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Dead or undead the damn fledgling’s like an energizer bunny.
Raphael glances at his bare wrist, momentarily forgetting that it is not adorned in his silver and black Tissot wristwatch because he’s dressed in his silk pyjamas at midday standing outside of Simon’s newly appointed bedroom. Simon, managing to be a freak of nature among freaks of nature, is staying up all hours of the day for no reason other than to annoy an already tired Raphael, said Clan leader is convinced.
Tired from a long day of negotiating with newbie Shadowhunters over things that really are just common sense and trying to navigate the politics of sweeping the position of leader out from under Camille’s taloned feet, Raphael closes his eyes and breathes deeply. Maybe he can just doze off out in the marble-lined hallway.
He jerks into alertness at the faint sound of a snore.
Raphael turns to press his ear into the wall and hears the sound again. Simon’s finally sleeping. Raphael smirks in relief. Now he just has to wait for the nightmares.
Standing out here to comfort the new-born is not something Camille did.
No, this is all Raphael and he’s starting to feel a bit unsure about it. Maybe he should let Simon deal with his change by himself? It’s not like he hasn’t spent days away from the Du Mort before, running around with his merry band of Shadowhunter friends.
Raphael lets a fang trap his lower lip and turns away from the door.
“I’ll take care of Simon.”
His words come up like an invisible wall on his way back to his room. He puts his fingers in a loose fist to his forehead and leans to the side. But isn’t this going too far?
His word is law, most of all to himself, but there’s a line between keeping his promises and being affectionate and this is blurring that line.
His eyes roll up to the right as he relives his first few weeks as a fledgling. The night terrors had been horrifying. He remembers screaming and thrashing, clawing Magnus’ sheets to smithereens every night for the first week.
He remembers suicide attempts riddled the next week.
Raphael hadn’t been able to reconcile becoming this evil, unholy thing for a long time. In a way, the argument has actually never been resolved; just shoved away in the corner of his mind that asks questions like ‘why do I buy so much designer clothing?’ and ‘I wonder if my brothers would accept me if I came back to them like this?’.
Suffice it to say that without Magnus there to remind him that, as someone who had outlived some religions, he could assure the young vampire that the rules were flexible enough to give Raphael permission to be undead; well, he wouldn’t be.
Raphael touches the fabric of a dangling tapestry and strokes it absently with his thumb as he thinks, realising that he’s traded his ‘big brother’ role for ‘Clan Leader’ and that it makes him happy. He’s happy protecting his fellow vampires. It’s what he’s good at. It’s what he does. It’s what he died doing.
This is just another part of that role.
It’s not like Simon’s his favourite or anything. He’s just going to be the first fledgling under Raphael’s ‘rule’ to get the sort of support Raphael was given when he was new. That’s no-
“Gyaaahhh!”
Raphael whirls into Simon’s room like a gust of wind. The few items the young vampire has brought into his new home rattle with the force of his entrance but Raphael makes straight for the simple bed and reaches for the boy’s hand.
He remembers how Magnus nearly got his neck ripped out the one time he went for fledgling Raphael’s thrashing shoulder.
Simon’s gripping Raphael’s hand like it’s the unsteady groove in a rock cliff. His other hand clutches the sheets so tightly they’re tearing and all the tendons in his body are straining against his paled skin. If vampires could sweat Simon would be dripping buckets.
Raphael is frozen.
He’d had a general idea of what he would do before he’d begun his night-watch but all plans fall out the window before actually seeing the nightmare take place. He keeps superimposing images of himself on the struggling Simon and he knows the hand holding won’t be enough for long.
Simon’s mouth stretches open in a silent, gagging scream and he knows that dream. Raphael knows that’s the one where oppressive darkness stretches out heavy and on top of you and when you move it wriggles and when you don’t it still moves and you forget to breathe until you try to breathe and the darkness falls into your mouth, choking you, and you start to fight with it, clawing and scratching and digging until-
He knows what to do.
Carefully, Raphael manoeuvres his lips to Simon’s ear and sings softly. He rubs light circles into the inside of Simon’s wrist with his right hand and reaches over to pry the fledging’s other hand up with his left. He intertwines their fingers and squeezes, pulling the calming fledgling up and into his chest where he lets go of one hand to rub Simon’s back.
Simon quiets quickly, breathing deeply into Raphael’s shoulder. Raphael sighs and relaxes. Simon starts to stir and Raphael panics. He gently drops Simon back onto his pillows and races back out of the room, startling a small green figurine into falling on the floor.
Simon frowns awake at the sound of something falling and blinks around the room blearily. He reaches for his glasses before he realises that he’s a vampire now and can see without them. Yay.
He runs a hand through what he naively expects to be sweat-dampened locks but finds to be fluffy, silky, somehow perfectly aligned bedhead. Rolling his eyes at his body’s sudden super model tendencies he picks up the fallen figurine and wanders out of his room, nearly tripping on a thigh-high mass of vampire flesh.
Stumbling backward and banging into his doorway comically Simon demands to know why Raphael is lurking outside his bedroom like every creepy vampire in every movie ever.
Raphael is tired and slightly shaken and just glances up at the fledgling from the corner of his eye.
“Nightmares.”
Simon is tempted to ask: “Yours or mine?” before the older man clarifies.
“The first couple weeks of being a fledgling were brutal for me because of my faith.”
Simon blinks as he puts the surprisingly considerate two and two together.
“You were checking up on me?”
He recalls the remnants of a bad dream and then warmth and music dispelling it; two things he never thought he’d encounter again, being dead.
“Go back to sleep.”
Simon raises his eyebrows.
“And you’ll sit out here getting your Armani pyjamas dirty?”
Raphael frowns.
“These aren’t my Armani pyjamas.”
Simon rolls his eyes and taps his door open further, “just come stay inside, it’ll be easier, we can have a sleep over,” he grins goofily.
Raphael raises an eyebrow and then turns his head and looks longingly down the hallway. He stands and pats down his pyjamas to be sure they didn’t get dusty. He bites his lip while looking the other way and then turns back to the waiting fledgling.
“We’ll go to my room instead. If we’re having a sleepover, maybe I can get you into some decent-looking clothes.”
Simon frowns as Raphael eyes his faded Justice League t-shirt and holey flannel bottoms but closes his door behind himself anyway, jogging to catch up to the striding Clan leader.
“You say that’s why but I bet it’s because you have a bigger bed,” Simon returns, “which is weird,” he tacks on thoughtfully.
“I get the feeling you sleep like a starfish, why is it weird that I want the bigger bed?”
“Because I get the feeling you like to cuddle.”
Simon fleetingly twines their fingers together and squeezes.