estelle

word count: 682

pairing: rafayel x reader

a/n: sfw! Just some sweet Rafayel fluff uwu

Early mornings spent at Rafayel's studio are your favorite. The smell of the salty air on a crisp morning? Nothing compares. The breeze drifts in through sheer curtains and cleanses the whole space. Even the sunlight feels different here, warming up the blankets as you watch his shoulders rise and fall with his slow, steady breaths. Still fast asleep, and likely would be for some time. He had been up late again last night; inspiration doesnt wait.

Your fingers are gentle when you reach over and trace a small pattern against his shoulder blade. He doesnt move or make a sound, but you watch as goosebumps form where you touch. A smile tugs at your lips. Sun beams highlight his vibrant hair. They're trailing in from the perfect angle, bouncing off of all his elegant edges.

"Beautiful," you whisper gently to yourself before sitting up carefully. You reach for your phone and slide your finger on the screen to open the camera. Then, with a gentleness of someone trying not to wake a bear, you push the big comforter aside and throw a leg over Rafayel. Stradling his lower back, you adjust yourself until your shadow falls on the wall above the bed just overhead. Rafayel's sleeping figure is centered in the lower third below you. You snap the photo and grin. A real work of art.

Just as you lay your phone back down, Rafayel begins to shift beneath you. He lets out a soft groan and stretches his legs.

"Nngh, cuutie, it's too early," he insists, cracking one eye barely open to peek up at you. "Don't you remember how hard I worked to finish that painting last night?"

He makes a weak attempt to grab for your wrist, just barely catching it after a second attempt. He tugs gently to the side, grunting with contempt.

"Lay back down with me. Pleease?"

"And sleep the whole day away?" You scoff playfully, falling on your back, down into the oasis of luxury sheets and comforter beside him. He snakes an arm around your waist and easily tugs you in close to kiss your temple.

"It's the weekend, we can sleep in all we want. Besides, Miss Bodyguard, I'm the boss and I say we lay right here and snuggle."

He nuzzles his nose into the crook of your neck suddenly, making you giggle.

"'Bodyguard sleeps with her boss', now there's a juicy Moments article."

"Oh please, don't tell me you wouldnt love being involved with that scandal," he snorts, feigning incredulity.

You shrug your shoulders and then roll over in place to face him fully. Your noses press together in a little butterfly kiss.

"Good morning, by the way," you grin.

"Good morning, cutie."

The two of you share a real kiss now, soft and slow. He rubs one of his hands down your side, bringing it to rest on your hip.

"It's really…time to…get up Raffie," you insist between drawn out pecks.

He groans and rolls onto his back, his eyes staying locked on you. Your hair is mussed from being in bed, but it shines in the sun. Your eyes gleam; full of happiness. Happy to be with him, in every sense. He reaches up to cup your cheek with his palm and smiles when you nuzzle into it.

"Alright, alright, ill get up. You want me to make breakfast, huh?" He accuses, pinching your cheek gently. You pout, sticking out your bottom lip to its full begging potenial.

"French toast?"

Rafayel's brows knit together in pure adoration.

"Anything for you, cutie."

You throw your arms up in celebration with a little squeal and pop up onto your hands and knees to land a sizable peck on his cheek before rolling out of bed. His flush quickly spreads to his ears as he shakes his head and watches you bounce out of the room. The sight of your enthusiasm—not only for french toast but for whatever the day may bring, alongside him—makes him smile like an idiot as he crawls out of bed.

loving rafayel looks a little like this.

sand hidden beneath hotel sheets, sunrises over the east coast, running through campus sprinklers, skinny dipping at midnight, accidentally getting a little too high, cold plunges, cute animal videos—"this is so us," voice memos, counting arcade tokens, chipped nail polish, white bedsheets, using outdated slang, the smell of hair dye, knuckle cracking, mismatched socks, a well-traveled sketchbook, finding eye-colored rocks, silent agreements, lipstick stains, lego flowers, anatomy sketches, buttoning up his shirt, humming your favorite tune, tight hugs for anxiety, faded polaroids, folktales to fall asleep, learning a forgotten language, drunk karaoke, water damaged paperbacks, four hands playing on a single piano, the summer solstice, straw wrapper rings, airport hugs, sleeping with the windows open, showering together—washing each other's hair, warm hands and cold feet, cloud gazing, the weekend farmer's market, stretching canvases, slow days, parasols and designer sunglasses, braided friendship bracelets, moving the fridge magnets, dressing up for candlelit restaurants, at-home haircuts, breathing exercises, snorkeling masks, conspiracy theories, stolen kisses, legs tangled on the couch, borrowed textbooks, jumping over beach waves, an old deck of cards, whispered confessions and exclamations of love, and memorizing the sound of footsteps—of keys unlocking the front door.

loving rafayel comes naturally, something you've both practiced in another life. it's intimately familiar—full of old habits. and at the heart of it all, it belongs to the two of you entirely.

“do you think we’re together in every universe?” 

rafayel raises an eyebrow at your question. 

“like… you think our past lives are aligned in some way? that we’ve interacted in each lifetime before this?”

then you go silent, thinking about the answer to your own questions. 

while rafayel is also silent, he thinks back to the sea, to a missing bride. he briefly wonders if your memories contain the same images as his. he lets himself hope so. 

“anything’s possible, no?” he plays along, “who do you think we were to each other in our past lives?”

“must’ve been a lot. we’ve had many lives together… at least i think…” his eyes search yours for something more, do you really remember? alas, nothing found. you continue, “something scandalous would’ve been fun, no?”

“totally agreed. so a college professor and student.”

you laugh. “and you’d be the professor, you perv.”

“hey!”

“or two heirs of rival kingdoms.”

“two fish… who live in neighboring corals”

“...or in some kid’s fish tank.”

“that sounds like a short life.”

“but it was really romantic, you see. we were in different displays, all the way across the pet store. and then, finally, brought together into the same tank.”

“hm. i approve, cutie. our fishie selves died of starvation very much in love.”

how content the both of you were now. how utterly smitten you had to be with one another, to spend a slow morning thinking of all the past lives you could have spent together. 

your conversation may have ended there, but the idea stays in your minds far into the night.

you take turns interrupting silences, coming up with new past lives. lifetimes spent as cavemen, the first humans on earth—those spent as citizens of an ancient civilization, being the last of their kind. you consider arguments you may have had, your breakups, if you’ve been married, have you raised a child together?

“but, what if this is all a past life? and we go into the next not even remembering this one. does that make this all… meaningless?”

you ask him in the darkness of the bedroom. the whisper travels across one pillow to another.

rafayel knows more about that than you think. for now, he’ll keep it to himself.

“even if it ends up forgotten, the present doesn’t have to be meaningless. i believe there’s something out there that’ll bring us back together once again. after so many lives, we can’t let our streak end here. wouldn’t you agree, my love?”

“yeah. we’ll find each other in the next one. i hope it’s good.”

from underneath the blanket, rafayel’s hand comes between you, with only his pinky raised. 

“what’s this for?” you find yourself interlocking your finger with his anyway.

“this is me, vowing to never let my soul forget yours. to find you in our next life, no matter how long it takes to do so.”

each word flows from him so earnestly, you almost believe that something like it is possible. for a moment, all of your theorized past lives become your reality.

"…and i vow to always let you into my life when you do, and to love you as i have many times before."

rafayel releases your hand. "then it's settled. you can't get rid of me, cutie, even if you wanted to."

portrait of a lady on fire, but it's fem!rafayel

Pairing: Rafayel × female reader/mc

Summary: Inspired by this post by @moartstudio-rafayel where Rafayel forgets everything - except one small, sweet moment.

Tags: angst, hurt/no comfort, memory loss, everyone's sad (except Rafayel who doesn't remember the grief anymore), implied major character death (mc)

🥀🌊🥀🌊🥀🌊🥀🌊🥀🌊🥀🌊🥀🌊🥀🌊🥀🌊🥀🌊🥀🌊

The memories of multiple lives - of multiple losses and multiple heartbreaks - became too much.

In the end, the last Sea God gave in to his pain - pain that made him human, that marked him as less than divine - and sought the Tome. And he erased the bond - and her, and his memories of her - out of existence.

Not only that, he erased everything out of existence - the prophecy, his homeland and his people, the pain they all went through - everything.

And when the sea carried their now truly mortal god to the shore, as a final act of service to the one that once carried the very tide in his veins, Rafayel remembered nothing. Not his name, nor his identity or his link to the sea, not even the man in a suit that look at him with worried eyes, or the woman with hair the same colour of his, whose beautiful face contorted into tears.

Rafayel did not know his name - he simply accepted it when the man told him his name. Thomas, the man had introduced himself. He did not know that the beach he washed up on and the beautiful mansion by the shore was his. He did not recognise the woman - Talia - as his maternal aunt, his last living relative, nor did he recognise the numerous canvases that bore his masterful strokes.

He did not even recognise the photo of the woman that was his phone wallpaper, laptop wallpaper, tucked into his wallet and the subject of his many, many, many artworks. He was simply puzzled when he saw the photo of the smiling woman, and asked who she was, not a single flicker of recognition in his dual-toned eyes. Even Thomas felt an indescribable amount of grief at that. He had to send Talia away, the poor woman at risk of passing out from crying too much.

Eventually, the artist did settle down. He got used to the routine that he no longer remembers. The brush still sits right in his hand, painting beautiful landscapes of the sea. He was still averse to the fame that followed him, Thomas observed with a wry smile. Some things never change, he thought.

But one undeniable thing that changed was that he'd forgotten everything and everyone.

He was polite to his aunt. Talia cried the first time Rafayel addressed him as aunt with that serene smile - she missed her pouty, childish nephew that also bore the weight of their civilization. Her heart broke everytime she saw those beautiful eyes of her beloved child she'd raised, recognition no longer brightening them.

Even Thomas, who had always been on the short end of the stick and wished Rafayel would take his commissions and his public image seriously for once in his life, was uncertain at the change. The artist was currently talking to a few patrons on his own violation, laughing amicably to their jokes, ever the pleasant host. Thomas almost wished Rafayel would atleast fake the enthusiasm, like he used to.

Everyone who knew Rafayel saw the change in him. It was as if he'd been wiped clean and reborn a new person. They were all happy he was alive. They all mourned the loss of their sassy artistic sea god whose love for his people was as vast as the oceans he used to command over.

Everyone thought that every single memory disappeared. They were almost right - except there was one intact. Hidden in the abyssal depths of Rafayel's inner psyche, nestled safely like a pearl tucked away in an oyster.

When the bond was being erased, along with everything that was there, Rafayel, in a final, desperate act of pure love, held onto one single memory.

It was of his cutie, his beloved bride, the cause and cure to his heartache, half-asleep on his shoulder. She was mumbling something incoherent, something unimportant, something forgettable. He hadn't been listening to the mumble. He had been too busy staring at the wet spot on his shoulder - where she had drooled a bit. He looked at her with incredible fondness, absolutely smitten. He was undone by this simple, almost overlooked moment of vulnerability. She didn't care about appearance or what Rafayel would think. She had simply decided to trust Rafayel and show her soft, drooly, vulnerable side to him.

That one small moment still existed, untouched by the ocean - or perhaps, protected by Rafayel at the last moment. That memory was the only thing that reminded the artist of a love he once had, held in his arms, and lost.

 🌊🥀🌊🥀🌊🥀🌊🥀🌊🥀🌊🥀🌊🥀🌊🥀🌊🥀🌊🥀🌊🥀

Rating: T (There's a lot of talk about breasts and pecs but nothing explicit)

Summary: A white t-shirt isn't the best thing to be wearing when suddenly caught in the rain, but at least it reveals something about Rafayel.

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The weather forecast had lied, and mentally the off duty hunter was swearing at the smug weatherman who claimed it wouldn't rain today despite the clouds, and foolishly she'd believed him. Yet here she was; drenched to the bone after a downpour fell out of the sky faster then she could run back to Rafayel's side door from the beach where she'd been collecting the shells that clinked together in the tub in one hand while the other tried to shield her eyes from the pelting raindrops.

She'd been out there for almost an hour, wandering aimlessly up and down the white sand beach while mentally reminding herself everytime the cold waves hit her ankles and made her shiver that this was a gift for Thomas so he didn't have to stress about whether Rafayel was working during these first precious weeks with his newborn daughter. But her hardwork just meant there was a longer distance for her to run, and by the time she flung open the gate to the courtyard she'd been out in the rain for fifteen minutes.

rafayel 🎨

Quickly typed down, I hope I found all typos 🫣 don‘t mind the grammar errors 😅

Calling him by all his names

One arm is raised before you even notice the motion yourself, pointing at the culprit's chest with a finger trembling from rage. “YOU!”

If your eyes could've shot laser beams of death, they surely would’ve done now.

And Rafayel? He looks stunned at your finger, then your disheveled appearance. Slowly watching that your hair still drips from the water you used to shower with before you wanted to soak into a well deserved bath. And dressed in a white shirt that clings to your skin, now damp and see through because you didn’t take the time to dry yourself up before storing into the living room.

Then the blue and pink of his eyes locks with yours and a little crooked smile hurries over his lips, letting his eyes glimmer with mischief.

“Didn’t you forget to add ‘my love’, or ‚fishie‘? You usually don’t use my names?”

His cockiness lets the inferno of your anger rise even higher, and you growl at him as you step towards his tall figure with the intention to simply strangle him.

“You!” you feel his throat under the tips of his fingers but than it’s gone.

That slippery fish has fled behind the round table where Reddie makes his round in the little glass bowl. Apparently not fazed by the ruckus that has just appeared.

“Still no term if endearments for me? You wound me, Cutie!” Rafayel gasps out, as he takes steps on the opposite direction from you, staying close to the tables edge.

“Rafayel Homu-” you start only to be interrupted by him as you follow him around the table.

“Beloved boyfriend…”

You hiss at him “Homura Kiw-”

Interrupted once more by “Gorgeous, Honey… come one, Cutie. You can do it!”

Oh, how you want to erase this infuriating grin of his even more annoying handsome face. “Kiwook Qi-”

Again interrupted before you end the last name “Oh great artist, Baby, my ethereal Sea God?” he tries again.

Still rounding the table with you, always staying out of the reach of your grabby hands.

“You!” you spit at him again. “You used my last bath bomb and I couldn‘t enjoy my well deserved bath after 48 hours of continuous wanderer attacks! You deserve not an ounce of affection right now!”

Then suddenly his hands wraps around your wrist, and you miraculously land in his arms, flushed to his firm chest. “But my beloved darling…” this smug grin is still on his full lips “This could’ve easily been prevented if you just called me.” he states amused, and you try to slap him at his shoulder. But you’re once again caught, helpless in his firm hold. Then his hot breath grazes the shell of your ear “There is more in the cupboard, I already ordered it last week.”

Then a kiss at your temple “Now that this is settled, I offer my bodyguard the best spa experience there is, a massage and hot bath from yours truly.”

That finally does the trick you melt in his embrace as he slips an arm underneath your knees and bridal carries you to the bathroom. “I still hate you for not telling me sooner…” you grumble, trying to hold up a last try of defiance.

....but do you get dark circles? From all those all-nighters that you keep pulling off while in the middle of an inspiration spiral? Your skin's flawless yes, but even gods cannot evade fatigue.

His fingers come up, brushing lightly beneath his own eye, as if testing for something that isn’t quite there.

“I do,” he admits at last. “Not always. Not enough for most people to notice.” His gaze drifting somewhere distant, like he’s recalling long nights lit only by lamplight and unfinished canvases. “But they happen. When I forget time exists. When the sea is too loud in my head to let me rest.”

He tilts his head slightly, looking back at you now.

“They’re faint. Cooler in tone than a human’s, almost… bluish, if you look closely enough.” His lips curve, just barely. “Most assume it’s just the lighting. Or that I’ve chosen it.”

A quiet chuckle follows, low and smooth.

Prompt: Each sentence in the paragraph has to start with a particular letter, such that the first letter of each sentence spells out a single word.

Fandom: Love and Deepspace

Pairing & tags: Rafayel x reader, established relationship, fake breakup, dw it's not happening, suggestive ending (heavy makeout, nothing else!)

Credit to @pixopix for the banners

"Remind me why are we doing this again?" Rafayel frowns as you suggest the plan. It's simple, actually. Cause a public breakup in order to create chaos at the auction so that you can retrieve Rafayel's stolen work-in-progress painting. You think it's genius. Rafayel thinks you've lost your nuts.

"Actually no, why don't I just set the entire place on fire instead? That'd distract everyone from my painti- OW!" He helps as you pinch his side discreetly to shut him up. "What was that for, cutie?!" He hisses under his breath.

"For you to not blow our cover and have the auction house know that you're the once the painting belongs to," you hiss back into his ear, gripping his arm tightly. "You said it yourself, you need the discretion. So don't mess it up." You look up at Rafayel, pouting slightly. "Also, what do you mean why are we doing this? We need enough drama to distract people from the painting-"

"And your suggestion was to break up in public??!" Even his voice wavered at the word, even if it's for show Rafayel didn't want to even think about a breakup. Never in this lifetime or the next seven hundred ones.

"You are not getting rid of me that easily, my beloved bride," he continues, his voice low and deep into his ear as his arms come around your waist, trapping you against him. You try to wiggle out of his hug but his hold on you is firm.

"Even if it is for a show, I will never let go of you. You're mine, cutie…." With that, he descends upon your lips to shut down all further protests or talks about fake breakups. Not on his watch, never on his watch. He grins into your lips as you lose yourself into the kiss, your grip around his shoulders tightening.

"Let go, cutie," he murmurs in approval as you let out a soft muffled moan, melting into mush as Rafayel deepens the kiss. His tongue meets yours in a sensual yet familiar dance. "Just like that… let everyone know that you're mine… and I'm yours… and that we're always meant to be…"