@pearlwhispers

You turn it over between your fingers. The candlelight catches on its edges, casting small flickering shadows across the sheets you have kicked into a tangled mess at the foot of the bed.

You cannot sleep.

This is not unusual. Sleep has never come easily in this palace, in this room that is yours only in the way a gilded cage belongs to the bird inside it. But tonight the restlessness is different. Tonight it has a shape, a name you keep pressing your tongue against the roof of your mouth to keep from whispering aloud.

Rafayel.

You close your eyes and your chest tightens like something is cinching around your ribs, like the air in the room has gone thin and hot and you are breathing through it too fast. The fishtail beacon pulses against your palm. You set it down on the table near your bed. Pick it up again. Set it down. Your hand hovers over it, fingers curling and uncurling, and your pulse thuds dully in your wrists and the base of your throat.

He gave it to you three weeks ago. Pressed it into your hand on the rooftop overlooking the dunes, his gloved fingers lingering against yours for two seconds longer than necessary, his eyes unreadable above the dark line of his mask. “This’ll connect me to you,” he told you, and the laziness in his voice didn’t match the intention of his hands, the way he folded your fingers over it one by one. “No matter where you are. You squeeze that, I’ll know to come to you.”

You asked him why. He tilted his head, and even with half his face hidden you could see the smirk pulling at the corner of his eyes. “Maybe I just get bored easily, princess.”

That is the thing you learned about Rafayel. Everything is a deflection. Every sincere gesture wrapped in three layers of teasing, every vulnerability dressed up as indifference, every act of devotion disguised as convenience. He showed up on your balcony the night you nearly drowned in the canal during your ninety-ninth escape attempt, pulled you out of the water by the back of your dress with one hand while the other held a blade still wet with someone else’s blood, and when you gasped up at him, choking and shivering, he looked down at you like you were an inconvenience he had not budgeted for.

“You got a death wish or something?” he drawled, and the mask muffled the lower half of his voice into something dark and velvet. “Cause if you’re gonna keep throwing yourself into rivers I’m gonna need a heads up.”

You called him Abysswalker because he would not give you his name. The way his eyes flickered, sharp and startled, before the indifference slid back into place. You did not understand then why the name struck him like that. You still do not fully understand now. But you remember the way his jaw tightened behind the mask, the way he exhaled slowly through his nose, and the way he finally, reluctantly, gave you his real name just to make you stop.

That was weeks ago. He has been a constant since.

Not constant in the way of something reliable or predictable, nothing about Rafayel is predictable, but constant in the way of something you cannot stop being aware of. He appears on your balcony at odd hours, never announced, always with an excuse. He sprawls across your furniture like the concept of personal space is a quaint human custom he has chosen not to observe. He picks up your things, examines them with exaggerated curiosity, puts them back in the wrong places. He calls you ‘Your Highness’ with enough irony to fill a cathedral, and sometimes, when he forgets to perform, he calls you ‘Princess’ in a voice so quiet it barely clears the space between you, and the word sounds like something else entirely.

You have memorized him in pieces without meaning to. The way the candlelight catches on the row of silver piercings climbing his ear when his hood falls back. The sharp line of his jaw above the mask, the only inch of his face he allows you. His hands, always gloved, leather worn soft at the knuckles, and the way they move when he talks, lazy and expressive, mapping the air between you with confidence that could dip into arrogance. 

You know the sound of his breathing when he is amused. The slower cadence of it when he is thinking. The way it hitches, just barely, when you catch him off guard with something honest, and the fraction of a second it takes him to recover before the smirk slides back into place.

You know he is hiding something. There’s something like a mark on his chest, the one you have only glimpsed twice. He adjusts his clothes whenever he catches you looking. He changes the subject. He deflects.

And you know, with the kind of certainty that sits in your bones like something you were born with, that he is not here by accident. That whatever brought him to your city, whatever mission lives behind those unreadable eyes, it involves you. Your heart. The heart that is not really yours, the one that belongs to Philos and its people and whatever divine purpose decided before your birth that your chest would house something too valuable for you to claim as your own.

Everyone wants your heart. You have known this since you were old enough to understand why they kept you locked in this palace, why they dressed you in silk and called you princess and never once asked what you wanted. Your heart sustains the planet. Your heart grants immortality. Your heart, your heart, your heart.

Not you. Never you.

And Rafayel... you do not know what Rafayel wants. That is what keeps you awake at three in the morning turning the fishtail beacon over and over in your hands like a rosary, your pulse hammering against the skin of your wrist, your mind replaying the same scene on a merciless loop.

The ruins. Four nights ago.

He had taken you to the sand dunes beyond the city, the ones that stretch endlessly under a sky so vast and dark you could feel the weight of it pressing down on your shoulders. The ruins of something ancient jutted from the sand like the bones of a creature too massive to comprehend, and he walked through them with the familiarity of someone who has walked through them a thousand times, his coat trailing behind him, his hand loose at his side.

You stumbled on a crumbled stairway, your foot catching on stone that shifted beneath you, and he moved faster than you could process, his arm around your waist, your back flush against his chest, and the world stilled.

His hand spread wide across your stomach, fingers pressing gently through the fabric of your dress. His breath was warm against the shell of your ear, filtering through the mask, and you could feel his chest expand against your spine with each slow inhale. You were not in danger. The stairway was three steps high. You would have scraped your knee at most.

He did not let go.

“Be careful, Your Highness.” he murmured, and his voice was so close you felt it vibrate through the bones of your skull more than you heard it with your ears.

You stood there, his arm locked around you, the heat of his body seeping into every point of contact, and something inside your chest cracked open like a door you had been leaning against for weeks finally giving way. Your fingers drifted upward, almost involuntarily, reaching toward the edge of his mask where it met the line of his jaw, and his free hand caught your wrist.

Not roughly. His thumb rested against your pulse point and his grip was gentle and his hand was shaking.

The silence lasted three seconds. Maybe four. Long enough for you to feel the thunder of his heartbeat against your shoulder blade, fast and hard and completely at odds with the steadiness of his hands. Long enough for the heat between your bodies to become something you could taste at the back of your throat, sweet and metallic and dizzying.

Then a sound in the distance, the scrape of sand shifting, an animal or the wind or nothing at all, and he released you. Stepped back. Adjusted his mask. Shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat.

“Watch your step next time,” he offered, and his voice was perfectly, infuriatingly casual.

You did not speak about it. You walked back to the palace in silence and he left through the balcony and you pressed your forehead against the cool stone of the wall and breathed and breathed and breathed until the trembling in your hands subsided.

It did not subside.

It has not subsided since.

You pick up the fishtail beacon again, restless. The heat of it seeps into your palm, travels up through your wrist, settles in the center of your chest where that cursed heart of yours beats too fast for a girl who is supposed to be sleeping. You think of his hand across your stomach. The vibration of his voice against your ear. The shaking of his fingers around your wrist and the way his pulse betrayed every lie his voice tried to tell.

You squeeze the beacon.

Not by accident. Not impulsively. You look at it, you feel the warmth of it, and you close your fist around it with the full and terrifying knowledge of what you are doing. You are calling him. At three in the morning, in a thin nightdress, with your hair loose and your chamber a mess and no excuse prepared and nothing to offer him except the truth that you could not bear another night of pretending you do not want him here.

The beacon flares warm, then cool, then warm again, like a heartbeat answering yours.

You wait.

The balcony doors are open. The desert air drifts in carrying the dry scent of sand and the faint sweetness of night-blooming flowers that climbs the palace walls, and you are sitting on the edge of your bed with your fingers twisted in the fabric of your nightdress, your heart hammering in your ears so loudly you almost miss the sound of his landing.

Almost.

The soft scrape of boots on stone. The whisper of fabric settling. And then he is there, a silhouette framed in the balcony archway, the moonlight catching on the silver chains at his chest and the piercings in his ear, his hood pushed back, his coat open, his mask still on.

His eyes find yours across the dark room and something moves behind them, quick and unguarded before the familiar laziness slides into place like a curtain being drawn.

“You called for me, Princess?” he steps inside, and his voice carries that drawl, that slowness that makes every word sound like he is doing you a favor just by speaking.

Your mouth opens and closes a few times. Throat drier than the desert sand. “I... couldn’t sleep.”

He tilts his head. One eyebrow lifts above the line of his mask. He does not believe you. You can see it in the way his gaze drops from your face to the beacon in your hand and back again, slow and knowing, and the corner of his eyes creases with a smirk you cannot see but can feel like a physical touch across your delicate skin.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he echoes, stepping further into the room, his gloved hand trailing along the edge of your vanity, fingers tipping over a small glass bottle of perfume with exaggerated carelessness. “So you summoned the Abysswalker into your chambers in the middle of the night.”

“I didn’t summon you.” you try to lie, but it’s pointless.

“You squeezed the beacon,” he picks up one of the ribbons from your vanity, winds it around his index finger, lets it unravel. “That’s kinda what it’s for, Your Highness.”

The heat climbs up the sides of your neck. You tuck your chin, averting your gaze toward the window where the sand dunes shimmer faintly under the moon, and you feel rather than see him move closer, even if his steps are dead silent. The room is not large. Four steps and he would be at the edge of your bed.

He takes three.

“You didn’t have to come,” you manage, and your voice comes out thinner than you intended.

He is quiet for a few moments. His hand drops the ribbon. When he speaks again, the teasing has thinned just slightly, like a layer of paint wearing through to something rawer underneath.

“Yeah, well.” he shifts his weight, and his gaze slides sideways, and for a moment he looks almost uncertain. “We both know that’s not true.”

The silence stretches. You can hear the palace guards’ distant footsteps in the corridor beyond your door, the soft murmur of Natasha speaking to someone down the hall. The world outside this room, the world of duty and hearts and gilded cages, presses against the walls like water against a dam.

“Raf.” your voice is as soft as the ribbon previously swirled around his finger.

His eyes snap back to you. You have never called him that before, even though he gave you his name, you never dared call him something more intimate than it. The truncation of his name sits between you like a lit match.

You stand up from the soft mattress. The nightdress moves around your thighs, thin silk that you chose for the heat, not for him, though the way his gaze drops for a fraction of a second before jerking back up to your face makes your skin prickle with awareness and shyness. 

You want to see his face, gauge what his emotions truly convey in his expression. You cross the space between you in two steps and your hand rises slowly, your fingers reaching for the hem of his mask.

His gloved hand catches your wrist before you can fully touch it. His grip is loose, barely there, his thumb resting exactly where your pulse hammers against the thin skin.

“Your Highness.” he coos, the teasing lilt curls around the title like smoke. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“You always wear it.” your voice is soft. Steady, somehow, despite the heat rushing through your veins. “Why? Are we not close enough for you to drop it, or do you simply not want me to see your face?”

His eyes search yours. For a long moment they are completely unreadable, deep and still like water that is darker than it looks, and then something shifts in them, something that is not quite amusement and not quite pain but lives in the space between.

“Maybe I’m just ugly under here,” he deflects, but the usual sharpness is missing from his voice. “Ever think about that?”

“Show me, then.”

“Why?” he tilts his head, as his thumb traces a slow circle over your pulse point that makes your breath stutter in your chest. “What’s so important about seeing my face, Princess?”

“I want to see you when you speak to me.” you hold his gaze. Your fingers hover at the edge of the dark fabric, close enough that your knuckles brush his jaw. “I want to see all of you, not only what you allow me to.”

Something flickers across his expression. A crack, hairline thin, there and gone. He exhales through his nose slowly. “You’ve seen glimpses of it before,” he murmurs. 

“Glimpses are not enough.”

The words land between you and his grip on your wrist loosens, finger by finger, until his hand falls away entirely. He doesn’t move or speak again. Just watches you with those impossible to read eyes, blue-pink ombres in the candlelight, and the silence is permission.

You hook your fingers under the fabric and draw it down.

It slides past the bridge of his nose, past the sharp cut of his cheekbones, and the fullness of his face unfolds beneath your hands like something sacred being unwrapped. The line of his mouth, fuller than you imagined, the lower lip bitten faintly pink. The small beauty marks scattered across his skin like constellations you want to map with your fingertips. The jaw, sharp enough to cut, and the way it tightens when your thumb grazes the corner of his mouth.

He is beautiful in the way a blade is beautiful. In the way a fire is. In the way that something dangerous becomes holy when you hold it close enough to burn.

“There,” he breathes, and his voice is stripped bare now, no mask to muffle it, every vibration of it reaching you unfiltered. “Happy now?”

You don’t answer him, too busy committing him to your memory, just how beautiful he truly is. Your thumb is still resting at the corner of his mouth and his lips part just barely under the pressure of it. His breath is warm against the pad of your finger. His eyes are locked on yours and they are not unreadable anymore. They are saying everything his voice refuses to, and you are still unsure of what to make of whatever you find there.

“The ruins,” you whisper. “Four nights ago, when you caught me...”

His jaw flexes under your hand. “You tripped. It would be careless of me to let the Princess fall.”

“You didn’t let go after.”

Silence. His chest rises and falls. You can see the column of his throat work as he swallows.

“Rafayel.” your voice drops to barely a breath because the guards are outside and Natasha is down the hall and this room is the only safe place left in a palace full of eyes and ears. “Why didn’t you let go of me?”

He closes his eyes. When he opens them again, the laziness and the teasing, all of it has burned away like fog in direct sun. What is left underneath is raw and exposed and so full of longing it makes the air between you feel too thick to breathe.

“You know why, Your Highness,” his gloved hand comes up to cover yours where it rests against his face, pressing your palm flat against his cheek, and the tremor in his fingers is the same one you felt in the ruins, the same one he tried to hide. “I can’t seem to be able to stop... Wanting to be close to you.” 

His words wash over you like cold water in a suffocating desert. Your throat works slowly, tasting your words on the tip of your tongue before you actually decide to let him hear them. It was a simple gesture, catching you so you wouldn’t fall. He could just as easily say so, if it truly meant nothing to him. But nothing is ever accidental with Rafayel, you know this.

A simple touch, a simple embrace under the guise of protecting you to not fall was like opening a door between you, one previously closed, partly on his end. A simple gesture of proximity, one he leaned into before he could have stopped himself. One you didn’t mind, but rather wanted more of.

“Be close to me, then.” your eyes lift up to his, thumb stroking gently over his warm face, “I want you close to me, too.” The words land like a bird’s feather, too soft and barely audible, but enough to reach his ears in the closeness of your bodies.

“Words carry meaning, Your Highness,” his voice drops lower. His thumb traces along your knuckles, slow and gentle. “Actions do, too. So be honest with me… Why did you summon me tonight?”

The words hit your sternum like a fist. Your breath leaves you in a rush and your hand fists gently against his cheek and his eyes darken, his pupils swallowing the color, and the distance between you collapses. There’s no room for pretense anymore, not that you really want to anymore, not that you can.

You kiss him.

It is not quite gentle. It is the culmination of weeks of almost and not quite and what if, and your mouth finds his with a desperation that startles you, that feels like falling except you have been falling for weeks and only now hit the surface of whatever waits below. His response is immediate, his hands gripping your waist, fingers pressing into the silk of your nightdress, pulling you flush against him until you can feel the chains and buckles of his coat pressing into your chest, the warmth of him bleeding through every layer of clothing that separates you.

He kisses you back like drowning, like burning, his mouth hot and insistent and tasting faintly of salt, and your hands are in his hair, the strands impossibly soft between your fingers, strands you ached desperately to touch and feel, and now you’re finally permitted to do so. The sound he makes against your lips, low and raw and wrecked, vibrates through your entire body. 

He breaks the kiss first, his forehead dropping against yours, his breathing ragged. His hands haven’t moved from your waist, and his intention of not withdrawing doesn’t miss you even as your thoughts scramble to dust trying to come to terms with the fact that you just kissed him in your chambers in the middle of the night.

“You got no sense of danger whatsoever, Your Highness,” he murmurs against your mouth. The teasing lilt you’re so familiar with is back but it’s thin now, translucent, stretched over something that trembles. “Summoning an Assassin to your room in the middle of the night. Kissing him, too.”

“You kissed me back.”

“Didn’t say I was the smart one either.”

Your laugh is barely a breath before his mouth catches it, kissing the sound from your lips before it fully forms. Then he is turning you, his hands guiding you by the waist until your back meets his chest in an echo of the ruins that makes your skin sing. His arms wrap around you from behind, his chin settling against the curve of your shoulder, and you feel his breath fan hot across the side of your neck, making you shudder from how good it feels, trickling down your feverish body.

“This dress,” he coos, and his gloved fingers splay across your stomach, wide and warm, the leather soft against silk. “This thin little thing...” his thumb traces a slow line from your navel to the base of your ribs and the sensation shivers through you in a wave that you feel in your scalp and between your legs. “You called me here dressed like this? Shameless.” his lips brush the shell of your ear and you can hear the grin in his voice. “Not very princess-like behavior if you ask me, Your Highness.”

Your cheeks burn in both embarrassment and something akin to pleasure, because he’s suddenly switched on you from raw and honest to this version of him you are familiar with yet not at all, at the same time. Your hands come up to rest over his, pressing them closer against your stomach, and you feel the sharp intake of his breath against your damp neck.

“I was not expecting company when I prepared for bed,” you manage, though your voice is embarrassingly breathy.

“Does the Princess know she doesn’t lie very well?” he mouths the word against the hinge of your jaw, and then his lips trail lower, down the column of your neck in a line of barely there kisses that leave heat blooming in their wake like brushstrokes of fire. “You squeezed the fishtail beacon in your hands and thought of me, knowing exactly what you were inviting into your chambers by doing so.”

You tilt your head to give him access and you feel his mouth curve into a smile against your throat before he presses a kiss to the pulse point there, lingering to feel the frantic rhythm of your heart against his lips. His hands map your body with agonizing slowness, the leather of his gloves dragging over the silk in a friction that makes your nerve endings light up, tracing the curve of your waist, the curve of your hips, the dip of your lower back, and your whole body is shivering, leaning back into him, your weight settling against his chest.

“Cold?” he taunts softly, his mouth at the junction of your shoulder and neck now, open and warm.

“You know I’m not cold.” your voice cracks on the last word because his thumb has found your collarbone and is tracing the bone of it so slowly and maddening, that feels like he is drawing you with intentions alone, his finger as featherlight as a paintbrush on canvas.

You reach behind you, your fingers finding the fabric of his hood where it gathers at his shoulders, and you push it back and off, while your hands slide up into his hair, an action that makes him groan against your neck. A low vibration that you feel in your spine. Your fingers tighten and his hips press forward against you involuntarily. The sensation sends heat pooling low in your belly, your legs almost giving out at what you feel pressed against your lower back.

You turn in his arms, a bit impatient. Your hands go to his chest, palms flat against the fabric of his tunic, and beneath your right hand you feel it. A wave of warmth, sharp and sudden, and when you look down you see it through the thin fabric, a red and pulsing glow. The mark on his chest burning to life under your touch like something answering a call.

His whole body goes rigid at your touch, even as a slight shiver runs through him.

“Don’t...” he starts, but his voice fractures on the syllable. Despite his sudden withdrawal, his hands are still on your waist and he is not pulling away. 

“What is this?” you press your palm harder against the glow and his breath stutters out of him in a sound that is almost a whimper, his head tipping back, his throat exposed, his eyes squeezing shut. The image in front of you makes your lips part in surprise and wonder, because yes, you are curious about the mark and have been for a while. But seeing his reaction to your unprompted touch, how he reacts as if you struck him in either pain or pleasure...

“It’s... complicated, Your Highness.” he forces the words out through gritted teeth. “What you have to know it’s that it’s old. It’s... ours.”

Ours.

The word detonates in your chest, and your brain scrambles for meaning, for logic, but finds none. You don’t need to know, not now, at least. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to interrogate him about it another time, but for now, your fingers curl into the fabric of his tunic and you pull him forward. His mouth finds yours again and this time the kiss is slower, deeper, his tongue sliding against yours and his gloved hand coming up to cradle the back of your skull, tilting your head to deepen the angle. You moan against his lips and feel his fingers tighten in your hair.

You walk him backward. It takes effort, he’s taller and solid and his arms are locked around you, but he goes almost willingly, his mouth still on yours, his boot catching on the edge of the rug as he walks. When the backs of his knees hit the mattress of your bed, he sits and you climb into his lap with a gracelessness that burns your ears red.

He pulls back just enough to look at you through heavy, half-lidded ombre eyes. You are straddling his thighs, your nightdress rucked up around your hips, your hands braced on his shoulders, your face flushed and your breathing ragged. The feeling of him under your body, pressed so close you feel his warmth, his solid muscles, and the state you turned him in... all of it sets your whole body alight and your brain is too far gone to really grasp what you just did. But his is not.

The slowest, most devastating grin spreads across his face.

“So bold, Your Highness.” his hands settle on your bare thighs where the silk has ridden up, his thumbs tracing small circles against your skin. The contrast of leather against bare flesh makes you dizzy. His gaze drops to the tangled sheets beneath him, the pillows thrown sideways, the blankets kicked to the floor. “The sheets are a mess. You really couldn’t sleep tonight, could you?”

You were a fool to think he wouldn’t call you out on it, but the way his words drawl, slow and teasing and maddeningly sexy makes you come to the conclusion that you don’t mind a little bit of his teasing, even if it turns your rosy cheeks two shades darker. You press your forehead against his, your fingers knotting in the chain at his collar. “D-Don’t speak like that.”

“Did something trouble the Princess’ mind?” he leans back on one hand, casual and a tad insufferable, even as his other hand slides higher up your thigh with a slowness that makes your muscles clench at how good it feels, the feeling of his cold glove on your bare skin. “Was it a certain Assassin she boldly called in the middle of the night to come put her to sleep?”

“I will throw you off this balcony.” You avert your eyes, suddenly too shy at his words but too stubborn to let him see the full effect his words have on you.

“Promises, promises.” he catches your chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting your face so the candlelight catches your eyes. The smugness softens, melts into something that makes your throat ache. “You’re blushing so hard, Princess. Your ears are red.”

You bury your face against his shoulder and feel the rumble of his laughter vibrate through his chest against your palms.

“Hey,” his voice gentles, his hand coming up to the back of your neck, fingers threading into the hair at your nape to guide your gaze back to his. “C’mere. Won’t you look at me?”

You lift your head, albeit a little hesitant. Your eyes are wide, you know, bright and pleading, the want in them so naked it terrifies you. You know he sees it, too, by the way his throat bobs slowly, by the way the playfulness drains from his expression like water from cupped hands and what is left is hunger, raw and deep and shaking and it startles you but also makes your body shiver in delight once more. 

He kisses you again, and this time it is not a question nor a hesitation. His slick, soft lips find your trembling ones while his hand slides to the strap of your nightdress. His fingers pause there for a moment. A question in the hesitation, and you answer it by reaching up and sliding the strap off your own shoulder.

“Inviting me into your bed,” he whispers sweetly against the corner of your mouth, his fingers trailing down your arm as the silk falls. “What happens if the guards outside the door hear something and come find the princess in such an... unfit position?”

“Then you’ll have to keep me quiet,” you breathe, swallowing when his eyes go black. Your spine feels like lightning bolted down from the nape of your neck and down to your lower back and then down still, right between where your thighs are bracketing his lap, in the place now moist and throbbing and needing friction you’re still not bold enough to seek.

His mouth descends on your neck, open and hot. His teeth graze the sensitive skin below your ear, making you gasp while his gloved hand comes up to cover your mouth, gentle but firm, muffling the sound against leather.

“Shhh,” he whispers against your throat, and you can feel the smile there. “That’s more like it.”

His hands undress you in pieces, peeling the silk away with a slowness that is both exhilarating and torturous, pressing his mouth to every inch of skin he reveals, your collarbones, the dip between them, the curve of your ribs. His lips trace the shape of you like he is committing your naked body to memory, like he is painting you with his mouth, and every point of contact sends sparks cascading down your spine until you are trembling in his lap, your fingers tangled in his hair, your head tipped back in pleasure while soft sounds escape between your parted lips.

You tug at his coat impatiently and that makes him laugh, low and breathless, shrugging out of it without detaching his mouth from your sternum. His tunic follows, making the red mark on his chest visible where it blazes in the low light, pulsing in time with his heartbeat, so so beautiful. You press your lips to it and he hisses, his hands fisting in the sheets, his hips rolling up against yours.

“F-Fuck,” he breathes, the word sounds punched out of him, unplanned, raw. It does unspeakable things to your own body, shooting precisely between your legs, like an arrow hitting bullseye.

His mouth finds yours again, more hungry now, and his hands are gloveless now. You barely registered when he took them off, but they map the skin of your chest with such gentleness that makes your eyes sting, thumbs tracing and circling your peaked nipples until your back arches and a sound escapes you that you did not know you could make. You guide his hands upper, your fingers wrapped around his wrists, pulling him closer, pressing his palms flat against your breast. He groans into your mouth and you swallow the sound.

“I might be the Assassin, but you are the lethal one here, Princess,” he whispers against your lips before his hand slides lower, down the plane of your stomach, slow and purposeful. In no time, his fingers find the hem of the silk still bunched at your waist and slip beneath it.

Your hands grip his shoulders so hard your knuckles go white. He watches your face with those devastating bicolored eyes, heavy lidded and swallowed by lust, reading every flicker of sensation that crosses your features. His forehead presses against yours and his free hand cups your jaw, thumb stroking your cheekbone in such a tender gesture despite the lust consuming his soul. When his fingers, gentle and knowing and unbearably precise, find how wet you are, the sound you let out is somewhere between a sob and a plea for more of it.

“There she is,” he murmurs, his voice low and thick and dripping with something that sounds like awe disguised as arrogance, probably already knowing the effect it has on you when he weaponizes his honeyed voice as such. “My beautiful Princess.”

He moves his hand in slow, maddening strokes, building a rhythm that tightens every muscle in your body, and when the sounds you make grow too loud his mouth covers yours, absorbing every gasp and whimper against his lips. His other hand presses flat against the small of your back, holding you against him, steady and sure while the rest of you falls apart.

“That’s it, Your Highness,” he whispers against the corner of your mouth, and his voice has gone rough, wrecked and raspy. “Cling to me. I’ve got you, let yourself fall.”

You shatter in his arms with your face buried against his throat, your teeth sinking into your own lip to keep from crying out, your body bowing into his like a wave breaking against shore. He holds you through it, his lips pressing against your temple, your forehead, the damp curl of hair at your ear, murmuring soft nonsense that sounds like your title and his heartbeat and something in a language you don’t recognize, older than either of you, oceanic and aching.

When your breathing steadies, when the tremors slow to aftershocks and you lift your head to look at him, he is wrecked and unrecognizable. His cheeks are flushed dark, the color bleeding into the tips of his ears. His lips swollen and bitten red, and his chest is heaving and the mark on it pulses like a second heart.

He doesn’t rush to the next part, doesn’t even assume there will be more than what he gave you just now. He just gazes down at you, savoring how you look as the highs of pleasure wash over your body in subsiding waves. You just gave a part of yourself to him, one you can never take back but you don’t want to. It is his now. It was his to take so it is his to keep, now and forever. And you want to give him more parts of yourself, feel like he’s the only one who’ll keep you safe and not feeling like a trapped bird.

This was yours to give, and yours to decide how and when to give it. You want to give him so many more parts, no matter what it is he wants to take. A few pieces, more like this one. Your heart, which is already in his possession, even if he is unaware of it. You’ll give him your fleshed heart too, if only he asked.

Yours to have, yours to give. And you choose him to take it.

You cradle his face in your hands. Your thumbs trace the beauty mark beneath his eyes, and your voice, when it comes, is barely a whisper, raspy but full of unspoken feelings. He awaits an answer to a question he doesn’t voice or even attempt to form, but you choose to speak it anyway.

“I’ve made a selfish decision by summoning you here, but I... I want this. I chose this.” your forehead presses against his and your breath mingles warm between your parted lips. “You are my freedom, Rafayel. I choose you to have me and my body... my heart.”

His eyes search yours, and the vulnerability in them is staggering. The kind of openness that looks like it costs him everything. His hands come up to cover yours where they rest against his face, his fingers lacing through yours, trembling.

“How sure are you of this, my beloved Princess?” his voice is barely above a breath. All the teasing turned to something so naked it makes your chest ache, something painful and raw. “Is it truly what you want from me?” his thumb traces the line of your jaw and his gaze drops to your mouth and back to your eyes. “Giving yourself to someone like me... a reckless thing for a Princess to do. Do you truly want me?”

You kiss him slowly, certain of your decision, wanting to make him understand it, too. Your hands slide into his hair, your body pressing flush against his, and when you pull back your lips brush his as you speak.

“There will never be anyone else I want.”

The sound he makes when he registers your soft whisper is something deep, something that starts in his chest where the mark burns red between you and travels through his entire body in a shudder that you feel everywhere your skin touches his. His arms lock around you and he pulls you against him. His mouth finds yours with a ferocity that steals whatever breath you had left, if you even had any.

He lays you back against the tangled sheets with a gentleness that contradicts the desperation in his kiss, settling over you, the weight of him warm and solid and everywhere. The mark on his chest glows between your bodies like something forged in a furnace, the red of it casting your skin in shades of amber and flame.

“Gotta continue to keep quiet for me, Princess,” he breathes against the hollow of your throat, cooing the words in a teasing lilt, but his voice is shaking now, barely held together. “Unless you want the whole palace knowing who you chose to give yourself to tonight.”

You pull him closer by the back of his neck and his hips press forward with the move. It’s what you both want and crave, if the sounds you both make are any indication. Your shared moans are greedily swallowed by each other’s mouths. His hand finds yours on the pillow, fingers interlacing, squeezing tight.

The world narrows to the space between your bodies. To the rhythm of him moving with you, against you, inside you... To the flex of his jaw when he bites back a groan as you squeeze tightly around him. To the way your name sounds when he whispers it against your collarbone like a confession he has been holding in his mouth for lifetimes. 

Your back arches off the mattress when he hits a certain spot, somewhere deep where it’s tender and untouched, and feeling him press there makes your eyes roll back into your head. His arm hooks beneath you, pulling you against him, his forehead pressed to yours, his breathing fractured and raw.

“Fuck, Your Highness...” his voice breaks on the words, his hips stuttering as they thrust inside your warmth. His bare hand presses firm and warm over your mouth when you cry out in pleasure, and the look he gives you is equal parts desperation and lust. “Keep quiet... the guards...”

You can’t. You pull his hand away and replace it with his mouth, kissing him hard, making him groan against your lips. The sound vibrates through your whole body and the sheets are twisted beneath you and his hand is gripping your thigh and pulling you impossibly closer, and you don’t want this moment to stop. You never want to be away from him after tonight, not ever.

“My beautiful Princess,” he gasps against the corner of your mouth when his rhythm falters for a moment, then quickens, his whole body trembling above you. It’s a beautiful tell you recognize as him losing himself inside you, and you assume he is as close to feeling this closeness between you as you are, this shared pleasure. “Your body doesn’t lie... clings to me so tight...”

Your nails drag down his back and he hisses at the sensation, the feeling of them marking his bare skin makes his hips snap forward and makes the bond mark on his chest blazes so bright you see it through your closed eyelids, red and fierce and consuming. You break apart at the same time, or close enough, his face buried against your neck as he spills so much warmth inside you. Your fingers knotted in his hair from how good it feels. The sound he lets out against your skin, muffled and shattered and utterly broken, is the most honest thing you have ever heard him say.

He stays after that.

The candlelight has burned low by the time the trembling stops, by the time your breathing evens out into something resembling relaxation and his heartbeat slows against your back where he has curled around you, his chest warm and bare against your shoulder blades, his arm draped over your waist, his fingers tracing absent patterns on the inside of your wrist. The bond mark still glows faintly, a soft red pulse that matches the cadence of his breathing.

“Stop thinking so loudly,” he mumbles against your hair, and the drawl is back but soft now, heavy with sleep, the consonants blurred. It makes you smile and move closer in his embrace, “M’trying to enjoy this before you kick me out of your bed.”

It’s a jest, you recognize it as such. Yet even as he jokes, your chest feels heavy where his words settle, scraping against your heart like little knives.

“I’m not going to kick you out.”

“Promise?”

There is something in his voice. Something small and young and achingly uncertain, something that lives under all the smirking and carelessness, and it cracks the last wall inside your chest like a fist through thin ice.

You turn in his arms and press your palm flat against the mark on his chest, the red glow warm beneath your hand. You look him in the eyes with a gaze so raw and honest and blurred by the moist of unshed tears, and you tell him.

“I promise.”

His expression does something complicated, and for a moment his mask wavers so completely that you see everything in his eyes. The relief, the ache, the love so vast and old it seems to spill beyond the borders of this single life. Then he blinks and the smirk ghosts back across his lips, smaller now, gentler, like a muscle memory he can’t quite shake.

“Good,” he whispers, pressing a lingering kiss to your forehead, his lips warm and impossibly soft. “‘Cause I wasn’t gonna leave anyway.”

His eyes close and his breathing slows. His arm tightens around you in his sleep, an involuntary , instinctive thing, as though even unconscious his body refuses to let go of something it has waited too long to hold.

You lie in the dark with his heartbeat against your palm and the fading glow of the mark beneath your fingers and for the first time in your life, you feel like something that belongs to you.

Outside the window, the desert stretches to the horizon. The dunes roll in smooth, undulating waves under the moonlight, pale gold and endless.

If you look long enough, they almost look like the sea.

© zaynessbeloved 2026. please don’t copy, repost or translate my works. thank you!

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⭐ (❄️) xavier ── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

🐦‍⬛ (🐟) sylus ── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

🐟 (🍎) rafayel ── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

❄️ (🐦‍⬛) zayne ── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

🍎 (⭐)caleb ── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

Rafayel groans from the floor beside your bed, eyes shut and both arms curled protectively around his stomach. "God, cutie," he slurs, eyes shut. "Is this how you greet all your late night visitors? No wonder you're still single.." He pushes his face into your carpet stretching out a groan, curling in on himself in an attempt to make him seem more pitiful (or he's actually in that much pain. You feel a hint of guilt twist at the bottom of your stomach). He doesn't seem to realise the last sentence slipped out, or register the rapidly-fading glower you're directing his way.

"Rafayel!" you snap, body relaxing at the same time as your embarrassment rises from the sight of his familiar face. You kneel down beside him with a heaving sigh, watching as the errant moonlight that's escaped through your blinds falls on Rafayel's features, pouring gently over the pale skin. His collarbones are exposed to the air of your room, his shirt half-unbuttoned. The crisp light makes them seem sharper than usual. You stop yourself from reaching out and tracing their shadow.

You blink, dragging your gaze back up to his eyes, which are slightly open now but cloudy. There's something amused in his gaze, something that tells you he knows exactly what you're stopping yourself from doing. When the white of his teeth glints in the moonlight as he starts to smirk, you know an overly cocky, supremely aggravating and - no matter how much you deny it - not entirely false comment is about to spoken. You cut him off before he can say anything.

"What are you doing here? I told you that the spare key was only for emergencies." You push some anger into your voice, as much as you can without making it obvious to Rafayel that you're trying to distract him and disturbing your neighbours further.

Rafayel has no such qualms and a drunk fish is much more easily distracted. "It was an emergency!" He says it at a normal volume but in the stillness of the night, it sounds like he's yelling it. You hurry to shush him with a finger to his lips but he turns his head away from your hand, returning your glare with one of his own, albeit a pouty one. "I couldn't find my house." He mumbles and you snort. This time, he shushes you, reaching an arm up to clumsily press a finger to your lips. "Don't laugh..."

You grab his wrist loosely and speak against his finger. He shudders, eyes going half-lidded but you aren't sure why. "What do you mean you couldn't find your house? You couldn't find yours but you could find mine?"

Alcohol and embarrassment causing a pink flush to spread over his cheeks and his gaze drifts away from your face. "Your address is burned into my mind, cutie. It was the only thing I could think of when the driver asked where he should take me." The last dredges of your annoyance melt with the statement and after a second of hesitation, you decide that it's far too late at night and you are way too on edge to deal with the ramifications of that statement.

He doesn't let you say anything else before he's pushing himself up on to his elbows and then wobbling his way back upright. Your hands reach out automatically to steady him, but he bats your efforts away. You stand with him and raise an eyebrow, as if to ask, 'what now?'

Before you can blink, he falls forward, straight into you, sending the both of you crashing backwards on top of the soft bed in a bundle of limbs, an aborted scream and loud, drunken laughter that you will definitely get complaints about from your neighbours in the morning.

His face is right above yours, his entire body weight resting on you. He grins wide and smug, eyes glinting with exasperating glee. You tense up for a minute, getting ready to shove him off, but instead you find your body going lax. He seems as shocked by your actions as you are, but not upset, if the way the grin stretches wider, so wide it seems painful, is any indication.

You flick his forehead in vengeance and he yelps, eyes going alert. "Ow! Cutie!" You laugh, though it's more of a cackle and finally push him off of you, though he whines like a spoiled kid when you do, fingertips resting on your waist for as long as possible. The whine is abruptly cut off by a another yelp when you grab his foot and start trying to yank his shoe off without undoing the laces. "What are you doing? Stop trying to take advantage of me!"

"I'm taking off your dirty shoes!" You tug his foot back towards you when he tries to pull it away. "If anything, this is princess treatment!"

"Excuse you," he sniffs, resting his feet in your lap. "My shoes are pristine. I think they're cleaner than your bed - hey! Those are expensive!" You chuck the other shoe at the wall the same way you did the first one, despite his gasp of indignation.

"Nothing about you right now is pristine, but I think if I tried to get you to take a shower, you'd find a way to drown under the spray."

"You'd probably drown me yourself," he mutters, then reaches to grab your arm and pull you back up against his side.

He's warm. You hope he doesn't notice your face heat up, burning into his skin.

"Rafayel -"

"Stay." He asks - no, he orders - his tone almost offended that you thought there was another option.

On any other night you'd put up more of argument. You'd probably win it too, after about twenty minutes of pointing out every reason that this is a bad idea. But tonight, you're tired. The initial panic that started when he flopped down on to you has given way to lethargy, and you wouldn't really mind laying down beside someone who makes you feel safe and sleeping for a solid eight hours.

He smells of something overwhelming sugary with an aftertaste that stings your nose when you bury your face in his fancy silk shirt. The weight of his arm draped over your body is reassuring. You'll probably regret this when you wake up. He might too, but right now, it's enough to hold him close and let him move you around so he can press his face into your neck instead and lull you into sleep with his talk about how good you'd be as his personal hot water bottle.

a/n: do i talk enough about how much i love him i really dont think i do. im always talking about zayne but rafayel is just me in a male body and fictional. by maining rafayel. you main via. does anyone else think about the malcolm toddism of fishvia i do i always do dear rafayel i miss you so much please fall in love with me and hate me forever too me and my block of pixels have a very complex relationship. also the first part where u think there's an intruder is my april fools ok?

as always reblogs, like BUT ESPPPP reblogs with tags and comments are appreciated. pls talk i promise im not scary. tell me ur fav part, ur least fav part, any suggestions requests wtv girl just talk!

Xavier stares now, bleary eyes half-open and fixed on that empty seat. Waiting to see the ghost of you turn around, pretending to check the time on the clock behind him.

His lashes flutter, nearly falling shut, but he clings to that mental image of your eyes sliding down to meet his. Just once more.

A tap on his shoulder rouses him again, but he groans, burying his face back into his arms.

Another tap, and then another. The poking is relentless until he stirs, frowning up at whatever classmate was disturbing him.

Xavier's heart stills when your familiar eyes peer down at him. There's a cup of instant noodles in your hand, steam billowing up into your face, which is contorted somewhere between amusement and exasperation.

"Back with us yet, sleepyhead?" you tease him, crossing the blurry gap between dreams and reality.

Your voice is a touch deeper, your smile a little more guarded. But there's a familiar lilt of fondness that has his eyes widening, his face softening, until you become visibly flustered.

"How long?" Xavier croaks out, fingers twitching as he yearns to reach for you, trying to shake the sleep from his heavy muscles.

Your brows furrow, and when you turn to glance at the clock over his head, his chest squeezes until it hurts.

"I went to check out that Protofield anomaly in the historic downtown area about…two hours ago?" You look back at him, a disbelieving smirk crossing your lips. "Have you been asleep that whole time?"

Protofields. Downtown. Xavier's mind plays catch-up, slow and ramping up until—ah, that's right. Linkon. Work.

He sits up slowly, rubbing at his eyes and stifling a yawn. It's always disorienting, how far back his sleeping mind could go, how he has to readjust in a split second across space and years (so many years).

"Mm, yeah," he mumbles.

When he hears you snort, he looks back at you, seeing clearly now the differences. Marks of age, of a different lifetime, of over three centuries since he last saw you.

How terrifying, how easy it was for him to slip back into a time so long past.

"Here. Saved you the last of that new hotpot flavor."

The savory scent hits him before he sees you sliding another cup of instant noodles towards him. It leaves a streak of condensation across his desk, and he wonders how long it had been sitting there.

How long had you been trying to wake him? How long before that had you been beside him as he slept, dreaming of you?

Xavier shakes the wistful thinking away. He lifts the foam cup to inhale the steam, and then the noodles. His happy hum at filling his empty stomach barely interrupts him between bites, and his heart stirs when he hears you laugh softly under your breath.

You turn on your heel, ready to head back and eat at your own desk. But then you stop.

"Why…"

You stop, hesitate, and Xavier tilts his head.

You look at him, then away, biting your lip before you suddenly blurt out, "Why do you look at me like that?"

"Like what?"

You wave your hand, dismissive, or maybe looking for something that eludes you. "Like…I dunno. When you wake up, it's like you can't believe it. Like it's the first time you've seen me in years."

Xavier pauses. Dangerous, he thinks again. That ache settles back into his chest, and he feels much, much older.

Outwardly, he just shrugs, and then smiles.

"Because I missed you."

He pretended otherwise for your sake and for his members. For many of his fans, who, though well-intentioned, wouldn’t take well to the feelings he had for anyone. He’d fooled himself into thinking that having you around as his manager would be enough. Seeing you almost everyday, reveling in your comfort during exhausting tour cycles, bickering with you over spontaneous dinners because he claimed he was too lazy to cook and eat alone. But it wasn’t. No amount of you would ever suffice. 

   “I’m in love with you,” he repeats slowly, sounding out your name, letting it settle gently on his tongue that tastes faintly of you. “You don’t have to say anything back. I just…wanted you to know.” 

   “Oh,” You blink several times, as if trying to come to your senses, your arms bunched against his chest. You finger his collar nervously, taking shallow breaths, and lean against him once more, as if needing the support. He nearly collapses at the warmth that sears between your clothes—this love drunk fool—but keeps you steady, unwilling to let go. 

   “Oh indeed,” he groans, and he finds refuge in the crook of your neck a second time, inhaling your scent. He fights a smile at your rapid pulse, pleased that your reaction is not as dry or controlled as he’d feared. 

   “Do you want to come inside?” 

His head shoots up, narrowly missing your nose. Hell yeah, does he want to go into your home. He’ll probably say yes to staying there forever, fame and music and responsibilities be damned. You laugh when he nods furiously, and take him by the hand. “All right, then. Let’s go.” 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

   “Stop acting weird,” you chide, forcing Rafayel down on your couch. He reluctantly lets go of you as you head to the kitchen to fetch him a drink. “You’re here every other night.” 

   “Not recently,” Rafayel huffs. You can imagine his expression just from the way he breathes, and it makes you smile giddily. “Once my solo album comes out, I’ll be able to come over even less, I bet.”

Cold reality settles in; you pause and stare at your open fridge. Right. 

It was your genius idea to release his solo before DEEPSPACE’s group album, which is slated for next year. More traction, more touch points for the fans, more marketing and engagement opportunities. There’s whispers of the boys going global—as if they aren’t popular enough already—where their target audience will no longer be just Asia, and you had made promises that it could easily become a reality. 

Because it can. They’re breaking records by the day, and you’re on the verge of hiring your own assistant to filter the amount of calls and emails you receive. 

Once again, Rafayel will be in the blinding spotlight, and it’ll be your job to position it in a way that helps him shine best. 

You grab two raspberry seltzers and walk back to your friend, who’s now on his feet and examining the new canvases next to your window. He turns to you curiously. 

   “I didn’t know you were painting again,” he says, not yet detecting your sullen mood. “This is beautiful.” 

   “Thanks,” You hand him his seltzer and crack open your own. 

   “Is this…where we went for our prom afterparty?” 

   “Yeah. When Xavier thought it’d be the best idea to stay up for the sunrise, and it was cloudy,” A smile peeks through as you bring your bottle to your lips. “There wasn’t any view, really, but since everything else was so gray—“

   “—the ocean looked really blue,” Rafayel finishes gently. 

   “I thought it was worth remembering. It was right before you got recruited, you know?” 

He nods, and takes small sips of his beverage, seemingly as preoccupied as you, but likely for different reasons. You gaze at the painting proudly, remembering when times were simpler and how it was just you, Rafayel, and Xavier before your group grew. It’s not that you don’t like the others—you love them just as much as your brother, each member exhibiting qualities that complement each other’s gaps, and they treat you more like family than their manager, always seeking to experience their greatest milestones alongside you. 

Selfishly, though, you sometimes wish for a day where the world doesn’t know them—where they can go to the grocery store undisturbed, date people without worry, move through the mundane and not have it plastered on every magazine with a clickbait title. 

But they value their fans, and you do, too. It’s the collective love and support that’s lifted them up, provided an audience for their stories, and not a single DEEPSPACE member will ever take any of them for granted, Rafayel included. You know that if you’re not there to stop him, he’d work himself sick. 

   “Something’s troubling you.” Now, it’s Rafayel’s turn to lead you to your couch. “C’mon. Don’t shut me out. You’re making me anxious.” 

   “Nothing drastic,” you giggle, resting your back against a cushion. Your lids shut as you stretch out your legs, and the fatigue of your early morning workout finally starts to hit. “I’m thinking about how happy I am for you guys. Worried, too. It’s a lot.” 

   “Yeah. I feel like I have no right to complain, given how hard you work for us,” Rafayel chuckles drily. You hear him slide down, and you know he’s settled on one of your floor cushions. “And it’s stupid, but I’m scared of getting so busy I lose myself in all of it.”

   “Xavier mentioned something similar,” you note. “You know how many hobbies he has. God forbid he can’t indulge in them during your tour.” 

   “What, is it embroidering now?” 

   “No, crocheting.” 

   “Ah. Explains all the coasters.”

The both of you laugh again and for a moment, you bask in comfortable silence together. You can almost trick yourself into thinking that the kiss in front of your door hasn’t happened at all, let alone the love confession that still refuses to enter your ears. 

Rafayel, in love with you? Since when? And why? 

It’s messy. Cold guilt trickles into your gut as you think about how selfish you’d be in allowing any of this to happen. There’d been no contractual limits for your dating life, but for Rafayel? He’s the public’s, first and foremost. You don’t have the luxury to call him yours. And if you do, you’ll be shattering his dreams and all the years he spent bringing them to life. 

The other option: you date in secret. Keep your relationship (or whatever you want to call it) in the dark. People wouldn’t question your proximity, at the very least. You’d just have to spend time together in the confines of your homes, or go out with the rest of DEEPSPACE to not attract unwanted attention. 

Both possibilities are horrible.

Your nails dig into your skin, and you struggle to ease your breathing, lest he notice. You don’t want to process this today—it’s one of your few days off, and you intend to enjoy every second of it— but you know you’ll have to, eventually. You hear quiet shuffling, then Rafayel taking the seat next to you. A warm hand covers yours, squeezing it tightly.

   “Hey.” 

You turn to him lazily, and peek through your lashes.

   “Hey you,” you say, attempting a smile. “I can tell something’s bothering you now. What is it?” 

   “Did I complicate things by kissing you?” 

Your eyes open fully, and he swiftly looks away, shaking his hair to (try to) cover his pinkened ears. Clearly, he’s overthinking just as much as you. It probably doesn’t help that you’re completely alone, and in the safety of your home. No one to take pictures through your curtains; no hidden cameras ready to catch any wrongdoings. Your mind dizzies with the thought of your lips clashing again, warmth traveling all the way down to your toes. You unsuccessfully try to chase the feeling away. 

   “We kissed each other. It was mutual.” You shrug. “You’re my best friend, first and foremost. Nothing’s going to change that, okay?” 

   “But what if you felt obligated to? Because of our friendship?” 

You raise a brow. “No.” 

Clearly, you’re worrying about different things. Here you are, moving ten steps ahead, dreading a future that wouldn’t allow you two to be together, and he’s panicking over something that happened less than 10 minutes ago. 

Rafayel fidgets with your hand, smoothing his thumb over your palm. A small “...Okay,” leaves his lips, and the two of you sit in quiet again, fingers laced tightly. 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Tour has officially started, and already, you can hardly tell where your day starts or ends. You get up when the sun’s not out, and leave each concert venue—straight to the airport—at the dead of night. Get up, watch rehearsals, make phone calls, answer emails, meet various event coordinators, rinse, and repeat. Occasionally get chewed out by your higher ups for ‘coddling the boys,’ but that’s nothing new; it comes with the job. You’d gladly be their shield if it means ensuring they get at least six hours of sleep daily. 

Even in bed, your frantic energy keeps you up long enough for you to scroll through social media and get early fan reactions—mostly positive, to your relief, with sprinkles of gossip that barely reach the front page. Your heart skips a beat every time you come across a fan edit of Rafayel, his body rolls and sensual expressions slowed down for you to appreciate every pore, every angle, every part of his exposed skin that begs for your eyes to ravage him. And ravage him you do, sometimes even in your dreams, where there’s less clothing involved and definitely little to no talking between you. 

Your saving grace is that you’re almost never alone with him, whether in the dance studios or restaurants or backstage rooms. The most you share are fleeting glances and occasional shoulder squeezes, each gesture communicating what words cannot in the brief moments you can exist in each other’s spaces. 

With what free time you have, you paint. Xavier had gifted you a traveler’s painting kit for your birthday last year, and it’s come into clutch for the days that wear you down, making you question your many life choices and how they got you here. Your carry-on carries pages of oceans, forests, serene landscapes that you’d experienced before adulthood fully took you captive. 

Walks on the beach with Xavier and Rafayel where you and your best friend would watch Xavier scavenge for unbroken shells. Early morning crabbing expeditions with Sylus and Zayne. Your reward would be instant ramen on the boat, fresh crab parts elevating every sip of your broth. Winter hikes with Caleb; he’d be the only one willing to make the trip in below freezing temperature, because the view would be worth it. 

Every painting is a cherished memory—and reminds you of the reason you stayed so long with DEEPSPACE. They’re your family away from home. You can’t imagine living a life where they’re not alongside you for every win or loss. You don’t want to fathom not being there for their ups and downs, too. 

But when would you be able to walk away? Would you be able to, when the time came? 

You blink, and their world tour is already a quarter finished. The rest will play out for 10 more months. Then what? 

Another album, another tour, another schedule packed with photoshoots, interviews, and fan events. You see no end in sight, and rather than feeling excitement, you fear that you’ll end up drowning. It’s your paintbrush, really, that keeps you afloat. Every stroke, every blotch of color, every completed piece is a patch of sunlight that drinks the chill of frigid water from your skin, replacing it with warmth. 

So you cling to it: this secret hobby of yours. You don’t imagine it becoming anything more—you don’t allow yourself to dream beyond the reasonable boundaries you carved into the sand. 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

You hear a knock at your door just as you leave the bathroom, hair freshly washed. Shrugging on your bathrobe, you quickly greet your guests with a wide smile, stomach already rumbling. 

   “Check before you open for anyone next time,” Sylus says, flicking your forehead lightly. The rest of the members barge into your hotel room, quickly arranging extra chairs around the kitchen of your suite. It’s endearing—a sight you want to capture forever. “Security already caught a few antis on our floor.” 

   “They never come after me.” you reply, reaching for the takeout in his arms. He swings away deftly and rolls his eyes. 

   “Not true,” Rafayel calls from the table as he lays out the plastic utensils. “You’re not exactly faceless anymore. Be more careful.” 

You nod your head dismissively, sitting on the chair next to him. His long glance at your robe is hard to miss, and you instinctively tighten the tie around your waist, which earns you a small chuckle from him. You pinch his leg as if to say, “Not a word,” and it only makes him laugh harder. 

   “‘The hell’s wrong with you?” Caleb asks. 

   “Delusion.” 

   “Cool, so nothing new.” 

Sylus wordlessly hands out each sandwich order, shutting everyone up promptly. For the next ten minutes, only the sounds of your munching and approving hums fill the air. Rafayel lets out a deafening burp, making you clutch your left ear with a groan, and the silence is immediately broken by everyone’s howls, Caleb’s high-pitched gasps being the loudest. You end up covering both your ears.  

   “That was disgusting,” Zayne comments sternly, though without a hint of malice. “You’re an idol. Please have some decorum.” 

   “I’m off the clock, baby,” Rafayel sings, pulling at your wrist. “And my fans love this side of me. They said so during our last UsVerse live.” 

   “Speaking of, your next one is scheduled tomorrow,” You jab your finger at his chin. “That means you need to shave those three hairs off, Raf.” 

   “It’s called a stubble, and no more talking about work, you guys. Please.” he groans, dramatically tumbling off his chair. He lies on the floor with his head down in defeat, drawing a deep exhale from Zayne.

Xavier smiles and points at your living room couch. 

   “Why don’t we watch a movie?” 

   “The first one to clean up gets to pick,” you say, and nearly fall off your seat as the rest of DEEPSPACE lunges forward to grab their trash.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

The rest of your evening goes by in a blur. Sylus, with his gifted shoulders and superhuman speed, had tidied up your kitchen in a blink, and as expected, chose his favorite romcom that you all watched at least five times (thanks to him).

Still, you didn’t mind spending two hours with your head in Rafayel’s lap, legs perched on Caleb, and Zayne, Xavier, and Sylus huddled up on the floor, eyes glued to the screen. It was like before their debut, albeit before, you were cramped together in your apartment living room, snacking on popcorn and fruit ice cream as if there wasn’t a massive burden to be a worldwide success. 

You nod off here and there, blinking yourself awake when the boys woo at the main lead’s first kiss, but the rest of the movie flies by with you sound asleep. In the background, you still hear their usual theatrics, Zayne occasionally scolding them not to wake you with their obnoxious chortling. 

You startle awake when the room empties and the door closes, and you rise from the couch half-dazed, confused by their sudden absence.

   “Hey, they just left,” Rafayel says from the kitchen, his back facing you. He’s rinsing the cups they used for drinks. “I’ll go after I finish—”

   “Mmm,” You grumble and shuffle forward until your forehead hits his shoulders, and in your sleepiness, you miss the way he stiffens at your touch. “You can stay. Only if you want.” 

   “Yeah?” He asks breathily, slowly turning off the faucet. 

   “Yeah. We barely got to talk. You’re so busy.” 

   “Says you,” he snorts. “You’re busy taking meetings left and right.” 

   “So all of us can pay our bills.” This time, your response comes out as a sigh. You hate sitting in those virtual conference rooms more than anyone, especially when investors decide to join and give you unnecessary trouble. 

As if sensing your fatigue, Rafayel gently leads you to bed after drying his hands. He sits as you burrow under the covers, then quietly joins you until you’re lying face to face, just a breath away. You stir once, twice, and a final time before finding a comfortable position, and stare at him drowsily, a content smile on your face. 

   “Are we overworking you? You seem more tired than usual.” Rafayel murmurs, tentatively placing a palm on your cheek. You lean into it gladly, inhaling his familiar scent. 

   “You guys? Never.” 

   “But…?” 

   “Just lots more voices involved. Some with stupid ass opinions.” You twitch in annoyance thinking back at a few specific stakeholders you’d like to wring out. 

   “Tell me more.” 

After a slight pause, you share as little as possible about the new producers they have lined up for DEEPSPACE’s next album concept—even when the current one has barely finished cooking and has been out for less than a year. (There’s no need to tell him the unpleasant details of your….heated exchange.) 

Normally, it’s Rafayel and Sylus who draft, mix, and polish up their music, but their title track had been created and pushed out by a particularly renowned producer whose sound can’t be any more different. And the thing is, their fans knew the second they heard the melody. It was the one piece of constructive feedback that popped up consistently, and it’s what you leveraged to fight back. 

The title track was catchy, but it wasn’t DEEPSPACE. The lyrics were far from Rafayel’s whimsical storytelling or Sylus’ subtle, but emotionally impactful piano melodies. And you dreaded the possibility of them losing complete creative freedom someday because of an argument you couldn’t win. Becoming nothing but products, walking advertisements, hollow shells of themselves for the sake of profit. 

   “Hey,” Rafayel stops you abruptly. “You have to remember we have a say, too. They can’t make us do anything we don’t want to do.” 

   “It shouldn’t be your fight, though. It’s my job to protect you and let your focus be on your fans and music.” 

Rafayel interrupts you again by saying your name, concern etched in his fine features. 

   “Let me protect you, too. You can’t take all the hits for us.” 

   “But I want to.” you mumble stubbornly. 

   “Why, because it’s your job?” 

   “No, because—” 

You still, realization shocking you awake. Instantly, you think back to your first meeting, made dreamy by the simplicity of young adulthood. Back to where everything started, and you had an epiphany that was so loud, you suppressed it with all your might. 

  “You deserve a bigger stage.” You fidget, regretting the words as soon as they slip out of your lips. Who are you to tell Rafayel what he does or doesn’t deserve? This is probably the first time he ever noticed you. He probably thinks you’re one of his secret admirers, waiting to pounce on him at your first opportunity. There’s been many more of them, not that you’re counting. 

Oh, the woes of high school. Wanting to be unnoticed by the masses—and secretly hoping for that special someone to go against the grain and see you anyway. You scratch absentmindedly at the splotches of paint on your school uniform, now at an utter loss for words. 

   “I got my audience of one right here.” 

You look up just in time to see his wink, and suddenly, your entire world shifts. Gravity threatens to pull you under, and you clutch the edges of your skirt to keep yourself upright. What a stupid boy. A stupidly handsome, otherworldly, musically gifted boy who had to enter your orbit. How can life ever be the same after this day? How can you dare to perceive anyone else when all you can think of is the universe expanding in his gaze?

This is the reason why you’d stayed away for so long. Somewhere deep within you, you knew that once Rafayel's existence broke down your walls and fully coincided with your own, you’d do everything in your power to keep his world safe.

You were his audience of one, after all. It was the least you could do.

A slowed breath escapes you, and you cross your arms against your chest, suddenly shy and very aware of the lack of space between your body and Rafayel’s. He notices the shift immediately and cradles you closer, as if his proximity can somehow help ease your pounding heart. (It doesn't, but his attempts are endearing.)

When you first met Rafayel, you found him rather annoying. Whereas you were quiet and studious, a stickler for rules, he was unpredictably carefree, a rogue wave crashing against the rest of the tide. You listened to your teachers, never dared to be late, took copious notes even during the subjects you hated most. He was a seasoned regular at detention and doodled on all his papers, including tests. (Still, much to your aggravation, he always scored second best.) You’d vowed never to interact with him, avoiding his bubble of friends in the hallways, library, and track field—people like you didn’t mesh well with people like him. If he was a star in the sky, you were a speck of dust scattered light years away, a dim flash of light that would never be seen or appreciated by human eyes.

And then you heard him sing. It was after school, and you’d forgotten your art supplies in the music room where he often took refuge on days his heart felt the heaviest. You’d slumped against the wall for nearly an hour just to feel his voice melt into your ears, a cool breeze that enlivened your spirit in the peak of summer heat. He made you want to pick up an empty canvas, swallow the sunset, and immortalize its bittersweet farewell through the simple language of art. 

He found you much later, your eyes glistening with restrained emotion, and you slowly scooted yourself up with an extended hand. 

   “You deserve a bigger stage,” There was a slight tremble in your voice. He grasped your hand, squeezed it once, and grinned back at you, both pleased and shocked that it was his closeted passion, his secret sanctuary that drew you into his sphere. Even in your attempts to make yourself invisible, he’d seen you, known about you long before you ever even noticed him. He could recognize your artwork anywhere—how you loved to recreate the seaside and its inhabitants, breathing a different kind of life into every subject with a light stroke here, a heavy-handed splash of color there. 

You thought yourself unseen; he found divine mystery in anything your fingers touched. 

   “I got my audience of one right here,” he replied coolly, throwing in a cheeky wink. You sighed then, the magic of the moment broken, but the shy smile that curved your lips upward became a cherished memory he often revisited, even when you were at his side.

Deciding to retrieve your paintbrushes that day was perhaps the best decision you made in your life; it changed everything for you and the boy you’d thought would forever remain a stranger.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

   “What take are they on?” You check your watch. Freshly showered, somewhat rested, and in new clothes, you’d walked into the studio with a rising suspicion that no one had left after you told them to exactly fifteen hours ago. 

   “39,” Their producer responds weakly. He readjusts his cap to hide his greasy hair, and you crinkle your nose slightly, but pretend to be unaffected. You’ve smelled worse things. “I told them 29 takes ago that they got everything, but…” 

   “And you meant it?” 

   “Yes,” The poor man is clearly frazzled, and he looks at you with a desperation that almost makes you break into laughter. “I’m very serious about my work. I’d never lie.” 

   “I know, Kyle,” you sigh, squeezing the bridge of your nose. “Okay. Wrap it up here. I’m going in.” 

Without bothering to wait for a response, you storm into their recording room, a dangerous glint in your glare. Kyle quietly lowers the music and beelines for the exit.

Xavier is the first to see you. He instantly leans against the wall to make himself as small as possible, sliding until he’s hidden behind Sylus’ wide shoulders.

   “Hey, we were recording,” Rafayel complains, then turns to you with a fury that can easily rival yours. “What the hell are you doing?” 

   “My job,” you reply, your face frighteningly void of expression. “You've been here since yesterday morning. You have a photoshoot in six hours. Get out and go home, because you all smell and look like ass.” 

   “But the album—”

   “Is nearly done. This is your last song. You have the weekend to revisit it if it needs tweaking.” 

Zayne rolls his neck with a wince, then places a tentative hand on Rafayel’s shoulder. He’s the only one of the group who can convince him, other than Sylus, but you’d rather this conversation doesn’t end with a death match of an argument, which often happens with the latter. 

   “She’s right. We need to rest, Raf.” 

Rafayel scowls and refuses to meet your gaze, but doesn’t respond as the rest of his members wordlessly take off their headphones. It’s not like you don’t understand him—just as you expect perfection in their schedule, promotions, and partnerships, he doesn’t quit until their music radiates excellence. It’s the reason why he’s the leader of DEEPSPACE, an award-winning, globally recognized artist group, and why you’re their manager, ensuring that they receive the treatment and care they deserve. 

To their fans (lovingly referred to as hunters) they’re idols. Irresistible, untouchable, unstoppable. To you, they’re the odd ragtag of friends you’d loved since high school: Xavier being your adopted brother, Zayne the prodigy valedictorian, Caleb a popular athlete, Sylus an unexpected band nerd (he played the alto saxophone), and Rafayel being…Rafayel. Your best friend, your other whole, but right now, your greatest, most aggravating enemy. 

It’s not the first time you’ve butted heads. In reality, if a week goes by without you two bickering about the most miniscule of things, the rest of the boys know one of you is either deathly sick or actually dying. 

   “You’re being mean,” he mutters, but there’s little fight in his tone. You can tell he’s exhausted by the way he holds himself up and the bubble of air he keeps in his cheeks to swallow his yawn. Idiot. 

   “And you’re not listening to me,” you fume as the both of you walk out of the studio and toward the parking lot. He trails behind you as you rant about his obsession shadowing his responsibilities as a leader, how you can’t be their time tracker on top of the hundreds of other tasks you need to tackle to keep them in the spotlight, how you’re tired, too, and haven’t had a proper day off for an entire year helping them prepare for their comeback—

   “Then quit,” he argues. Your car nearly skids as you stomp on the brake, and his head jolts forward at the sudden stop. It’s a red light, anyway. He can suck it up if he’s mad about your seatbelt check. “Hey, what the fuck?! That was dangerous!” 

   “Not another word from you, fuckhead,” You seethe, ready to kick him out and leave him shivering on the street. (You would never, but the thought of it makes you feel a little bit better.) “Just because I got some sleep doesn’t mean I got enough of it. I’m at-will, so I can and will walk away from you.”

   “I didn’t mean it. You don’t mean what you say, either.” 

   “Well,” It’s your turn to pout, and tired tears blur your vision as you clumsily drive into the garage of your apartment complex. The same one he lives in, just a floor above you, which is fun when he's not hurting your feelings. Work-life balance, who? “I don’t want to talk to you.” 

Once you park, you toss the car keys at him and childishly run to the elevator, not wanting to share the small space with him and his stupid face. He catches up to you quickly, his long legs giving him unfair advantage, and he keeps the elevator doors open as you sulk inside. 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Your phone rings you awake, and your hand swats against your bedside table until it swipes across your screen. It’s been a month after DEEPSPACE’s album release, and every morning has been filled to the brim with incessant phone calls—from reporters, your company higher-ups, other artists eager to collaborate—and while you’re grateful for it all, you find yourself missing slower times when your weekends could actually be considered weekends. 

   “Yes?” You drag half your body off the bed, trying your absolute best not to sound like you’d just woken up. You fail anyway.

   “It’s me,” Xavier whispers, somehow even quieter than usual, “Did you see we made #1 Artist on the Billboard? It was updated last night, I think.” 

   “No,” You’re definitely more alert now, and you quickly scroll to check. “Oh my god, Xavier. This is great news. You guys deserve it.” 

Your mind jumps through their tour schedule, which hasn’t been announced, but with this being their fifth win in the charts and six of their twelve songs going viral, you anticipate having to book an extra date for each city. More money, more work, more reward. There’s a point to all this, you tell yourself. For them and for you, and for whatever future you hope to build outside of your job. In this moment and time, you must continue painting their canvas while yours remains untouched, just a bit longer (is what you told yourself for the past eight years).

   “Wanted to tell you before mom and dad,” A snore breaks through in the background, and he pauses. “We were up celebrating. Sylus just went to sleep.” 

   “Have fun,” you say. He shares more about their small celebration, how Caleb and Zayne got uncharacteristically drunk, ending their night with one too many songs on Rafayel’s karaoke. (Zayne?) Sylus had spawned his saxophone for an impromptu solo, and the three only ended their performance when they got a noise complaint from a disgruntled neighbor. The rest of their evening was spent ordering an ungodly amount of pizza pies, guzzling sodas and beers, and passing out on two tubs of ice cream. You don’t want to imagine how Rafayel’s living room smells, making a mental note to order him some air fresheners. 

After hanging up, you do a few stretches to loosen your muscles. And while you’re still admittedly exhausted, the good news motivates you through your routine. Brush your teeth, wash up lightly, change into comfortable clothes for jogging, and head to the park. There’s a pond you like to circle when you run where, on occasion, ducklings wade in the water alongside you. On warmer days, even turtles tentatively poke their heads out to watch you pass. 

Today, you’re accompanied by both, and you take it as a good omen. While your lungs burn, you allow your thoughts to roam freely, unrestricted and free during the sole hour you give to yourself. 

You’d never imagined becoming an artist manager, let alone someone who’d be in charge of DEEPSPACE. There was no doubt in your heart that they’d make it big—you were certain the moment you heard Rafayel sing—but when he and the rest of the members entrusted their success in your hands, a fresh graduate with a fine arts degree, you couldn’t think of a reason to say no. You told yourself you’d be there to help them get started, and pull back once you got them on their feet. 

It starts to drizzle, and you squint up at Linkon through the rain, one of its brightly-lit buildings staring back at you with a ballooned perfume advertisement featuring Rafayel and Xavier, their smiles brilliant against the downcast gloom. Your friend and your brother, two people you’d give up your life for. It’s what you’ve already done, putting art behind as a hobby, for now. (For now, for now, for now are the two words keeping you going.)

And you’d do it all over again if they asked. 

Distant thunder lights up the sky, and you reluctantly cut your exercise short to sprint back to your apartment. By the time you get to your floor, you’re wet and shivering, but feel more than alive, your burdens temporarily alleviated by the endorphins ricocheting inside your (still sleep-deprived) brain. Rafayel leans against your door with his arms crossed, and you still your pace. 

You’d meant it when you said you didn’t want to talk. He was stubborn, and so were you. Just because you meant the world to each other didn’t mean he was immune to your cold shoulder. Outwardly, the public could never tell. You were always professional and reserved, guiding DEEPSPACE expertly from the shadows. (There was even a growing fanbase for you and your dedication to your work, which you didn’t entirely hate, but the thought of your privacy dissipating always made your stomach drop. That wasn’t what you signed up for.)

Behind the scenes, the rest of the boys knew that you’d fought, and wisely let it be. The light and pointless arguing was normal; it was how you two communicated. Once in a while, though, he or you would cross the line and say something truly hurtful, and that was when the bouts of silence or stilted exchanges came until someone apologized. 

Admittedly, it was a bad habit you and Rafayel had to work on. It felt inevitable, considering you were polar opposites—he, the sun, and you, the moon—but you knew it didn’t have to. 

Rafayel barely gives time for you to greet him when he strides toward you, features indecipherable. He nearly rams his forehead into your shoulder, his tall body folding abnormally to meet your height. If you weren’t prepared, you’d have fallen and taken him down with you. 

   “Hey,” he grumbles, his voice muffled. He slides his head until his lips meet exposed skin, and you wince at the warmth it brings. 

   “Morning,” you reply, unsure of how to react. 

   “I’m sorry.” 

You fight a smile, immediately irritated by how quickly your anger dims (stand up, girl!), but you can’t resist patting his back anyway. 

   “For what?” 

   “Being an asshole. Saying what I said.” 

His hair tickles your ears as he somehow digs his nose deeper into your neck, like a large, distraught, touch-starved puppy. It brings a reluctant laugh out of you, damn it, because you don’t want to give in this easily. 

   “I’m drenched. You’re going to catch a cold.” you say, starting to push him away. He stiffens and brings you even closer in retaliation, not seeming to care that his clothes are getting wet, too. 

   “Do you accept my apology? I can get on my knees and beg—” 

   “Yes, I accept, thank you,” you interrupt, panicking. “We don’t need to do any of that.” 

He nods, then continues to stand there awkwardly as he hugs you under the fluorescent lights of your hallway. A minute passes. His breathing slows, and he lets out a deep exhale as he squeezes your arms. Once, twice, then three times for good measure. He peers up until you’re staring eye-to-eye, your noses nearly touching. It doesn’t faze you (the man has no concept of personal space, probably doesn’t even know its definition) but you begin to worry, a layer of guilt settling over your relief. 

   “Hey, I didn’t intend to ice you out completely,” You raise your hand to brush his bangs past his forehead, repeating the motion until his gaze hardens into something like resolve. Well, that wasn’t helpful, clearly. “I, wait—I’m sorry if you felt like I did. Because I did, and maybe that was petty. I mean, it was petty. We were both tired and I took it out on—” 

   “Can I kiss you?” 

You freeze, because surely, you misheard him. You’re probably the one getting sick, already knee-deep in delirium. It’s your turn to suck in a breath, and you muster all the nonchalance in your body (although you're quite chalant about this whole ordeal) to glaze over his words with another "ha-ha-haaaaa," the last ha drawn out with a bit more force than you would’ve liked.

   “You need to stop interrupting me,” you huff, and he shakes his head. 

   “Can I kiss you?” he repeats, and this time, he places a palm along the side of your jaw, cupping your face tenderly. Rafayel, tender? Toward you?  “Yes or no, sweetheart, just two answers. If it’s a no, I’ll respect it completely. If yes…”

He gauges you carefully, his cotton candy eyes seemingly memorizing and reveling in your shock. You make the mistake of glancing down for less than half a second, because he catches the shift (he’s always noticed you, seen you, and he’s frustrated you haven’t caught on), and your grip on him tightens instinctively. 

Rafayel, your best friend, your other whole, is what you always call him, because you don’t believe in people ever being halves. A decade ago, at the front of the empty music room, the wall you carefully placed in front of him crumbled—and you finally saw him, and were inexplicably drawn to him like a sailor entranced by a siren song. 

Life had certainly been colorful before. You had a good group of friends, a family that loved you, and a passion for art that could bloom into a career. But he made everything alive, intensifying every hue of your emotions and experiences until they evolved into something else entirely. Something more beautiful and long-lasting. There were no words to describe his effect on you, so you never bothered to try. You never thought you had the privilege.

Until now. 

All it takes is a nod for him to eagerly close the distance, and his lips instantly find home on yours. Hints of mint toothpaste and rain swirl together as you kiss him back, your teeth occasionally knocking against each other in your race to learn each other deeply, as if he isn’t threatening to claim your soul. (As if you haven’t claimed his already.)

His tongue flicks against your bottom lip hesitantly, somehow awakening your senses even further, and you graciously give him access. He tastes you eagerly, even taking the liberty to nibble you whenever you try to talk, and irked, you do the same, causing him to gasp against you and quite literally steal your breath. 

He inhales you like a directionless man in a desert—you’re his spring, his compass, his well of eternal life, and he’s determined to keep hold of the salvation he’s found in you. With you, he’ll never be lost; with you, he’ll never thirst. He’s never been particularly religious, but he thinks he can understand the point of worship as you wrap yourself around him, your wrists locked securely behind his neck and your chest heaving heavily against his own. 

   “Rafayel,” you break free, and he pauses, drunk with excessive bliss. “What’s happening?” 

He quirks an eyebrow, then regards you softly. “We’re kissing, duh.” 

   “Yeah, but why?” 

   “Idiot, are you seriously asking why I’m here doing all this?” 

You frown. He pecks your cheek, the tip of your nose, and lingers near your lips, just because he can. When you melt into him, he caves almost immediately. The two of you kiss again, your fingers intertwining, and you begin to forget the time, your hour-by-hour to-do-list, or what you planned to have for breakfast. Not that you’re particularly hungry anymore. 

He murmurs your name and reluctantly pulls away. You sway unevenly as he brings your joined hands to his lips, pressing against the top of your knuckles tenderly. He almost looks anxious.

   “...Rafayel?”