Work Text:
His hands are soaked.
That’s your first thought when you take a peek at Rafayel as he works on a new painting. A view you’ve seen countless times since this friendship blossomed has changed; what was once a sight of tranquility, of possession even, now makes a hurricane erupt in your heart.
Where butterflies once lived now houses a wreckage.
Rafayel has always been a master at his craft. A stroke of a brush becomes a world when he is the creator, and seemingly random color palettes complement each other when combined through his hands. There are masterpieces of his you still struggle to understand, blues and purples that convey something deeper than death but lighter than life.
But that’s what makes him so thrilling, isn’t it? The mystery behind his decisions, the unyielding cacophony of colors that shouldn’t combine but do?
It makes your stomach churn now.
As you watch those hands — light and pearly in their luster — glide the brush on the canvas, you can only think of the way they wrapped around a man’s neck, skillfully cutting off his airflow and leading him to a gradual death. You think of the reds and greens of the man’s arteries and veins, the way they decorated the soon-to-be corpse as he lost consciousness. You think of the harsh words the man said that quickly became lost in the air he cannot breathe now.
All because the man had said a few insults about Lemuria.
The artist you’ve always admired is vengeful underneath his laughter, and you don’t know how to feel about it.
Your hand shakes as it holds onto the doorframe, your unabashed stalking becoming more obvious. It’s a miracle that Rafayel hasn’t noticed you with the way you’re practically inside the studio.
His hand shakes too. His eyes are still on the canvas, but his words are directed towards you. “I can see you, you know.”
The miracle has expired, apparently.
You walk inside, careful not to step on paint cans and other art tools lying around, but you stop at a distance. Despite that, you can see the exhaustion lines on his face, the dark circles contrasting those bright purple eyes. You can see him slowly crumble.
“Come closer.” It’s an order, but in his voice, it sounds like a request you can choose to deny.
When you don’t respond, he sighs, placing the paintbrush down. You’ve never seen him stop in the middle of painting, yet he does so for you. “Are you still thinking about what happened earlier?”
You nod. The little movement suddenly feels too heavy, perhaps due to the unsaid words that sit behind the gesture.
“Are you scared of me?” he then asks.
The question alarms you, making you unabashedly run over to him. You pull him into a hug that traps like nets but feels like home. “No! Please don’t think that.”
His body turns rigid in your grasp, but even in his lack of response, the feeling you struggled to define earlier slowly becomes clearer. You can feel his heart beat like it wants to jump out of his body and crawl to yours, and you realize that your heart wants to do the same.
Your heart was his ever since you’d first laid your eyes on his art.
Your heart was his ever since he began coming over to your apartment for casual conversations, even bringing his easel because you had inspired him so much.
And your heart stayed his after you saw the extent of what his hands are capable of.
“I’m not scared,” you murmur like it’s a divine vow. “I’m…”
But what do you feel exactly? What is this fire that traverses your body and lights up your soul?
“Speechless?” Rafayel fills in unhelpfully. If you could see his face, he probably has a smirk on it. And if you can look closer, hidden behind the smirk are a thousand doubts, a thousand failures, a thousand wounds in his heart.
What comes out of your mouth next is a slip of the tongue. “Angry.”
“Angry?” he asks, and if you could see his face here, his lips would be pursed and his brows would crease. Maybe he’d even tilt his head like a curious (cat) fish.
Even at the happy little accident, you don’t back down. “At whoever and whatever carved you into somebody that needs to be vengeful.”
That makes him crumble completely.
His arms wrap around your body, engulfing you in like a tidal wave meant to thrill. Burying his face in the crook of your neck, you feel as though the fighter in him has found peace for the first time in a while.
He doesn’t say another word, but the silence holds no weight. However, his head on your shoulder begins to press a bit, and when you gently lift him up from your hold, you see that he’s fallen asleep.
The sight makes you smile. “Rafie?”
“Mmm…” he hums, still asleep but awake enough to pout. “What?”
You’re about to tell him to wake up so you can walk him to his bedroom, but the words disappear from your tongue when you see the canvas behind you. What lies there is a portrait of you, every line of color a compliment to your existence. The lines on your hand as it clings to the doorframe, the lines on the side of your eyes as you try to make sense of your feelings, the lines of color in your eyes displaying the utmost attention you were giving him as he painted.
Hm. So he did notice you, and he noticed every detail you preferred to have remained unseen and hidden.
“Cutie?” Rafayel murmurs, his head falling back to your shoulder like it’s a sanctuary he never wants to leave. “What’s wrong?”
As you finally find a way to walk him to his bedroom (which recently has become your haven too), your soul echoes an answer you don’t say aloud.
Nothing’s wrong. Nothing at all.