. But with you, he was bratty, dramatic, flirty and—when he thought you weren’t looking—vulnerable.

But lately, you’d noticed something a little different.

It started with small, subtle things. Like the way he’d hang around you more often than usual, offering “advice” on your projects when he wasn’t even asked. He’d randomly appear by your side when you were reading, throwing his arm around your shoulder and acting as if he had better things to do—despite clearly not wanting to leave.

“You’re reading that again?” he’d scoff, his chin resting on your shoulder as he peeked at your book. “Couldn’t you pick something better?”

You’d grinned, nudging him off. “Says the man who stares at the same canvas for hours.”

The more you did for him, the more he found himself unable to ignore the fact that you were slowly but surely becoming indispensable to him. He’d always been used to taking care of things on his own, to relying on his own charm and wit to navigate the world. But you? You were different.

He never expected you to be the one to adjust your life to fit into his, but somehow, you’d managed to do just that. At first, he’d brushed it off, telling himself that it was nothing special. After all, it was just a few adjustments. Moving your apartment to the ground floor, bringing him snacks, going to every gallery opening without complaint. Nothing too remarkable, right?

But then it started happening more and more.

You stood in the doorway of your guest bedroom, surveying the space. You had cleared out the clutter, shifting furniture around to make room for his materials. The bare walls, once adorned with your own eclectic taste, now felt like a blank canvas for his work.

As you worked, you heard him outside the room. “Is this it?” Rafayel asked, peering in from the doorway, looking at the setup you had prepared for him. His eyes moved over the rearranged furniture, the large desk by the window, the extra shelf you had cleared for his materials.

You nodded, giving him a slight smile. "Thought it might make for a good workspace. I’m sure it’ll be cozy enough."

He raised an eyebrow, a smirk playing on his lips. “Cozy, huh? Well, as long as it’s functional, that’s all that matters.”

He stepped inside, glancing over the scattered papers and books you had placed neatly on the desk. “I’m starting to think you have a secret obsession with me. First, the little things, now this.” His voice was laced with teasing, but there was a certain warmth to it too. You didn’t respond, instead turning to gather the last of the supplies for him.

He caught your eye as you worked, his expression changing ever so slightly. “You didn’t have to do this, you know. But I guess I do appreciate it.” He offered you a quick, almost awkward smile, rubbing the back of his neck. “Thanks. Just, don’t expect me to start painting you any damn portraits or anything.”

You chuckled under your breath, watching as he turned toward the desk, already eyeing the pile of books you had set out for him. “I’ll keep that in mind,” you teased back.

The room felt less like a guest bedroom and more like a space that belonged to him now, the air thick with the scent of books and paint. It wasn’t exactly what you had imagined, but somehow, it felt right.

Even your habits started mimicking his. It wasn’t intentional at first. You had simply chosen a deep purple scarf to go with your outfit that day—an old piece you hadn’t worn in ages. As you checked yourself in the mirror, adjusting the soft fabric, you realized that you had unconsciously paired it with a sea-blue blouse and white pants.

When Rafayel arrived, you could almost see the flash of recognition in his eyes. He stood in the doorway for a moment, staring at you as if trying to piece something together.

"Is that...?" He trailed off, eyebrows knitting together in confusion before he smirked, that trademark playful gleam in his gaze. "Matching my colors now, are we?"

You couldn’t help the small laugh that bubbled out of you, adjusting the scarf once again. “I didn’t think it was a big deal,” you said, shrugging nonchalantly.

He crossed the threshold and came closer, eyeing the colors of your outfit. “No, it’s definitely intentional,” he teased. “Purple, white, sea blue... You’re starting to blend in with my aesthetic.”

You shot him a playful glance, shaking your head. “I didn’t realize you had such an ‘aesthetic.’”

He gave a dramatic sigh. “I’m a man of style. You should try to keep up.” His voice held that familiar mix of arrogance and amusement, but there was a subtle pride in the way he looked at you, the corner of his mouth twitching as if trying to hide something more genuine.

“Don’t get too excited,” you quipped, running a hand through your hair. “It’s just a coincidence.”

“Sure, sure,” he muttered with a knowing grin, giving you one last scrutinizing look before turning away. “But I’ll admit it—seeing you in my colors isn’t half-bad.”

The comment made your heart flutter, but you didn’t let it show. Instead, you simply smiled and shook your head, feeling a warmth spread in your chest.

And then there was your enthusiasm to learn Lemurian. You sat across from Rafayel, the soft hum of the evening filling the air as the warm glow of the lamp illuminated the pages of the text, he had given you earlier. You were holding the ancient Lemurian textbook with a certain amount of awe, the foreign symbols dancing across the pages in an almost hypnotic swirl.

"Okay, let’s try this one again," Rafayel said, his voice a little softer than usual, though you could still hear the playful edge beneath it. "You’ll need to pronounce the vowels differently. Remember— ‘a’ is ‘ah’, not ‘uh.’"

You squinted at the strange script, nodding with determination. “So… ‘Rala… rah’?” Your attempt was far from perfect, but you felt like you were getting somewhere.

Rafayel’s lips twitched at the sound, and you could see a hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He leaned forward; his arms folded across his chest as he tried to hide the soft amusement in his eyes. "Not bad," he teased lightly. "Though it’s more like… ‘Raaa-lah’… with emphasis, like you mean it. You sound like you're hesitating."

You let out a groan, embarrassed, but refused to give up. “This is harder than it looks! How did you learn it so quickly?”

He chuckled, leaning back and giving a shrug, his smile widening at your frustration. "I’ve had more practice, that’s all. I’ve been hearing it for as long as I can remember." His voice dropped just slightly, becoming more thoughtful. "It’s my native tongue, after all… though a dead one, unfortunately."

You furrowed your brow, half-sensing the weight behind his words. He’d been raised with this language, but you could tell there was something more to it than mere fluency.

Rafayel raised an eyebrow, his voice becoming teasing again. "You just need to relax. And don't rush it. Take your time."

You focused, clearing your throat. “Fine. Fine. Rala… rah…”

You could swear that this time there was a subtle blush creeping up his neck, though he quickly masked it with a grin. "Hmm… not bad, but you’re still not quite hitting the right tone," he said with an exaggerated sigh, though the teasing lilt in his voice betrayed his soft spot for you.

You couldn't help but smirk at his response. "Oh? And what's the right tone, then?"

Rafayel leaned in a little, his voice turning even softer as he spoke the word again, his accent almost melodic. "Rala… rah…" His lips curled in a smile that seemed both fond and slightly embarrassed.

For a moment, you just stared at him, surprised at how his voice seemed to change when speaking the words in his native tongue. There was something almost sacred about the way he spoke the syllables, and you could tell it was a part of him that wasn’t easily shared with just anyone.

“You sound…” you hesitated, unsure of how to phrase it. “You sound different when you say it.”

He blinked at you, his smile fading just slightly before he leaned back and cleared his throat, trying to regain his usual confidence. "I’m just making sure you’re doing it right." But the blush on his face was undeniable now.

“Sure, sure,” you said teasingly, feeling a little triumphant. “You just don’t want me to butcher your precious language.”

Rafayel huffed and rolled his eyes, but you could tell that the teasing wasn’t entirely genuine. "Oh, please. As if you could ever butcher something so beautiful." His voice was a little more sincere than you expected, and you caught the wistfulness behind it, even though he tried to cover it up with his usual teasing demeanor.

You couldn’t help but smile at the sight of him—trying so hard to maintain his usual bravado but failing to hide the warmth in his eyes. It was moments like these that made the lessons feel less about learning a language and more about getting to know him in ways you never expected.

“Well, I guess I’m improving,” you said lightly, trying to steer the conversation back to something playful.

He smirked, though there was a soft flush still lingering in his cheeks. “Yes, but you’re not getting away that easily. Try again, but this time, put some feeling into it.”

You mimicked his earlier attempt, this time adding a little more of the tone he was asking for. As soon as the words left your mouth, you saw his blush deepen, and his teasing smile waver.

"Now you’re just trying to make me blush, aren’t you?" he said, though his voice had softened with something almost tender. You caught a glimpse of something that looked like admiration—and embarrassment—flashing in his eyes before he quickly turned his gaze away.

You chuckled softly, enjoying the way the lessons had become more than just learning a language. They’d turned into something a little more... intimate, and you couldn’t help but feel grateful for it. "Guess I’ll have to keep practicing then, huh? I can do so after work. I’ll put in a few hours for it."

You always made sure he had what he needed, even if it meant sacrificing your own comfort. His heart had raced, and he knew that something had shifted. The way he felt about you was no longer something he could hide behind his usual aloof exterior.

From that point on, his clinginess began to show in all sorts of subtle ways.

During your usual gallery visits, Rafayel would no longer keep his distance as much. He’d stand close to you, hovering near your side, his hand occasionally brushing against yours. He’d pretend it was by accident, but the way he lingered was all too obvious.

“You can’t leave me alone for a second, huh?” you teased one afternoon when you felt his hand settle on the small of your back, guiding you through the crowd.

He scoffed, but his ears flushed pink, his eyes avoiding yours. “You’re just... distracting, okay? I can’t focus with you looking all... cute.”

“Cute?” you echoed, surprised by his admission.

He immediately turned away, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “Forget I said that. You’re not cute. You’re—”

“Not cute at all?” you finished for him, amusement in your voice.

His response was a dramatic huff, a slight whine escaping him. “Fine. You’re perfect, okay? But stop distracting me. I have work to do.”

You chuckled, noting how tightly he kept his arm around you as you walked to the next room of paintings.

On your next business trip, he found himself waiting by the door when you got back from your trip. He’d pretended to be busy with something on his phone, but the moment you walked in, his usual playful demeanor slipped.

He couldn’t help himself. He’d gone up to you, wrapping an arm around your waist, pulling you close in a way that was unmistakably clingy. It wasn’t like him at all, but when you’d leaned in to kiss him on the cheek, he’d quickly turned his head and stolen a kiss on your lips instead, his heartbeat rapid.

“You’re late…” he muttered, his voice low and slightly sulky.

“I wasn’t even gone that long.” you teased, smiling as you pulled away, but his arms stayed firmly wrapped around you. He didn’t want to let you go.

“I missed you.” he said, his voice soft and surprisingly sincere for someone who usually wore such a careless mask.

You raised an eyebrow at him, noticing the slight blush creeping up on his cheeks. “Oh? You, the great Rafayel, missed little ol’ me?”

He let out a dramatic sigh, though the playful edge in his voice was gone. “Yes, yes, it’s terribly tragic. I’m just a lovesick fish now…” he teased, though the hint of vulnerability in his voice made it hard to believe he wasn’t speaking the truth. “Do you realize how long you’ve been gone?” he whined; his voice muffled against your shoulder. “It’s been forever. I almost went insane.”

You smirked, patting his back as if consoling a child. “I was only gone for a few days, Rafayel.”

“I don’t care. Days is as good as an eternity” he grumbled; his voice muffled against your shoulder.

And you realized, in that moment, that your small, quiet acts of affection for him had transformed into something more than either of you had anticipated.  You knew that you were just as much a part of his world as he was a part of yours.

When you looked up at him, a soft smile on your face, he’d finally admitted what he’d known for a while but couldn’t bring himself to voice:

“I think I might be in trouble.”

“In trouble?” you asked, your voice teasing but with a hint of curiosity. “With what?”

He sighed, his grip tightening slightly around you, like he was afraid you’d disappear if he let go. “With you,” he murmured, barely above a whisper, as if admitting it out loud made it more real. “I’ve been trying to ignore it, but... you make everything harder to ignore. I don’t know how to make sense of it, but I don’t want to fight it anymore.”

You blinked, processing the words that fell so freely from his lips. Rafayel—aloof, sarcastic, always in control—had just admitted to being unsure. And it wasn’t just about his work or his usual stubbornness; it was about you.

The realization hit him like a wave, crashing against his chest, and suddenly the studio didn’t feel like just a place of creation anymore. It was a place where something deeper was growing, something between you both that had been simmering under the surface for a while.

“I’m saying you’ve been on my mind,” Rafayel said, his tone half defensive, half earnest. “More than I’d like to admit. I’ve never been good at handling things like this, and I don’t really know what it means. I just know I don’t want to mess this up.”

His usual bravado was nowhere to be found, and what remained was the side of him that you rarely saw—the side that needed to let down his walls, if only for a moment.

You blinked again, processing his words, then a smile tugged at the corners of your lips. “Rafayel...” you started, as if tasting the sound of his name in this context was something new. “You’re not messing anything up. I’ve been... I’ve been right here all along. And well,” you said softly, “if it makes you feel any better, I think I’m in the same kind of trouble.”

His gaze flickered to yours, and you could see the flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. He looked at you as if he was waiting for you to laugh, to dismiss it as some sort of joke. But you didn’t.

“I think I’m in trouble, too,” you repeated, your voice steady and sure. “Maybe even more than you.”

A beat passed, and Rafayel let out a deep breath, his shoulders relaxing for the first time since you’d walked through the door. The corners of his lips curled upward, that familiar, teasing smirk returning, but now it had a different kind of warmth to it.

“You’re not as good at hiding it as you think,” he said, his tone still playful but with a hint of affection. “You’re just as bad as I am.”

You laughed, shaking your head. “Guess we’re both in over our heads then.”

“You’ve ruined me, you know that?” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, yet carrying the weight of something much heavier than just simple frustration. “I was fine before you came around, convinced I didn’t need anyone. But now? Now I can’t seem to get you out of my head. You’ve completely messed with my mind, and I can’t—” he paused, a low exhale escaping him. “I can’t imagine being without you anymore.”

He reached up, gently brushing a stray lock of hair behind your ear, his fingers trembling ever so slightly against your skin. “And, honestly, I don’t think I want to. You’ve ruined me for anyone else. Not that I need anyone else when you’re around.” His voice cracked just slightly as he admitted it, the weight of his words hanging heavily between you. You could hear the love in his tone, the longing, the quiet desperation he always tried to bury under layers of sarcasm and bravado. But now, in this moment, it was all laid bare, raw and unfiltered.

It wasn’t just his admission of vulnerability—it was the way he stood there, so completely bare and open in a way he never had before.

“Well,” you said with sincerity, “lucky for you, I’m not going anywhere.”

"You don't have to say anything," he said, his voice hoarse, pulling you closer. "But just know that I’m ruined for anyone else. I don't want anyone else, and I don't ever want to let you go."

There was no teasing in his voice now. No sarcasm. Just the overwhelming sincerity of someone who had let their guard down, vulnerable and exposed. And for once, you could see him for what he truly was—entirely yours. And you? You were unapologetically his.

AN: reblogs, feedback and opinions are appreciated!

Taglist: @cordidy, @natimiles @leighsartworks216 @notisekais @raining4food @fallthelong @pomegranatepip @juliuscaesarsstabbedback @krystallevine @lemurianmaster @nenggie @loverindeepspace @sinsodom

[umamaki]

SHOOT YOUR SHOT!

it’s “don’t fuck a frat dude” until you meet the boy who wants to shoot tequila into your mouth with a water gun.

2/5 of my valentine's day event!

rafayel x fem!reader

CW american university au, rafayel frat boy lol, explicit smut, alcohol, language, drunk sex, intoxication, parties, fake weapons, pet names, fingering, finger sucking?!, orgasm denial, penetrative sex, red flag if u squint? praise kink, protected sex yay, one night stand ish. WC 1.7k

NOTE so sorry this is the only non-established relationship fic in my vday event. partially inspired by real experiences from a darty last semester, liquor really tastes better from a fake firearm. fun fact, i was in a sorority once… (said in spongebobs voice) (flashbacks…) ok enough about me lol enjoy. the title itself is my best work yet.

The most common piece of college dating advice you’ve received: don’t get involved with the frats. don’t date the dudes, and definitely do not fuck them. Maybe there was some truth in the warnings, but you’d be a fool to pass up free booze on the weekends.

It’s only but an hour into the afternoon, and the house’s backyard is already crowded with drunk bodies dancing asynchronously to the music. It’s hot as fuck out. In this moment, your have to be thankful for the beach theme, allowing you to wear the minimal clothing you have on: your best bathing suit and cutest coverup.

There’s no way you’re doing this sober, so you part with the friends you came with and make a bee-line to the drink table not long after you’re all in. You could do with something cold, or something bubbly.

The crowd around the table dissipates and you step up. It’s one of those white foldout tables, branded in paint with the fraternity’s emblematic greek letters. Bottles of soda and empty solo cups are scattered throughout, whereas the alcohol was guarded behind the table, where the fraternity brothers stood. The surface of the table itself is covered in enough liquid that the clear blue of the sky reflects up from below you.

“How about a shot?” You must’ve been taking too long to decide. You look up at the boy across from you. He leans slightly forward with two hands resting on the table’s edge for balance. He has his floral shirt completely unbuttoned, displaying his sculpted chest, with his designer sunglasses pushed up into the sea of his purple hair. He smiles at you as if you had known one another your whole lives, but you swear you’ve never seen his face before today.

“What?”

“Tequila.” The boy shakes the water gun he picks up and you get what he’s implying.

Taking a shot of tequila from a water gun? Absolute insanity. The idea is hilarious to you, something only a frat brain could come up with. You hold in a laugh, letting the only thing come out of your mouth being a noncommittal, “sure.” Because why the fuck not.

He smiles at your response, pleased to have convinced you to entertain him during his shift. There’s a foreign warmth in your stomach as he does so, like his satisfaction made you more secure in your answer. “Open up then, pretty.”

You do as he says, unhinging your jaw and flattening your tongue to the bottom of your mouth. Theres not a moment of hesitation before you feel the liquor hit the back of your throat. Its contact with the inside of your mouth slightly burns, but you recognize that it’s the good brand. You feel an intrinsic desire to take it all down, to satisfy him, make him proud. Therefore you decide that the burn is quite nice. Tolerable.

His finger doesn’t lift from the gun’s colorful trigger, so you keep your mouth open, gladly accepting the continuous stream of alcohol that he shoots into your mouth. His hand stays steady, his face stoic and focused. You watch as his eyes trail down to your neck, where your throat bobs with every swallow you take. His gaze lingers in that spot before he forces himself to lock his eyes with yours once more, now with a flicker of determination.

You stay in your positions, eyes silently communicating to one another a feeling you couldn’t pinpoint yourself. You’re maybe four or five shots in before the flow of tequila sputters and stops, the last drops of it dripping down your chin.

That damn smile is back on his face. He looks at you the way he did before, with a kind familiarity. You’re still trying to catch your breath, and maybe your balance too, the liquor has already warmed the inside of your stomach and is making its way to your cheeks.

“Dude, Rafayel. You used all the tequila, bro.” Rafayel turns to the other man, looks down at the gun, then back at you.

“Oh, shame.” He says, uncaring. Again, he doesn’t break eye contact with you as he speaks. His friend shakes his head before leaving you in your bubble for two. “Ah, let me get that for you.”

Rafayel doesn’t give you a warning or wait for your approval before reaching to wipe the leftover tequila from the side of your lips, even going so far as to suck the waste from his thumb afterwards. “Hm, good,” he notes to no one in particular.

There’s something about the man that makes you want to stay in his company. You don’t want him to refill the tequila-gun. You certainly don’t want him to serve a drink (or five) to anyone else. You had to think fast.

“Do you have any water?”

Rafayel nods, face back to its previous stoic state, as if gears were turning in his head. “It’s good to stay hydrated. Water’s inside.”

He circles around the table to your side first, before leading you into the house. You’re grateful the inside is empty. He pulls a water bottle from the house’s poorly stocked fridge, giving it to you.

You’re halfway through thanking him before your back is pressed against the cold fridge, cold drops of condensation from the plastic bottle drip down your half-exposed chest. His sturdy arms cage your body in on both sides and his face is mere inches from yours. He’s desperate.

“What are you doing to me?” He strains the words out, as if it hurt to say them.

“What?”

“Don’t play coy. What you did to me out there… it was…” You can’t believe what you are hearing. You’re still trying to wrap your head around what went on a few minutes ago outside. “Do you want to go upstairs with me?”

You only nod, and you know it isn’t just the alcohol in your system speaking, you’ve wanted him since the first time he flashed you his smile.

He kisses you, needy and passionate, with a force that sends your head bumping with the refrigerator door. He takes the gasp you release when he nudges his knee between your legs as an invitation to insert his tongue into your mouth, claiming it as his.

His hot breath is the only air that surrounds you. It is dizzying, yet leaves you wanting more of him. The alcohol in your system only made you crave his touch more. You tug on the loose flap of his button-up. “Upstairs,” you mutter it into his lips, refusing to break the kiss.

Rafayels lips are still on yours when he carries you up one flight of stairs and takes you to his bedroom. You notice that he smiles when he kisses you.

He lays you on his bed only to reluctantly leave. He takes an new box of condoms from the bottom of his dresser and tears it open, grabbing one before making his way back to you.

You make quick work in undoing his shorts once he’s at the foot of the bed. His hard erection is a mouth watering sight. He was long, and he shivers in your hold when your thumb spreads his leaking precum around his tip. The moan that escapes him is pornographic. You lick your lips and gather as much spit as you can, letting it pool onto his length. You begin to lower your head before he pulls you back up.

You’re extremely confused. “You don’t want me to suck your dick?”

“No. I mean yes, it’s all I’ve been thinking about since…” he gives you a kind smile with a shake of his head, “just — allow me.”

He positions you on your back and hovers above you; close, but not touching. He pulls the bottom of your bathing suit to the side, giving him access to your wet folds. He inserts two long fingers into your entrance, easily slipping inside and immediately hitting your g-spot.

“That’s a good girl. Taking it for me so well, just like you did outside, yeah?” Hearing his praise sends pleasure to your core. Your dripping arousal coats his fingers and absorbs into the sheets below you. Your chest heaves with each moan that his fingers coax out from you.

Rafayel’s fingers abuse your pussy at a brutal pace, jamming into you even harder when he feels your walls clench around his digits. Your release never comes. He pulls out at the last second, leaving your hole spasming and you frustrated.

“What the f—mmh!” He stuffs his digits in your mouth to silence you; nonetheless, you clean him off of your juices. Again, you catch him staring at the movement of your throat as you take thick swallows.

“I’m sorry, I just can’t wait any longer.” The condom goes on, and he’s back on top of you, lining himself up with your entrance. His hand takes hold of the base of your neck as he connects his lips back to yours. He thrusts himself into you at last, drawing matching gasps from your lips. “So tight, baby. You look so cute like this, already wanting to come from being fingered. You can wait, can’t you?”

There’s that feeling wanting to please him again, wanting to keep being his good girl. He brutally jerks his hips into yours. Your wet sounds fill the room, bouncing off your bodies and the four walls that surround you.

“Fuck, I can’t get enough of your perfect pussy. Gonna carve it out just for me, so I’m the only one who can fuck you like this.” He grunts through gritted teeth, fucking you so hard that you know it’ll bruise.

“Rafayel — gotta come, please,”

“Go ahead, come on my cock. Prove to me how good I make you feel.” Your orgasm finally comes crashing down on you. Rafayel fucks you through your orgasm, prolonging it until you’re writhing below him.

He makes sure that you’ve caught your breath before allowing himself to spill his seed into the condom, still inserted inside your warm cunt. He collapses on you and the weight feels comfortable. You feel his heartbeat beating through his chest, and notice the way it quickens when he embarrassingly asks if you’d like to go on a proper date with him.

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