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“you’re late.” the grumble of a deathly impatient man. “again,”
if rafayel had his way, you’d likely never leave his side. if he could, he’d thread his infatuation between your bodies and use it to attach you both at the hip. it’s not so you can protect him; it’s not so you can be his bodyguard. he has his own specialities but you’re his personal delight.
it’s all to build the guarantee he won’t lose you.
if he’s left to fall in love alone and lose in love alone again, his sensitive heart can’t take it. it’ll burst into a myriad of deep, maddened vermillion, mourning shades of indigo, and sorrowful tones of gunmetal grey. his artistry will suffer. his fragility will likely consume him and make a hollow shell out of his abandoned devotements.
and god would he miss you terribly.
so you need to arrive when you say you will; it needs to be important to keep your word to him, to show up for him, to hold him as close to your heart as he cradles you in his.
“you’re being a brat.” you reply with a roll of your eyes, waltzing around his battlefield of discarded paints and art materials. “and you need to clean up in here. you’re going to get hurt and dramatically check yourself into the hospital again.”
he scoffs. “you don’t care about me or my creative process at all. if you did, then perhaps you wouldn’t leave me waiting no matter where i go. i could have died all alone in here. how can i trust you with my life? do you want me, or do you want me dead?”
“you’re the one who likes to buy materials that summon wanderers into your living room.” your own grousing travels the span of the room with you.
“so? i hired you to protect me from myself.”
when your giggle flutters into the air, a breathy melody that soothes his spirit and dispels his worry, a hymn or a prayer or a blessing on your breath, he can’t help the way his eyes soften at the sound.
when you reach him, you stretch out the palm of your hand toward him. “pay your boyfriend tax.”
of course, he knows exactly what you want from him, his flustered heart falling into an erratic symphony of beats that can hardly stay contained in his chest; it crescendos wildly in his ears.
he peers at your hand with a huff of frustration while he takes a step closer, avoiding your gaze as he leans over, bending until the point of his chin rests in your hand. rafayel knows he’s doomed to die by means of your love alone when you grip his jaw, a soft thumb caressing from the corner of his lips to his cheek. his eyes twinkle and close at the feeling.
if his heart is a garden, then your touch is the light of the sun that begs his devoutness to bloom in all tenderness, in all warmth.
he waits for the pressure of supple lips that don’t fall, brows bunching as one eye opens and spells out his confusion. “hmph, are you going to greet me properly or just play with me?”
“maybe both,” you murmur as you bend and press a soft kiss to his forehead. “i missed you.”
if his heart is a shoreline, then your love must be the sea; your voice must be its depths and every wonderous marvel that exists within it, must be everything that swims and drowns and wades.
a soft tint of red blossoms along his cheeks, slowly filling up to the tip of his ears. he almost can’t take it and he almost can’t move. so, he just stares for a moment, adoring eyes peering up at you with a look of surrender, white flags waving in the center of his fixated orbs.
rafayel stands to his full height and shifts to turn away from you, to hide the way he can’t hide how much he loves you, to hide the way ardor paints itself across his nose.
“i missed you, too.” he mumbles it and you’re amused.
you hum, tilting your head with a knowing smirk. “what was that, rafayel?”
“are you proud of yourself?” he gripes, giving you a sharp look with narrowed eyes. “i hired you to worry about wanderers but you come here and try to kill me instead.”
a precious giggle. “god, you’re so dramatic.”
if your laughter is a siren song, his heart becomes a sailor lured, and it gladly floats straight to you, straight to his death, right into the center of doom.
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