Work Text:
Here is the first act of the story:
Raphael gets it when he’s seventeen – the scythe, that is, in the form of a heart. In a physical form, too, blade sharp against his skin, wood cutting his fingers.
This is not the kind of death that they warn you about. Who are “they”? Who will truly keep you safe? This isn’t a warned death. This death is gentle.
Death does not know how to be gentle, and Raphael doesn’t know how to hold a scythe, but he knows it, the worst concept, the Forbidden concept. When you’re death, you can’t be gentle.
Raphael is an abomination even as death.
Eventually, “they” tell him, the two will coincide and the scythe will become cruel, flowing out of him like an extension of his body, but:
Gentleness is shown in different ways, depending on the person; he has never been good with words. So he takes the scythe and sheds his old skin. Goodbye skin, goodbye old Raphael. Goodbye.
At twenty—
It was never supposed to happen. Black crown to replace a halo. Ripped flesh.
Something like amen.
//
Here is the second act of the story:
“They” rip the scythe right out of his hands. “Raphael, you were not worthy of it.”
He doesn’t apologize, because he isn’t sorry. What he is cannot be explained in words. His hands are red from how tightly he held the scythe, but he never got a chance to use it. He never got a chance to kill, put his hands on someone and take their soul. “They” tell him that it’s a punishment, but Raphael knows the truth; it’s freedom. It is kindness. The suffering ends, and the soul goes—
He’s not sure where the soul goes.
There is always this underlying fear about souls, which is perhaps why Raphael has not used his scythe. He cannot even force himself to be kind. He can’t do it, can’t force himself to commit the greatest act of kindness possible.
What kind of reaper doesn’t kill?
He’s broken. He’s broken. He can’t be kind, can’t end lives, which means he isn’t right, which means that he’s weak and disgusting and—
Human.
Everything he has always pitied.
//
Here is the third act of the story:
He falls. Reapers don’t fall, do they? That’s the wrong story. Whatever happens to reapers when they’re rejected happens to Raphael fast. And then he’s standing outside of a hospital – the same hospital that houses his first victim, or what was supposed to be his first victim, or the person that he was supposed to free.
Raphael is shaking.
His hands are pale-white, fists clenched. Trying to hold onto something that was taken from him.
He walks right into the hospital. Right past the nurses, and the lady at the desk – it’s almost as if they don’t even see him, like he doesn’t exist and silence has saved him, for once. For once, he has been saved by silence. A kindness he doesn’t deserve.
The first name that “they” gave him was Si-mon Le-wis. Human names are hard to pronounce, but Raphael is human now, or something resembling it, something to be pitied and freed. All skin and bones. You’d take one look at him and think: what a tragedy.
He had watched Simon, before It happened. Floated above his hospital bed. It’s nothing bad, one of the doctors said, just a little bite to the neck. Just some blood loss. They were going to stitch him up, keep him overnight just to make sure, and then discharge him. Dis – discard him. Like discarding a reaper.
They have a lot in common. Raphael still doesn’t understand humanity.
Simon Lewis is in normal clothes, when Raphael walks through the door to his room. He’s leaving. He’s free.
He’s better.
Raphael refused to reap him, and now Simon is better.
“You’re not dressed like a doctor,” Simon frowns. “I don’t think you’re in the right room, buddy.”
But he looks at Raphael. He’s never seen a look like this. It’s – it’s full of wonder.
“Do I know you?” he asks.
Maybe there is a reason that Raphael couldn’t reap him. Humanity hurts, stings. His hands hurt without that scythe.
“No,” Raphael replies, and walks away. Out of the hospital. If he walks far enough, he will fall right back into being Death.
“They” don’t want him and he knows it.
But – but he’d do anything, to rid himself of this humanity.
//
Here is the final act of the story:
Eventually, they meet again, but Raphael does not stop running long enough to realize it – the reason that he was rejected, discarded from the scythe, is that he already had humanity. Or something like it. The closest thing to humanity that you can have as death.
Eventually, they meet again.
Raphael forgets about that life, slowly, though. Forgets that he was supposed to free. He forgets it all. Simon Lewis’ gift is that he can take things away. Raphael runs a hand through his hair, sometimes, kisses his forehead—
he only remembers the concept of reaping in dreams.
The curtain closes.