Thank you for the ask! ♪(. ❛ ᴗ ❛.)♪
More love and deepspace nonsense. Takes place between death and rebirth, and to our yesterday. Features my oc/mc Faedolyn. Rafayel and Xavier are present, Zayne is not. 810 word polyam fic with a reference to what I'll call "di/e/t culture."
Xavier and Rafayel found Faedolyn in the backseat of Rafayel's sports car. Discovering Faedolyn in self-imposed isolation — melancholy and angry, had become painfully commonplace since Zayne's departure; and this behaviour had even influenced Rafayel's request to Xavier to attend this event, since his bodyguard had left so conspicuously in the middle of the last event Faedolyn had agreed to attend.
Rafayel nodded Xavier to the other side of the vehicle so the pair of them could slide into the back on either side of their partner. He groaned dramatically as he slumped into the car, letting his head fall across his partner's lap in a display of exhaustion.
"It's finally over," Rafayel whined happily, letting the back of his hand fall to his forehead.
Xavier's hips collided with Faedolyn's as he took his seat, his closer arm snaking around their shoulders while his opposite hand curled around to cradle their face towards him as he asked them, "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I—" Faedolyn began, pulling Xavier's hand away from them only to have it snatched further away by Rafayel.
"Wait, were you crying?" Rafayel asked, surprised. He hadn't noticed they'd been separated for so long, and hadn't really seen Fae in tears for weeks now.
"No, I just—" Faedolyn huffed, embarrassed. "I just upset myself because something happened and I realized that a few months ago it would've really upset me, but with … with everything that's happened lately, it barely breached the surface … but not in a good way."
"What happened?" asked Xavier, attentive and to the point.
"Don't say it was nothing," Rafayel insisted and Fae couldn't help a smirk at how silly he looked with Xavier petting his hair across their lap, and how silly they felt to accept Xavier and Rafayel's concern over something that wasn't life or death, or safety or separation.
Faedolyn reached into a pocket on their jacket and handed Rafayel a business card for a bariatric surgeon.
Rafayel's eyes lit up like he might set the car on fire, and Fae put a steadying hand on his chest in anticipation of Rafayel needing defusing.
"What is it?" Xavier asked, even as he accepted the card from Rafayel.
"A fucking weight loss clinic?" Rafayel boomed, sitting up sharply. "Who gave this to you?"
Fae tried to take the card back from Xavier as they answered, but he held his grip and slipped his hand away so Faedolyn fell against his chest.
"A well-meaning girl," Faedolyn insisted. They stretched and succeeded in stealing back the card this time. "The gallery director's girlfriend." Fae turned to Rafayel and took one of his hands in one of theirs with a sad smile. "She said she'd seen three celebrity break ups recently and suggested I take advantage of your wallet while things were good — whether to keep your interest or to make sure another man would look at me after."
The distress in Rafayel's two-toned eyes bordered on hysterical as he moved his free hand to cradle Faedolyn's elbow as he leaned into their space as if clinging to them from a precipice.
"You know that I think you're perfect, right?" he asked desperately. "More breathtaking than any natural wonder—"
"Raf—" Fae sighed, as if prepared to disagree or chastise him.
"I'm serious," he promised. "If anyone looks at you and thinks you need to change, then their perspective is so far removed from what I value that I kind of even regret showing my work here. You shouldn't value an opinion like this either."
The three of them were accustomed to people presuming things about their lives; operating under the illusion that certain experiences were universal. Yet no matter how many times people presumed, intuit or even, on occasion, deserved the worst that Rafayel could be, he was never able to rest when wracked by the insecurity that these impressions might be shared by one he loved.
"I know—" Faedolyn began, but then Rafayel's hand flicked up and stole the business card back from Fae.
"Good," he said with a confident finality, burning the business card with a quick flicker of flame.
Faedolyn chuckled softly and shook their head, "I was saying, this didn't even upset me, not the way it might've before. The world won't end if—"
"At all," Xavier said, helpless. "The world's not ending, and you don't need surgery."
"Mmn. Not that kind, anyway," Faedolyn pouted.
"Right," Rafayel agreed, sadly, not interested in offering future-shame in the event that Faedolyn's medical needs took a turn in the future. "Because you're perfect," he repeated himself; more than incidentally to keep the subject from turning to Zayne.
Rafayel kissed Faedolyn deeply, pushing them into Xavier's embrace, and then kissed Xavier too, quick and affectionate.
"I'll drive," he declared, but the meaning of his words were clear: 'Let's go home.'
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