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Maia Roberts is up to something; he can tell from the mischievous grin on her face and the bounce in her step as she walks into the room and Raphael glances her way.
She drops her backpack by the door and almost skips over to him where he stands by the kitchen counter flipping through the morning’s newspaper. He’s well aware half the news is old by now but with the evening edition’s he once relied on no longer in print he takes what he can get.
He’s an old soul, in some respects still stuck in the ways he once had favored when letterman jackets were all the rage and soda hops were still a thing. He loves the feel of the paper between his fingers, the ink stains the pages leave behind and the smell, not getting his news from a 24-hour news cycle of nonsense on tweet book or whatever people are using nowadays. It’s one of the few old school things he can still hold onto.
Something that being a vampire hasn’t totally affected and changed.
Maia plucks the paper from his hand and he gives her a sharp not nearly as annoyed as he wants it to be look. She just smiles cheekily at him folding the paper up and pushing it aside.
“We are going somewhere special tonight,” she says downright gleeful.
Raphael raises an inquisitive eyebrow. His night is nearly over, the sun will be up in an hours’ time and he values his rest.
“I know, I know,” she says reading his mind in that way that would be unnerving if she were anyone else. “The sun’s almost up, blah, blah, blah. Don’t worry about it, just trust me and grab one of your fancy jackets so we can go.”
“Okay,” Raphael says without question and does just that. Maia smiles at him and grabs his hand as soon as he’s slipped on a gold lined bomber. She pulls him out to the street and tugs him along not bothering to hail a cab.
“Where are you taking me?” he says a little nervously already seeing the sky start to shift. He trusts her implicitly, but the edges of the sun peeking over the horizon always give him pause, especially ever since the incident with Heidi. If it hadn’t been for Isabelle he wouldn’t have gotten to be here now with Maia, his arm about to be pulled from the socket while she eagerly drags him down street.
“You’ll see,” she says dragging him down a few more blocks in silence. She stops in front of a large building that looks abandoned and beams.
She lets go of his hand pulling at the lock on the front door, the chains breaking underneath her strength.
“Oh, so you brought me here to commit a crime,” Raphael says as Maia holds the door open beckoning him in. He goes, his eyes adjusting to the darkness as Maia blocks the door with an old chair.
“No I did not,” she says taking his hand once again pulling him through the darkness and up some stairs he questions the stability of.
“So, this is where you kill me then,” he says as he hits a particularly questionable stair that makes a deafening creaky sound. He’s certain that it will fall out underneath him and is stunned when it doesn’t.
Maia giggles skipping over a step that Raphael chooses to follow suit and do the same.
“No, I am not here to kill you either,” she says her head shaking fondly.
They reach the third-floor busting through a door Maia kicks open with one foot and Maia steps away again flicking a single low light lamp on.
This room is completely different from the other’s the walls actually painted, the floor properly boarded and the windows cleaned. Maia slips a hand to his lower back and guides him forward towards the window.
“Umm, Maia,” he says watching as the sun starts to slip up above the buildings painting the city in tones of orange and yellow.
“Trust me,” she whispers before rushing over to the light to switch it back off. She steps up next to him again twining their fingers together as the sun gets higher in the sky.
If Raphael had a heartbeat he knows it’d be getting faster and faster right now, both from having someone who truly understands him and loves him for all that he is close by and from the twinge of fear he feels as the sun he once loved to feel on his skin gets higher and higher in the sky.
The light starts pouring in on the hardwood floor at their feet and he instinctively takes a step back his fangs showing, a hiss slipping from his lips.
Maia holds tight to his hand keeping him in place and keeping him calm.
“It’s okay,” she says calm and clear. The sun touches his feet and then continues to move up and up until it’s touching the bare skin of his hands. He doesn’t flinch this time trusting Maia’s hold on him.
He stares down at where the sun touches his hand in disbelief. Before he can even question it the sun has fully risen, the light touching his neck, his face, his hair.
He can almost, just almost feel the warmth of it on his skin. Can almost remember the touch of a sunrise with little Rosa sitting at his feet asking him all about the beautiful face she believed lived inside the sun.
He stares out the window for a moment, then turns his eyes to Maia who’s already looking at him a smile on her lips the sun bouncing in her warm brown eyes and catching on the little silver clips in her tight braids.
She’s as transcendent as the sun itself.
“How?” he asks in awe.
Her smile just grows wider. “UV windows, they’re technically still in the experimentation phase and haven’t been fully approved by anyone, but I called Magnus and he called a friend who knew a guy, who said he could put one in for him as a tester.”
Raphael turns back to the window stepping closer tentatively lifting a hand and laying it on the glass.
“He’s a mundane so we couldn’t exactly explain the situation and he’d only do it somewhere non-commercial or residential like this since it’s kinda illegal, but he still got it done,” she says leaning up against the glass beside him. “Now since marine biology is my science of choice, I don’t get it exactly, but I know the UV rays can be seen, but can’t pass through. They’ll keep you completely safe.”
He turns to her again a smile on his face, his hand still pressed to the glass.
He never thought he’d feel the sun again, not like this, not in a safe way. Not with her by his side. He always thought the closest he’d come to sunshine again would be her smile.
“Maia, I-“ he doesn’t know what to say. I love you. I can’t believe you made this happen. I can’t believe Magnus managed to keep it a secret. I feel human again in moments like this, in moments with you. It all feels like too much and not enough so he just settles for pulling her close tipping his head to her temple affectionately and pressing a kiss to her head.
“We can come back for the sunset too, or we can stay here all day and just bask in it,” Maia says leaning her head on his shoulder. He keeps one hand tight around her shoulders the other still pressed at the glass feeling just a taste of the warmth of the sun through the thick pane.
“Thank you,” he whispers eyes staring into the brightness not caring if it starts to hurt. Not caring if when he turns away he’ll see little sunspots everywhere.
“You’re welcome,” she whispers back wrapping both her arms around his waist, keeping him as warm as the sunshine can. They stay there comfortably quiet, pressed close to one another with the sunshine beaming in.