Work Text:
Hey girl, open the walls, play with your dolls
We'll be a perfect family.
When you walk away, is when we really play
“Well, that’s all the time I have. Thank you so much for answering our questions!” The woman gushed, gathering her things and glancing nervously between the eldest children in the house. Upon noticing her glances, both of them pasted perfect smiles on their faces, which only served to unnerve her even more. At least the camera was already off.
Raphael sighed in relief when the reporter finally said her goodbyes and walked out of the living room. The tension in the house was getting to an unmanageable level, and the Novak family had a reputation to uphold. The third oldest child had the time to shut her eyes and sigh before Lucifer and Michael were at each other’s throats and Gabriel bolted from the room. She opened her eyes in time to see Lucifer throw the first punch to their older brother and their mother reaching for her liquor cabinet with shaking hands. Raphael just shut her eyes and pretended for a second that they really were the perfect family the public believed them to be, and not a family of broken dolls.
You don't hear me when I say,
"Mom, please wake up.
Dad's with a slut, and your son is smoking cannabis."
“God dammit, Mother! Wake up!” Raphael snapped. She shook her adoptive mother’s shoulders, to no avail. The woman was passed out on the couch. Raphael, too, had been asleep, until she’d heard the moans from her father’s room. Everyone, at least in the family, knew that Chuck Novak wasn’t a faithful man, and he had a favorite mistress. A certain Becky Rosen. Much to Michael and Raphael’s dismay, Lucifer liked her, though that could be because she brought him the weed he smoked whenever their parents were busy.
“It’s useless, Raph. She’s out,” Lucifer idly remarked from the doorway. He took a drag of his joint with a crooked smile. Raphael wrinkled her nose with barely contained disgust, and Lucifer? He laughed. Fortunately, she prided herself on self-control, unlike her parents or her siblings, so Raphael didn’t slap him or throw a punch, like Gabriel or Michael would’ve.
“Luci’s right, Sis. It’ll be over soon, anyway. Luce, gimme that.” Gabriel strolled into the room and slipped the joint from his brother’s fingers and took a drag of it, smiling the same not-quite-sane smile that Lucifer gave sometimes. Raphael grit her teeth against the vile smoke, and looked her brothers in the eyes.
“Maybe so, but at least I care enough to try, unlike someone else I know.” High as he was, Lucifer had trouble recognizing the jab, but even when he did, he only narrowed his eyes. He had moral issues with hitting women. Funny, Raphael thought, he hits Michael and Mother, but not me. She settled on the idea that perhaps Lucifer didn’t care enough about her to hit her. Honestly, Raphael was fine with that.
“Whatever. Where’s Michael? I need some stress relief.” Gabriel chuckled at that, neither of them knowing whether Lucifer meant stress relief by a fistfight, or stress relief.
“Last I saw, he was in the kitchen.” Raphael said. She shuddered.
No one ever listens, this wallpaper glistens
Don't let them see what goes down in the kitchen.
“Chuck wouldn’t do that to me,” Naomi said, no trace of doubt in her voice. Raphael knew it was because she was lying; they all knew about the affair. Sometimes, she seemed to be the only one bothered by the state of their wreck of a family. She resisted the urge to scream when her own mother turns to walk away.
“Mother, please! Listen to me. You don’t have to stay with him! You could just—“ Raphael can’t bring herself to be surprised at the harsh slap. Naomi’s face is cold.
“Raphael, what has gotten into you? I love your father,” she said with a glare, and Raphael straightened up in defiance. She was tired of backing down.
“Stop the act, Mother, everyone already knows about Becky. Stop pretending to be the perfect wife!” Raphael felt obscenely proud of herself at the flicker of rage on her mother’s face, but she never got to hear a response, interrupted by a loud bang from the kitchen. Only seconds after, there was the sound of shattering glass.
The kitchen looked like a warzone, with Lucifer and Michael circling each other almost predatorily. Raphael was silent in the doorway while Naomi fled from her daughter’s rage. Lucifer and Michael, as usual, were lost in their own world, spitting venom at each other and throwing whatever they could get there hands on.
Seemingly quite randomly, Michael leapt over the bar in the middle of the room to throw a punch, and Lucifer took it with a quiet laugh. Raphael winced. The walls glittered with broken glass and the occasional dot of blood. Her brothers’ blood. Turning away, she left them to their fight that would no doubt disintegrate into some violent form of sex.
Places, places, get in your places
Throw on your dress and put on your doll faces.
Raphael twisted her face into a polite smile and folded her hands on her lap as she, Michael, and their parents walked into the Novak corporation press conference. Michael pulled out her chair for her, and Raphael smiled, wider than before and with the added bonus of mostly faked affection. Michael smiled in return, as was expected.
Both Raphael and Michael contributed to the discussion over where to go next with the company, if only because both wanted to inherit the company and had very different ideas of where it should go. Their parents, too, had different ideas for where the family company should be, but the four of them pretended to be unified in their decisions, no matter how much one would complain later.
Walking back in the house was easy and relieving on most occasions, but coming back from a meeting, Raphael refused to let her guard drop. Sure enough, Michael turned on her the second the door was closed.
“I refuse your silly ideas. We’re going with mine; I don’t care what the committee says. Understand me, little sister?” Raphael yawned disinterestedly.
“I understand, but I don’t agree.”
“You don’t have to agree, you just have to know.”
“You expected a fight.”
“Yes.”
“I am not like Lucifer, nor you. I won’t fight you, but I will do everything in my power to prevent your uptight ideas from shutting down my company.” Raphael was matter-of-fact, and it served her well. Could looks kill, the only daughter would be dead, but since they could not, Raphael was very much alive to receive and reciprocate her brother’s ill will.
Everyone thinks that we're perfect
Please don't let them look through the curtains.
Walking in to the living room at any time past four in the afternoon was a risk, and it was one Raphael had really stopped caring about. Catching one’s brothers in the act stopped being a big deal after the fifth time it happened. The living room, at that particular time, was her brothers’ favorite place to have sex, and sure enough, Raphael found Lucifer pressed to a wall, Michael pinning his wrists with one hand and using his other to fumble with the button on his jeans. Lucifer was practically purring; sex was the one time they seemed to get along.
Figuring she had no right to judge her own family for being just a little more messed up, Raphael ignored them. Besides, it wasn’t as if anyone else in the family cared. Hell, she’d caught Gabriel joining them once or twice before, and she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t thought about it herself once or twice.
Of course, Raphael was not one for exhibitionism, so she was rightly annoyed when she looked over at the front window and found the curtains wide open, leaving her brothers in full view of any reporter who got the bright idea to go film the Novak mansion.
“Be more careful,” she chided, knowing that they’d hear her, even if they weren’t quite paying attention. “Anyone could’ve seen you.”
Michael laughed and pressed a wet kiss to Lucifer’s neck, eliciting a whimper from the younger. “I will, if you do me a favor.”
Raphael twitched. She hated doing favors, but if it meant Michael would stop putting their reputation at risk… “What?”
“The handcuffs from my desk. May I have them?”
“Do I want to know?”
“You know what I want with them, Raphael, obviously I need them for our dear brother here.” He nipped along Lucifer’s throat again, and the younger twisted closer to him. Michael pulled away, and Lucifer looked frustrated. Their dynamic fascinated Raphael, to an extent.
“Raphael,” he whimpered, “I want him to fuck me, so if you could hurry up?”
As fascinated as she was, the young woman had no desire to watch them fuck, so she walked out to retrieve what was asked of her. Neither of her older brothers liked being left waiting.
Picture, picture, smile for the picture
Pose with your brother, won't you be a good sister?
Standing in an uncomfortably itchy dress was not how she wanted to spend her afternoon, but as long as it got the family good press, Raphael was willing. Even if it meant standing and faking a smile while Gabriel grabbed her ass. Even if she had to deal with Michael and Lucifer stealing lusty glances right in front of the photographer. Even if Chuck hadn’t bothered to cover his latest love bite from Becky. Raphael figured she could deal with all that, using the justification that good press would get her closer to taking the company.
Being a good sister was important to her image, so she smiled and wrapped an arm around Gabriel’s waist, giving a light squeeze that wasn’t quite familial. Raphael knew it wasn’t important, however, when the photographer smiled.
“You guys are just the sweetest family! It’s so refreshing. Okay, everyone smile!” he said, and then it was over as quickly as it began. Naomi paid the man, he packed up his equipment, and walked out the door. Gabriel grabbed Raphael’s arm and took the stairs two at a time.
“Can’t believe the sucker bought it, but hey. Whatever, man.” Gabriel shrugged delicately, and he dropped his sister’s arm. Raphael rolled her eyes.
“What do you want, Gabriel?” she asked, and Gabriel turned his golden brown puppy eyes on her. She tried hard to ignore him, to no avail.
“Sex, Sissy! Oblige me? Just this once?”
Raphael sighed. “You always say just this once. It never will be enough for you, will it?” All the same, she reached out and took her little brother’s hand.
“No, it won’t,” Gabriel replied cheekily, but he beamed. Raphael had a soft spot for Gabriel’s smile, and she found it hard to refuse him. “Is that a yes?”
“Yes, Gabriel. Let’s have sex, if you want it so bad.”
“Fuck yeah!”
“Child.”
D-O-L-L-H-O-U-S-E
I see things that nobody else sees.
(D-O-L-L-H-O-U-S-E
I see things that nobody else sees)
Walking past Lucifer’s room, Raphael heard three words she’d never heard come out of her older brother’s mouth.
“I love you,” he said, and Raphael stopped to peek in on her brother. She was right in thinking that Lucifer was with Michael. She and Gabriel had a long-standing bet over Lucifer and Michael either being in love or just fuck buddies, and Raphael was glad she’d put her money on love.
Lucifer, naked, was curled in an equally naked Michael’s arms. Michael stroked his hair and sides, and Lucifer purred low in his throat.
“Love you too, Lucifer. Get some sleep.” Lucifer gave a feeble mrrp sound, and he drifted off quickly. Michael gave one last peck to his little brother’s forehead, looked up, and locked eyes with Raphael. She stood stone still, and Michael stared at her.
“I just won fifty dollars off of you,” she blurted, not sure why she was telling Michael about her bet. Her oldest brother raised a single eyebrow, but said nothing. “Gabriel and I had a bet about whether or not you two were in love.”
“Was that answer enough?” Michael asked. Raphael nodded, giving him a soft smile.
“I should be…”
“Going.”
“Yes,” Raphael finished. She slipped back into her professional demeanor easily, and Michael smiled at her, albeit a slightly annoyed one.
Raphael walked away from her dozing brothers, leaving them to their peace. She stopped off briefly to take money from an absent Gabriel’s wallet, before retiring to her own room.
While she knew tomorrow would be the same, now-familiar agony as every other day in the Novak Dollhouse, she counted herself lucky. She was the only person in the world who knew all of the family secrets. She could blackmail any one of her family members into anything she needed. In the end, Raphael had the power, and that’s how she wanted it.