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For many decades, Raphael Santiago has never felt the pain he was supposed to feel.
Not the kind of pain that came from scraping your knee; the one coming from someone else, the one that everyone else could feel. The pain of your soulmate.
That’s how the universe was made, helping you find the perfect person in such a wicked way. Everyone had a soulmate, everyone could feel their pain, whether physical or mental.
But Raphael? He never felt any pain except from his own.
“Maybe they are just younger than you,” his mother would suggest. “Or perhaps they are really careful and never really get hurt. But the time will come.”
She would always tell him many things to cover up for the fact that he never felt anything, but as he grew older, the truth became undeniable.
Raphael Santiago had no soulmate. He was broken, something did not work for him, since the universe had apparently decided he should be alone.
Over time he started thinking he probably he deserved it. Perhaps he did, or will do, something that would make him unworthy of love, of having a soulmate. Maybe that was the reason behind it all.
Somehow, he grew up believing in that. So he never felt anyone’s pain when he was a child or a teenager. Then he got turned and he wasn’t even sure if the whole soulmate thing would work for vampires, but by that time he was already okay with staying alone forever.
However, forever earned a new meaning when it wasn’t just “till the end of his life” but “literally an eternity”. Though maybe it was better than having a mortal soulmate that would die eventually, leaving him behind.
Though even if he did have a soulmate, he knew they wouldn’t even want him. He was a vampire now, a monster.
Who would love a monster anyway?
So, yeah. He came to terms with being alone for the entirety of his immortal life.
Or at least he did, once. That’s until, after tens of years, he felt something.
He felt something, an unfamiliar thing, even though he was supposed to be alone. And that terrified him completely.
At first he told himself he must’ve made it up. Maybe it was just his mind playing tricks on him – and he tried to believe it, but that kept happening, more and more often, till he was feeling something all the time.
Of course, his soulmate – since apparently he did have one, after all – was probably mortal. Because what else could happen, really? If there was a perfect match for him on this world, it was only for him to lose it after less than a century.
That’s why he decided to ignore it, so that he could spare himself – and the other person – the heartbreak that would surely come. Because maybe if he ignored the pain, it would go away eventually.
Only it didn’t.
No matter what he did, the connection between him and his soulmate was stronger. And they were really clumsy, always bumping onto something, falling and tripping, constantly reminding him that someone is out there. It was almost as if they were trying to make it even harder for him.
And it was hard, but he was going to manage. After all, he already spent decades thinking he didn’t have a soulmate, and pretending it was still true for some time couldn’t be that bad.
He didn’t deserve to have a soulmate, and having one couldn’t change that.
Then, one day, he meets Simon Lewis.
Simon, with all his talking and rambling, and smiling way too much, being stupidly selfless and loyal towards his best friend. Somehow, he just comes around and crashes all the walls Raphael has been building for many years.
It doesn’t take long for Raphael to realize that Simon is his soulmate, and he knows it’s probably the beginning of his own damnation.
It starts, as it always does, with pain. Not the regular one, the kind of pain that Simon often feels because of his general clumsiness. It’s the pain Raphael never thought he’d feel again. The one he hoped to forget, erase from his memories, but never could.
The pain of being turned. The pain of dying.
It reminds him of so many things and he wants to scream, wants to hide and escape from it all. So he finds Simon’s body and carries it to the Institute, because it’s the least he can do for his soulmate.
Soulmate. The word terrifies him, especially now, since he can connect it to a certain person.
He gives them a choice, because it’s not up to him to pick what should happen to Simon. The red-haired Shadowhunter girl, Simon’s best friend, decides to bury him. Perhaps she doesn’t realize what she’s doing, but he knows he should respect her words. That’s what Simon would have wanted, and maybe he doesn’t know him at all, but in a certain way he knows him better than anyone else.
So Raphael helps them with that. They bury him, and he watches Simon laying in this grave, the dirt starting to cover his face. He stands next to these Shadowhunters and waits for him to claw his way up to the surface.
When he finally does, the pain starts again. Raphael can see, he can feel that Simon is terrified and repulsed by himself, and he recognizes hate he feels towards himself after realizing he’s not able to say “God” anymore.
Raphael feels it, and he understands, because he’s been through the same hell. He knows it never truly stops, and that it takes a lot of time to come to terms with everything at least in a little bit.
What hurts him the most is seeing that Simon is good, innocent. That he’s not a monster he thinks he is.
Raphael knows he doesn’t deserve to have a soulmate like him. He’s the dark character in this story, and Simon should have someone with a heart of gold, someone who is not like Raphael in any way.
That’s why he decides not to tell Simon about their bond. He probably wouldn’t realize anyway, and even if he did, he’d never want someone like Raphael. There was no point in denying that.
The only thing Raphael could do is to accept the truth.
As he learns later, loving Simon hurts. It’s making his dead heart want to beat again, destroying the remaining bits and pieces of his soul.
Raphael doesn’t even know when he started loving him. Maybe it’s the way Simon looks at him, as if he didn’t see the bad things. Or the way he tries to talk him into watching this random movie about vampires, and the way he rolls his eyes when Raphael comments on the false stereotypes in includes.
Maybe it’s the way he looks in Raphael’s suit when he borrows it for the wedding. Or just the way he smiles, and Raphael can see the sun he never thought he’d see again.
He doesn’t know when he started loving him. Maybe he fell somewhere along the way, or perhaps it’s something that’s always been there.
Maybe the stars destined him to do so.
He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t even want to. He feels like crazy, and it kills him to know Simon will never feel the same. He tries to accept it, but it’s hard, and it hurts.
It’s even more painful to watch him leave. Raphael is angry and he doesn’t understand why would Simon ever betray them, or at least that’s what he keeps telling himself. Deep down he knows he was protecting his family, and the clan was not a part of it. It never was, and even though Raphael is wants it to be, he realizes it never will.
Loving Simon and being away from him hurts even more, Raphael notices. Now his soul is still screaming, but the grief he feels is not only coming from himself. He knows it’s not easy for Simon either, but he betrayed them and he can’t be sentimental. He needs to be a leader and put his own feelings aside.
He sees that Simon regrets betraying them, but it’s not hard to tell he’d do it again to protect his loved ones. He’d never put Raphael first.
And it’s okay.
Raphael would never put himself first either.
He can only imagine how Simon must feel when Raphael gets burned in Aldertree’s office. If he hadn’t realized he had a soulmate yet, now he definitely did. And when he comes to see Magnus and notices the marks on Raphael’s face, and his eyes widen, Raphael knows he realizes the truth.
He looks confused, most of all. Raphael doesn’t even want to know what he’s thinking, if he’s feeling disappointed because out of all the people on this planet, his soulmate turned out to be the person he hates the most.
But Simon doesn’t act on it and then they start pretending none of it is true. And maybe it would work, if they both tried hard enough.
They didn’t, of course.
It’s not hard to realize that Simon hates the bond they have. And Raphael tries to hate it too, but he can’t. As it turns out, ignoring the pain doesn’t make it go away. It intensifies, if anything.
Then Isabelle, this Shadowhunter girl he recognizes mostly from Simon’s stories, comes to him and manipulates him into feeding on her. It’s awful but the vampire part of him is too strong, and he can’t resist, even though it makes him hate himself even more than he already does.
It hurts to realize what he’s done, knowing that his mother would’ve been disappointed in him. And it doesn’t stop hurting for many days, because he broke the promise he’s made to himself, to never feed on a human.
He has failed his mother, his God, himself. If Simon cared, he would’ve probably failed him to.
He has failed, once again. He always does, somehow.
It hurts and it makes him sleepless. He just wants to erase all of it, to make it stop, but he can’t.
He’s surprised to see Simon standing in front of Dumort a few days later, hair messy and dark circles under his eyes.
“You need to stop doing this,” he just says. No greeting, no anything else.
“Doing what?” Raphael can’t connect Simon’s words to anything. He hasn’t heard from him in some time.
“Hating yourself. It’s getting overwhelming.”
“Well, sorry it’s such an inconvenience to you. You’ll just have to ignore it.” Raphael avoids eye contact with him.
“No, you don’t get it. It’s not about me,” Simon protests, and their eyes finally meet. “It’s about you feeling guilty for something that’s not your fault. Isabelle told me what happened.”
“Look, I appreciate your effort, but you can go back to your Shadowhunters.” Raphael doesn’t want him to come here just to be gone from his life in a moment. It’s selfish, but he can’t keep on seeing Simon and reminding himself of how much the other boy hates him.
“I’m worried about you. It’s getting too much lately.”
“I don’t need your pity. Like I said, you can stop paying attention to it.”
Simon stares at him for a moment, silent. “Are we really going to ignore it?” he finally asks, his voice quiet, with a sudden bit of sadness Raphael wouldn’t notice if he didn’t listen hard enough. He knows Simon is talking about their bond, that this is where this conversation is headed.
“I think you made it clear you want nothing to do with me,” Raphael says eventually, trying to keep his voice steady.
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to, I can see well for myself. So just go back to Clary, tell her you love her, do whatever you want to. I don’t care.”
“I don’t love her. I mean, not like that. She’s my best friend, but she already has a soulmate,” he explains, his words rushed. “And I have mine.”
Raphael can feel Simon’s heart aching the way his own does. But the same phrases are going through his mind all over again, reminding him that he’s not worth loving, that Simon deserves better than him, that he’s a monster and…
“You can let yourself be loved, Raphael.” Simon’s voice is barely a whisper and he would’ve missed it if it wasn’t for his vampire hearing.
“No one would love a monster,” he says, and he wants to say thousand other things as well, but he can’t get them out. So he turns away and starts walking back to the hotel.
Loving Simon hurts, and it’s the greatest pain he’s ever felt. He’d gladly accept it, even knowing it’s not mutual, because it’s probably the best thing he’s ever going to feel. Even though he knows he’ll never deserve him.
Somehow, Simon seems to feel all his doubts, because in a matter of seconds he’s next to him and Raphael sees the desperation in his eyes, and then he feels the slightest touch of his lips.
“I can be no one, then.”