Work Text:
Rafayel could construct poems, each describing every feature of you harbor- enough to fill up thousands of pages.
He can construct statues, with delicacy only a lover can have,
He can paint you - but he is sure that none of his creations can hold a candle to you.
Every time he creates a statue so beautiful - matching your descriptions so beautifully,
He can't help but notice the little things missing from his creations that make you well you.
Every time he paints a portrait of you - one that critics would claim ‘deserves to be hung in the Louvre’- he cannot help but to nitpick each detail that he created. - How the faint glimmer in your eyes seems nonexistent in his painting, no matter the amount he tried to bring that spark to life.
And now as he stands before the painting that he'd spent hours of his life dedicating to, he cannot stop himself from analyzing each and every delicate stroke of his paintbrush, The intricate marks from his pencil - He knows that he has yet again failed in capturing your essence. He cannot stop the groan of frustration that escapes his throat and how his grip on his brush lightens- making it fall to the floor with a soft thud.
His eyes draft towards the floor remembering your faint words about keeping his place clean - He does not hesitate to pick the fallen brush and tuck it away near his palette where the evidence of his hard work is present.
He sees the various colours he mixed within the span of a week, trying to find the perfect shade for every part of you - something he had succeeded after struggling for an embarrassing number of times.
He softly chuckles- the chuckle traveling around the quiet room, echoing - at his struggles before looking back at his painting, searching for the missing element, which he succeeds in identifying after a brief moment - due to his skills of observing you.
It’s you, his portrait makes you look two dimensional, stripped off of your charm and light.
It stops him from wanting to hang the portrait of you in his room- something he wanted to do prior to drawing- he knows how tortuous it would be to wake up to a shadow of you, something he had to endure several millennia ago - something he would be content on never experiencing again-.not if he had the real you to hold, every night - To kiss you until you both run out of breath, To hold and worship every inch of you - another thing his younger self had failed to do.
He shook himself from thinking he'd made a promise to himself that he would not grovel and regret the past choices he made- even if they admittedly returned to haunt him, to remind him that he would never be free from the curse he was fated to experience in every lifetime.