#this took me a while to write

[blueboyluca]

I want to talk about the most recent episode of the podcast Not Another Dog & Pony Show. I am almost hate-listening at this point, and this episode really manages to encapsulate for me the phenomenon of so-called progressives laundering conservative talking points. Conservatism wants dialogue framed in certain ways because it maintains the facade of having "balance" when in reality this is just an ongoing effort to constantly move the Overton window to the right. Any progressive discussion is a threat to conservatism, it doesn't matter what the subject is. We just happen to be talking about animal training.

There are three main issues I have with this episode but before I even get there, I have to say that these are not serious people. Both these hosts are extremely shallow in their analysis of pretty much every subject they bring up. I don't expect genius, but I do expect more than this. I think that listeners (including me) want this podcast to be more than it is, but in its tenure so far all I've heard are missed opportunities and facile discussions.

My first issue is "cancel culture". Lauren in particular is really caught up in this idea of cancel culture and is of the opinion that animal trainers in the positive reinforcement world are afraid to say what they really think for fear of backlash. I wish I could laser beam into people's brains this episode of In Bed With the Right. In it, Adrian Daub explains that cancel culture is just a way of trying to shoehorn a million different issues under a single nebulous umbrella. Each example of "cancel culture" has its own individual details, you can't just lump all these things together. Using this cancel culture framework is reductive and unhelpful and most probably clouding the underlying problems.

In the episode I linked above, someone accuses Adrian of being flippant and claims that cancel culture is real. Adrian explains:

I'm saying the cases and the difficulties and the awkwardness and the problems you describe are real. But I think the moment you group them in that way, I think there are certain things that fall under the table... There's something already falling out of the discussion by the time you've committed to saying there is this one thing called cancel culture. But we can probably say you already gave a good list of things that you feel leery about. And I think if you just stick with that list, you're actually much better off.

I think if these podcast hosts actually talked out each instance of "cancel culture" that bothers them, we would actually be talking about a large number of different things that are not necessarily connected. And why don't they have that conversation? Because instead they're caught up in this idea that it's all exactly the same thing happening again and again, but it's not.

My second issue is "echo chambers". The other host of this show, Matthias, is preoccupied with this idea of echo chambers and is once again striving for some kind of "balance" between views. Conservatism must be absolutely stoked that progressives have taken up this mantle. I was actually physically relieved when I recently heard Big Joel give an alternative perspective on this "echo chamber" thing.

We’re exposed to the craziest shit all day every day now. Has it made our politics better? Has it depolarised [the USA]? Has Twitter being overtaken by Nazis made us more clever or thoughtful or open-minded people? No, it’s ruined us. It’s ruined our brains. I’m a centrist on the echo chamber. I think debate is important, but this constant "you need to open your mind" thing – I don’t know, maybe. Maybe we do, maybe we don’t. "Echo chambers" sounds really bad, but "community" is another word you might have for echo chamber. A space where people who are like-minded communicate with each other and where certain ideas are broadly accepted is another way of defining "echo chamber".

I don't think it's important, worthwhile or necessary to give my time to listening to "the other side". I'll get to the sides thing soon, but on a base level I do not agree with the premise that I need to listen to stuff I actively disagree with to make myself morally balanced. I don't even agree where the supposed "centre" between these positions is! I don't think that surrounding myself with progressive voices means that I am suddenly blind to problems. And no community is ever an echo chamber anyway, people don't agree with each other all the time on everything, even when there is broad agreement. Broad agreement doesn't mean total agreement.

And my last issue is, every episode just seems to come back to "balanced" vs positive reinforcement. I agree with Sarah Stremming here – this is a false dichotomy. If there are "sides" they are animal training that is kind and effective, and animal training that is not. And when some people insist on framing it as balanced vs positive reinforcement, it's just bypassing the truth. It's reducing everything down to just: cancel culture, echo chamber, side vs side. It's so empty! Talk less, say more! What is with the reluctance to unpack any of this stuff? Say what you want to say with your whole chest.

I don't think it's true that positive reinforcement trainers are afraid to talk about punishment, negative reinforcement or certain training tools. Enrichment for the Real World has an episode about e-collars. Susan Friedman talks about negative reinforcement all the time. Cog Dog Radio has talked about punishment plenty during its run. Maybe the problem isn't "echo chambers" maybe your world is just small.

Using this framing is perpetuating it. It's letting this be the status quo for how we view the world. But it doesn't have to be. We can be capable of pulling things apart until we get to the truth. Conservatism wants to polarise everything, it wants to reduce everything to a black and white view. If we keep doing this, we're just remaking the world in the same image over and over again. We don't have to do that.

[stickywhiteash]

Spilled the beans ||Kakashi x Reader

Warnings: Alcohol

Word count: (780)

Sitting at a bar, drinking with your comrades, you slam down a cup and demand another. It was supposed to be light hearted fun, a little get together, yet you’re spilling out all of your woes to Kurenai about a particular shinobi.

A few hours prior to going out with the gang, you had initially asked Kakashi if he wanted to check out the new sushi place down the street. The flat rejection of “I’m busy” and him continuing to fly off to the hokage’s office crushed your self confidence.

Here you are, brazenly drunk at an ungodly hour with Asuma, Kurenai, Genma and Anko. How long has it been since everyone first arrived? Who knows. Guy was also supposed to join in with the gang earlier but reported he was busy as well.

At some point you were singing with the crew, the next you were about to throw hands with some man who dared touch. Anko, off to the side, is egging you on to rearrange his face. The ones holding you back is Genma and Kurenai, deciding you’ve had far too much to drink and should probably head home.

It felt like the heavens above loved to tease your poor soul. Both Guy and Kakashi pulled up to the party. They would be fashionably late if it weren’t more than 3 hours after the appointed time. Something something, Guy challenged him and didn’t know if everyone would still be here.

“See, my eternal rival! They’re still here youthful and kicking it!”

“Glad you two could make it.”

“Ah, actually I was just stopping by.”

While you could over hear what people were saying, your mind was too fogged up to process what was going on. Instead, you were still telling Anko how you one hundred percent could have taken that creep.

“He��! Would have deserved it y’know! Ya can’t just yknow! Go around touchin’ people like that.”

“Mm.”

“See? See? He woulda haddit co—“

The next thing you knew, you were hoisted up by someone piggy back style. Before you could protest, the warmth of their body and scent of vanilla calms your alcohol induced rage. A round of farewells sends you and your escort off. Smile, wave, and nuzzle into whoever is taking you home.

“Mister escort? You are taking me home right?”

“Yes”

“Okay.. How do you know where I live?”

“That’s a secret”

A gasp, “YOU’RE NOT KIDNAPPING ME ARE YOU?”

“Ah, yes. All of your friends let you be whisked away by some stranger.”

Shaking your head, you mumble in disbelief, “I can’t believe them. They’ll pay for this.”

There’s a pause. Streetlights pass over head steadily. Cool air clings on to your face as he walks.

“Mister escort? Do you have anyone you love?”

Muscles tense underneath you. Sighing, you continue talking, the words still slurring.

“Hey. Promise me you won’t tell anyone?”

“Tell anyone what?”

“Oi! gotta promise first!!”

“Sure.”

“Piiiiiinky promise!”

One arm unlatches from the man’s neck and holds out the little digit.

“Okay, okay. Promise.”

The gesture is returned, linking the the two appendages.

“Do you know… hmnn uh Kakashi Hatake? Think everyone knows him. If you don’t you’re really living under a rock mister!”

Another sigh, another huff. You bury your face into the crook of this man’s neck, covered in fabric.

“I love him.. A lot. I don’t know if he loves me back but what I do know Is that I have to be the one who has to confess first. He would rather bury his emotions six feet under and then jump off a cliff than say anything. He’s— He’s lost so much; I don’t blame him. Even if.. And even if Kakashi doesn’t return my feelings, that’s okay. All I want is to see that man happy and at peace for once in his life. He might not believe it but he deserves to love and be loved.”

“… Why do you love someone like him?”

“Are you kidding? He puts his friends and comrades first over rules, over the mission. His loyalties lies in them. I feel like that’s hard to come by these days. Who wouldn’t want someone like that in their life?”

Your escort stops in front of your door, not saying a single word. Bending down, he lets you off his back.

“You promised not to tell anybody, okay? Especially not him! If I find out you told him.. I’ll hunt you down, Mister Escort,” you threaten, not bothering to look at his face. With poor coordination you struggle to unlock the door. The only thing you wanted right now was to get inside and fall asleep. Once it unlocks and the entrance to your apartment is open, you bid the man a thank you and farewell.

After the door shuts in his face, he whispers. The words are barely audible.

“I love you too.”

[mr-hammer-exe]

Another OC Bio.

Okay, sooo.... where to begin?

Oh, right.

This here is ⌇⍾⎍⍀⏃⟟☍⌇(Translates to 'Sqhurakolza', nicknamed 'Shift').

Gender: Neutral, though identifies as male.

Species: Mutare-Plasmator

Homeworld: Unknown (as of now, anyway).

Age: Not definitive, but implied to be 1,000+.

Background:

Thousands - if not, millions - of years ago, on a seemingly desolate planet, a group of explorers sent by their kind across the universe to study its wonders with their highly advanced form of travel (for their time) successfully landed, taking up residence.

This new world had everything for life to thrive (i.e. water warmth, sufficient gravity, etc.). As their colonization went into full effect, however, they weren't aware that something was already living there, something they couldn't see with the naked eye.

Researchers discovered a bacteria sample native to this planet, containing it for further examination in a specimen room. Unbeknownst to any of them, they were about to witness the dawn of a new species.

To determine what this bacteria sample could do, specimens that were previously captured on other planets were used as test subjects. Within a matter of minutes, the test subjects began to change into a myriad of multi-colored creatures resembling the cellular appearances of the bacteria samples.

These life forms then began to adopt the features of whatever creature they came into contact with and essentially consumed from the inside-out, making it a part of itself.

Astonished, the researchers ran more tests to see what else the bacteria was capable of. Over the following days, as the organisms came into contact with more samples, they began to take on more defined shapes, albeit hybrids of their original forms and whatever they had consumed.

Not only that, but like their cellular counterparts, they could asexually reproduce through mitosis, every separated part of them becoming its own life form with a built-in consciousness.

Unfortunately, the rapid increase of them resulted in the researchers being picked off one by one as they were infected by the organisms, which shaped their forms to resemble them. Things only got worse as fear and panic spread throughout the colony.

Through the use of fire and corrosive substances, the surviving researchers managed to kill off any of the imitations and escape, leaving behind their technology in the process.

Now liberated from their guests' clutches, the remaining shape-shifting organisms claimed this planet as their own, forming their own technologically-advanced civilization through the knowledge gained via their assimilation.

With enough time, they too set out to explore the universe and discover other life forms as well. One of these ships in particular had a passenger by the name of Sqhurakolza, who was more lenient than a lot of his colleagues.

During one of their travels, however, their ship was located amongst the stars by a crew of beings that were the same species as the researchers who jumpstarted their race. Believing them to be up to no good, they attacked the ship, causing it crash-land on planet Earth.

And from there, the rest was history.

[at7reblogs]

*Slams fist on the table* My time has come.

Here's my own thoughts/ideas on what youkai to portray the other Hermitcraft/Life Series members as:

Beef - Maybe an Ushi-Oni or Gozu because of the bull traits he's given in fanon.

Bdubs - Baku, for the theme of dreams and sleeping that Bdubs tends to be associated with. Alternatively an Isogashi, because of only taking a moment to sleep and being pretty active. From Op's choice of Oni, I'd like to think that he would be a Ko-Oni or Shoki, especially those that would be the cause of the Yanari phenomenom (think poltergeists) like in Toriyama Sekien's illustration.

Bigb - Maybe an itachi, weasels that are also capable of shapeshifting like other animals.

Cleo - Onryo, especially taking into account with the life series. Alternatively some kind of spider yokai, with the power to use threads to make puppets move.

Cub - Maybe an oni that's more inclined with magic or a nurarihyon because of what his skin was before a few seasons ago.

Doc - Nue, fitting for the dangerous redstoner, plus he's already pretty chimerical.

Etho - Kitsune or Kamaitachi Etho are fun choices.

False - I'd imagine her as a Tengu, especially those skilled in combat.

Gem - To go with her theme for season 10, a Funa-Yurei, ghosts of people who die out at sea and and ask for ladles and sinks ships with them.

Grian - Tengu like what op said, pretty easy to see why. Alternatively because of the fishing he did at the start, some kind of water-dwelling yokai, like a kappa, kawauso, or gyojin that would cause an oitekebori phenomenon (mysterious sounds of someone calling fishermen to drop their fishing rods and leave).

Hypno - Since he's one of the more chill hermits, Tanuki, Mujina, or even a kappa would fit, maybe even a Mannen-Dake (thousand year-old bamboo).

Impulse - Oni would be an easy choice with the popular fanon trait of being an imp. I'd like to think of him being an oni from Jigoku that work for King Enma.

Iskall - Kodama (tree spirit) for his omega tree in season 7.

Jimmy - Op's choice of Yosuzume is pretty fitting, which funnily enough they're also thought of as a good omen in some areas, serving as a warning that a more dangerous yokai is close, the Okuri-Inu, a dog that strikes lone travelers on the road at night.

Joe - With season 10 in mind, probably any kind of doll-related yokai. I'd like to imagine him as a Mayuge, a piece of hair that hides in the doll's hair.

Jevin - Honestly there's not that many yokai with a theme of slime, closest would be a slug yokai, namekujira or the walking blob of flesh that is Nuppeppo. But then I remembered the Suiko! a water-dwelling yokai that are like kappas but more ferocious, particularly this one design from an anime that is literally a tiger made of water.

Keralis - With a theme of eyes, Mokumokuren (a shoji (thin room dividers) with hundreds of eyes) or Mekurabe (a bunch of skulls forcing you to be part of a staring contest) would fit nicely.

Lizzie - With Last Life in mind; Yosei, since it's a Japanese term synonymous with fairy.

Martyn - I'm thinking an ayakashi (the kind referring to sea spirits rather than the general term) particularly like a sea serpent.

Mumbo - Definitely some kind of tsukumogami.

Pearl - With Double Life in mind, either an inugami that's completely wrathful, or an Okuri-Inu.

Ren - Now enough would be said for him being a dog or wolf yokai, so no shocker there for Ren as an Inugami. Even more fitting when the perspective of third life when putting one method of its creation…

Scar - Honestly I love the idea of him being some kind of cat-yokai, like a Bake-Neko as op said or even a Neko-Mata, maybe even having pattern like a Maneki-Neko, cat figurines that are said to bring good luck to the owner.

Scott - With limited life in mind, some kind of sea yokai, like an Amabie maybe?

Skizz - I like Op's take for him as an Oni. I'd like to think that he would be an Ama-no-Jaku, which can translates to "heavenly demon", as a nod to how he's usually depicted as an angel in fanon.

Stress - A Yuki-Onna with her association with season 6 in mind.

Tango - Kasha (a fiery cat monster who steals corpses), Wanyudo, or Katasharin (fiery wheels) would be easy choices.

Welsknight - Now an easy choice would be Seto-Taisho (a pottery general), essentially a tea knight.

Xb - Gyojin (fishmen), easy enough to explain. Alternatively a ryujin because dragons tend to be associated with water, especially rivers, in Japan and other east asian countries.

Xisuma - I'd like to think he would be a ryujin, going with the ender dragon trait he is sometimes given in fanon.

Zedaph - Maybe somekind of tsukumogami since there aren't that many goat yokai. I know of an obscure Okinawan spirit called "Pīshāyanamun" which is the soul of a dead goat.

hey block people fans, so I really love the Tanuki Joel/Smallishbeans fanart goin around as inspired by @mellozheist's design and it made me think, what youkai (Japanese folklore monsters) would we portray the other Hermitcraft/Life Series members as? Some of the more obvious and fun ideas I thought of:

Scar - Kitsune, easy. Charismatic, cunning wiles, enterprising, known for tricking people, tendency to be wet cat on the rare instance you find his weakness. Also kitsune are rivals to tanuki (although Scar and Joel aren't really rivals so much as occasional partners in crime). You could alternatively choose the bakeneko because it's also a wiley shapeshifter and cat connection (RIP Jellie).

Grian - Tengu, also easy choice. Not just for the obvious pesky bird connection. Tengu are also trickster beings. They are sometimes evil (abducting humans) but sometimes benign and teach humans secret arts. They are excellent fighters and leaders, but just like a regular crow, they can just as easily goof off for no reason at all. Dangerously capable but also goofy bird fits Grian to a T.

Mumbo - Kappa, maybe? He's not associated with water much iirc but the kappa from not iRL folklore but a certain series are associated with engineering, and I needed an appropriate one for the Redstoners lol

Etho - Kamaitachi. Weasel with sharp blades. Like a tanuki (Joel), but consistently sneaky, while also being just a little guy. Can probably team up with Skizzle and Tango for the traditional trio of sneaky people with sharp blades. EDIT: I know there's fanart of him as a kitsune to match Tanuki Joel, and I'm by no means contesting that, this is just a fun alternative.

Cleo - Yamauba/Yamanba. I'M NOT CALLING CLEO AN OLD HAG, LET ME EXPLAIN. DANGEROUSLY FIERCE AND INTELLIGENT WITCH WHO LIVES IN THE MOUNTAINS AND IS JUST AS PROTECTIVE OF HER (potentially foster) CHILDREN AS MUCH AS SHE IS A TERROR TO THOSE WHO CROSS HER.

Bdubs/Skizzleman - Oni. They beeg. They angery. They not necessarily dumb but they stronk and one of them has lived in the mountains at least once. I can even see Bdubs being like a Sakata Kintoki spoof (the "son" of a yamanba a.k.a Cleo)

Jimmy - Yosuzume. Birds of bad luck. Canary curse. Need I explain more?

feel free to give alternative suggestions or ideas for the others, or ask me what youkai I think might fit certain traits, I may not know much about the block people but I know a little too much about Japanese folklore so this is just a fun exercise for me

[egophiliac]

I loved your drawing(and I love your style in general) with Leia in your recent post! If/when you have time can we see more of her in your style? I get so happy whenever I actually see people mention/talk about her and she’s not just forgotten because we didn’t get to see much of her. 😭

thank you! 💙💙💙 Leia/Leah/Lea/whatever is fascinating to me. she is the ultimate unknown. what was she like? how involved (or even aware of any details of the invasion) was she? Silver's basically a physical carbon copy of his biodad, so what did he get from her? like, I understand why the two of them kind of have to stay as these super vague and mysterious figures -- the whole point of them is that their story ended 400+ years ago and they're not really relevant anymore (and. well. the more that gets explained about them, the less that can just kinda be handwaved as "oh the politics were Very Messy") (we can sit here and theorize all day but let us acknowledge that, ultimately, canon gave us almost nothing about them post-Meleanor and we'd just be making things up). I do still wonder about her though! RIP Lea, we never knew you and we probably never will.

actually you know what, as long as we're here, I think I WILL go ahead and just make some stuff up about what Silver might've inherited from her instead.

[inkskinned]

you can't talk to me that way actually. listen sir i type up longass, cited replies to internet arguments and then never post it because i'm too exhausted by the idea of conflict & besides nobody knows how to read anymore. and i'll let you know, by the way, i'm always 10000% right in all of those answers and i have an undefeated smackdown rate of one thousandbillion. so really before you say anything just remember im going to write a big paragraph about it and then delete it

[sarushka-01]

I see so many people thinking that mydei is really rough and uncaring with his partner (especially in bed…) and I’m like… no?? he’s not? he’s the most respectful guy you’ll find out there?? okay it’s lighthearted but… just heart me out (may be a bit ooc since I didn’t figure out his personality as much yet)

mydei x gn reader

Mydeimos, the crown prince of Castrum Kremnos, one of the Chrysos Heirs, your lover and… apparently a heartless man. You scoff at the idea. Sure, he may be a merciless warrior when it comes to striking down his opponents, but he is not ruthless. Especially with those he holds dear.

You can’t really recall when those rumours spread; suddenly, people of Okhema started thinking your boyfriend (extremely kind, in your humble opinion) was cruel. You were obviously first to deny that, but who’d believe you? It’s not like you could just walk up to a bunch of citizens and tell them “you’re all wrong!” They’d probably laugh at you. How could a random person know the Mydei so well? Oh, if only they knew…

But, as kind and benevolent you are, you decided to keep your promise and not tell the public about your relationship. Even if your powerlessness to those rumours made your blood boil and your fists clench.

When asked how he felt about them, Mydei at first pretended to be surprised. But you knew better than to believe in his act. “Don’t worry about that, their words shouldn’t be worrying you. Rumours always die out sooner or later, just like a fire. Pay them no mind, [Name].” Easier said than done, is what you thought to yourself. But he was right, as much as you hated to admit.

If you could speak up and defend him from all those terrible allegations, you’d tell them how he’s a fighter for the sake of protecting those who he holds close, how he always cooks the most delicious food for you, how he lets you do his hair when you had a bad day, how sweet he is with children, and how surprisingly gentle he truly is.

But, sometimes you think to yourself, maybe it’s better if only you get to see that side of Mydei, reserved just for you ♡

a/n: aaaaaaaaa I’m so so so sorry this is so late, I completely forgot about it >< btw I almost finished 3.1 and oof… this guy grew on me A LOT (there’s something about men who have rough hands, but a firm and gentle hold…)

comments & reblogs appreciated!

[deerspherestudios]

Hi! I just wanted to know if in the following days to come if mychael would follow more intense Yandere traits or instead mellow more out?

Hello! I feel like I ramble a bit here for such a simple question, but for those interested, spoilers under cut!

I've teased in asks before he will get intense as the story progresses, though for the sake of managing expectations, don't expect him to go all out just because it's Day 4.

Initially, I've considered multiple routes and endings for the next update, and by endings I mean True Bad Endings, but I might push them back so the pacing of the story doesn't feel jarring. Plus it lightens my load of writing multiple branches, something I always wanna avoid so I don't complicate things for myself.

I just feel that between the five sundowns after they separated at the end of Day 3 it'd be enough time for him to sort through his thoughts and come to a conclusion on how he feels. Nothing drastic, but there's definitely something that changed in him if that makes sense.

So while he's not fully unhinged (the door still functions so to speak), he's definitely growing loose,,,, I started out with the intent of writing a slow burn and I'd be remiss if I mess that up!

[tomfrogisblue]

i forgot to post this during june but i think one of the reasons qsmp was so important was how unapologetically Gay it was

for starters, the number of creators and admins involved who are irl queer of some variation, just chilling in a place where any kind of phobia would get Philza's legendary ban hammer faster than you could say "rainbow jelly"

and then the characters.

i remember showing up that first day and being shocked that somehow foolish had an ex-boyfriend already (I had missed the squidcraft lore apparently)

that server. gay. all the gay. all kinds of gay.

govermentally assigned platonic husbands that stayed together the whole time (despite one of them being gone for months at a time), not a chance in hell of infidelity. Proud fathers of two wonderful children.

governmentally assigned partners who yelled full volume at each other about cheating any time they were in the room together and between the two of them killed two children.

a grieving father and ex-convict becoming one of the most solid couples in the server, with a beautiful wedding and consistent public displays of affection via the in-game chat.

a demon ashamed of who she was and a lonely detective struggling with family trauma, now with a lil girl of their own, to love together and take care of, with more moms than could ever allow the little girl to ever be lonely herself.

a 2b2t warrior coming to terms with his sexuality with the support of his beautiful baby boy at his side, slowly but surely opening up to his eventual Brazilian Boyfriend. Where they went from the most cautious couple (baby steps) to the most sickeningly sweet couple on the server.

- and this list doesn't even scratch the surface.

gay characters, trans characters, ace characters, aroace characters, gender fluid characters, all kinds of relationships and families.

all presented without negativity or shame.

the point of the server was to exchange languages and cultures, without the biases and barriers seen so much in both the content creator scene and the wider world.

it also had a beautiful little side effect, practically by accident.

our lgbtqsmp.

[hyakunana]

"My friend, my partner… my Guardian."

[starry-bi-sky]

No.

No, no, no, no, NO!

He's shaking. His heart is burning in his chest, pounding like a jackhammer against his ribs, and there's a trembling, aching rage building beneath his tongue and pressing against his teeth.

In his hands, his fingers tense and wrists locked, the article reads in big, black font: JOKER LOCKED IN ARKHAM ASYLUM AGAIN!

Danny shouldn't feel so angry about this, this is a good thing. Gotham doesn't have to deal with him for another few months at the least. He should feel relieved, a little more at peace.

He is not.

He cannot swallow the fury thudding behind his eyes, the burning white heat searing a deeper hole in his chest. A searing green filling static in his ears in the way only the rage of the restless dead can have.

How is he going to kill him now?

Arkham may be the only asylum in America made entirely of tissue paper, but it's still an asylum. There are cameras, guards, other patients resting inside. Danny can think of a million different ways to sneak in and kill Joker, but someone will hear his screaming.

It'd have to be rushed.

He doesn't want it to be rushed.

It's a cruel thought. Cruel and cold and merciless, but Danny doesn't feel an ounce of shame, not an ounce of guilt, for it. He wants to be alone with the Joker when he kills him, that's all he wants. In Arkham, you are never alone.

He forces his anger to bubble back down into his chest, stuffing it between his heartstrings and his ribs like a blanket you're trying to bunch up into a corner. It sizzles and burbles. The static begins to fade out into a high-pitched ringing; it sounds like distant screaming.

Danny is still trembling, but he can think a little clearer now.

He can wait.

He can wait. He can wait. He can wait. He canwait. Hecanwait. Hecanwait.

He can wait.

He's waited five years for this. He can wait one more week. One more month. One more year. However long it takes for the Joker to break back out, Danny can wait.

And when the Joker does, inevitably, break out.

Danny uncrinkles his fingers around the edges of the newspaper, loosens his limbs just enough so he can pay for it.

He'll be waiting.

The dead, after all, have all the time in the world.

[starmocha]

be my eternity, say my name [Caleb/Reader ★ 2725 words ★ Masterlist ★ Series Index ★ AO3] The secrets only you and Caleb would ever know. A/N: ;~; I've been working on this on-and-off since January. I'm so happy it's finally done. Title is referencing a verse in two TXT’s songs, Deja Vu and Run Away (9와 4분의 3 승강장에서 너를 기다려), but for this fic, I drew more inspiration from Deja Vu (I will probably write something using Run Away in the future, because I have ideas, hehe) @deepspacenova I'm also tagging you because this is one of the Caleb song-inspired fics I mentioned to you last night <33333 Tag list:@solifloris @natimiles @callilypso @likewhyareyousoobsessedwithme @miudle @alfredosaws @nezuswritingdesk @valkyyriia @yourlocalcatscammer @qyuin 【 request to be added 】

It was a secret.

That you fell for Caleb first.

You couldn’t explain when it had happened, when you finally saw him in a different light, knowing he was someone much more precious than a mere friend. You knew, though, that since that one afternoon long ago when you both came into each other’s lives, you took his hand and never wished to let it go ever.

(I’m Caleb. I’ll always be by your side.)

It was a secret.

In the dark of nights, under thick cover, your hand wandered, slipping in between your legs, driving into your folds, curling just so as your thumb brushed over that sensitive clit as you thought about him just a few doors away asleep in his own bed, unaware of the shameful act you had submitted yourself to, unable to ignore the desires to have him unconditionally, claim him solely for yourself.

All of those close instances, seemingly innocent in the way his body hovered so close to yours, or the way sometimes his arm would wrap around your waist when he teased you, unaware of the effect it was having on you. He never knew how the warmth of his breath teasing against your neck would have your heart skipping several beats faster, how there would be a tightening in your belly when he loomed near you, or the way how sometimes when your playfighting would lead to you tumbled atop him, so close to him physically and yet you felt the vast distance from his heart.

You fantasized of his large hands behind you, resting on the small of your back, his eyes locked with yours, searching almost desperately for permission, an invitation to cross this invisible line between you both. You thought of his lips, seeing the way they trembled, see his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, looking like a man starved, salivating at the sight of the glorious indulgence before him. You thought of treading first, stealing his lips experimentally, swallowing his surprised gasps as you grinded down on him, feeling his growing arousal brushing against your own.

You imagined his restraints broken, picturing him yielding to temptation, his hands fumbling over your body, his hips thrusting up, needing to feel you through the clothed barriers between you both. Your name spilt from those lips, the rasp in his voice more noticeable as he groaned in pleasure, growing more and more delirious as this lust heightened between the two of you.

You panted harder. You wanted his calloused hands on your smooth skin, trailing over secret places he had never known until this moment. You wanted to discover together with him all of the places on both of your bodies that would have you buckling, your toes curling, a hungry desperation for more and more.

You quickened your pace, fingers rushing as you imagined how he would have you come undone fully clothed on top of him, hearing that sweet, sweet voice of his urging you, praising you, coaxing you until you were trembling and crying against him.

Just a little bit more.

So close. So, so close.

Almost there.

With a few more rushed strokes and you were crying out your orgasm, his heavenly name spilling from your lips. For several minutes, you lay in bed, panting and shaken by the pleasure you had just experienced. There wasn’t much thought left in your head, a sudden wave of drowsiness seeming to wash over you.

You sighed.

When you stared at your hand, chest still heaving from the adrenaline, you wondered what it would be like to be filled by him. You couldn’t seem to stop imagining his body against you, wanting to be pinned underneath him, trapped beneath the heavy weight of him, his forearms resting on either side of your head and his face so close to yours, and those soulful eyes imploring you to want him, need him in a way only lovers would ever know.

Your breathing grew shaky again. You wondered how big he was, wondered how well your body could take him. You couldn’t help but imagined this time his hands just gripping your thighs, prying them apart, letting him see just how wet and willing you were for him. That burning need to stretch around him stirred within you again, your hips unwittingly squirming, feeling nothing but also everything.

Inadvertently, you moaned his name again, your body writhing beneath the sheets, the ache inside you renewed. You tossed and turned, your face buried into your pillow to muffle the way you cried out his name over and over again, feeling like you were humping against nothing, your fingers barely able to satisfy you, not like how you knew his own could.

Caleb’s long, thick fingers filling you, thrusting in and out as he made sure you would be ready to take more of him later. You clenched, voice strangled, as you cried harder, feeling your climax approaching again.

“Caleb… Caleb… please… please… Caleb…!”

There was a noise outside your room. You froze in that instance just as your second climax arrived and you bit down on your lip to stifle your moans. Someone was in the hallway. Was it your grandmother…  or was it Caleb? You didn’t know, too scared to even peek at the shadow beneath the crack in the door. Stay silent, you ordered yourself, your hand clamped over your mouth to muffle any sounds that could slip through. You could still feel the lingering shocks of pleasure coursing through your body.

You squeezed your eyes shut, curling up under the cover. Even after it was safe to stir again, you stayed still.

You almost wished it was Caleb who came into the room to check in on you. You almost wished he would discover the dirty secrets you kept from him, the way you pleasured yourself many nights thinking of him. You wondered how he would react seeing you in your bed with reddened cheeks flushed hot and fingers wet with your own arousal from the way you shamelessly touched yourself to dirty fantasies of him. You wondered if it would destroy your precious relationship with him, or just maybe, he felt the same.

Maybe he also felt the same about you. Maybe he had his own dirty secrets. Maybe he also carried lewd thoughts in his mind, thinking of you in ways he probably shouldn’t.

If he did, you couldn’t wait to uncover them, wanting his secrets exposed to you alone and yours to him.

(Mornin’, pipsqueak, did you sleep well?

…You could say that.

What is that supposed to mean—never mind, we’re going to be late for school. Hurry up and eat.)

It was a secret that you made the first move.

If there was ever a forbidden line between the two of you, you crossed it without a care, unable to ignore the growing feelings and desires within you. You could never entertain the idea that Caleb would be with anyone but you. He was yours from the beginning and you wanted him to the very end.

One warm afternoon, he was napping on the couch, a book facedown on his chest. You knelt on the floor next to him, drawn to how handsome he looked, peacefully slumbering away like an angel of God seeking respite for just one instance. Such long lashes, you admired with slight envy before smiling as you looked at his lips. They were just barely parted, his breathing soft and slow.

You swallowed, suddenly nervous, before you leaned in, pressing your lips to his, light and a little awkward, but that immediate tingle you felt was already an exhilarating rush that chased away your earlier coyness.

He stirred, but before you could pull away, his hand was behind your head, keeping you in place to your shock. He didn’t say anything, but you felt him kissing you back, and you yielded to him, savoring this moment like a sweet forbidden fruit you had shamelessly coveted.

When he opened his eyes, beautiful pools of violet stared back at you in relief. You smiled back, thinking you could drown in them forever if he would let you. His book dropped to the floor with a dull thud and you were dragged on top of him in seconds. You stared down at his smiling face, a warmth spreading over your cheeks, suddenly coy again now that it was apparent his feelings were identical to yours.

One hand reached up to cradle your cheek, your own two hands covered his as you gazed down with fondness in silent understanding.

The house was empty. It was just the two of you, in your own little world, your own little Eden.

Just like how it had always been, it seemed.

(Mm, are you… are you sure?

Never been surer in my life, Caleb… You?

If I’m dreaming, don’t wake me up.)

It was a secret how soft Caleb’s lips were, how quickly addicted you became, wanting and needing all of his kisses, wanting to greedily pocket them all for yourself. The short, fleeting ones, just barely there, stolen lips in passing when no one could see, or passed off as just a trick of the mind. The long, drawn-out kisses, both your feelings poured out in intense sessions that would leave you breathless but unable—unwilling—to stop, always yearning for more.

Fast, messy kisses, rushed with frantic hands grabbing at one another, bodies pressed together in secrecy, hidden away in dark corners or under covers.

The way he would kiss you all over. Gentle, tender forehead kisses. Playful pecks on the tip of your nose. Sweet, chaste cheek kisses. He would get bolder, kissing along down your neck, in the crook, along your shoulders, leaving not a spot untouched by his lips.

He would be more sensual, worshipping you all over. Down your chest, leaving you gasping and squirming against him, trapped beneath him in surrender.

Such lascivious kisses he would leave along the inside of your thighs. Heavenly lips seeking your intimate area, a secret place only he would ever know as he hungrily tasted you, devouring like a man starved and worshipping like a sinner seeking salvation.

Caleb was always smart, so it didn’t take him long to learn your body, discovering all of the ways he could make you cum for him. He could be the sweetest man when he wanted to be, but those little moments when he was just a little more taunting in his words and in his ministrations had a way of driving you wild, finding him even more desirable than you thought was possible.

(Ah… Caleb… I’m going to… ah… wa-wait…

Cum for me, my pretty girl.

Oh, fu—)

It was a secret how delicious you tasted afterwards on his lips.

(So pretty. So, so fucking pretty like this.)

It was a secret how warm Caleb’s mouth felt around your nipple, how the way his tongue swirled over the sensitive nub had you bucking shamelessly against him, his hands automatically forced to grip your hips to keep you in place on his lap. Even when your small hand grabbed at his hair, tugging and whining, he suckled harder on one nipple while he let one hand squeezed and groped your other breast, kneading the soft, supple mound with experimental strength, relishing in the way that you gasped out his name and how under your skirt, he could feel your panties getting damped, the soaked fabric brushing over his thigh had his mind racing, growing delirious with ideas of what he could do to you.

It wasn’t just the mere imaginary ideas of what he could do to you that had him going wild, but the very knowledge that you would willingly let him had him hardening, his control and self-restraints weakening as all he wanted to do was give in to his desires—give in to you.

(You make such pretty sounds. Is it only for me?

D-don’t tease me… Ah…!

I’m not teasing. I want to hear more.

Ca-Caleb!)

It was a secret how Caleb pressed you into his mattress, how you always and willingly spread your legs for him. This was always where he was meant to be, between your legs, his body looming above yours. No matter how many times he had taken you, it always felt like the first.

With Caleb, everything always felt like the first time, as if you and he were always restarting from the beginning, never letting the story of you and him end.

(Already this wet? I haven’t even done anything yet. Naughty, naughty.

I… I… can’t help it… you…

Tell me. Tell me how I make you feel.

Caleb…! Ah…!

Tell me. Did you get excited—thinking about my cock pounding this needy pussy?

Wai-don—yes!

Do you always think about me like that? Answer me.

…Yes…

Louder.

Yes! Yes, yes, Caleb, always!

Ah—oh fuck—)

It was a secret how you always would come so sweetly around him, muffled moans suppressed under his large hand, under his intense smoldering amethyst eyes before they closed as he filled you full with thick, heavy spurts of his seed, his own groans stifled, burying deep into your shoulder.

(Shh, we don’t want anyone hearing us, alright?

…Mmph…

I’ll spoil you next time. I want you to scream my name next time.)

It was a secret how many times Caleb had filled you. How full you felt as your belly bulged, the sight always clouding his mind with dark lust, the need to always keep you like this, completely ruined by him, made for him.

He kept you flushed to him, your body heat exchanged and shared. He kissed you soundly as he softened inside of you, but he showed no sense of urgency about parting, still wanting to stay buried in your warmth. He seemed reluctant to break the kiss, the sounds of both of your heavy breathing filled the room as he gazed down at you, wanting to keep you locked within his gravity.

(It’s like you were made for me. All mine.

And you for me?

Right. Yours. I’m all yours. No one else’s. Yours.)

It was a secret how you dreamed of a life of just you and him, hidden away in a paradise of your own making. There would be no sorrow, no anguish, or judgment from others. You dreamed of long summer days, basking in the day’s warmth with his fingers intermingled with yours.

You dreamed of laying on green grass, him on top of you with the blue heavens above as witnesses of your love for him, and within his vibrant violet eyes, there was a promise of eternity, his life was yours—was only ever yours and no one else’s.

(Pipsqueak… go to sleep.

No… I want to keep watching you.

Silly girl… You can watch me tomorrow.

I want to watch you now. And I’ll watch you tomorrow, too. Caleb…

Hmm… So greedy.

Only when it comes to you.

…

…Caleb?

I feel the same. I want to keep you all to myself. Forever mine.)

It was a secret.

That you and Caleb belonged together.

The world would never understand.

A bond this sacred was meant to last for eternity, your souls bounded together long ago when you took his hand first but he was the one to hold on tight, promising himself to you for all of your lives together.

(Caleb… I—

Wait—let me… just let me…)

Such heavenly secrets stayed hidden away from nonbelievers.

No one would ever know of him the way you did, just as he had uncovered all of your secrets, stealing them away to be his and his alone.

His hand on your cheek, eyes always finding yours, you knew already the words that were to come, but you waited in anticipation with bated breath.

In the next instance, his sweet smile filled your vision and you were pulled back into his orbit, locked within his embrace. When you looked up, his warm breath intermingled with your own, your heart beating quietly for him. He cradled your cheek, guiding your lips to his, and he breathed a secret to you, a promise of eternity only for you.

(I love you. I’ll always be by your side.)

[veneralice]

art credit: @sesamefruit on x / twitter! all credits to the artist!

divider credits: @cafekitsune ! all credits to the original creator of the divider!

seaborn soulmates / rafayel (m.)

in a cruel twist of fate, it is the god himself who becomes the most fervent worshipper. after lifetimes of looking for you, rafayel has finally found his beloved bride once more - but this time, it is him sinking to his knees to chant your praises, not the reverse. (20.4k words)

content warnings: maybe ooc-rafayel idk i’m still an inexperienced writer, me making up lemuria lore as i go because my ass wasn’t playing the game when god of tides came out (also i’m clueless about lads lore), mc as an independent character called michaela (pushing my wlw agenda with her and simone fr), kind of dubious consent???? (past!reader worships rafayel and acts very self-sacrificing so uh? idk? i’ll note it just to make sure) (also drunk rafayel initiates some skinship but reader shuts it down because you cant give consent while youre drunk yall), they fucking, p in v, switch!rafayel (bc we all know it’s canon /j), some biting, some scratching (rafayel’s back bleeds), overstimulation (fem. receiving), violence (blood and cutting is involved in deity worship), is it stalking? 💀 (he keeps tabs on reader in the same way he kept track of mc in-game before they met), idek man, let me know if you need more content warnings 🙂‍↕️, kind of inspired by @poisonf0rest bc i read her siren rafayel fic and saw god and immediately decided i had to write a raf fic myself, so honorary mention of them LMAO (pls read their fics they are so fucking good)

A thousand moons and a thousand suns have risen and fallen on the waves, but none compare to the sight of you entering Rafayel’s court. You are the only celestial constant in this life from that day on, the planet around which Rafayel’s immortal life spins. How humorous, that mortals are so below Lemurians that they are not even worthy of appraising their worship, but it is a mortal bride that weakens the god of the tides.

You are radiant, ephemeral in your beauty. There is a certain kind of delicate balance in your mortality, a rose so ethereal before it withers. Your skirts, although handmade and of unparticular material, a sign of your lowborn upbringing, part to reveal the soft skin hidden beneath, an image that makes Rafayel’s fingers twitch in yearning. He has never envied the land-walkers their bodies, not once. But at the sight of your clay-formed body, loved and created by the earth, he finds himself straining for the shape. Your feet land on the coral floor as if the ground there had been prepared for your stride, blessed by your existence.

It’s not love at first sight, certainly not. But it feels like brushing your fingers over a book and knowing the story already. It feels like helplessly wandering into the trap out of your own volition, although you know that trap will bite. But you let it. It creeps in, the sweetest kind of death you could imagine.

Like poison, the first taste of you condemns Rafayel to eternity.

“Your divinity, we have brought you your sacrifice,” the priests chant, the human part of your procession. The Lemurian guards accompanying them cast them a dubious glance. Not every sacrifice is deemed appropriate, but it is not like the world beneath the waves would balance itself without the human’s worship. A necessary evil, an ugly truth. Their sacrifices are not acknowledged, but appreciated nonetheless. A god feeds on what is given, no matter how all-powerful they are. Even blood as soiled by the human world’s elements is sustainable. “Your bride, your blood, your heart. We have brought you your sacrifice.”

When you walked in, your beautiful face had been angled upward. Even the most stoic of people are forced by the frescoes set in the wall to halt and wonder, because there is nothing else in this world that compares to the sea’s creations. Rafayel’s court was closed in by a dome, decorated with mosaic illustrations of the kingdom’s history. Painted in with elegant whorls of blue, white and red, the image depicted here showed the creation myth of his people, rising from the foam on his fingertips. You had looked straight at that painting, ignoring the gaggle of eyes that had looked on, feasting on the sight of you. But at the call of your entourage, you lower your gaze, meeting his straight-on.

There had never been a feeling so violent seizing him than in that very moment. He wanted to crush you. He wanted to own you.

He wanted to know you.

Rafayel is not the first monarch to hold this court in his blue-scaled fist. He is also not the only one whose heart has ever been stirred for something that could wreck this empire forever. It feels like being hunted, heady and dangerous and addicting. In your eyes lies a future more enticing than anything the seven seas could ever offer him. This is damnation.

What a powerful heart that frail chest must contain; secured only by the soft bones that would willingly give way to his monstrous hands, protected only by the warm flesh surrounding it. Rafayel is the king of sirens, monarch of the abyssal deep, but it was your song that drew him in. He wonders if the prayers you had dedicated to the waves tasted as sweet as your lips looked.

The soldiers surrounding his throne stepforward, signaling the silent message until here and no further. But Rafayel has already risen. Not registering the court which sinks to their knees as they pay their respects, he draws near enough that he could grasp your hands, tucked away in your companion’s crook of his arm. You lowered your head, obedient supplicant as you are. “Court of clay, I accept your sacrifice,” he announces, breathless. He doesn’t care how giddy that makes the humans, how his court begins to whisper. A scandal, an outrage. He only sees you. Not able to hold himself back, he reaches forward to cup your chin - you are shaking, an information he shouldn’t delight in, but does - and your gaze is steady, certain. You are a docile little lamb, not afraid of the knife about to fall. He could crush your right then and there; he could snap your neck if he wants to.

That was his first mistake. Gods have always been unmade by the most simple of human emotions, a fact every single predecessor had heeded. He should have struck you down where you stood, before you could lay the seeds of destruction. But Rafayel doesn’t heed his instincts. There is nothing else in the world anymore but you. Your eyes search his face, taking in every detail, as if the roles were reversed and you were the executioner who was gently lowering him to the chopping block. He imagines your hands roaming his body as you prepare him for certain death.

Deep inside his cold, scaled body, under the layers of divinity and immortality, his godly heart skips a beat.

Rafayel is coming undone, unravelling at the seams. It is only a matter of time until he dissolves into the sea, cupped by your gentle hands, until he finally disappears.

Later, when night draws closer and washes the world in darkness like a paint dissolving in a glass of water, he accompanies you and the bridal party to the rooms you will be residing in for the near future. Gentle, gentle fingers in his hands; you are ashamed of being able to touch him like this, and he notices it. Rafayel angles his head so he can look at you. Although this is nothing but a fancy dress-up of the matter at hand, which means your death at the end of this foolery, the sacrifice is still honored. That means becoming familiar with the heart that will soon bolster his powers, immortalized in him forever. It’s an excuse, of course, but it’s what his mind settles on as a reason for trying to commit your existence to memory. Your eyes are swimming around, looking like the schools of fishes that lounge around in his stronghold. Taking everything in. His own are obsessed with gazing at every inch of your face; soon, it will become more familiar to him than his own. “Your name, supplicant,” he says, breaking you out of your trance. “You have not given it yet.”

Your answer is quiet, and he has to lean even closer to actually hear it. Your female companions, who will wash you and prepare you and celebrate the wedding with you, are chattering behind him to the point of annoyance, but the excitement is understandable. The syllables of your name take physical shape as they go through him, and Rafayel finds himself closing to his eyes as he listens to the melody of your words. Settling in. Taking root. “But you may call me as you wish, Your Divinity,” you demure. Someone has trained you well in the niceties. “I am honored to become anything that you desire.”

“Bride of blood,” he says, and his treacherous fingers finally begin to wander. The supple flesh draws him in, and he adores the way goosebumps claim your skin. He is quite cold-blooded after all. And you are oh, so warm. Human bodies are so confusing and strange that Rafayel can’t help but wonder what moves them. The unreliable skin that gives way too easily to the lightest of bites, the awkward bones that bend at the simplest of angles. As Rafayel chases the muscles running down your arms with his fingertips, you turn your wrist so he can seize it, as if you know what instincts he is following. An instinct as old as time. Life was created when intuition turned into contact, after all. You watch as the deadly king of the abyss stares at your flesh as if it was a wonder to behold. As if he is not the father of all miracles.

Soft, soft flesh. Brittle as wood worn out by the water. Rafayel does not relinquish his hold on you as he speaks. “Bride of clay. You have already become what I desired. You are welcome to ask any wish of me for the sacrifice you will accomplish. Let no one speak that the ocean’s court is ungrateful to your service.”

“I would never imply otherwise, Your Divinity.” Your cheeks are aflush with your humanity, heating below his touch in reaction to being so close to the object of your worship. You do not seem like a typical, blushing bride. He has already taken notice of the harsher, roughened way you admonished your bridal party earlier. Often times, the brides sent to him are scared, chosen at random, unprepared for what the sacrifice means. Often times, it means that Rafayel chooses other brides, casting over the human’s lot. Every year they visit, fighting to compete in their adoration with other worshippers, not realizing that they cannot compare. But you are true in your faith. There are scars feathering all over the palms of both your hands where you have drawn blood to cast into the sea. A moon-shaped indentation, where the lunar priests of the sea (as his worshippers are called above, named for the moon’s strained effort to become one with the sea) brand themselves after ascending to their positions, is situated in the hollow of your throat, right above that precious collarbone he could snap like a coral branch. You are calm, clear-headed.

You could not have been more perfect.

He tugs you along, deeper into the cold water. You do not complain once. The court to strangers is built like a maze, intended to confuse and rattle. A safety measure that is laughable. There is no one who’s might parallels the god of the sea. But Rafayel had taken care to implement it nonetheless, to protect the weak, even though the most vulnerable Lemurian could still overpower the weakest of humans. It is why it so unsettling that you stir him like this. He has loved nothing else on this earth than he has loved the folk of the water. He angles another look at you, suspicious.

The moonlight makes every edge of you luminous with beauty. From the tips of your lashes, to the curves of your features, down to the shape of your human body. It is normal to experience attraction. You were very comely, after all; it wasn’t only Rafayel’s head that had turned to follow your every move. During your presentation, even the most cranky of attendants had lit up with pleasure at such a delicious sight. But he wonders if this means more. He shouldn’t be so attuned to you, shouldn’t be so drawn in by a first encounter. Fate had such a funny way of working its motives. Its cruelty and its humor affected the happenstances of all beings, even gods like him.

The doors to your room have already been affixed with a pair of guards. They are armed with lances, sharpened at the edge to stab through even the most enduring of scales. Warriors of the sea are trained to handle even the most extenuating of threats. Rafayel dismisses them at once, and they stand aside, each taking a few steps away to grant the party their privacy. They will return to their post when Rafayel has left. He gesticulates with his free arm that the women may enter; your companions mouths shape oohs and aahs of wonder as they step inside, but you remain where you are. Your warm hand still lies inside his, a fact that makes his fish-blooded heart tucker inside his chest. “Forgive me for this presumptuous question, Your Divinity,” you say then, affixing your gaze to his face. A face of polite pliancy. He can almost imagine you leading the prayers in the rooms of your faith, the prideful upraised head looking to the sea. “But might there be a fountain which we can use for our prayers?”

“Praying to what, when all your prayers have been answered?” Rafayel swipes a thumb over the blood-darkened veins inside your wrist, the blood you wish to cast into the waves in the same manner as starlight spills over the endless sky. Your skin is as malleable as sand. He wants to dig in, a primal urge from when Lemurians still hunted humans for sport. Some still do. “You may ask the guards to show you to an appropriate location to perform your prayers. But you have already become a symbol of faith, bride of clay. You are being rewarded as such.”

You dip your head in acknowledgement. “I have, Your Divinity. But it does not mean I should stop dedicating myself.”

He stares at you, hard. You are going to die for your faith. That precious little thing you seem to guard so weakly inside your mortal chest will be ripped from you like a human child is torn out of the womb. And yet here you are, asking to dedicate yourself to the very faith who will murder you. Piety is a wondrous thing, and it has moved you so far that you have surrendered to your own sacrifice, but is it really piety that is making you go through the motions of something as superfluous as prayer, when the very act of sacrifice is the highest religious duty you could fulfill? “What an interesting bride they have brought me,” he says, and you lower your gaze, the picture of humility. “Pray, then. As long as you meet me after you do.”

You hum in response, and he watches as you finally rejoin the women already appraising the room. One of them, a younger woman who shares the curve of your jaw and the color of your hair, reaches out to grasp your hand. You free it almost immediately to brush over her hair, a startlingly gentle display of affection in comparison to the chiding you subjected her to earlier. She must be family, though she does not share your beauty.

How confusing to be jealous of a simple gesture like this. How idiotic to yearn to be in that woman’s stead. Rafayel turns his back on the bridal party, before he can do anything that could tarnish his reputation.

Rafayel finds you where he guessed you would be. Your blood is still dripping into the fountain as he approaches you, the thick drops submerging quickly as they fall, like tears of pearl. It was once said, a myth unfurling in the motions of history due to the fascination other creatures often felt at the people of Lemuria, that his folk cried pearls, a myth they had been hunted for. “Wasteful, don’t you think?” he quips at the sight, but his touch is gentle when he takes your hand into his own. “Spilling blood when you will spill so much more when we are wed.”

“Nothing performed in service of the sea god is wasteful, Your Divinity,” you answer calmly. The supplicant at your side, not the family member he saw yesterday, sends you an alarmed look before she lowers it. You questioned the words of a god, an action most people would never even dare. Had you been anyone else, your bones would have already become the fishes’ supper. Even if you had been part of this court, such a comment could still have costed your head. But Rafayel feels himself begin to bend, turning over in your scarred palms. For being the most powerful entity roaming this planet, he feels as though you are the one holding all the cards. “It may not be worthy, but I beg you to accept our meager offerings to you. It is an honor to live in the light of your divinity.”

A memorized answer, devoid of anything personal. It is not the answer he craves, and he wishes to tug at your hair, to tear the secrets you carry in your heart from your head. It is a gruesome instinct, supped on the desire that is beginning to grow inside his heart. “Come with me,” he says, and then, addressing your companion, “You may remain here. I wish to become my bride’s acquaintance.”

The companion lowers her head in pliancy, but she seems nervous, apparently not trusting herself to formulate words in answer. Not because of his presence, perhaps. Rafayel has the inkling that it is you who’s distressing the bridal party. Something mysterious is unfolding in front of his eyes, and he itches to know more. He turns to offer you his arm, and you hesitate, shying away from the fact that he is an immortal being that is worshipped by everything the waves washes ashore on. But you take it, your warmth as shocking as the flash of lightnings the rainstorms sometimes inflict on his domain. Rafayel begins to walk, directing you to the royal gardens.

The weather is much nicer today. The sunlight fights to flood the scenery wherever it reaches, creating shadows of myth. Power is appearance. This court has been designed in a way to strike both fear and awe in hearts untouched by the heavens. You turn your head as far as it reaches, taking in the sight in the same way you had admired the ceiling yesterday. You must have an eye for art. “Tell me about yourself, daughter of clay,” he says, using the address most non-humans utilize to respectfully interact with an unknown land-walker. You whip your head back around to look at him. Today, your face is kissed by the sun, the lovely light enunciating every feature, every trace of the ancestors who had loved the idea of you so much that they willed you into existence. The sight rips into him like a shark bite, and for a moment, he finds himself envying whoever created humans. They had been much more adoring and obsessed with their work than he has, and it is reflected in the creation of you. “And none of the faithful derision today. I do adore being admired, but we are to be wed, and I wish to know whose heart I am going to consume.”

“Faithful derision,” you repeat, clearly taken aback by him reducing the faith of the sea to a simple piece of doggerel. Most of humanity’s prayers go unanswered, after all, expected from an existence so frail it could be wiped out with the smallest of tsunamis. “You mock me so, Your Divinity. Very well. What is it you wish to know of me?”

How have you managed to bewitch me, you evil thing? Rafayel thinks, but does not say. The urge to consume not just your heart, but you in your entirety has still not left him, even after a cold night of serious self-reflection. He has never realized how much desire could blur into hunger. “Who raised you?” he asks instead. “Who were you before you came here? What is it that made you become the lamb to my slaughter?”

Your eyes glaze over, an unidentifiable emotion he only manages to glimpse before you veil it over with the distanced civility you employ to interact with him. “I never knew my father, but my mother is a shepherdess above the sea,” you answer, slowly. The words are chosen carefully. “My mother used to be a priestess, but she was released from her duty when she had me. I was born of sin, you know. A lunar priestess is supposed to remain unwed and untainted, but she became pregnant with me. I am absolving both my mother and me of that taint.”

What a human belief, Rafayel thinks. To categorize love and coupling and touch as something sinful. As if the simple act of dedicating yourself to another wasn’t the holiest experience one could live through. The wax and wane of desire is as holy as the kneel of prayer to a Lemurian, which live and die for love. Above all else, it is the connection to someone else that could be the most well-guarded treasure a Lemurian could ever possess. But humanity’s civilization keeps its own rule, and to laugh about their beliefs would mean disrespecting you, so he only responds with, “I am sure the taint you speak of does not exist.”

“You are kind to say so, Your Divinity.” You do not sound like you believe it. Your words are, like nothing else, an act of worship. But perhaps it is because you understand him that you accept the answer, and that means something to him: to be understood as he is. He guides you along until he reaches a pavilion in the middle of the garden. You sit down first, a distance away from him in the spirit of propriety, but Rafayel is done acquiescing to your silly human rules. He sits near enough that your knees knock against each other, and as he cages you in like a hunter would circle his prey, he takes hold of your hand again. A bone-deep ache has claimed Rafayel, an ardor he never knew he possessed. It is taking hold of him, surging up in him like a wave. It is more than just your body he craves, something that runs deeper and hotter than the center of his own existence. “There is something you are hiding from me,” he tells you, watching as your eyes darken. You do not like being perceived, and the realization almost makes him laugh. “I will not make you tell it. You are free to do whatever it is you wish. But you fascinate me, daughter of clay. It is rare to enrapture a god’s attention, you know.”

As the night before, you roll your wrist in his hold so he may grasp it properly. Perhaps you search out his touch in the same manner as he does yours. Your fingers graze the flesh of his thighs as he lowers your hand to his lap. “I will get in over my head, Your Divinity, if you keep complimenting me like this,” you say. It makes his lips quirk into a genuine smile. Clever human, to play along like this. Your pulse thrums below his fingertips, the rhythm addicting. A true siren song. “I may overstep myself. That would not befit me at all. I am here to be free of sin, after all.”

“You are free already.” Rafayel’s fingers trace patterns into your skin, lower and lower. He unfolds your fingers for you, stretching them as far as they go. The scars on your skin are hypertrophic and ugly, but they fascinate him as much as every inch of your body does. They tell the stories of experiences and lived memories. Each one contains another secret he wants to unveil, a pearl he wants to claim as his own. “And we are to be wed, aren’t we?” His fingers curl over your own, and then you’re holding hands, intertwined in all manners of fate. Rafayel leans in, close enough to make you uncomfortable, close enough to kiss you. You don’t lean away. “There is nothing sinful about being betrothed, or what you do in the name of love. You are mine now, daughter of clay. All mine.”

For the first time since you have arrived here, you smile, your teeth gleaming like knifes. He feels it cutting into his chest, cutting away at his restraint. Although Rafayel is part of a species that is the apex predator of all predators, hunting and reigning over all that lives and breathes, in this moment, it is you who becomes the huntress.

How easy it is to climb a throne. How easy to be torn from it.

In the following days, he feels that tear at his existence in everything you do. Your allure only grows with every minute spent in your vicinity, and finally he has grown so needy that he absolves you of your prayers. Instead, he makes you worship him in person, and the time blurs into eternity, the noose at the end of the road long forgotten.

Rafayel spends afternoon tracing the traces of your creation; every bone, every tendon he explores with the devotion of a fervent prayer. Your fathomless eyes, glinting with the knowledge and the plans you keep hiding away from him, draw him in like the bait at the end of a fishing rod, and even though he knows it’s a trap, he lets himself be caught. Three nights before the day at your wedding, he finds himself caught on the sharp hook as he submerges into a bath with you.

You are not naked, but it almost seems like you are with the way the fabric of your dress begins to cling to you as the water kisses your skin. The shivering claiming your human bones create little currents in the pool, the water much colder than the ocean that surrounds this make-shift castle. Rafayel presses you closer to him, and then his face is in your hair, breathing in deeply. You both have long stopped caring about the rules of polite society. Rafayel has not allowed you to. Every touch, every word, every smile has made you more pliant, until finally you have even allowed him to partake in your ablutions before the wedding.

Every sacrificial bride of the sea god is supposed to take a bath before her wedding, washing away her past so that she can present herself in her most purified state. Most times, the bridal party is asked to help her with that, but Rafayel has stolen that role. It is the single most blasphemous thing one could do. But he is a god, and it is him who dictates the rules, delivers the scripture. All it took was a jut of his lip, the allusion of a pout, and you had caved immediately.

And now you were here, in the curve of his arm, your ear hovering above his chest. His heartbeat was powerful, pounding as loudly as the waves crashing on the beach, the sound susurrating inside your very soul. You breathe in deeply, shaking. This is the most divine thing you have ever experienced, something your mortal shell never thought it would be able to feel. “Sweet conch shell,” Rafayel murmurs in to your ear, shocking you to your core. “I’m sure you know that we have to step in even further to be able to perform the purification.”

“Just a second, please,” you speak through gritted teeth. This man vexes you in the most alluring of ways, and you cannot help but acquiesce to his every whim. You know your pleading falls on deaf ears, though, because Rafayel’s immediate reaction is a smile so mischievous it borders on schadenfreude, and he is already tugging at your shoulders in an attempt to submerge you further. You try to stand firm, even though your determination is crumbling. “It’s cold. It’s really cold.”

“Hmmm.” Rafayel nips at your ear, then your throat; you shudder violently enough for the water to splash. In the silence of your private little bubble, it almost sounds like an explosion. It makes your eyes snap open, as if preparing itself to fight or flee. Never had you let a man so close into your proximity. The village had always been ripe with gossip-mongering and backtalk. Your mother, although the most honorable person in the world to you, had been a demonized figure, to the point where your own worship had made you cull out the presence of men. No one had ever expected you to follow in your mother’s footsteps. No one had expected you to become a bride worthy of the sea. The simple pleasure of his ministrations floods your cheeks with hot blood. “See, I already warmed you up,” he teases, mouthing the words against your carotid artery. Speaking the words directly into your heart. You are guided much easier now, the water sloshing as you are pulled in. “I’ll take care of you, my pearl. You’re with your god, aren’t you?”

With your god. You turn your face toward him. Rafayel’s fingers tug at your lower lip, and you watch as his eyes zero in on the flesh; he is weirdly entranced with the way your human body works, the strange reaction it elicits from him. It is something you have become accustomed to in the past few days. His nail is sharp enough to draw blood. “See, that wasn’t so hard,” he coos, mocking you outright. But his fingers are shaking. It’s you who’s got him wrapped around your little finger, and that feels both emancipating and sacrilegious, a conflict so confusing that you do not know where you have to draw the line. You don’t even want to draw a line. When you had joined the faith of the waves, the image you had conjured during prayer had been ephemeral and fleeting, as changing as the sea. Not in your wildest dreams would you have been able to picture a man, a deity as flawless as Rafayel. His beauty kills. It constricts your lungs and tugs at your heart, as if falling into the maw of a great beast. The still water does nothing to take away from your hypersensitivity to his proximity.

Mortals aren’t made for divine dalliances. You burn too easily. But here you are, playing with fire.

You aren’t delusional enough to think he loves you. You are clay-born, after all. Rough and hastily assembled, none of the precision that the sea god had employed to give birth to his people. You are dazzling in the same way as a fire is dazzling: a short burst of destruction that is as awe-inspiring as it is revolting. But even you can recognize that he is attracted to you, and to a simple servant of the faith, that is quite enough. You are basking in whatever affection he grants you, any scrap at all.

Although you are still on the cusp of youth, old enough to yearn but young enough to grasp the moment, you had never in your wildest dreams conspired of something like this ever happening. Love just wasn’t on your cards. You had your sister, and your mother, and your faith, and that was truly enough. It was fulfilling to the point that you had felt untethered to the earth, free from the judging glances of the village, free from all the expectations the convent placed on you. Living and breathing and becoming one with the sea. If you had died tomorrow without ever having glimpsed the miraculous sea god you had entrusted yourself to, you would have died happy anyways. It was as simple as that.

But this was life-changing. Altering. You were experiencing an out-of-body experience, mythology come true. After all those years you had thrown your love into the universe, the universe was reaching back. You were spinning off axis, losing sight of everything but Rafayel. He was the new epicenter of your existence.

You jump as his fingers trail the naked skin of your arms. He settles on your hips, the touch so electrifying that you bite the lower lip he is still so fascinated by, staring at it as if it were a treasure he discovered at the bottom of the sea. The moon behind him outlines his shape in silver and white, making him seem more like an apparition than an actual person. How fitting, when you have been fantasizing about him all your life. “We should perform the purification now,” you whisper, but Rafayel is still lazily drawing patterns into the flesh of your curves. “Certainly,” he drawls out, every syllable enunciated in the abundant leisure only a god could possess. Your nerves feel like they are on fire. “In a minute.”

“Your Divinity,” you caution.

“Raf-a-yel.” He pronounces the words slowly, but with a deadly intonation. His eyes are dark, unreadable. “Say it. Say my name.”

You look at him, unsure. He looks just as much the deadly hunter he is sometimes depicted as in the murals. Before humanity had started building shrines in honor of the sea god of the abyss, they had painted warning signs about him, about the quick and bloody death he delivers. Some sailors still caution against all interaction with the creatures of the sea, their doom-calling stories a fresh batch of nightmares every time you hear them. The way Lemurians used to drag their willing prey beneath the waves, where they watched as the light left their eyes. What remained of them were the last bubbles of air as they rose to the surface. You cannot say his name, not with your tainted tongue. Not with the bastardry you carry in your veins. Not when you are deceiving him for the sake of your sister. But … “Rafayel,” you whisper.

You should feel scared about the way his lips curve into a smile. Beneath the most beautiful skins still lies the deadly bite of a venomous snake. Somehow you don’t think it’s fear that spikes the speed of your heartbeat, though. It’s not adrenaline that makes you angle your face upward so Rafayel can nuzzle your neck, and you almost buckle at the swipe of his tongue. Tasting the salt on your skin, the earth you came from. “Here, I purify you,” he answers. “I’ll lick you clean.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that’s what the scriptures meant, Your Divinity. Rafayel,” you hastily correct. He had frozen in his motions, but resumed nipping at your skin when you had added his name. The cold water was doing absolutely nothing against the fire racing inside your veins.

“Don’t care about the scriptures.” Rafayel draws up, pulling you with him. The languorous stretch of his figure forces you upward, and following his guide, you wrap your arms around his neck until you’re flush against him. His eyes darken at the press of your breasts against his chest. You screw your eyes shut at the delicious pressure, the way your nipples had brushed against his skin. How easy it is to throw all caution into the wind. You were losing sight of everything you built, in the name of love. “My word is law. Isn’t it?”

“Yes, Rafayel.”

He almost seems to purr at the sound of his name, easily pleased. It’s a deeply unhuman sound that should make you shrink away in fear. You screw your eyes shut as his lips trace the shape of your cheeks, inching closer to your mouth. “My name sounds so delicious on your tongue,” he whispers against the corner of your lips, bordering on a kiss. “If only all your prayers had been like this. I would have flooded all the ports and claimed the land just to have you.”

“I am yours,” you tell him, and you mean it. Rafayel grips your hips hard enough to draw blood, and he doesn’t need to tell you to know what he wants from you. You repeat it, again and again, telling him you belong to him, until Rafayel shuts you up with a kiss that tastes of both sanctity and sin, and the poison he pours into you is so decadent you almost don’t realize it’s killing you. You forget that at the end of this, it will not just be his kiss consuming you whole. You welcome the knifes and the sharp teeth and let Rafayel devour you.

The night passes then with the two of you trading kisses in the dark, small touches bordering on disgrace. You bend so many of your rules that at the end of the night, you’re not sure whether your virginity is sacred after all. But Rafayel never asks you for it, and you both remain clothed, although the bath has made you drip all over the floor. Inside the enormous bed that Rafayel claims as his own, you watch the sun rise as his fingers trace your ears, your collarbones, the shape of your body. It feels intimate in a way that is devoid of sex. It almost feels like Rafayel is the supplicant and you his deity, with the reverence he dedicates to touching you. “You do not need to be purified, bride of blood,” he says, addressing you like he did on the day you met him. Once again, it is a sign of respect. A sign that although he doesn’t understand your beliefs, he still wants to adhere to them because you treasure them. “You are flawless as you are. I chose you because you are everything I want.”

Although your sight is already blurring from tiredness, you make an effort to look at him. “Even though I am human?”

“Despite everything,” he tells you. “My heart sings with the presence of you.”

The sincerity of that statement dizzies you. You fall back into the blurness, feeling light as a feather. Never in your life before have you experienced a joy as profound as this; you have seen the face of God, and God has looked back at you. He is only looking at you.

“You do not have to do this, you know.”

It is the sister who speaks. Rafayel turns over the ceremonial knife, staring at it as he strains to hear the soft voices in the room behind him. Technically, he was eavesdropping. It was a breach of privacy, of course, but there was the matter of intention; he had come to see you, to fall into your lap as you told him about the human world, to allow himself to be reduced to a lover at the beck and call of a mere human like you. The days were beginning to slip away like sand in an hourglass, the wedding inching closer with every passing second. He had been trying to identify where the pit of dread inside his stomach came from when he heard your sister speak up, a feat so rare that he had forced himself to stop behind the door before she stopped. Your bridal party was composed of the most annoying people in the world, all of them paling in comparison to you in both faith and creature, but your sister guarded her words like a clam her pearls. And now, when she finally spoke, it was to deter you from marrying at all.

Rafayel hears something shift. You must have sat closer to her. “Do not say those words,” you hiss, a tone he has never heard you take before. “Do you forget how easily it is for a human to lose their head down here? We are already on thin ice.”

“I’m serious. You do know we could all die anyways, right? How can you be so calm? I feel like I’m about to go insane!”

“Then keep it together!” The answer is too loud, a cat mother snapping at its young. The anger in your voice is palpable. For a moment, the silence claims the room alongside the tension created by the secret conversation, but then you speak up, much calmer. “We either die together for this treason, or I die and you will live to tell my tale. In either case, it’s fine by me. I don’t care about my own life, but so help me god, Alia, if you even think of ending this ruse I will send you above water myself. I’m your older sister. It is my duty to think of you first.”

Treason. Rafayel’s fingers skim the edge of the knife. Blood pearls at the tip of his fingers, the sight of it as nauseating as the thought of a possible betrayal by the human world. Already, the world above them has started to leave them behind, with their experiments of gunpowder and weaponry. More and more patrols return decimated, the serving soldiers reporting death and violence. Complaining, pointing fingers. It’s no secret that the bridal party at court has become somewhat of a group of hostages. And hadn’t Rafayel already known that you were hiding things?

But he thinks of the way you let him cup your face in the sight of only moon and sky, how your eyes glint with the unspoken tenderness between the two of you. It was easy to lie with words, but your souls sing to each other. You both know it. There is something tucked away inside your human heart that belongs to him and him alone, something that makes Rafayel forgive you for every past and future grievance you could possibly muster against him. There is something every living heart wants for itself, and his heart wants you. The metaphorical knife sinks and sinks and sinks into his chest, slamming into bone, stuck there like Rafayel is stuck on his throne. Forever a hand-width away from everyone else, even his happiness. Just then, your sister whispers, “You love him, do you not? You have already given him your heart.”

“It doesn’t matter,” you gently reprimand her. Rafayel closes his eyes; the hand twisting the knife is rough and scarred, but familiar. He imagines taking that hand to aid it. Stab here, he wishes to say. Just a little deeper. I permit you. Only you. “This plan isn’t going to work, and I don’t care. I’ll take them down with me if I can. If I’m dead, I can’t be blackmailed, can I? I don’t care whether I die, as long as you live.”

As long as you live. Rafayel thinks of hearts, and the consumption of them, and of weddings and happy endings. He tucks the ceremonial knife away, his insides cold with the grim certainty of what he is going to do.

Later on, Rafayel will not remember the way his wedding had crashed and floundered into flames. He will not remember the sharp sting of betraying his own people, how his power had bled and bled. It was always so gruesome when gods fell. They weren’t destined for tragedies of this scale.

The only thing Rafayel will be able to commit to his recollection is how stunning divinity looked on you. He will forget the way his home had tasted, how the blooming kingdom of Lemuria had seemed to explode with colors, how the laughter of his folk had accompanied him everywhere. The only thing left will be you, your radiant face and your warm, warm tears, as warm as blood, sparking a fire in even the coldest of deep sea creatures. It should make him curse your name.

And yet he cannot forget you.

He looks for you everywhere, at every time, in every moment. The way your smile looked like the warm rays of the sun as they broke through the rain-heavy sky. The way the sound of your steps seemed to echo like the drum-like rhythm of his heart. He races after people who seem to have just the right hair color, who seem to share the shape of your eyes, who remind him just too much of you, only to realize that it wasn’t the person he was chasing after. You are haunting him. In every waking moment, in every dream that tortures his sleep, it is always you.

The resulting soul-devouring longing has turned him into quite the artist. When Lemuria fell, it took everything with it. Every painting since then he has ever drawn up fails to compare with the real thing, and he is terrified by the idea that he is forgetting how his home looked like. Already the details begin to slip away from him, becoming eroded over time. What remains crystalline is the imagine of you. Devilish you, crux of Lemuria you. It torments him to love you, but what torments him more is the loss of you. He had never been prepared for this possibility. He had never even considered what giving his heart away would look like.

And yet, he would do it again, and again, and again. Selfishly, egotistically. What he wouldn’t give to be able to make you smile again. In his most desperate nights, he strains himself to remember the way you used to laugh, the sound more heavenly than any music ever composed on earth. Even the falsification of the sound still manages to bring him so much peace that Rafayel stills his hands and abstains from painting another death trap. Although revenge has become the new mistress of his heart, he doesn’t love her as much as he will ever love you. It is the memory of you that makes him halt, makes him grant mercy to a possible victim. That, and the everlasting fear it is your blood he could be punishing. Your wish had been granted, after all - it was your sister who had lived and witnessed the death of a civilization, your sister who had escaped all culpability.

It was one of the most earliest memories he managed to commit to his brain after the atrocity that was the destruction of Lemuria. He had dug your sister’s grave with his bare hands. He had never even known her, not closely anyways, but it was your blood running in her veins, your love that had raised her. After so many years of searching and retracing his steps, he had finally found the village you had been born into. But by then, his bride had disappeared, and your sister had grown old waiting for you, and she had barely been able to squeeze Rafayel’s hand before passing on peacefully. That had hurt him in an entirely different way. Here was someone, who loved you and missed you just as much as him, who would understand how severely the loss of you had impacted him, but then she went and died. A cruel fate, as usual. But he did not regret finding her. For a little while, someone had been able to share his grief. And for a little while, that had been enough.

In his worst nightmares, Rafayel dreams he will never see you again. He will live and die for his love, but it will not matter. The bond that connected your souls stretched on into nothingness, past the place where living beings could reach, and you have already passed onto a place he will never see, because you’re an angel and he’s going to hell. Whether he believes it or not, he has betrayed his people, his court, his duty. There was no redemption, no way to come back from that.

Sometimes he resents you for it, so much so that his soul grows heavy with the anger he carries within. He stares at himself in the mirror for hours, trying to claw off the Lemurian mark that bonds you to him, but then he dissolves into sobs. He is hollow of you, a carved out corpse, a mermaid drowned. An oxymoron, like he was. He loves you so much that he convinces himself the pain is worth it; he convinces himself that he can survive this.

He becomes a renowned artist, his paintings a manifest oh the emotions he tries to overcome. But in every single one, his muse remains the same.

Like divine intervention, it is his paintings you admire when Rafayel finally finds you again.

He almost doesn’t trust his eyes. After all, this is not the very first time he has chased after a mirage like a traveler lost at sea. The back that is turned to him is not as scarred as yours was, and the curls of your hair are tucked away in a neat coiffure that almost makes him look away; you had hated to have your hair up. His favorite part of the morning routine you both established was when you had let him sneak into your rooms, and you had let him brush your hair until it was smooth and silky to the touch. But then you cock your head at the painting, and Rafayel sees your face, and he almost buckles.

The moon pales in comparison of the sight of your face twitching into the amazed expression at the painting before you. The sharp teeth remember him of your knife-like grimaces, the ones you used to grace him with when he saw a little bit too much of the truth inside you. There is a horrifyingly familiar birthmark where your brandmark used to identify you as one of the most devoted priestesses of the sea’s faith. You are as beautiful as the day as he lost you, as stunning as the day you had walked into his life.

He stumbles into Thomas, who steadies him with an appalled noise. The rest of the world falls away as Rafayel drinks in the sight of you like a man completely parched with thirst, as if he might die from it. You’re staring at a rendition of how Rafayel had imagined you might look in a bridal gown. His legs carry him forward, and never has the burden of walking on earth hurt him as much as now; he feels that knowledge tearing at him, clawing away at every protective measure, before he even reaches you. Every step is razor-sharp and painful, a conscious memory of what he sacrificed to roam the earth for you. He already knows before you meet his eyes. Your eyes are as clear and amazed as the day you had been brought to him.

You have no idea who he is at all.

It had already been a weird day. You had woken up to your face wet with tears, but as you touched it, you couldn’t for the life of you remember what you had dreamt about. There was only the disturbing feeling that were was something missing, something you couldn’t live without. You had laid in bed for a very long time, your hand placed over your heart, before your bestfriend and roommate Simone had burst into your room and told you to ‘get your ass up before we miss work’.

In the subway, the feeling hadn’t subsided. Beneath the bones of your breast cage, your most vital organ sputtered and stuttered, strangely arhythmic. The thing wasn’t very reliable, anyways, and you already had monthly check-ups to ensure it wasn’t fucking you over and you could continue your work. And then sometimes, it performed miracles. So many times you had woken up in a hospital bed after having passed out with the certain thought that you were going to die, but every time your heart had won out, like it loved battling death and beating the shit out of it every time. It had mystified Zayne, your childhood friend, to the point where he had suggested setting up a field study for his university studies, but you had firmly declined. You didn’t want anyone else to know about this freak heart, thank you.

Work itself had passed by quickly either way, and you had almost passed over the opportunity of going out with your friends. But Simone had wheedled at you and whittled your rejection down until it turned into acceptance, so now here you were.

Staring at this stranger.

He almost looked familiar. In another life, perhaps, you would have walked up to him and struck up a conversation. You had a special weakness for pretty boys, even though you knew even the most beautiful of predators are still deadly. But you had sworn off men after college, the short dalliances that had sparked up remaining unfruitful, so you thought it was for the best.

But the look in his eyes was so heartbreaking.

If you didn’t know any better, you would have thought he knew you. He seemed to be looking at you like someone who he had believed dead had magically been brought back to life and returned to him. When you finally mustered up your courage to approach him, because he had been staring at you for quite a while now, the gorgeous man had turned and left. You quickly lost sight of him, which made you frown.

You were a Deepspace hunter, one of the best. You usually don’t lose track of your prey, especially not pretty ones like him.

It didn’t matter. You never saw him again afterwards. Your fake vow of chastity remained stable, even after the countless club nights Simone dragged you to and even after Tara’s desperate pleading to please, pretty please let her set you up with someone. You declined every time. Not because you were stubborn, but because there was a hollowness inside you that starved for tenderness, something so unreal you were sure you were never going to find it. There was a beast encaged by your veins and bones, starving for the scraps of affection. You had fed it and fed it and fed it, to the point where at the end, you were the one who had been left unnurtured, so you had abandoned the search.

You had never once thought it would find you instead.

There were times when the timing seemed almost too suspicious. The appearance of a fake account perceiving your social media posts. The feeling of someone keeping watch of you. Not following you, but checking in on you. The knowledge that someone was looking out for you, but every time you turned the corner, what greeted you was the sight of a whole lot of nothing.

It’s Wednesday night after Simone’s shift when the doorbell rings. “Did you order in?” you ask the girl, but she shakes her head, the freshly washed hair whipping around like a flag in the wind. “Maybe it’s Michaela?” she theorizes, and you shrug. You’ve met Michaela before; she was Xavier’s hunting partner, a competent hunter that was sure to rise through the ranks. You hadn’t realized that Simone and her had become so acquainted, though. You were definitely going to needle Simone about that.

You went to open the door, but it wasn’t Michaela standing in front of it. Instead, a delivery boy that looks like the most bored employee you’ve ever seen holds out a packaged bouquet to you. “Please sign here, miss,” he says, and holds out a board where a paper has been pinned to it. You scan it quickly to confirm it’s actually for you, then give him the signature he requires.

“Who was it?” Simone appears in the hallway, scrubbing away at her hair. You are momentarily distracted from the bouquet and stare at her instead; you always scolded her for walking around with wet hair. “Is that a bouquet?” she asks before you can say something, her voice amazed. “I thought you were a chaste nun and all that!”

“I’m not dating anyone!” you immediately defend yourself. But your heart is racing as you pass her, and you quickly walk to the kitchen counter where you reach for the scissors in the drawers. Simone rejoins you and watches as you free the flowers from their paper cage.

It is the prettiest bouquet you’ve ever received. Nestled inbetween baby’s breath and foxgloves, water lilies in full bloom reach upward, filling the kitchen with their dizzying fragrance. Simone begins to sneeze almost immediately; she is violently allergic to foxgloves. You, on the other hand, breathe in deeply, almost light-headed with the violent longing the flowers fill you with.

You stare at the flowers for a very long time.

After almost an hour of theorizing and reaching to no conclusion, you place the bouquet on the windowsill in your room where it can be seen from the street. It’s intentional, because you are almost sure that the feeling of that watchful stranger was not just a feeling. Maybe it was a secret admirer or something. But your heart was at peace with that knowledge, and the feeling that encapsulated you was as familiar as a dream; a dream where you are loved as you are, with every inch of your being. You sleep deeply and restfully for the first time in a very long time.

As someone rounds the corner, he angles his eyes upward to stare at a certain window. He passes by here almost daily, just to see whether you were sleeping and taking care of yourself. Worrying about whether when the lamp burned deep into the night, it meant you were overworking yourself or haunted by nightmares. Reassured when the light was off and your shutters closed, because it meant you were home and sleeping. When the shutters are open, he doesn’t even bother to pass by this street, having learnt quickly it meant you were on a business trip of some kind. He has quickly become resentful of your vocation because of how much it drains you. But today, he sees the bouquet he sent you, proud on display on the very windowsill he is able to see from below here, so far away from you.

Almost unwillingly, because he has yet to relearn the motion, his lips curve into a smile. Rafayel walks home, his heart as light as it never has been before. Well, maybe once. Back when the waves were still the emperors of the world. When love meant a certain, moonlight-illuminated face.

It doesn’t take long for Rafayel to re-enter your life under the guise of a part-time job. A bodyguard, for a painter. The joke almost writes himself. But you couldn’t deny how you had clapped your hands in joy when you saw him again, the pretty face with no name you had seen on that day of the art reveal. You let him seduce into the worst side-gig ever, which might as well have been a babysitting job instead of a bodyguard position.

You learn that he’s a recluse, famous painter with the weirdest quirks. You’ve never met a man as strange as him. He was immature, and whiny, and a brat. Most times, you were too exasperated to handle him, despite the ridiculous amount of money he was paying you (the dude was rolling in money) and the bonus of getting to see his gorgeous face every day for free. Sometimes, though, when you are careless, your heart jumps to your throat when your fingers brush. Other times, when you watch him paint, you have the counterproductive urge to grasp his face and kiss him until you’re breathless. You cannot understand it. You don’t know where the instinct comes from. But it runs deep in your blood, a calling as old as time.

Simone calls you a horny freak, almost guffawing when you meekly admit to having developed a crush on him. And hey, sure, maybe you were a little horny. (A woman gets quite desperate when her only sexual encounters were the reliable appendages of her own hand.) And sometimes you did want to jump Rafayel’s bones until you were sure you (or him) wouldn’t be able to walk for a least a week. But it’s not what stirs you when you look at him. Deep inside your heart, something yearns for Rafayel, something that’s even hungrier than the beast you call your own heart.

You’re never sure what will overcome you. On most days, where Rafayel mooches off the vacation days you get from Deepspace hunting and calls you in to watch him live his life, your cravings run on the need of wanting to touch him. You want to ruffle your fingers through his hair to discover whether it’s as soft as it looks like. You’ve even candidly wondered what it would be like to hug him while he sleeps; Rafayel often falls asleep on his own job, curling into a sleeping position right in front of his unfinished paintings, the elegant fingers unfurling around his brush. The need to touch him can get so severe that you brush your fingers over his hand as he sleeps, just to satisfy it; it feels like fire grazing your skin, as dangerous as his Evol. You never tell him about anything of this, though, even though you know the secret is burning you.

Sometimes he looks at you as though he can tell exactly what you’re thinking. Like now.

He looks up before you can tear your gaze away. You had been staring at him for a little too long, admittedly, but he was looking downright ethereal today. You had almost collapsed on his porch when he had answered the door. The man was already a threat because of his looks, but he had opened the door looking like he fell right out of the bed and walked to the door without doing anything. The sight of his sleepy face and frazzled hair was doing a number on your heart. He claimed he’d already had breakfast and had laid out a plate of pancakes for you (not prepared by him, of course, the man was too lazy to stand in the kitchen without incentive), then gotten straight to painting. You were fantasizing about what it would be like to wake up in bed with him, to wipe away the sleep from his eyes and kiss the eyelids, when he caught you red-handed. “What, do I have something on my face?” he quips, and you jerk upright.

“No. Why would you think that?”

“You’re looking at me as if I sprouted another head. I’m not an alien, you know.”

“Technically, you are. Aren’t you?” You blink at him, the question innocent. Rafayel rolls his eyes, though, as if he had both expected your stupidity but had hoped you would overcome it. “Lemurians are from the ocean, idiot,” he retorts, turning back to his painting. He was swiping away at another creation, something that looked like the abstract rendition of a hurricane on the sea. “Last I checked, that was still on earth.”

Well, he got you there. Before you could think of a smart response, your phone rings, bringing the conversation to a halt. Rafayel clicks his tongue in annoyance; he likes to be the center of your attention and has often hidden your phone during work hours just so you couldn’t distract yourself. As someone with the attention span of a goldfish, you had rebelled pretty soon. You turn your attention to the device in your hands and read Simone’s name on the display before you answer the call. “Hello?” You drawl out, gaze still fixed on Rafayel.

“Where are you?”

“Working. At Raf’s.” You don’t miss the way Rafayel straightens up at the nickname, looking like the satisfied cats he often chases away due to his hatred of them. It’s your turn to roll your eyes; he was easily pleased. At the same time, his simple joy at a nickname makes your heart soften. Although his dramatic flair ensures that he is never taken seriously, deep beneath it all, you have come to realize that Rafayel is a genuinely tender person. And who are you to judge for being needy when it comes to affection? “I told you that this morning. You know, when you were in bed with Michaela.” As far as you knew, they weren’t dating, since Simone claimed Michaela had only slept over yesterday because they had stayed out late, and she had refused to let Michaela walk back home in the dark.

“Do not say that out loud,” comes Simone’s buzzing response from the other end of the phone, and you momentarily hold your phone away as you cringe at the sound. You put it back just in time to hear her add, “I do not need the fish-man to know about my private business, thank you. He’s an employer after all.”

“Everyone knows about your fat crush on Michaela.”

“Well, how about your fat crush on…”

“NO!” you shout down the phone before she can speak it out loud and ruin your life. You manage to startle Rafayel so strongly that he topples from the chair he was situated on; you wince and turn around guiltily, not wanting to deal with the consequences of that. Simone had almost given away your secret feelings for the man currently painting his heart out on the canvas. “Alright, point fucking taken. Is that why you called me? To bully me?”

“You decided to bully me first! Anyways, I called to let you know that they emergency-scheduled you for this afternoon. Something about you being familiar with that no-hunting zone.”

You narrow your eyes. She was probably talking about the suburb north of Linkon that had just recently been declared a no hunting zone; they were still carrying out evacuations from the area, although majority of the place had been abandoned ages ago due to a factory accident. You often ran patrols there and had been the one to notify the agency about the rising threat-level which had ultimately led to the declaration of it now being a no hunting zone. Still, it must be pretty serious if they scheduled you without checking back with you first. Jenna usually didn’t take advantage of your willingness, since you often offered to cover shifts for your colleagues.

“When?”

“7:30 at the subway station. North exit. You’ll patrol alone, but I can join you if you want to.”

“No, that’s fine,” you answered absentmindedly, already racking your brain about what could have happened and how you could get there. Perhaps another luminivore? But you had cleared out a nest of wanderers just a week ago…

You barely remember to say goodbye to Simone before you whirl around to face Rafayel. He’s still on the ground, pouting, his full lips jutted at you in irritation. “Let me guess,” he grumbles. “You’re gonna abandon me again. Forget aaaaall about me on your fancy wanderer-hunting job.”

“Rafayel,” you sigh. He always got vexed about this, the fact that you had a life aside from basically being his handbag that he carried everywhere. Rafayel doesn’t even like public appearances, and rarely appears often enough where the necessity of a bodyguard was warranted. You step towards him and offer him your hand so he can let himself be pulled up, but he turns his face away like a child. “Don’t be like this. I’ll literally be back tomorrow.”

“Oh, will you? And what if you get another emergency? And what when your free days are over and you have to go back to your regular work? Since you’ve managed to forget to text me every time you’ve been busy, I’m assuming you’ll check back with me as soon as sharks have started walking on land.”

“Now you’re just being dramatic.”

Rafayel turns his head to glare at you. It’s the only thing your register before the world is flipped upside down in a rapid whorl of colors. Rafayel has taken hold of the hand that had intended to help him and had pulled you down. The movement is so swift and sudden that you squeak in indignation before you can remember your training, but your fight-response dies down as soon as Rafayel leans over you, his hands pinning yours over your head. You could easily free yourself if you wanted to. You were a Deepspace hunter, for crying out loud. But it’s Rafayel who’s pinning you down, Rafayel whose lovely hair is as blue as the swirling sea, his eyes capturing you like a predator hypnotizing its prey. “You’re a liar,” he tells you. It’s an insult, but your skin tingles as if the word was a caress. You squeeze your hands into fists in his hold, and he grips your wrists tighter, as if he can imprison them. As if he can imprison you. Rafayel’s eyes are as hard as flint, and you recoil from the real anger inside them; he’s never looked at you like this, never. The air is thick with tension. “You humans always lie. You’ll leave me and forget about me.”

The situation seems so silly, but there’s something urging you to take it seriously, something in Rafayel’s eyes that tugs at your heartstrings. You feel like a deer in the headlights, yearning for the approaching car. “I’d never lie,” you tell him after a few moments, unsure where the words are coming from. “And I’d never leave you.”

Rafayel scoffs, and you feel the embarrassment creep up on your face. Well, it’s not like you were the one who initiated this ridiculous situation! But you cannot help but feel this isn’t a joke. You scan Rafayel’s face, but he’s as unreadable as the calligraphy of a foreign language, unavailable and unreachable to you. “How can you be certain?” There’s a tang of anxiety to Rafayel’s voice, a tone so disquieting that you feel desperate to get rid of it. The urge is strange, but not unwelcome. You think for a long time before you tell him, “I can’t be. I’m only human, after all. But I mean it with all my heart when I say I would never intend to.”

Rafayel’s eyes visibly soften at the words. It’s a confusing, mind-muddling reaction. Although your relationship to Rafayel is indescribable by words and constrained by its professional setting, you would still be able to claim that you had grown close enough to realize this was an extremely uncommon reaction. What’s even more confusing is when Rafayel lowers himself to tug you closer; you fit like puzzle pieces as he cradles your head in the hollow of his neck, holding you against his heart. You return the embrace with a racing heart. This is everything what your touchstarved brain had asked for and more. You turn your face to tuck it into the crook of his neck, and the man above you sighs with what sounds like content. After a few moments, he finally releases you, his arms unfurling like the petals of a flower. He’s still pouting, but he looks appeased. “Go, then,” he says, sitting up and crossing his arms. “But don’t expect me to miss you or anything!”

Like a sea creature that’s washed up on the beach, unable to breathe air, you gape at him. Meanwhile, Rafayel dusts himself off, as if nothing ever happened. He goes straight back to his art, sparing you not even a glance as he says, “Be sure to lock the door behind you, will you? I really don’t want Thomas to crash in whenever he wants again. I like my privacy.”

That damned fish!

This is the shape your relationship takes on, the constant push-and-pull between tearing each other apart and digging into every crevice you can reach in the other. What has started as a simple crush is starting to drive you insane, what with how Rafayel begins to take advantage of how familiar you both become. It’s on a night like this where he makes every effort to blur the lines between you two, like colors mixing and washing over each other, creating something new. It’s the middle of the night, and you should really be in bed sleeping before your newest mission in the morning, and yet you’re standing in front of the art gallery in the middle of nowhere. Thomas’ face looks like a tomato. He’s been blushing and apologizing for at least ten minutes, begging you to forgive him and spewing excuses about how he absolutely couldn’t call anyone else. He pawns Rafayel off like a discovered item being handed in to lost-and-found, abandoning you to your new task so he can hush back inside and hide the fact that a) the artist in question being discussed in there is drunk out of his mind and b) he’s pulling the Frenchest exist ever known to humankind, having slipped out the backdoor that is supposed to be reserved for the staff. You stare at the label that marks the closed door as such long after Thomas has left you, ignoring the whiny little sounds Rafayel is making. Asking for your attention, probably. Eliciting a very different kind of response in both your pissed and tired mind, but also your easily excited abdomen.

How did you even get here?

“Can you pleaaaase stop staring at that door and stare at me instead? And I made all that effort to look pretty, too.”

Your eyes snap back to Rafayel, momentarily distracted. “Surely you didn’t dress up for me, mister,” you huff, although you did take note of his attire. It’s an elegantly cut suit and tie, the cuffs of his shirt studded with something that looks like glinting stars in the dark. As you step closer, you realize that the buttons are not buttons, but rather pearls. From Rafayel’s left ear dangles an ear ring, a silver fishing spear that seems to pierce through the earlobe. “Because you best believe I didn’t agree to be dragged out at the ass-crack of dawn to pick you up just because you can’t hold your liquor.”

“I can hold my liquor!” Rafayel complains. You want to muster up a snarky response, but then he grabs your calf and falls forward, his head coming to rest on your thigh. The proximity is making your breath catch in your throat. “That was just …. a lot of piña coladas. They were just so delicious. It’s not my fault.” The drunkard at your feet squishes his stunningly beautiful irritating face against your leg, looking up to catch your gaze as he pleads you to swallow the lie.

You are robbed of speech.

It’s one thing to have an unrequited crush. It’s another thing to live with it. And then it’s something entirely different to have that crush used against you. Rafayel’s cheeks are red from intoxication, his eyes lidded, seemingly in a haze. But his hands are steady, goal-oriented. They feel their way along your legs, up to the hollow of your knees, until finally Rafayel digs his fingers into the back of your thighs and closes his eyes.

If anyone knew how fast your heart was racing right now, you’d never live to hear the end of it. You are shy and overwhelmed and in love. Before you can embarrass yourself even further, you take Rafayel’s hands into yours and pull him, the sound of your blood rushing in your ears reminiscent of the way the thunderous waves crash on Whitesand Bay when it storms. “Let’s get you home,” you hear yourself speak as if from a distance. For once, Rafayel is obedient. He nods eagerly, wrapping both his arms around the one you offered him, and you manage to find your way back to the main street as you round the art gallery and hail a cab.

The driver looks as tired as you are. The meter, calculating the price for the amount of distance travelled, sets a ticking rhythm for the drive. As you settle in and buckle up both Rafayel and you, the former uses the chance to inch closer to you. You direct your gaze to the roof of the car, thinking, dear god, please help me survive the ride back home.

Because this is just plain torture. It takes Rafayel five minutes, tops, to fall against you and hide away his face against your throat. His breath comes more steadily now, not as erratic, and he’s still got the scent of coconut syrup and rum on his breath, but beneath all that, he smells like the Rafayel you have come to know. That strange smell of salt and paint and mint, the latter being part of the perfume he prefers to use. He’s close enough to bite through your throat if he wanted to.

Somehow, the thought doesn’t terrify you. The lack of fear ought to be a warning sign, but all you can think about is how lovely it would be die on those teeth, like the drowned sailors crushed to pulp as the waves throw them against the cliffs over and over again. You curl your fingers to your fist in your lap, willing yourself to endure it. In the darkness of the cab, every touch seems amplified.

“Missed you,” Rafayel mumbles then, almost making you leap out of your skin. He hadn’t been loud, but you’re growing incredibly hypersensitive to his every mood. His lips brush your skin as he speaks. “Thought you wouldn’t come.”

You slightly turn your head to create some life-saving distance. Your heat is threatening to jump right out of your chest. “Of course I would come to get you, silly fish,” you whisper back. Through the window, you see the cab cut by the city, drifting through its streets like a snake through a flower field. Even in the middle of the night, Linkon City doesn’t seem to sleep. You try to fixate on the sight outside, instead of the man beside you that was threatening to make you lose your grip on sanity.

Rafayel grunts, then shifts his position. As he sits up, his hand falls into your lap, and with an ease you usually only ever see him exert on his brushes, he claims your hand for his own and turns it over. He presses a thumb to your palm, the touch light, but something feathers in your muscles. Your hand twitches. “You sound so sure,” he sighs, sounding petulant. He doesn’t believe you.

When finally the sight of Rafayel’s humble appears on the horizon, Rafayel manages to step outside the cab without falling over once. In the time it takes him to step outside and stand up-right, you’ve already paid and thanked the cab driver, who only nods and speeds away as soon as the door to his vehicle closes. You watch for a few moments until the cab merges with general traffic and then disappears, then turn back to your drunk, pouting companion, avoiding your eyes as if the eye contact could be embarrassing to him. For being so touchy in the cab, he sure has some nerve of acting like this. Without another word, you enter the passcode to his door, and Rafayel slips inside.

The studio looks like a mess. Clearly, nothing had been cleaned or tidied up before someone left to attend their oh, so important event. There is paint everywhere, even on the couch you know costs more than an entire year of your salary. You avert your eyes and press your hand on Rafayel’s back; you would talk about that tomorrow. The studio usually was a representation of Rafayel’s mental state. Whatever bothered him, had exploded into the artful reorganization of his home. “Quit pushing me,” Rafayel nags at you. He winds around so that he can free himself from your touch, then glares at you as if this was somehow your fault. “I can walk on my own.”

“Well, then maybe you’ll take yourself home, too.”

Your voice comes out too harsh. You know it as soon as you close your mouth, but Rafayel has already flinched. “I’m sorry,” you say as you try to soften the blow, and it feels ridiculous. Why is it you who has to apologize right now? But you continue speaking as if compelled, because you can’t stand the thought of hurting him, of him thinking he meant nothing to you. He doesn’t answer, so you step closer, intending to make him look at you so he’d see that you’re being earnest. That’s not what happens, though.

What happens is that Rafayel’s hands find your shoulders, and you’re about to ask what he’s doing, and then the only thing you can feel is the shape of Rafayel’s full lips crashing against yours, swallowing your words. It’s not even an actual kiss, too messy to be actually deemed one; his teeth clack against yours, grazing your lip painfully enough that you’re almost sure he’s drawn blood. But then he re-angles his face and Rafayel is actually kissing you, tasting you, stealing the air you breathe. Your brain shortcircuits. For a second, you forget why you’re here, and your fingers act faster than your mind does, gripping onto Rafayel’s shirt so forcefully you almost rip the pearls off them. Thankfully, your brain snaps back to reality almost immediately, and you push Rafayel away before the realization that you had been tasting his sinful tongue can actually hit you. That would be an information your brain would deconstruct later. “You’re drunk,” you exclaim. It is the most difficult thing you ever had to do, tearing yourself away from Rafayel. His face is the very picture of longing, an expression that makes you want to eat him alive, bones and all. But you did it anyways, because it would not be fair to him, and this is something that would have to be discussed when he’s sober. “Come on, Raf, I’ll take you to bed.”

“I don’t want to go to bed.” His fingers haven’t left you. They wander up the sides of your throat, digging into the space beneath your jaw, forcing you to angle your head up. Like this, he almost looks like the deep-sea predator he is. There’s a dangerous glint in his eyes that seems to reflect your own hunger, a kind of starvation that will not leave a single scrap of you to scavenge. If you’re not dangerous, he will drag you into the depths of the ocean, never to be seen again. “I want to make you feel good and make it up to you, please, pretty please. You’ll let me, won’t you?” He tugs and tugs, unrelenting. His wicked lips are shaping his typical pout, his favorite expression of getting you to do his bidding. He almost gets away with it, too, and the only thing keeping him from kissing you again are your quick hands, placed on his mouth before he can even think of capturing your mouth again.

“Raf, I will not take advantage of you while you’re being drunk!” you exclaim. It’s unbelievable how his face grimaces into the most heartbroken expression ever, just because you refuse to be the villain here. It physically hurts, to see him in so much anguish. You quickly spin him around so you don’t have to see his face, directing him to his bedroom. “You can make it up to me tomorrow,” you say tentatively. Secretly, you hope he will forget all about this, and you’ll never have to talk about it all. You’ll file away the kiss in your secret drawer inside your mind palace and polish the memory until it physically deteriorates, like it’s your last dinner on death row. You’ll make that memory last. Because you know he doesn’t love you; you had just been a warm body who had been kind to him at the wrong time.

“You’re so mean.” Rafayel sniffs, but this time, he comes more willingly. In the bedroom, the atmosphere has almost returned to its original tranquility, the silence enveloping you both seeming to sober him up. The bed feathers, creaking as Rafayel falls into it, but then the only sound left is his quiet muttering as he continues to complain about your attitude. He falls asleep like that, grumbling about how you would regret not letting him kiss you, how he could make it worth your while. He almost looks innocent like this, his face relaxed and devoid of his usual dramatic flair. It smoothens out the deeper he falls into sleep, sinking further into the mattress, looking like a pre-Raphaelite angel in a painting. Peaceful. Neutral. Entirely ethereal. He’s so surreal, you wonder if you might not be imagining this moment, the way you imagined him doing other things to you as you laid awake at night.

You fan your burning face, wondering what exactly had Rafayel intended to with you. It only adds on to the maladaptive daydreaming you dedicated your time to every day, ever since the fish-eyed king who called you his bodyguard had stolen your heart.

You stare at him for a very long time, until every ethereal feature of him is burned into the back of your eyelids. Your heart is light as a feather, floating, yearning. It sings his name in a steady pattern, synching almost naturally to the breath that stirs in Rafayel’s chest.

From then on, there is a current of tension underlining every interaction.

It’s not on purpose, of course. You just can’t help yourself. Every single nerve is on fire, at the beck and call of your favorite painter’s whims. You twitch when your fingers accidentally touch. There’s an involuntary gasp whenever he comes near, a sound tugged out of you against your will. You would have never thought that love would feel like a thousand fireworks going off at once. Soft, resounding explosions going boom, boom, boom in your chest.

You are so very conscious of Rafayel. Your heart jealously guards every moment you share with him.

Amor vincit omnia, famous poet Virgil once said in his own works. Love conquers all. Poets have to describe it like that, for emotions to be so consuming. It’s supposed to be a fun little tale, a nice piece of text, to be read and enjoyed. It’s not supposed to be something that happens to you, in the most violent way possible. Rafayel, although his own empire has been laid to rest centuries ago, his claim on the throne long faded, has succeeded in conquering you after all, heart and soul.

But, spoiler alert: you do not talk about what happened. In fact, you make every effort to escape the conversation whenever Rafayel tries to bring it up.

Why, you ask? Well, that’s something not even you can answer. Your friends have grown intolerable with frustration, to the point where Simone has staged an intervention to get you to fess up and confess to Rafayel. (Michaela, finally dating Simone, had planned an entire powerpoint dedicated to the benefits of admitting your feelings to someone. Which is ironic, because it was Simone who had finally gotten her shit together and told Michaela about how she felt.) Even Zayne, uninterested in your love life and its endeavors, had chipped in with his own opinion, which you had quickly ignored, because Zayne was the only mentally-sound, responsible adult in your friend group, which meant unresponsible you didn’t want to think about his advice at all.

It probably has a lot to do with how Rafayel is the epitome of perfection in your eyes, and you are nothing. You know it’s completely idiotic to think of someone as flawless, although Rafayel, being a sea creature of mythological background, might be a little closer to fitting that description than a human would. But you do. He is tender and attentive and all-encompassing. You refuse to lose him like this, to lose him to an unrequited crush that he had nurtured on a whim because he had been intoxicated.

No, you’d rather dance around it and be able to stay in his vicinity. Even if it kills you to be the outstander in his life forever, you’ll sacrifice yourself for it.

Unluckily for you, Rafayel is entirely fed up with sacrifices.

To say the door was closed would be to put it gently; it crashes into the hinges as Rafayel shuts it in front of your nose, cutting off your only route of escape. The evening sunlight paints him in a rosy hue that only adds on to the weakness your heart feels when you see him. He is exquisite. “We are going to talk about this,” Rafayel states, crossing his arms in petulance. “Whether you like it or not.”

“Ah, I’d love to, Raf.” Your lips quirk into a nervous smile. The memory of those arms wrapping you up in their embrace is so powerful, it manages to spike your blood with adrenaline. You theatrically check your wristwatch, then point at it, as if Rafayel needed some kind of extra confirmation that you were out of time. “But I really have to get to this meeting, and I already told Simone that I would…”

“Nope, don’t care.”

“But I…”

“Nooooope. You want me to say it in Lemurian?”

“Raf,” you groan out. “Don’t be like this.”

“Me, not be like this?” It seems as if you’ve missed some kind of signal in his communication, because suddenly Rafayel draws up, taut as a bowstring. There is a palpable taste of anger on your tongue, like a shark tasting blood in the water, and the realization dawns on you that you probably shouldn’t have answered him like that. “You’re really one to talk. You know, I thought we were finally getting closer. But you can’t even look at me properly! Have I done something to you?” His eyes are unhappy, glassy with emotion. It tears at you. His anguish has always been like a knife in your gut, disembowling you like a fish being gutted.

Your breath hitches. Yes, you have done something to me. You’ve ruined me. All I can think about is you, and the way your smile looks like the first streak of warm light at the break of dawn, and how even your annoying jokes make me float with joy. You’ve done something, alright. But all you say is, “No, of course not. I mean, no you haven’t done anything. I like spending time with you.”

“Then, what is it?” Rafayel has stepped closer. You instinctually step back, craving distance from him so that your heart won’t explode in your chest, but it seems like he has had enough. He ignores your attempt at evading him and grabs your arms, shaking you like a child would its toy. You look up at him, helpless. “Please. I can’t stand the thought of being apart from you.”

“Don’t say that, please.” Your voice is meek. You cannot believe he is even saying those things to you, that he could possibly replicate all the feelings in your heart, both the light and the dark.

Rafayel sucks in a breath, as if the words were a slap to his face. “Does it disgust you? That I feel like this? Because if you don’t want me to take liberties, if you don’t want me to bother you, then that’s all you have to say. I promise I’ll go back to any role you want to cast me in, as long as we go back to what we were, and you will talk and laugh with me again.”

What even is this moment right now? You are dizzy with emotion, incapable of producing speech. In all your wildest dreams, never once had you thought that it would be Rafayel begging for even a scrap of your attention. It was always in reverse, the natural order of things. You shake your head, appalled at his words, heady with them. “You can’t possibly feel like this,” you manage to say through gritted teeth. “You can’t possibly feel like you’re the one being pushy, when all I’ve done is ruin things between us. I shouldn’t have let you kiss me. I knew you did it because you were drunk, and I’m not mad at all, but I should have been the responsible one, and now I’ve ruined everything.”

“Ruined everything?” Rafayel’s voice is ripe with incredulity. When you finally gather courage to look up, you see Rafayel’s face suffusing with blood, although you can’t tell if it’s in anger or frustration. You don’t understand that in reality, Rafayel has spent his entire existence living in devotion to you, praying to you, deifying you. There is a split second where you both look at each other, completely silent, but then Rafayel’s painter-roughened fingers circle around your wrist and guide you back into the studio.

There are art supplies strewn everywhere, littered on every surface, but the actual paintings have been draped in curtains, hidden from view. Sometimes, even the most talented of creators gets shy about his works, and you’ve never once pushed him or teased him for it, respecting his privacy. But now you’re standing in the middle of his domain, his one hand still gripping your flesh, the other curling around the soft fabric that hides his art. “Then believe this,” he scoffs, and before you can protest, he rips the curtain off to reveal what is beneath.

You are robbed of speech.

That day in the gallery, your eyes had been cloudy, blind. You never once thought to stop about whether Rafayel had a muse that he venerated, something he enshrined with his paintings in an effort to cage in the feeling. Like the visionary described in Plato’s allegory of the cave, you are stumbling towards the light, blinded by the grace Rafayel utilizes in everything he shapes and touches.

Blooming all over the canvas is a rendition of you, floating in the ocean, kissed by the sunlight straining to reach you in the depths of the water. You almost reach out to feel the brushes, each stroke of the paintbrush a loving word, a compliment to your existence. Rafayel has painted you with the loveliness of an artisan completely entranced with their source of inspiration. There is an unspoken language of love woven into the material of the canvas itself, every color, every shade fondly handpicked to highlight your radiance. The drawing of you is glowing, basking in Rafayel’s attentiveness, completely wrapped up in his adoration.

“This,” Rafayel speaks up at your side, leading you back to reality, “is how I feel about you. I worship you.”

“Worship me?” You are breathless. It’s an impossible feat to tear your eyes off of the craftsmanship, but you manage to do so. The sight of Rafayel almost knocks you to your knees anew. His gaze is so full of warmth that for the first time in years, your heart is expanding, feeling full and hungry at the same time. Rafayel takes your hands in his, pulling them towards him. “You sound so shocked,” he laughs gently, the reaction so untypical for him. You let yourself be guided closer into the circle of his arms, into your safe haven that Rafayel represented for you. “Is it so hard to believe that I love you? There is no one else I’d want to kiss, no matter whether I’m drunk or sober. I dream and think of you all the time, and I hate it, trust me. Did you really think there would have been anyone else that could take your place in my heart?”

You are still adoring the painting, but when you angle your head back to look at him, Rafayel is already looking at you. It’s a soul-connecting look, the kind that reaches deeper than his eyes, the color of them ressembling the star-speckled sky reaching to kiss the pink waves. He is literally cracking open inside his chest so that you may look within, so that you will believe him. There is a memory at the edge of your consciousness, something that washes the saltiness of the ocean and the strangely sweet taste of divinity over your tongue, something that you cannot recognize yet. But what you can recognize is the heart inside Rafayel’s chest, so similar to your own, even hungrier than yours possibly could ever be. “Say it in full,” you plead with him, just to hear it once more. To realize that this incomparable man, more legend than reality, in all his heavenliness and gracefulness, belongs to you. That although your heart has always been the most insatiable creature alive, it has finally found a twin that matched its voracity. “Say you love me.”

Rafayel’s hands come up to cradle your face, cupping it like one would hold their most precious treasure. He is looking at you like a devotee who has seen his salvation, like you are the most beautiful thing he’s ever laid eyes on. It’s the look of love you’ve always, always wanted directed at you. “I love you,” he says, sounding entirely to exultant for a moment like this, his voice like the bells of heaven. It is utterly unlike your sassy crush, the man who’s outwitted you countless times, who always tugs a laughter out of you whether you want it or not. This is someone else, someone who’s set fire to the earth just to dig you out of its ashes. “I will love you until the day I die and if there is another life after this one, then let me love you in that one too, in all lives that may yet come.”

You screw your eyes shut then. You are blinded by joy, amazed at what just a single string of words can do to you. There is a key turning in the lock inside your chest, something that opens up a tsunami of emotions inside you. I love you. I love you. I love you. “Rafayel,” you whisper, and then you stumble forward at the same time as Rafayel tips down, and you collide like stars. When Rafayel finally kisses you, it tastes of cosmic dust and red strings of fate and it tastes like eternity. Your hands reach upward, seizing at his clothes and shoulders, until finally your fingers claw at his cheeks and you are probably hurting him. Neither of you cares. You fold around each other until no one can tell where you stop and he begins.

Rafayel groans into the kiss, a sound of such profound relief that you almost manage to stop kissing him just to laugh. There is no opportunity to do that, though, as Rafayel keeps dragging you back for another kiss, and another, and another. “My pearl,” he gasps against your lips, and you swallow the sound eagerly, lips moving against his like the tide crashing back into the shore. There is a loud crash as Rafayel moves backwards; you are momentarily distracted and look downwards to see the palette having strewn all its paint and contents all over the floor. In the heat of passion, you had completely forgotten your surroundings. “Whoops,” you murmur, not feeling sorry at all. It makes Rafayel burst into laughter, and for a moment, you are two idiots stumbling in the dark, two boats in a storm.

Holding on to another.

“It’s so typical of you to make a mess when I’m trying to be romantic,” he whines, becoming your unserious Rafayel again, love of your life Rafayel. You brush a lock of his storm-blue hair aside, and he tilts his head until his cheek is fitted against your palm. “You exist to sabotage me, admit it.”

“You admit something first.” Still love-drunk from the kiss, you swipe your thumb over his cheekbone, the touch electric. “When did you paint this? Do you really like me for as long as I have liked you? Because if I’m being honest, I’ve been having the most embarrassing crush for the longest time. Simone can tell you all about it.”

Rafayel dips his head, looking at you straight on. “You have no idea,” he tells you, entirely honest. He looks as if he can tell that your heart is racing, like he’s speaking the words into your veins, carried to your heart with the steady pump of your blood.

You step closer to him then, the need so primal you feel your entire body shivering. The urge is so tantalizing that you threaten to choke on it, succumb to the threat that Rafayel’s love poses. He is a walking siren song. “Help me understand then,” you whisper. “You’re always so chatty. Chat to me now.”

“But I’ve done all the talking, you know.” He pouts, the expression entirely bratty and so Rafayel-coded that you can’t help but giggle. The corners of his own mouth twitch, clearly pleased by the reaction, the sound the only symphony in his ears he likes to hear more than the swell of the ocean.

Your arms come to wrap around his neck, and you slot together like puzzle pieces, every rib fitting into the hollow of Rafayel’s chest. It feels like you are made for each other. You place your lips on Rafayel’s ears, your own only hearing the rush of the ocean, the sound of your blood racing. “Tell me, please, Raf,” you whisper. He shudders violenty, a reaction that reaches deeper than evolutionary instinct. His hands find their home on the dips of your curves, every finger digging in. “I want to hear about every single thing inside your head. Always.”

“You are unfair.”

You kiss the curve of his ear. “Of course I am. I’m the human that stole your heart.”

Rafayel’s lips are seized by a helpless smile, an expression you’ve never seen before. It’s almost as if he’s reminiscing about a secret that you don’t know, something that feathers along the edge of your memory. But he answers you nonetheless. “But there was no theft, my love,” he purrs. It’s the sound of pure, languid affection, the kind that wells up from the depths of one’s heart. “I’d give you my heart again and again and again. You can tease me all you like, but in truth, I’d sink to my knees whenever you’d like and worship you forever.”

Your lips part in astonishment. You don’t miss the way Rafayel’s eyes zero in on the reaction in hunger. “You were right, you shouldn’t talk,” you stutter then. “Your words are gonna go right to my head.”

“And it’s such a pretty head, too.” Rafayel’s lips begin to chase the soft slopes of your face, tracing a fiery path across your cheeks. It is unbelievable how such a simple act unravels you, how you are going to explode beneath the simple touch of Rafayel’s kiss. You almost preen beneath the ministrations. You angle your head to entangle him in a kiss, but this time, it’s him who moves before your lips can touch. “Let me prove it to you,” he whispers, the words itself as soft as a kiss. It’s a dangerous promise, an even more dangerous game. “Please, pretty girl, let me prove it to you, show you how much I adore you. I’m all yours. Let me show you, I beg you.”

You bite your lips. You’re pretty sure the bar is in hell, but this is the single most attractive thing a man has ever done for you. Here he stands, his heart on a silver platter presented to you, his entire being at your whim. You are heady with power, dizzy with the implications. But at the same time, you have never felt so safe. You are in the palm of Rafayel’s hands, safe and comfortable and oh, so loved. “Show me,” you tell him, biting your lip. “Please, Raf, show me.”

Those are the magic words. You didn’t even need to plead. Before a single ‘please’ has left your mouth, Rafayel’s lips once again crash into yours, and this time, he kisses you properly. His tongue, as commanding as his personality, tastes like a weirdly enticing combination of cherry coke and ocean salt; there is a loud, embarrassing squeak that escapes you when Rafayel’s teeth drag over your lower lip, but the sound quickly changes into a drawn-out moan when he gently sucks on it. He releases it with a groan of his own, and his eyes, like mirrors to his soul, reveal the depths of his hunger. “God, you have no idea what I’d do for you,” he gasps out, his brain working faster than his own mouth, the words hurtling from some part in his soul he has been jealously guarding. You are his only vulnerability, the only one. “What I have been looking for all my life. Light of my life, my love, my pearl. Need to show you.”

“Show me what?” You’re so drunk on his kisses, you’ve already forgotten what Rafayel requested from you in the first place. He tugs you in the direction of his bedroom, and you follow with a scary compliance. Maybe all those stories about the sailors drowning at sea had more than just a kernel of truth to them. Who wouldn’t throw themselves into the waves, for a chance to experience Rafayel’s experiences, even if it was only mere seconds? Your haziness chases you into the bedroom; your head is still spinning when he pulls you down into the luxurious bed you’ve always mocked him for. Suddenly, all that space begins to make a lot of sense. You spread out on the bed entirely too easily, unfolding beneath Rafayel like the blossom of a flower.

He sucks in his breath, his chest rising rapidly. Even though you are dizzy in your stupor, your brain still registers with a delight that it’s not alone in its sensation. You are doing this to him, you are undoing him just as much as he is you. The knowledge is so sweet that every inch of your body seems to sing. “Show you how much I love you,” he says. “Never gonna make you doubt me again. You’ll never think about anyone else after this. No one will ever love you like I do, I promise.”

The promise sounds entirely too harrowing for the romantic atmosphere you had been cultivating since the reveal of the painting in the studio. You almost sit up. Not too argue against him, but to question where the need for the promise came from; after all, you’d be just as ready to prove to him that no one in your life would ever come close to the reign he held over your heart. But then Rafayel bows over you, and you’re entirely engulfed by his shadow, and Rafayel’s hands are carving their way out to your abdomen.

It almost makes you shy. You’re not a blushing virgin, but you’ve never let anyone into your body in this way, not like this. You’re afraid that Rafayel’s gonna get inside and seize evey cell of your body for him, and he’ll settle in your bones and your marrow and your blood, and he’ll stay there forever. It’s a delicious fear, a kind of anticipation that makes you peer into the void, listen to its call. You want it so bad that your own fingers dig into the way-too-expensive fabric of Rafayel’s blankets, tearing, anchoring. Finally, finally, his lips kiss their way down the shape of your hip bones, chasing their way to the edge of your jeans. “May I, please?” He asks, his voice laced with desperation, the picture of a petitioner.

You look down at him, at this siren bewitching your body and spirit. Although he looks like something straight out of a pornographic movie, you don’t think you’ve ever seen anything this beautiful. Rafayel was like the most ethereal pictures, his lovely features carved out with the tender carefulness that makes even stone seem soft. His eyes are hopeful, open, trusting. You are falling in love with someone more divine than your mortal mind could have ever conjured, your every dream come true. “You better,” comes the weak response from you.

It’s all the consent he needs. Rafayel all but tears the pants off of you, his hands chasing flesh, craving connection. “Thank God,” he moans, and you almost think he’s enjoying this just as much as you are, more than you are. You watch his own hips buck into the soft mattress, chasing the mock-sensation your pussy would offer him, and you clench your thighs so hard your kneecaps almost pulverize. He grinds into the blankets, the torment of his own desire seemingly making him delirious, but his touches are determined, measured. Your curves fit perfectly into his hands, the elegant painter fingers gripping into your ass to angle you to his liking. “I thought I’d die without ever tasting you again.”

Again? You repeat in your mind, thinking you misheard. But Rafayel doesn’t permit you to think. Another pull, another tug, and then his treacherous mouth is around your core, kissing you through the cotton, mouthing around the shape of your pussy. You cry out, more in surprise than pleasure, but that quickly changes when he begins to drag his tongue across your pussy in a long, languorous swipe that makes your insides twitch wantonly. “Get those panties off of me or so help me god, Rafayel,” you manage to push out between gritted teeth, your own hips flying up to chase his touch. His grip is unrelenting, pinning you back into the mattress. “Weren’t you gonna prove something to me?”

Rafayel’s answer comes in a purr. “Your wish is my command, beloved.”

He pulls your panties to the side in a swift motion, placing another kiss on your clit. “Fucking hell,” he seems to mutter in amazement, and you’re not sure you were supposed to hear that. A mere moment later, Rafayel digs in like a man starved, moments away from the death sentence. You are not just a death row meal: you are the entire five-star course. You cry out entirely too loud as Rafayel plunges his tongue into you, the flexing muscle angling up to trace the soft, sensitive spot you chase with your own fingers when pleasuring yourself. You have no idea how he knows that, but you have no time to ponder as his left hands begins to trace circles around your clit, bullying the bundle of nerves with the pencil-roughened pads off his fingers. “Raf, oh my god!” you gasp, the sound dragged out of you in the same steady rhythm as his tongue pumping into you.

“I’m your god,” comes the moaned response, the sound’s vibration making your insides twitch in response. His fingers don’t let up, the ministrations steady, slowly picking up in speed in tandem with the coil of pleasure tightening inside your belly. You are twisting like a snake, your body shortcircuiting. “Say it.”

“Rafayel.” You are suprised in the coherency you fathom in expressing his name; your mind is already blurring at the edge, falling apart in soft colors like the confetti inside a kaleidoscope. “You’re my god, Rafayel, mine all mine.”

“Yours,” Rafayel keens. You notice the admission make him almost feral; he immediately puts his mouth back to work, slurping your essence in the most obscene manner. You are way beyond proprieties, way beyond embarrassment. All you can hope for is that he catches you at the end of this, as he hurtles you past the point of no return, the death-drop on a scary rollercoaster. You almost scream his name when he sucks your clit into his mouth, nursing on the spot like he’s going to die from thirst. The flick of his thumb makes you come undone; you fall back into the mattress into oblivion, shaking out of existence as Rafayel’s skilled tongue continues teasing your slit until you push him away, over-sensitive. “Stop, stop, stop,” you chant, the words slurred around the mind-blowing effects of your orgasm. Your tongue is heavy, your throat scraped raw. Did you scream that loud? “Can’t, Raf, can’t anymore, stop. So sensitive.”

“But I wasn’t done,” he whines out. His fingers still chase after you, even after you hastily sit up, dragging your unwilling body up the bed. He crawls after you, looking deliciously pathetic, his stunningly beautiful face pulled into a heartbroken grimace, as if the world was going to end if he couldn’t keep you eating out. There’s an unmistakingly large tent inside his thousand-dollar-designer pants, one that makes your mouth run dry again with hunger.

Heavens have mercy, you’ve never wanted to suck someone off so bad. You wonder if his pretty eyes would roll back into his head if you took it deep enough into your throat.

You don’t get to fulfill that wish, though. Rafayel pounces on you almost immediately, your sight taken over by his beautiful face as he kneels over you. His hips knock aside your thighs, demanding entrance, and you open up to him too easily. “Wanna make you feel good,” he begs you, but you’re too distracted with how delicious his kiss-swollen lips look. You trace your thumb over his lower lip, watch him as his mouth chases to suck on it.

He almost gapes when you place your thumb into your own mouth, tasting yourself. If he didn’t look so fucking attractive like that, you’d have laughed.

“You’re killing me,” he admits. Despite how vulnerable that sounds, he doesn’t hesitates at tearing at your legs until you’re laying below him chest to chest, ignoring the way you squeak at being manhandled into position. “Are you doing this on purpose?”

Now you laugh. “I have no idea what I’m doing. But I’m definitely not trying to kill the person I love.”

His face softens. It’s that expression you’ve begin to adore, categorized in your mind palace which is entirely dedicated to being a shrine for Rafayel. It doesn’t matter that he’s the one submitting to you at the moment, wrapping himself around your finger. It’s you who’d move all the seas in the world just to be with him. “I love you more,” he tells you, and he sounds earnest. “I love you so much more. Here, I’ll show you.”

The kiss he places on your lips is entirely too sweet for the debauchery his lower half is committing. While his teeth gently tug at your lips, begging for entry, his hips have begun to grind against your pussy. You mewl into the kiss, the sound quickly swallowed by Rafayel’s greedy tongue as he curls it around your own, tasting you, tasting him. There’s a string of saliva connecting your lip when he disentangles from you, and you’re too busy staring at it to notice the way he stares at you like you’re the single most important thing in his world.

He’d die a thousand times just to live through this night once more.

You’re only pulled out of your thoughts by the realization that Rafayel has begun tugging off his clothes. You quickly mirror him by shedding the last of your own, tugging aside all the fabric until you’re as bare before him as the day you’ve been born. You feel a little self-conscious, but to him, you must look glorious: this time, you visibly see the way his chest expands with the sheer joy, the admiration that drowns out all the color in his eyes. “Like what you see?” you tease him, but there’s an edge of nervousness tainting the words. You’re literally offering yourself up to him like a sacrificial bride.

“I adore you more than anything,” he answers, his voice reverent. His fingers shiver with tremors as they brush their way down the curves of your breast, enveloping your waist until you’re snug in his grip. It makes you blush; he’s looking at you as if he’s seizing up every detail so he can paint you anew, the devotion only a painter can muster up for a muse he loves. “This is the single greatest thing I have ever experienced.”

“Oh, I don’t know. You haven’t been inside of me yet.”

His eyes darken then, returning to their sinful mischievousness. “No, I haven’t,” he retorts, and then he pulls you towards him, the head of his cock nudging aside your labia, knocking at your entrance. You yelp, and he snickers like the bastard he is. “May I come in?”

“Fuck you,” you tell him, breathless. It was supposed to be a harmless insult, your usual banter with Rafayel that most often ends up in you guys thinking up the most creative “your momma” jokes until you guys dissolve in laughter.

This Rafayel doesn’t. “You should not have said that,” is the only warning you get, before Rafayel drags you down on his cock, sheathing you entirely on it. Your back arches off the bed as if your heart was trying to escape your chest; the intrusion is so sudden that the nerves in your brain spasm before you register there’s something kissing your cervix. Not possible, you think. Not fucking possible. He can’t be this big.

Oh. Oh.

Rafayel bundles you up in his arms and pulls back his hips just to snap back into you with the deadly precision of a predator who’s killing its’ prey. This time, you’re fully conscious of the scream you let out, your insides squeezing the living hell out of Rafayel’s dick in a desperate attempt to contain him. The only thing that amounts to is him being spurned on; you turn your head to the sound of Rafayel’s sinful moans flowing into your ear, tingling right down into your abdomen. “Rafayel, slow down”, you manage to squeeze out, but at the same time, you raise your hips to meet his every thrust, your eyelids fluttering at the same time as the rapid rhythm Rafayel sets as he pounds you into the mattress.

“What was that, my pearl?” Slap, slap, slap. The lewd noise of his Rafayel’s balls smacking against your entrance makes your toes curl in delicious pleasure, and you wind around in his hold, sobbing from how good he makes you feel. His cock cruelly bullies into you, your cervix screaming up through your nerves every time the circle of muscles makes contact with his cockhead. Your fingers claw at his back, desperate to steady themselves somewhere, anywhere. You barely even register the fact that there’s blood dripping from where your nails dig in; you’re too distracted by the fact that the pain you’re inflicting on him only seems to make him fuck you into the mattress harder. “You want me to go faster?”

“Can’t,” you wail, feeling incredulous by the fact that sex can illicit a response like this in you. You’ve severely underestimated how much everything changes when you do something with the person you love. “Can’t, Raf, it’s too much, too much.”

Rafayel’s only response is to ignore your begging. He frees a hand from where it’s digging into the mattress above of you to balance himself and cradles your face in it easily, angling your face up so you look at him straight-on. “Wish I could stop, my angel, but I’m obsessed with you. Need you to cum all over me, mark me as all yours so I can never run away again. Can you do that for me, sweet thing? Cum for me, please?”

“Raf,” you whine out, the tell-tale sign of your orgasm approaching muddling your mind again. How exactly does he expect you to form a coherent thought when he’s fucking you like it’s his last night on earth? Your fingers search for purpose, gripping into his shoulders, weaving a cradle around his neck. He bows then, kissing you like his life depends on it, never once stopping his rhythm of fucking into you. “Gonna cum.”

“You promise?” he whispers against the curve of your lips. He angled his head, instead kissing his way down your throat, swallowing the sound of your heartbeat screaming his name inside your veins. Every thrust claims your soul more and more, until you’re nothing more than a prisoner to his love. “Please, my seastar, I can’t fucking take it. Need to cum with you so bad.”

“Pleeeease.” The sound is a single cry, hollowing out your chest as you hug him closer. Rafayel bites into the soft flesh of your shoulder, and you interlock your legs behind his back, seeing white. It should hurt, but it doesn’t. His bite feels like the soft brush of a kiss, violence mingling with lust. “Come with me, Raf, I’m coming, coming, coming.”

Your orgasm washes over you like a tidal wave. You arch off the mattress, weightless for a moment; Rafayel continues to fuck you through it, chasing his own release as the most lewd moans tumble from his lovely lips, which are probably going to haunt you and your daydreams forever. His semen mingles with your release, the messy sound making you hide your face in the hollow of his neck; you slap at Rafayel’s chest when he doesn’t relent, almost wailing when the pleasure gets too much. Your heart feels raw and cradled at the same time; Rafayel doesn’t pull out when he falls off from you, instead pulling your leg with him so that you’re locked in an embrace while you both lay there, panting like animals who’ve been chased. For a long time, no one says anything. There are no words for the way your souls have converged. You’re almost not sure whether what you did even can be called sex. But then you feel Rafayel’s cum drip out of you, and the blush that rises to your cheeks reassures you that yes, it still is sex.

Rafayel squeezes your hips, hugging you against him like someone would a teddybear. “I love you,” he drawls against your still naked skin, kissing the raw teeth marks he left behind on your shoulder. You sigh out, a sound of pure contentment. Your heart still feels like it’s on the tip of your tongue. “Love you more,” you tell him, but Rafayel, stubborn as always, shakes his head. He kisses you into silence, hands cradling your face gently as he angles you upwards to receive his kisses. “Never,” he murmurs into each one. You don’t argue with him. As the moonlight bears witness to the whispered love declarations you speak in the dark, the two of you curl around each other until you’re an indistinguishable tangle of limbs, cuddling into each other like cats bathing in the sunlight.

You fall asleep like that, head pillowed against Rafayel’s chest as he props you up against him. He continues to mumble compliments into your hair long after you’ve fallen asleep, thousands of words of adoration he’s had to keep to himself in the years that have passed waiting for you.

It’s finally his turn to become your worshipper. Finally, finally, Rafayel’s hearts soars with happiness again. The sea always returns what it takes. You have washed up on the shores of his life again, mate of his soul, love of his life. And this time, he’s never going to let you go.

[yanmuffins]

I've been thinking and I've come to the conclusion that it wouldn't make much sense for Bruce to neglect one of his children.

Think about it, in canon, most of the mistakes he made that ended up harming his family were either because he was completely buried in work, or because he was slightly manipulated, both by the narrative and by third parties.

In addition, he also cannot fully communicate with others, both because of his early trauma, the loss of his parents, and all the loneliness caused by the grief he went through growing up. Not to mention the years of self-discipline and training he went through to become Batman. From everything he's seen and experienced, and all the scars he has, I can't imagine how much that grief and and especially a sense of justice, survived.

so I don't think he would simply neglect one of his children

What I propose is; accidental negligence. Think about it, if he is busy all the time with both Batman and his other persona, Brucie Wayne, and then the justice league, investigations, meetings of Wayne Enterprise, galas, charities, other rich people, the usual rogues gallery of Gotham, etc, etc, I don't think he has much time to spend with anyone.

He is able to spend more time with his other children because they are all vigilantes, like him, and are usually just as busy as he is. Having a civilian child in the middle of this mess wouldn't do much good, especially if that child doesn't know what they do most of the time, like, y'know, vigilantlism.

Imagine everyone's absolute horror when they realize, after the p&f reader is unfortunately busted, that they paid so little attention to that child that she managed to do all these crazy things right under their noses for the whole summer. And who's to say she hadn't been doing this before this summer? How many things have they inevitably missed in her life?

What I mean is that to counter the p&f reader's luck, everyone in the batfam is unlucky enough not to be able to spend time with her. And they are aware of it.

Their guilt would be immense and the angst would be delicious.

(And it would explain how Damian hás time to spend with p&f reader, since he's a kid and his only obligations are school, socialization and being Robin, so he would technically have more time??? If that even makes sense???)

context &. context.

YOU!! YOU GET IT!!

i wholeheartedly agree!

not that "accidental" neglect is any better, it's neglect all the same and has negative consequences in so many levels. but when we're talking about Bruce Emotionally Constipated And Terrible At Communication and Could Sometimes Make Better Choices Regarding His Kids Wayne, it could absolutely happen.

i'm not one to make character analysis because i have very shallow knowledge of Batman lore, but...

like you said, all of Bruce's children participate in vigilantism. they're all extraordinary, most have horrible trauma, and have relied on him for guidance. they are all Robin, and more relatable to him, in a way. that means he's consequently more involved in their lives, more physically there engaging with them, forming an emotional bond, acting as a mentor and father figure. on top of that, like you said, he has a whole life as Bruce Wayne and Batman going on.

which brings us to neglected! Reader, more specifically mine: P&F! Reader and Vampire! Reader.

on a... financial, material level, I believe they wouldn't want for anything. Alfred is the one managing their bank account and making sure they're well-provided for and though it's fun for angst purposes, i don't think they would have a tiny little bedroom isolated from everyone in the manor, mostly because it's our favorite butler who would select which bedroom Bruce's child would be staying at in this gigantic mansion with plenty unocuppied rooms. Alfred would NOT put you in the broom closet. it would be a bedroom that's at least as big as Damian's in Son of Batman, for example.

(i more than understand suspension of disbelief and playing around with all sorts of interesting concepts and characters, so I'm not criticizing anyone!)

in fact, i think it's kinda worse that, say, you have a bedroom that's a wall across from Tim's and he still kinda forgets you exist.

also, i believe Bruce's kid would absolutely have access to a more than generous amount of money. not broke at all.

so the only type of neglect going on here is of the emotional kind. your father and your siblings have created tight-knit bonds amongst themselves based on their shared experiences and the proximity brought by them all working as vigilantes, and you're just not a part of the club.

timing is also relevant.

P&F! Reader arrives at the manor some time after Damian, which means that not only have all relationships been formed over the years, Bruce has also experienced having kids, as well as having a biological child suddenly enter his life. they're a fish out of the water, and their dad is kinda awkward about this (apparently) normal child that showed up at his doorstep. while Damian is still kind of adapting, running around at night trying to bypass Bruce's security system and solve dangerous cases by himself, P&F! Reader is in their bedroom having a virtual sleepover with their Metropolis friends, streaming movies and eating caramelized popcorn.

fun fact: Damian and P&F! Reader are neighbors. he was not happy about Alfred placing his half-sibling on the room right beside his for the longest time. P&F! Reader has definetly caught him sneaking out, but they're no snitch. and you're right, he does have more free time, and he's also on summer break so no school and no homework to worry about. He's got free time to be his sibling's keeper.

and as we all know, the impression that P&F! Reader is just a normal regular kid that totally doesn't build ridiculous thingamabobs in their spare time, it's kinda easy to forget they're there amidst the Wayne family mayhem(s). Bruce is also kinda doesn't really know what to do with this kid or how to connect with them, but they don't really demand immediate attention and seem to be doing fine – so he probably shouldn't worry too much, right?

you could also argue that he's kinda awkward (emotionally constipated) with this kid and is very bad at consoling and accomodating them after the trauma that made them have to move in with him. he doesn't straight up forget they exist, although he starts paying more attention to them after Damian gets more involved in ther bio sibling's antics. and when it comes to siblings, it's just easier for their relationship to never evolve past more superficial interactions (with the exception of Damian who decides to mind P&F! Reader's business earlier on, more or less). P&F! Reader doesn't know about the vigilantism for a long time, so it's natural that they're excluded from any and all matters regarding that. and because everyone else is so busy with their own lives and P&F! Reader seems to be doing fine, so easy to overlook, has plenty of friends in and out of their new school and the Batfam is already a formed unit... Well, you get the picture.

there's also the matter of Damian. he is the kid that "needs more attention" because of his background. he's been through a lot. nevermind the possibility that you might also have gone throguh your own fair share of trauma, at the end of the day you're the easier kid. the "okay" kid with regular problems. which is sad and unfair, but that's what we're here for, isn't it? and Dick is the biggest offender when it comes to that.

not that P&F! Reader is bothered by any of that! They have an amazing summer ahead of them. 😎 It's definetly Batfam being unlucky that prevents them from spending time with P&F! Reader, but that allowed them to mostly enjoy summer without being smothered by their family. the guilt would be unmatched, that is for sure.

"And who's to say she hadn't been doing this before this summer?"

hehe :)

vampire! Reader (she was not mentioned but I'm talking about her anyway, spoilers for the fic because i want to rant) is a different story. again, timing. she arrived at the manor sometime between Dick leaving for Bludhaven and Jason being brought in, so she didn't really get a chance to develop a deeper emotional connection with Dick. that also means Bruce was a lot younger when he is faced with a biological child being thrown at his door, not to mention the less-than-ideal-circumstances in which she came to be in his custody.

and after trying to make her his newest sidekick didn't work, in the coming years he would dedicate most of his time to fighting crime as Batman and taking care of/mentoring Jason who had a rough past and is now his new sidekick. connecting and relating to Jason was easier than connecting with Vampire! Reader, but he always made sure to check on her and make sure she was okay (and the answer was always yes, because of course it was).

during this time Jason and Vampire! Reader were actually pretty close, but then he, uh. kinda died horrifically. so not only was Vampire! Reader dealing with the loss of her brother, her father was now full-on neglecting her, self-absorbed in his grief, so she felt the proper thing to do would be repress her emotions to accomodate her father and try to be his emotional support. not that it worked, but she was there! so we have the emotional neglect and we have Vampire! Reader starting to take a parental role for her own father because he's not being a parent for her. she was also completely alone in that huge manor with the exception of Alfred because none of the other kids were in the picture yet, and Dick had long since moved out. as you can see, not very nice :)

from then on she just kinda blends into the background. financially she's provided for. she is her father's daughter, so communication and expressing emotion are not her forté, but she tries her best to connect with the incoming batkids. it does not work. i have said this before, but she is the mature child, the (again) normal one who puts other people's needs before her, so she doesn't complain when Bruce makes time for literally every other kid who becomes Robin except her. but don't be mistaken: Bruce is definetly more controlling and aware of Vampire! Reader in comparison to P&F! Reader due to reasons (guess you can say early yandere signs?). Jason too is... Sort of complicated. the situation here is definetly darker and resonates with tone of the story better. and when Bruce realizes how terrible he was? oh, boy.

so I guess you can play around a lot with the neglectful! Reader trope, and that's what makes it so entertaining. yeah. that's all I have to say for today, I guess??

[fortheharbingers]

contents: a quick caleb (lads) blurb, adult content, minors do not interact!

oral (m! receiving), fingering, praise (mc kinda fucked outta their mind already if u squint)

Your head resting on Caleb’s lap, hands all over him grabbing and desperate, giving him the most pathetic cutest kitten licks with hazy dropping eyes as his hands work on you to ease you up, stretch you, open and massage you just perfectly- turning you into a melting puddle all over his lap as his free hand pets through your hair- in between your noises of pleasure and sopping wet lips around his length, you can hear him praise you, coo at you, telling you how good you’re being for him, how perfect and wonderful you are

He chuckles at your excitement and desperation to keep going further and he feels a tang of fear- concerned you might bruise yourself trying to take it all in but you give him the biggest teary eyes pleading, begging to have more of him, that it’s alright, you’re all grown now, that you’re not a little girl anymore, you can take it, take all of him-

[1980shorrorfilm]

the cut that always bleeds

keep clicking.

pairing…rain carradine x fem!reader x ellie williams

in which…ellie doesn’t seem to have time for you anymore; rain does.

before you read…angst, fluff. full transparency this comes forward very rain x reader but life is all about perspective 💜 don’t count how many times you see the word ‘moon.’ pretend theres no errors challenge. also pls no one get mad at this it’s just a little (4k count) gay story. . .

you’re cold.

the bonfire is blazing before you, and you’re cold. rain is sitting by your side, just barely providing you the warmth you crave— but ellie is a deep void that’s sucking it from you, sucking the joy from you that your other friends have. 

she’s occasionally sparing you glances over the flickering fire, and every time your eyes meet, there’s something behind them. but she pulls away, devoting her attention to the girl beside her, forgetting you’re there. 

you’re not sure what you’ve done— why she got bored of your friendship and seemingly dropped it for another. not that she couldn’t have other friends, you just take notice when someone else is prioritized over you. and it's not a nice feeling.

she doesn’t hang out with you anymore, endless excuses that are so fucking lame that you don’t even bother arguing against them. your patrols are awkward, always quiet like you’re waiting for the other to start a conversation, but neither of you do.

what could you talk about? you selfishly don’t want to hear about the details of her life without you present in it. you miss that— her, more than anything.

but you know she’s happy, her face flushes hues of pink with each interaction with the brunette. she looks nervous around her, picking at the right things to say before they roll off her tongue. that’s how you know it’s a crush— you were once the same. not now.

you feel a weird resentment. it’s not anger, but annoyance, wondering when or if she would notice you’re no longer her shadow, and if it would bother her.

rain notices the inability you have to show a smile, her sister's singing slowly comes to a bittersweet end.

she leans closer to you while your friends whistle at ellie, her head lowering in embarrassment, a habit you found cute.

“you good?”

you turn your head, meeting her blue eyes, swallowed by concern and her hand finding your knee out of habit when things are wrong. it’s not even a question that you had to answer because she knew. you tell her an easy lie, “yeah…just tired.”

she believes it, you think, nodding in return.

“do you…want me to bring you home?” she shyly offers, neither of you paying attention to the green irises locked in on you. ellie didn’t care for whatever relationship you and rain shared— she loves you both and that’s that. but, you were her friend first. 

you were the new kid that enjoyed sitting quietly with ellie in the comfort of her garage, rain was more sociable and almost too kind for you, at the time. now, of course you adore it. you love that rain spends her company with you, caring for you, admiring you. she had a way of making you forget everything else, and more importantly, ellie.

so, ellie can’t help but feel the tugging of her heart, while you’re tugged away from her. and she doesn’t even care to realize, she had placed the first brick, and built the wall between you. 

she’s not a perfect person. but that’s not what you wanted from her or expected. you just wanted her there, with you, not near you as someone you used to know.

rain catches you in your head again.

“hm?” she hums, a gentle squeeze on your knee realizing you let her question linger with no response. you nod, wanting nothing more than the fresh air from the forest than the heavy smoke surrounding you, suffocating you the same way ellie did.

rain gets up, and you copy, now capturing the eyes of your friends. “we’re ready to crash,” she announces, an exchanged look with ellie that you don’t read into, “don’t stay out too late, kids.”

you two ignore the groans, rain rolling her eyes with a ‘yeah, yeah,’ as you walk away together. 

the dirt path darkens the farther you get away from the fire, only the moon providing light for you. it casts an eerie yet lovely shadow over the tall trees, dead with orange leaves clinging to their branches. they crunch and crumble beneath your feet, both of you finding peace at the noise. 

when you turn to rain, she’s watching the moon— intently, as it could disappear at any given moment. 

it’s sweet, her fixation, you wish you could take her camera and snap a photo of her for yourself. to hang above your bed the way she does with her favorite pictures…quite a few of you. then her head turns to you, and yours turns away, to your dirt-covered shoes. 

“what?” 

“hm?”

“you’re staring, y/n.” 

“am not.”

rain laughs quietly, your face burning with heat at getting caught. it’s not the first time, but it’s the first time she’s dared to point it out. you can’t help that her features are really fucking pretty, mirroring ellie in that sense. and that when she’s super focused, her lips part an inch and her eyes narrow in, and she looks adorable. 

rain changes the topic, her tone now serious, “sooo…wanna tell me what’s up?”

you bite your tongue, literally and figuratively, not having the courage to confess that her sister is the storm cloud above your head and the boulder weighing you down. again, she notices, because of course she does, and quickly talks again, “im sorry—i didn’t—you just seem off.”

rain is mentally cursing herself for how far from smooth her words come out, not sure how to help you in the way she desperately wants to. she wouldn’t push for you to tell her anything you weren’t comfortable with, and that’s often what made communicating to rain so easy.

just, not with this, not this time.

“gotta headache,” you give yet another short lie, hoping it goes over her head. it doesn’t, not completely, but she accepts it. rain nods, the silence between you two only lasting for a few seconds before she speaks again, “ellie’s singing that bad, huh?” 

the joke finally gets a soft laugh from you, rain feeling satisfied she earned it from you, that it causes her lips to tug upward. now it’s her turn to stare, to observe the beauty in you that she finds in the moon, how despite the internal turmoil you’re enduring, you still manage to radiate such light. 

she doesn’t blink. not until she steps on a twig, and swallows the air, redirecting her gaze forward again. it’s a weird feeling…in a daze from you. it’s forbidden, you have only ever been friends, ellie had basically built your friendship over a series of game nights as a trio.

how could she cross a line that has been firmly in place for years? would you cross it?

she goes quiet the rest of the way home, and you don’t have the energy to make a conversation, so it’s just the chirping from the insects and the occasional blowing of the wind. you don’t mind it.

when you successfully sneak back into the walls of jackson, rain continues to walk you back to your place, all the way up the steps to your porch and standing idly in front of the door. 

“well…” rain starts, looking up from her white and red sneakers to your face, “i hope you feel better—your head, i mean—if not you should head to the infirmary, just in case, you know.”

she’s so doting you almost consider her words, the lie you created falsely slipping into a short reality, and you nod. “yeah, yeah, will do that.”

“cool, yeah, okay,” rain’s voice is above a whisper, almost forgetting this is the part where she walks away. that’s until you pull away from the moment first, something of a tight-lipped smile on your face that was practically saying goodbye to her, opening your door. 

when it shuts, rain lets out a breath she wasn’t aware she was holding, lingering on your doorstep for a few passing seconds, before forcing herself to leave.

and as if you jinxed it, there’s a subtle pounding on your temple when you strip from your outdoor clothes, but you couldn’t blame that on the wires in your brain. 

it was the heavy, so fucking loud, and obnoxious thoughts of ellie. how dina is probably cuddled into her side while you’re going to sleep in your lonely bed. you don’t like feeling alone like this, just moments prior you were fine— you had rain at your side. 

you wish you invited her in; and that she’d lay by you with enough space in your platonic comfort zones. she would happily do so, and she wouldn’t leave you until you fell into a slumber when she knew you were at ease. 

you fall asleep picturing that, picturing her.

the next few days are surprisingly, easy.

it’s easy to numb the hurt from ellie with the presence of rain, and she was making herself your shadow. lunch at the tipsy bison, leading you to the back where you’re tucked away from everyone else. it was nice, it was intimate. other evenings when the sun is setting and she’s at your door, the sky casting an orangish glow on a certain angle of her face that makes her look like she descended from heaven itself. 

she'd come with goodies from the greenhouse she spent most of her time in, taking the uglier veggies and fruits that she had grown and making a meal out of them with you, for you. she was taking care of you in every sense of the word, not allowing a frown to fall upon your face.

today was different, though.

you didn’t attend the bar and she didn’t show up on your doorstep. instead, you’re in her bedroom— the smell of wood filling your senses from her rustic furniture, making the room feel cozier. a bubble from the outside world you never wanted to pop.

you're sifting through her latest collection of polaroids, mostly— no, entirely —of the moon in its different stages. you don't point that out, though, you don’t find it repetitive. you smile lightly, your fingertips tracing the edges of the glossy photographs. rain observing your face as she mirrors you, sitting crisscrossed parallel to you on her bed.

“i know it’s not super exciting—“ she says, almost apologetic, downplaying the actual excitement she had when she pulled the stack from out of her nightstand to show you. “i just think she’s pretty.”

you’re eyeing one of the blurry ones, making an illusion that there were two moons; two bright, almost ethereal orbs hanging in the sky, like they're celestial twins. you hum, taking it in, then glancing up at her, her expression soft but expectant, she's been watching you closely this whole time. curious, you ask, “she?”

“oh,” her lips curl slightly, a tenderness, maybe shyness, to her voice when she swallows then speaks again, “people in the old world used to think the moon was—well, is, a feminine symbol—sorta like a connection, i guess. and…just look at her…she’s…”

rain trails off, and you don’t seem to notice how her dark pupils are deeply set on your face, like she was trying to remember each outline, catching herself fading from the conversation and into you.

“she's just...always there...and always different—but always beautiful," she gulps, shrugging, afraid you're losing interest, “i don't know...i guess i just like that idea.”

you feel crazy for thinking there's something else to her words, something that makes your skin flush, but you blame it on the intimate atmosphere. you hum again, letting the silence settle between you two, but the air just seems to grow thick, a subtle tension building in that moment. not bad, just...different.

when you're done admiring the photographs, your gaze drifts to hers. she clears her throat, and your heart pounds in your chest. she talks first after building the courage.

“do you...” rain begins, her voice wavering slightly, but she manages to push through it. “do you wanna go to the bonfire tomorrow?”

“tomorrow? i didn’t know they planned that,” you say, wondering why her simple words and question have a weight behind them, a half inviting and half uncertain look on her face. like she's desperate for you to say yes.

but, you're already trying to come up with a reason to why you’re about to decline. things have been okay. you don’t need to be there, around ellie, and slip away again.

rain shakes her head, “they didn’t. i just thought, maybe you and i…”

your breath gets caught in your throat. it's not a typical gathering, it's rain wanting to be with you, and just you. she can tell you're caught off guard, her mouth opening, “it’s totally cool if you don’t—”

“no, yeah, we can,” you agree in the most nonchalant way you can, like the warmth isn't spreading through your chest by the mere idea. rain is not a rebel, not in the same sense that ellie was, and already took hesitation to your group sneaking out; she is making an exception for you.

she doesn’t reply, chewing her cheek to prevent the grin ready to flash, and to distract herself from overthinking it.

and then, she ruins the moment.

“by the way…ellie has been asking about you.”

damn it.

“she has?” your stomach flips, rain catching the glimpse of hope in your eyes, but it doesn’t last, not when you continue to speak again. “we haven’t been…”

“i know,” rain says softly, “that’s why she—”

“she’s busy these days,” you cut rain off, the feeling of comfort that ellie still cares, not able to overpower the bitterness you hold. going through her sister, to reach you? pathetic. she could spare five minutes from her dina-centered days to simply check in on you.

you add, “and i’ve been busy, too.”

with rain. she nods, letting it end there.

rain loves her sister, obviously, but she’s aware of her screw-ups that sometimes involve the ones she cares about. and as much as rain had a habit of figuring out her family and friend's problems, she couldn’t, not with this, not with whatever was going on between you. 

ellie will cross that bridge when she comes to it. and so will you. the best she could do was simply be there when you two needed her. 

and you need her.

the next night, rain had shown up at your doorstep the very moment jackson had gone dark. hair neatly tucked half up, adorned in that crimson jacket of hers, smelling like a mix of the clementines she grows in the greenhouse and the generic soap she slathered on her body. a scent that reminds you you’re okay.

rain was making simple conversation on the trail there, still on alert for any possible unwelcome eyes or visitors in the surrounding woods, whenever her eyes weren’t on you. the moon is full, and you look beautiful. she almost said that, but decided against it.

when you approach the clearing, it is an odd feeling to be there without hearing ellie’s honey voice sing a familiar song, the crack at a smile on her face if her eyes would land on you…that was a while ago, though. 

you barely sigh, watching rain tug off her backpack and bend over, getting the fire started while you sit on an empty log. you wait, bouncing your knee before you interrupt the silence. “it’s quiet.”

fantastic observation, y/n. rain spares you a glance, “that’s a good thing— means it’s just us.”

though she had meant it in the sense you’re safe, there’s an edge to her voice that makes your skin flush, and your heart thuds a little harder than you care to admit.

it is the most intimate setting when rain successfully gets the fire to spark, poking at it until it grows into a steady flame, then joining you. sitting directly next to you, thighs mere inches from touching. “i brought a blanket,” she mentions, “just in case you’re cold— get cold.”

“i’m fine, rain.”

“okay—i just don’t want you getting sick or anything,” rain finds it necessary to explain, a smile flashing on your face at her taking you into consideration. you chew at your bottom lip, and rain shoves her hands in her pockets.

for some reason, the energy feels charged, somehow electrifying despite the calmness of it all, the crackling of the fire and the occasional brushing of her leg against yours.

you're both quiet for a while, not sure what to say, to address whatever was hanging in the air like the mist in the surrounding forest, acting like barrier between you two and the rest of the world. that's when you feel her shift beside you.

rain is hesitant, but she nervously questions you, “was it…really your head that night? i mean—when i walked you home.”

you weren't ready for that. it feels too loaded, and your throat tightens.

but, you glance from the fire to her anyways, ember flames dancing on her delicate features, contorted in slight worry. she looks as ethereal as the moon, and maybe it's the setting, the trust you feel in this moment; that you show her some honesty.

“no,” it comes out lowly, and you shrug, trying to pass it off like it was truly not a big deal, “just didn’t want to be there.”

she still wears that face, a gentle intensity. her brows knit together, trying to push for more without making you uncomfortable, “…how come?” 

your sister. for a moment, you debate those words, considering telling her the truth, the full truth. about how you have felt about ellie, and how ellie has made you feel. like shit. chewed up stale gum at the bottom of her dirty black and white converse. it doesn't leave your mouth.

you awkwardly chuckle and fiddle with your fingers, “i dunno— i guess i just…”

you hesitate, her stare so intense you have to look back into the fire. you search for something simpler, but still raw, no longer wanting to hide all of your feelings from rain. especially when shes staring at you the way that she is.

“didn’t feel wanted?”

you hate the words as soon as they leave your lips, it sounds flat out pathetic as if you had only said them for pity. but it's true. you felt like a burden that night, there for no reason at all, dimming the mood with your disconnect from the group. it’s the nerves that make you continue to add to it.

“like…everybody had somebody,” you begin, managing to talk about ellie without explicitly saying her name, “and i was just there? i don’t know.”

you chuckle lightly at the end, but rain sees through it, through you, covering your hurt. her expression softens instantly.

“that’s not true…you have me.”

you blink at rain, her voice ever so gentle, and she reaches out, placing her hand on your knee. you like her tentative touch, so simple, yet it acts like an anchor keeping you at bay from the unfriendly thoughts in your head. it causes that internal warmth she's made you familiar with, to course through your body. from your toes, to where her hand rests, to your shoulders.

rain squeezes your knee gently, like a reassurance. a promise to her words, and the air tightens.

your gaze meets hers, the softness and sincerity behind her blue eyes, your cheeks warmer than the fire in front of you. it is just the crackling of the fire, and a howling of the wind through the trees, and you shiver. but, that's not thanks to the sudden coolness.

it's her stare. the goosebumps rise on your skin, and it happens, like that.

a mutual decision made by your eyes, a flickering between them and your lips. you lean in slightly, breath catching as your nerves grow, but she eases them when she does the same, assuring you that she wants this.

both of your hearts beat like rabbits, and your lips connect.

and then there was nothing else, no thinking, no brooding, no ellie.

just rain.

she takes it slow, cautious at first, once again squeezing your knee, but this time it’s to reassure herself— that you’re actually kissing her, that this is real, not in her head. it's not your first kiss ever, not at all, but it's the first that felt like it had meaning. like all of the love she has grown for you is on full display, wanting, needing, you to feel it.

you need to grab her, your hand slides to the back of her neck to somehow pull her closer, yet she’s the one deepening the kiss. not in a messy way, not in a rough way. she doesn’t want that from you, not yet, at least. it’s still just as tender as it is passionate, it’s like a dream.

and for a moment you had pictured with someone else, maybe even in this exact place on this exact log, this feels…right. 

when time is no longer paused, and you finally pull away, your mouth is still parted collecting your breath. “fuck…” rain mumbles, and then she laughs, “holy fuck.”

the smile she wore quickly falters from her face, the euphoria switching to concern, “that was okay— right?”

“yeah—yeah,” you whisper, the little smile returning to both of your faces, ignoring the sudden sense of unease you had felt. it was okay, fucking better than okay and you think you want more. but when you look forward again, it’s to the fire, to the log across that ellie would occupy with her pretty voice and guitar.

and then there’s rain, shyly looking at her red and white sneakers.

a minute doesn’t even pass. you swallow thickly, leaning forward, and kissing her again.

it’s an hour later when the flames had died, a quiet walk back home with stolen glances. you’re both in a haze, minds foggy with the thought of the other. though, yours wavers, a certain pair of green eyes flashing in your head. it was supposed to be her— that’s what you had used to think. 

ellie and you, not you and rain. so naive, you were. and so wrong, because rain felt right. she felt perfect.

and your schedule is quickly prioritized around rain over the following week. her free time was yours, and yours hers. 

walks around jackson taking photos of the things she found beauty in— the light in a dark world. which included you, often off guard, or stupid faces in her bedroom. 

the sleepovers sharing her bed, rain always meeting your hands beneath the blanket, a sense of relief she craved. the chocolate chip pancakes in the morning, making sure your days started nicely, and that you were happy. all rain did was make you happy. 

and ellie, on the sidelines, took notice.

she wasn’t losing her friend— she lost her friend. to her fucking sister. not that she was upset with rain in any way, or you for that matter, it just was how it was. something she could’ve prevented. 

it’s another night you’re getting ready to go meet rain, slipping on a hoodie when you hear the knocking at your door. you already know who it is, she was still using her signature rhymed knock. two beats off from rain.

you cross your living room, twisting the knob and opening the door. ellie stands before you, in a common dark flannel and her mullet seemingly freshly trimmed, neater than usual. probably the work of someone else’s loving hands.

“hey…can i come in?” she scratches the back of her neck, and you scoot out of the way as an answer. she enters, taking in the comforting aroma of your home she hadn’t realized she missed so much. it somewhat eases the tension in her shoulders, her nerves calming. 

you slowly trail behind her, the woman sitting on your couch hunched over, elbows propped on her spread legs. this was serious, and you really don’t want this right now. 

her mouth opens before yours does, though.

“how are you?”

oh. her question catches you off guard, but it’s genuine, not surprising since she’s just a distant echo in your life these days. “i’m good,” you give her a short real answer, and she doesn’t give you time to elaborate or even ask her back.

“yeah? and—you and rain?”

you blink at her. her tone is so accusatory like any possible response will just be flat-out wrong. 

even if it’s the truth, especially if it’s the truth.

the unfortunate part is that ellie did have some right to know what your relations were with her sister; but there is nothing to tell her, because just like her and dina, you’re not calling yourselves girlfriends.

you’re friends, technically. friends that have gotten closer and closer, spending more time with each other than anyone else. letting the spark between you two grow into a flame, and into a fire. 

maybe that is the very reason why the question had left ellie’s lips, seeing a mirrored version of her and dina in you and rain. and if that is the case, why is her voice laced with venom, not obvious, yet clearly there? 

she knows you’d never hurt rain, and rain would never hurt you. there is no valid reason for her to take issue with the idea you two had something. not in your opinion, at least.

your silence is an unspoken or undecided answer, and ellie leans back, tongue-swiping her teeth. 

“right, okay,” it comes out as a rasp, with a short nod. she begins again, “you could’ve told me.”

you can’t help it— you rebuttal her. “kinda hard when you’re not around.”

“wha—” ellie’s brows furrow, suddenly standing up, eyes darkened and narrow, “every fucking time i come here, you’re gone, you know that?”

you feel a nonexistent spotlight on you that you don’t want to be under, and ellie isn’t even done speaking. “there are nights neither of you are home—so what, you’re fucking sneaking out too? it’s one thing to hide it, but to be stupid?”

“so you suddenly care about me?” you mutter, and her jaw just barely drops, taking offense at your words, pausing before she even can respond.

“how…could you even say that?”

there is no irritation in her voice this time. it’s flat, even somber, matching the energy shift in the room. you’re quiet, unable to make another snarky comment. you stare at her shoes, them approaching you, staying in place when she was just a few feet from you.

then, you look back up at her. 

“you know i love you,” ellie tells you blankly, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, something she has said a million times over. 

it’s different when you haven’t felt her love, or any sort of affection from her in weeks, and the three words seem like more of a chore. nearly meaningless to you. the only person that made you feel like you had a purpose, was now rain, and that realization fucking stings. 

“i have to go,” you disregard the current conversation, ignoring the dry humorless chuckle that escapes ellie’s lips, “can you leave? please?”

she remains still for a moment, staring at you, and you dread it. the silent observing, waiting for you to crack, drop this curtain you’re holding up to prevent her from seeing how you truly feel. 

how you’re coming to terms with your heartbreak, before the woman that broke your heart, that was never in her possession in the first place— not that she was ever aware of. 

she nods. 

ellie forces herself to move, walking past, shoulders nearly brushing when she walks past you. you wait to hear the door open, but her palm is resting on the knob.

“i…know i messed up…” she admits, “but…you could’ve come to me.”

she’s making this harder. making your mind envision a reality where you were the one that fought harder, not her. that you didn’t slowly watch the gap between you two widen, and just expressed to her how poorly she had made you feel.

that would be easier than this. she would still be your closest friend…and rain wouldn’t. 

rain, who is currently waiting for you. her bed most certainly made neatly, reserved for you to fall asleep in, her arm bound to snake its way around you and stay in place until you woke up.

ellie debates her next choice of words, but nothing comes from her. with dread, she leaves you, alone, frozen in place trying to unpack everything. it feels impossible, and you no longer have the desire to see rain, as much as she could numb this. 

you lay down in your own, and much colder bed, but your curtains are drawn wide open and the moon is shining through your window— and she looks beautiful tonight. rain is probably admiring her, wishing she had you next to her to do so.

maybe ellie is doing the same. and maybe tonight, you’re still on her mind, even if she’s gazing at it with someone else.