Work Text:
She’s been putting off getting dressed for almost an hour now, sitting on the edge of her bed in her jeans and bra and socks, doing nothing on her phone. They’re supposed to be going to the arcade, just like they do every week – Rafayel said he’d pick her up – but something about it this time seems overwhelming.
It’s just that Rafayel’s so playful, and encouraging. He pokes fun at her but whenever she’s really frustrated, he listens, as if it’s something worth being annoyed about instead of just stupid… stuffed toys. She looks at Copper, her prized snowy fox, in his place of pride on her shelf, and wonders how he’d look to someone else coming into her room. If they’d peer around her apartment, her fluffy rug and her silly bedspread, and think she was immature. Childish. She knows Rafayel must not think so, from how he behaves himself. But that’s different.
She’s a hunter, and a good one at that. Her job is to protect people, especially those who are vulnerable. Maybe it’s time she started acting like a grown-up.
A knock on her door startles her out of her thoughts. Quickly, she pulls on the first sweater she can find, scrambling to get her head through the right hole and not to put her arms in back to front. “Just a second!”
“What if I get murdered in the hallway just out of your line of sight?” Rafayel sighs through the door. “You’d never forgive yourself, Miss Bodyguard.”
She can’t help but snort a laugh, even as she almost trips over pulling her boots on. She opens the door and there he is, all bright eyes and warm smile. He says, “I was gonna apologise for being late, but it looks like that was a… good thing?”
“It’s okay,” she says, a bit breathless, “I just lost track of time. I’m ready to go now.”
“Are you ready to go have fun now?” Rafayel asks.
She tries to say “yeah!” but it falls really, really flat. Rafayel’s smile disappears, replaced by a curious frown.
“What’s the matter? Usually you’re all like, let’s go get every plushie in the worldI ” His impression of her is very not accurate. Her voice does not sound like that. She tells him so. He doesn’t seem to take her feedback very seriously. “C’mon, talk to me. Don’t you wanna go to the arcade? Are you not feeling well?”
“I feel fine,” she promises. The last thing she needs is Rafayel all awkward and fretting about her being sick. Then he’ll get stressed that he’s sick too. He’s such a hypochondriac. “I just thought maybe we could do something else this week. We could go for a stroll, or go to that seafood buffet place you keep raving about…”
She thought for sure, if anything, the mention of the seafood buffet would distract him. Instead he walks closer, backing her in through the doorway until he can close it behind him. The entryway feels much smaller than normal with him in such close proximity.
“Okay, cutie, spill. Now.” Rafayel’s crossing his arms and pursing his lips, disapproving. It makes her heart drop, the idea that he might be disappointed in her. “What’s going on with you?”
“I… ugh, it’s nothing,” she insists, shaking head to clear it. Trying to shake the feeling she always has around him of wanting to be more herself, but never knowing quite where she needs to draw the line so she can still wake up and be a competent Hunter in the morning. “It doesn’t matter, it’s stupid.”
“But expressing yourself is so important,” Rafayel insists, eyes wide. “Without self-expression we wouldn’t have art, or music, or weddings! And no one would look at art, or listen to music, or go to weddings.”
She rolls her eyes, can’t help it when he gets grandiose like that. “Uh huh.”
“What I’m saying is–” he reaches out and takes one of her hands between both of his. His skin is cool and comforting, “–even if you think what you’re feeling is silly, I want you to show it to me.”
“There’s no even if ,” she manages. Her voice got all small and affected as soon as he touched her so sweetly. “I know that it’s silly.”
“I love silly. There’d be no great art without silly.” His voice sounds so sincere.
More to take the heat off herself than to really ask him anything, she asks, “Is everything in the world about art to you?”
“No,” he replies simply. “Everything is about love. And art is more about love than everything else.”
His thumb carefully sweeps across the back of her hand, up and down, manicured nails not catching her skin. He can be so sharp sometimes, but he’s all soft edges right now, water lapping carefully at the shoreline. Encouraging her to wade deeper.
“I sometimes think I miss being a kid,” she says at last. She can’t bear to meet his eyes. When she pauses for too long, he makes a quiet prompting noise, so she continues. “So I want to do this stuff – the silly things, like the arcade, or when you tell me stories to send me to sleep. But then I remember that being a kid… at least what I remember of being a kid… for the most part, it was really stressful and I spent the whole time wanting to be an adult. Even the memories I had… the ones that were happy at the time…” She can’t even think about Caleb, or Grandma Josephine. Her mind flinches back from those images now, scarred by what has happened since. “And now I got what I wanted. I’m an adult, I get to protect myself and make all my own choices, and I still can’t be happy so I waste time at the arcade. So. There.” She swallows firmly past the lump in her throat and stares a hole in the floor by her boots. “Silly.”
For a moment, Rafayel just stands there, uncharacteristically still and quiet. He keeps a firm hold of her hand, and says her name so gently that her eyes prick with tears. “Can you look at me? Please?”
Over time, she’s discovered that she can’t refuse him anything, not when he asks her like that. She blinks furiously, and then raises her gaze to meet his.
There’s nothing even close to judgement in his eyes, just warmth and care and something that looks a little bit wounded, though she can’t place why. His free hand comes to cup her face, touching her like she’s delicate. “Tell me you don’t really think that. Tell me you don’t really think it’s silly for you to want a safe place, to be yourself. Why wouldn’t you take the opportunity?”
If she speaks, she’s going to cry, so she just looks at him, willing him to understand. He tucks her hair behind her ear with a soft sigh. “You really do think that, huh.”
She nods, pressing her mouth into a firm line to stop her lower lip wobbling.
“Aw, Miss Hunter,” whispers Rafayel. “I think it’s the furthest thing from silly. Actually, I think it’s brave. Let me tell you why.”
“You don’t have to–” she tries, voice wet, and he puts his fingertip to her mouth. She gets the signal. A stray tear makes its way down her cheek. Rafayel smoothes it away before he continues.
“Your job is intense, and demanding,” he says. “You work long hours and in dangerous situations. And that’s not even starting on your job as a hunter,” he adds with a wink. She surprises herself by laughing, which seems to satisfy him. “I love going to the arcade with you and getting to experience that fun, like how kids get to. Especially since you didn’t get that chance when you were a kid. You should’ve had that chance. I know things like me taking you to the arcade can’t fix that. Me and Copper are a great team, but not good enough to give you a do-over at your childhood. If all we can do is just patch up some of the gaps, and that means I get to see more sides of you? That sounds like a pretty good deal to me.”
“Rafayel,” she says, at a loss. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t gotta say anything. Just don’t make me worried like that again. I really thought you were going to stand me up about going to the arcade. Copper wouldn’t have any new friends, I wouldn’t get to laugh seeing you drop a plushie at the last minute, we wouldn’t even get ice cream after. My afternoon would’ve been ruined!”
She sniffles and wipes her face on her sweater sleeve. “It really doesn’t bother you? Me, acting all…”
“It really, really doesn’t,” promises Rafayel. “If anything, it reminds me that there’s still good in the world, worth hanging around to try and find. Plus, without the arcade, we never would’ve gotten Copper. He’s basically my muse at this point. My art career would be a trainwreck without him.”
“You hear that, Copper?” she calls through to the snowy fox on the shelf. “You’re a famous artist’s muse. Every little fox cub’s dream.”
“That’s what I’m here for. Making dreams come true.” Rafayel squeezes her hand and pulls her against his side, giving her a tight hug under his arm. “Now hurry, if we leave much later all the good ones will be gone!”
He does as he promised and laughs at her when she misses a plushie, scowls at her when she laughs at him for doing the same. They leave with a new half-coconut and a warm light in her chest. On the walk home, Rafayel races her to the subway stop, and she can’t bring herself to care about people who turn and look at two fully grown adults giggling and tearing their way down the sidewalk to see who can scramble to the platform faster. Rafayel doesn’t think she’s too loud, or too playful, or too much. He meets her right where she is.
Opening the door to her apartment for her, Rafayel kisses her squarely on the forehead and says, “I’ll see you soon, Miss Bodyguard. Introduce Copper to his new friend.”
“Call me tonight?” she asks, before she can lose her nerve. He smiles, radiant. “If you’re not too busy, I mean.”
“Of course I’m busy,” he says, “but you’re more important.”
Once he’s gone, she carefully makes space on her shelf for the new plushie, between a bird and a bunny cactus. Then she pulls Copper down and flops onto her bed.
Before she can overthink it, she pulls out her phone and takes a photo of the two of them together, Copper’s face more in frame than her own, and texts it to Rafayel.
Me: Copper says the new coconut is nice and smells great! Get home safely.
It’s barely thirty seconds before Rafayel replies.
Raf: 2 cuties 1 frame you have to be careful my phone could explode.
Raf: please tell copper to look after you for me :) in fox talk thats woof woof yip yip yap
She hides her face in Copper again but this time it’s because she’s smiling.
Me: He says okay, he will. In return for treats.
Raf: what if i dun have any he still needs to look after you
Raf: mayyybe he will be ok with it if i make sure i get a treat for you instead
Me: He says he’s sure you can work out a compromise. In fox talk that’s yippity yap whine bark.
Raf: you can tell copper loud and clear ill have sweet tea next time i come to visit as long as he gives you a cuddle for now
Raf: ill talk to u soon cutie im almost home
She puts her phone down and turns to Copper. She hugs him tight to her chest, and buries her face in his fur. He’s soft. If she inhales deeply, he still smells a little like Rafayel. Rafayel, who’s almost home. Who likes every part of who she is. Who doesn’t think she’s silly.
Later that evening, when her phone rings, excitement fills her and she doesn’t shut it down, or close it off. She just kicks her feet, giggles into Copper’s fluffy neck, and then answers it.