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Rafayel is painfully aware of how this unfolds- he’s familiar with this play, after all.
Has memorized the lines, the way the scarlet of the curtains rise and fall to reveal the ornate set design, the faint thrum of the orchestra from the pit at the foot of the stage.
If he closes his eyes and thinks hard enough for a long enough period of time, he can almost feel the blinding lights against his skin, hear the uproar of applause from the audience as if he was still nineteen and angry.
He is twenty-four now.
Twenty-four and standing in front of a canvas in a distant city a continent away from the opera house with a look of distaste strewn across his features. The reporters for the Linkon City Press say that he has grown into his face- a handsome young man with an air of mystery and near suffocating charm.
He is no longer nineteen, the number separated from him by a number of years he didn’t care to count. Yet the anger remains.
In truth, Rafayel isn’t quite sure whether it had always been a part of him, explosive as he was, or if the feeling was a product of the blood.
That was another thing that appeared when he closed his eyes.
Dark, sticky blood that dripped in droves from his arms, hands, fingers- unable to be washed away even in his dreams. And, The screams were a package deal because of course they were. Muffled cries silenced by the sound of crashing tides, his name gurgled under blood and salt and grief. Up until now, he had made a routine for himself that consisted of going days without sleep in hopes that he could prolong the peace in the absence of screams. It’s selfish- he knows. But what is he if not selfish? Even now, he is no better.
The painting in front of him is sloppy. Ugly, even in its abstract nature- filled with ragged brush strokes and furious swirls of paint in varying shades of crimson, vermillion, scarlet.
It’s not something he can show to Thomas by any means, already aware of the frown that he would grace him at the mere sight of something so grotesque, but even so there’s something about it that comforts him. Quells the grief tucked perfectly under his rib cage in an odd way.
You had left his studio early this morning, hushed whispers against the skin of his temple promising that you would return after work before disappearing with the sweet summer breeze. He’s unsure why he didn’t reach out. Fulfill his selfish nature and beg you to stay, plead with you not to leave, but instead he remains still, pale skin flush to sea blue silk that taunts him, unable to adequately hold onto your warmth.
Rafayel is painfully aware of how this unfolds and even more acutely aware of how despite the thousands of years that separates each iteration of you from him, he will continue to make the same mistakes.
It goes like this.
You will, without fail, appear with the tides, sweet and dazzling and infuriatingly alluring.
He will find you in exactly three moons and fall in love with you in half the time it takes to locate you.
You, slow to rouse and ever so stubborn, will string him along for at least a year. Have him hooked at your every move, his heart and soul pliant like clay between your fingers.
He will try and play hard to get, albeit not very well.
You will almost always play along.
He will confess first.
You will accept.
He will love you in the way men worship gods. Wholeheartedly and violently, every kiss like gospel, every touch like an oath, an everlasting promise.
You, in turn, will teach him what it is like to be human. Chide at him to forgive. Reach out to his battered heart with your warm hands and force the anger out of his chest. Give him a reason to hope- a fickle feeling, built for stupid little humans to hold onto when they’re in over their heads. And yet he relents. He always relents when it is you.
Fifty-three moons will pass then, each coming and going quicker than the previous.
He will begin to get anxious, aware of what sickening twist of fate will pry you from him.
You will reassure him, as you always have.
He will resolve to be stronger than he had been previously. And yet he will crumble when it matters most.
By the fifty-fifth moon he will have been too late.
You will disappear. And he will have failed you again. Lost you in the same way he had lost his home. Blood all over his hands, your screams lost to the tides.