Work Text:
When she opens her eyes, the first thing she sees is the sunlight sifting through the studio curtains, delicate as beams in water. Halfway out of her dream, she can almost see the little fish darting from one bright spot to another, rainbow scales glinting and glittering like in a picture book she loved as a child.
It’s cool, even here in the shafts of sun. The air ebbs and swells, and it smells like fall. Like fall every year before now, too. As she shifts and gets comfortable again, she feels her legs slide against the smooth fabric of the pants she borrowed from Rafayel before she lay down on the couch.
Just thinking of him makes her turn her head into the couch cushions and inhale. As she hoped, it smells like him, a little salty and fresh. Always like he just got back from the sea. She doesn’t remember where he went, just that he was working, and humming, and talking on, and on, in that soft way that doesn’t always warrant a response, and she thought she’d just close her eyes for a moment…
“Hey,” says the soft voice in question. When she surfaces enough to peek over the top of the cushion, there he is. He’s leaning down, hands resting on his knees so he’s closer to being on her level. Smiling at her, his eyes are twinkling behind his hair. Like the fish , she thinks to herself, and almost giggles. He has a smudge of green paint on his cheek, and across the shoulder of his white shirt. “Look who’s awake. Did you sleep well, Miss Bodyguard?”
She takes stock, stretching and knuckling her eye to get rid of some of the sleep dust that formed. Her body isn’t as sore as usual, besides an ache in her hip where a Wanderer knocked her hard last week. His clothes are so comfortable. The temperature is just right. She feels warm, and snuggly. “Mmhm,” she says, and he snickers, but it doesn’t sound mean.
“That’s good. You looked like you needed it when you arrived.”
She can’t quite remember, in this fuzzy, happy moment, what had been weighing on her so much when she turned up at the studio that doubles as Rafayel’s house earlier that afternoon. Maybe work, or stress. Maybe the chronic pain and exhaustion that come with her Protocore syndrome, uninvited guests who turned up in her body one day and never left again.
Maybe it’s just that in her line of work, around these type of people, she’s not able to be herself most of the time. All she knows now is that the weariness that’s been building up for weeks feels lighter, a weight off her shoulders and chest. She can breathe deep, and if she wanted to laugh, there would be nothing in her way. She feels small, but small feels good, right now.
Rafayel continues, glancing over his shoulder at his current mural project, “I hope I wasn’t the one to wake you. I almost dropped my palette from the top of the ladder! You know what rare pigments these are, so you can imagine what a disaster that would’ve been.”
“You think everything is a disaster,” she mumbles. Her eyelids are still heavy, and she’d close them again if it wasn’t for how much she wants to look at him. His eyebrow quirks when he registers what she’s said. It’s a beat delayed, like he was distracted while he looked at her.
“Do I now?” he replies, amused. “That statement is, itself, a disaster. I take offense, I’ll have you know. My people will contact your people.”
“Don’t have people,” she murmurs, catching the hem of his sleevein the curl of her fingers. Knowing that now, she’ll be able to feel if he moves away, she lets her eyes slip shut. The studio becomes shapes and shadows, and Rafayel becomes a presence she knows without having to see him at all. “Just have you.”
There’s a rustle. The fabric tugs, then eases out of her grip, but Rafayel doesn’t leave. He just crouches - she hears him grunt softly at the change in posture after sitting and painting for so long. He must rest his head on the arm of the couch, only because his fingers card through her hair, and when he speaks next, she can feel his breath on her forehead.
“You have a lot of people who love you very, very much, cutie,” he whispers. The joking tone from a few moments before is gone, replaced by something sincere and gentle. “I don’t believe for a moment that it’s just me. But if I’m the one you feel safe around… if you come to my place just to be? Then…”
She makes a quiet, wordless sound of affirmation, because he’s right. Rafayel’s stakes are never too high. She can have fun, or be sad, need rest or be overflowing with energy, and however she comes to him he accepts her wholeheartedly. Even like this, somewhere drifting between awake and asleep, between her usual self and the self she remembers from years ago, dozing on Grandma’s sofa. When she turns her head into his touch, he doesn’t act for a moment like she’s too much. He doesn’t even tease her the way he might have in a less vulnerable moment. Instead, all he does is scritches his nails against her scalp, reassurance that he sees her and wants her closer, that he doesn’t mind giving her attention when she wants it.
“I’m very happy to be had by you.” Rafayel makes it sound like a promise. “If I can give you somewhere safe to rest, and be yourself, then I’m happy.”
“I’m happy too,” she breathes. She doesn’t feel nearly as good with words as he is, not at all the little philosopher he sometimes touts her to be, but she means what she says. Forget the Protocore syndrome, the stress on her body and mind. Forget how many hours she’s spent recently, the sleepless nights, trying to keep other people safe, and often failing. Right now, she doesn’t have to be as big as her power makes her seem. She can just be happy.
He brushes her hair off her face and presses a kiss to her temple before ghosting his palm over her closed eyelids, to make sure they stay shut as he straightens up. “Good. You should go back to sleep, if you can. I’ll still be here when you wake up all peppy and ready to talk my ear off.”
She wants to protest – first of all, she doesn’t talk half as much as he does, and she wants to help with the painting! – but the world is already growing fuzzy around her again. As he heads back to his mural, she can hear him humming. There are little pauses between his breaths.
Like waves, pulling sand back out to sea, his voice pulls her head under the blanket of sleep again. Hours later, she thinks she feels him curl his arms under her. He might lift her like she’s solid and delicate, and carry her to bed, or she might just dream that he does.