J A N E

27 I paint with bleach and draw sometimes ♡

[jane-the-good]

WELCOME

I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU.

SHOP

bleach painted Love and Deepspace hoodies & tees and one of one keychains

FICS

CALEB

SYLUS

RAFAYEL

ENGLISH DUBS

SYLUS

RAFAYEL

CALEB

BLEACH ART & LINE ART

LOVE AND DEEPSPACE

SLEEP TOKEN

STARDEW VALLEY

HXH

JJK

MY HERO ACADEMIA

BILLIE EILISH

HAIKYU!!

CONNECT

TIKTOK: jane.the.good

AO3

[jane-the-good]

LOVE AND DEEPSPACE

--- as bleach painted tees---

summer update!!!!!! these are all fitted tees!!!

they’re all on my website if you you wanna match with meeeee ◡̈

SYLUS

When a dragon senses death, it flies alone to a distant valley. In its final moments, flowers bloom from its body. The dragon dies only after the flowers cover every bone.

The back has a dragon skeleton descending. The front has datura flowers blooming from the heart.

ZAYNE

Foreseer Zayne’s frozen heart beginning to bloom, all because of fate Jasmine blooms where cold once reigned, piercing through or blossoming from the very heart they seek to warm.

RAFAYEL

The Lemurian skeleton on the back is the weight Rafayel carries for Lemuria and fire lilies blaze with the fierce, unyielding passion that fuels his soul.

Rafayel may sometimes appear vulnerable or in need of protection, and may even be accompanied by a bodyguard. But he is more than capable of defending himself, and more importantly, Lemuria. His true strength lies in his dedication to restoring Lemuria’s lost honor. When he first came face to face with the Lemurian skeleton, it awakened a profound resolve inside him. He did what he had to do.

XAVIER

Xavier's being a forget-me-not, while Lumiere hides behind a mask.

Forget-me-nots represent enduring memory and unwavering love, which is the entirety of what Xavier, as Lumiere, yearns for. These flowers delicately bloom across his mask, intertwining with the crescent moon motif he carries. His fear and vulnerability keep him from fully unveiling who he truly is beneath the mask.

CALEB

Caleb (X-02) has been altered to his very core. Mechanical components fused directly into his spine, extending into his brain, shaping not only his physical form but also the way he thinks, perceives, and behaves.

At the center of his chest, where a human heart might once have been, core mechanisms pulse with an energy. From these components, apple blossoms bloom, something only nature can control.

[jane-the-good]

LOVE AND DEEPSPACE

--- as bleach painted tees---

summer update!!!!!! these are all fitted tees!!!

they’re all on my website if you you wanna match with meeeee ◡̈

SYLUS

When a dragon senses death, it flies alone to a distant valley. In its final moments, flowers bloom from its body. The dragon dies only after the flowers cover every bone.

The back has a dragon skeleton descending. The front has datura flowers blooming from the heart.

ZAYNE

Foreseer Zayne’s frozen heart beginning to bloom, all because of fate Jasmine blooms where cold once reigned, piercing through or blossoming from the very heart they seek to warm.

RAFAYEL

The Lemurian skeleton on the back is the weight Rafayel carries for Lemuria and fire lilies blaze with the fierce, unyielding passion that fuels his soul.

Rafayel may sometimes appear vulnerable or in need of protection, and may even be accompanied by a bodyguard. But he is more than capable of defending himself, and more importantly, Lemuria. His true strength lies in his dedication to restoring Lemuria’s lost honor. When he first came face to face with the Lemurian skeleton, it awakened a profound resolve inside him. He did what he had to do.

XAVIER

Xavier's being a forget-me-not, while Lumiere hides behind a mask.

Forget-me-nots represent enduring memory and unwavering love, which is the entirety of what Xavier, as Lumiere, yearns for. These flowers delicately bloom across his mask, intertwining with the crescent moon motif he carries. His fear and vulnerability keep him from fully unveiling who he truly is beneath the mask.

CALEB

Caleb (X-02) has been altered to his very core. Mechanical components fused directly into his spine, extending into his brain, shaping not only his physical form but also the way he thinks, perceives, and behaves.

At the center of his chest, where a human heart might once have been, core mechanisms pulse with an energy. From these components, apple blossoms bloom, something only nature can control.

[jane-the-good]

LOVE AND DEEPSPACE

--- as bleach painted tees---

summer update!!!!!! these are all fitted tees!!!

they’re all on my website if you you wanna match with meeeee ◡̈

SYLUS

When a dragon senses death, it flies alone to a distant valley. In its final moments, flowers bloom from its body. The dragon dies only after the flowers cover every bone.

The back has a dragon skeleton descending. The front has datura flowers blooming from the heart.

ZAYNE

Foreseer Zayne’s frozen heart beginning to bloom, all because of fate Jasmine blooms where cold once reigned, piercing through or blossoming from the very heart they seek to warm.

RAFAYEL

The Lemurian skeleton on the back is the weight Rafayel carries for Lemuria and fire lilies blaze with the fierce, unyielding passion that fuels his soul.

Rafayel may sometimes appear vulnerable or in need of protection, and may even be accompanied by a bodyguard. But he is more than capable of defending himself, and more importantly, Lemuria. His true strength lies in his dedication to restoring Lemuria’s lost honor. When he first came face to face with the Lemurian skeleton, it awakened a profound resolve inside him. He did what he had to do.

XAVIER

Xavier's being a forget-me-not, while Lumiere hides behind a mask.

Forget-me-nots represent enduring memory and unwavering love, which is the entirety of what Xavier, as Lumiere, yearns for. These flowers delicately bloom across his mask, intertwining with the crescent moon motif he carries. His fear and vulnerability keep him from fully unveiling who he truly is beneath the mask.

CALEB

Caleb (X-02) has been altered to his very core. Mechanical components fused directly into his spine, extending into his brain, shaping not only his physical form but also the way he thinks, perceives, and behaves.

At the center of his chest, where a human heart might once have been, core mechanisms pulse with an energy. From these components, apple blossoms bloom, something only nature can control.

[jane-the-good]

LOVE AND DEEPSPACE

--- as bleach painted tees---

summer update!!!!!! these are all fitted tees!!!

they’re all on my website if you you wanna match with meeeee ◡̈

SYLUS

When a dragon senses death, it flies alone to a distant valley. In its final moments, flowers bloom from its body. The dragon dies only after the flowers cover every bone.

The back has a dragon skeleton descending. The front has datura flowers blooming from the heart.

ZAYNE

Foreseer Zayne’s frozen heart beginning to bloom, all because of fate Jasmine blooms where cold once reigned, piercing through or blossoming from the very heart they seek to warm.

RAFAYEL

The Lemurian skeleton on the back is the weight Rafayel carries for Lemuria and fire lilies blaze with the fierce, unyielding passion that fuels his soul.

Rafayel may sometimes appear vulnerable or in need of protection, and may even be accompanied by a bodyguard. But he is more than capable of defending himself, and more importantly, Lemuria. His true strength lies in his dedication to restoring Lemuria’s lost honor. When he first came face to face with the Lemurian skeleton, it awakened a profound resolve inside him. He did what he had to do.

XAVIER

Xavier's being a forget-me-not, while Lumiere hides behind a mask.

Forget-me-nots represent enduring memory and unwavering love, which is the entirety of what Xavier, as Lumiere, yearns for. These flowers delicately bloom across his mask, intertwining with the crescent moon motif he carries. His fear and vulnerability keep him from fully unveiling who he truly is beneath the mask.

CALEB

Caleb (X-02) has been altered to his very core. Mechanical components fused directly into his spine, extending into his brain, shaping not only his physical form but also the way he thinks, perceives, and behaves.

At the center of his chest, where a human heart might once have been, core mechanisms pulse with an energy. From these components, apple blossoms bloom, something only nature can control.

[jane-the-good]

LOVE AND DEEPSPACE

--- as bleach painted tees---

summer update!!!!!! these are all fitted tees!!!

they’re all on my website if you you wanna match with meeeee ◡̈

SYLUS

When a dragon senses death, it flies alone to a distant valley. In its final moments, flowers bloom from its body. The dragon dies only after the flowers cover every bone.

The back has a dragon skeleton descending. The front has datura flowers blooming from the heart.

ZAYNE

Foreseer Zayne’s frozen heart beginning to bloom, all because of fate Jasmine blooms where cold once reigned, piercing through or blossoming from the very heart they seek to warm.

RAFAYEL

The Lemurian skeleton on the back is the weight Rafayel carries for Lemuria and fire lilies blaze with the fierce, unyielding passion that fuels his soul.

Rafayel may sometimes appear vulnerable or in need of protection, and may even be accompanied by a bodyguard. But he is more than capable of defending himself, and more importantly, Lemuria. His true strength lies in his dedication to restoring Lemuria’s lost honor. When he first came face to face with the Lemurian skeleton, it awakened a profound resolve inside him. He did what he had to do.

XAVIER

Xavier's being a forget-me-not, while Lumiere hides behind a mask.

Forget-me-nots represent enduring memory and unwavering love, which is the entirety of what Xavier, as Lumiere, yearns for. These flowers delicately bloom across his mask, intertwining with the crescent moon motif he carries. His fear and vulnerability keep him from fully unveiling who he truly is beneath the mask.

CALEB

Caleb (X-02) has been altered to his very core. Mechanical components fused directly into his spine, extending into his brain, shaping not only his physical form but also the way he thinks, perceives, and behaves.

At the center of his chest, where a human heart might once have been, core mechanisms pulse with an energy. From these components, apple blossoms bloom, something only nature can control.

[jane-the-good]

LOVE AND DEEPSPACE

as bleach painted tees

—new year update—

My previous tees are discontinued… so my website has an update!!!

★ these tees pull white instead of pink!!

★ the cotton is a heavier weight!!

★ I also decided to increase the size of the design on the front of each one!!

They also have a worn edge on the sleeves and collar!! I originally wanted this for the design, since everything is themed around lasting time and the wear that experience leaves on the heart ♡

they’re all on my website if you you wanna match with meeeee ◡̈

RAFAYEL

The Lemurian skeleton on the back is the weight Rafayel carries for Lemuria and fire lilies blaze with the fierce, unyielding passion that fuels his soul.

Rafayel may sometimes appear vulnerable or in need of protection, and may even be accompanied by a bodyguard. But he is more than capable of defending himself, and more importantly, Lemuria. His true strength lies in his dedication to restoring Lemuria’s lost honor. When he first came face to face with the Lemurian skeleton, it awakened a profound resolve inside him. He did what he had to do.

CALEB

Caleb (X-02) has been altered to his very core. Mechanical components fused directly into his spine, extending into his brain, shaping not only his physical form but also the way he thinks, perceives, and behaves.

At the center of his chest, where a human heart might once have been, core mechanisms pulse with an energy. From these components, apple blossoms bloom, something only nature can control.

SYLUS

When a dragon senses death, it flies alone to a distant valley. In its final moments, flowers bloom from its body. The dragon dies only after the flowers cover every bone.

The back has a dragon skeleton descending. The front has datura flowers blooming from the heart.

ZAYNE

Foreseer Zayne’s frozen heart beginning to bloom, all because of fate Jasmine blooms where cold once reigned, piercing through or blossoming from the very heart they seek to warm.

XAVIER

Xavier's being a forget-me-not, while Lumiere hides behind a mask.

Forget-me-nots represent enduring memory and unwavering love, which is the entirety of what Xavier, as Lumiere, yearns for. These flowers delicately bloom across his mask, intertwining with the crescent moon motif he carries. His fear and vulnerability keep him from fully unveiling who he truly is beneath the mask.

[jane-the-good]

Love and Deepspace

bleach painted tees

--3rd myth edition--

every frame belongs to a different myth, its ornamentation drawn from the art movement that echoes that timeline.

at its center, a flower to represent: who they are to us now, held and defined by the timeline that came before.

mood board and inspo on my PINTEREST

they're all listed on my WEBSITE if you wanna match with me ◡̈

RAFAYEL: Lemurian Sea God

The fire lily remains, burning within a frame that belongs to the Lemurian Sea God. Curving, flowing lines ripple through it like ocean currents, where movement and chains define his world.

The flower is locked away as living emblem of who he is to us now, held and defined by the elegance of the timeline that came before. Not merely just memory, but a current pulling toward another dimension, another time where you are simply his bodyguard.

ART NOUVEAU

SYLUS: Silverwing Fiend

The datura remains caught within a frame that belongs to the Silverwing myth. Gilded scrolls and dramatic curves swell around it, where indulgence and intensity define his world.

The flower stays, it is a symbol of who he is to us now, held and defined by the grandeur of the timeline that came before. It's threshold into another dimension, another time where you are simply a hunter who sometimes helps the leader of Onychinus.

BAROQUE

ZAYNE: God of Annihilation

The jasmine remains, fixed within a frame that belongs to the God of Annihilation . Sharp, symmetrical lines cut around it, where precision and control define his world without compromise.

The flower is still, a frozen emblem of who he is to us now, held and defined by the clarity of the timeline that came before. A supplication to appease the gods. Not just memory, but a fracture into another dimension, another time where he is simply your cardiologist.

ART DECO

XAIVER: King of Darknight

The forget-me-not remains pressed within a frame that belongs to the Darknight myth. Gothic arches and carved tracery stretch and twist around it, where reverence and restraint shape his world.

The flower, an emblem of who he is to us now, held and defined by the weight of the past. Not just memory, but a threshold into another dimension, another time where you are simply fighting partners.

GOTHIC

[jane-the-good]

office hours

WORD COUNT: 5.6K

SUMMARY: Your professor is very connected to his study. He is sassy and arrogant you are pretty sure his TA does all his grunt work. but his passion is really hot and you know how to spark a flame in him ♡

TAGS: professor! rafayel (want to note i had a sudden urge to finish this draft and started two weeks ago!!! I didn't know that his birthday was going to be a professor card!!!! I truly am divinely connected, just so you know ♡ )

WARNING: smut, oral sex, femme reader, unprotected sex (please be safe irl)

rafayel masterlist

part 1 | part 2 (soon)

The lecture hall curves around the stage almost acting as a ribcage. Its beams bent inward, shielding the pulsing life at its center.

Dark wooden tiers descend in deliberate arcs toward a silver podium that flows in a breaking wave. Its metal lip caught forever in a single moment before a collapse. The air smells faintly of clean linen and something almost floral you can never quite name. He insists on diffusers.

“Atmosphere,” Professor Rafayel once said, adjusting the dial with delicate precision, “is the difference between immersion and observation.”

He believes that entirely. Just as well as he believes in art and in oceans.

Very clearly does he not believe in people.

You sit in the third row, a compass needle fixed on true north. He always arrives late. He keeps you, and everyone else in the course, waiting. 

Your heart thrums as you consider that you’re close enough to see the slow rhythm of his breathing. Close enough to note that he has once again left the top buttons of his blouse undone not carelessly, never that, but in an invitation he doesn’t intend anyone to accept. Close enough to watch the sweep of his lashes against the sharp planes of his cheeks when he lowers his gaze to his notes.

You’ll see that when he looks up, when he finds you already watching, there is the smallest bloom of color beneath his skin.

The door does not open on time. It opens when the room has ripened into impatience. When whispers have thinned, when the clock has begun to feel accusatory.

Only then does he enter.

His coat hangs off one shoulder as though he shrugged it on in the last second. Windswept hair, like he has come straight from the harbor instead of the faculty wing. You imagine him ankle-deep in the tide at dawn, sleeves rolled, lecturing the ocean itself for its carelessness with history before remembering he has a classroom waiting.

He does not greet anyone.

The door closed itself behind him and surveys the lecture hall as if assessing structural integrity. Violet eyes, sharp and lucid, miss nothing. He does not need to demand attention; he assumes it.

“Bioluminescence,” he begins, voice low not loud, but pitched in a way that threads effortlessly through the tiers of seats. Silken. Controlled. “Is not decoration.”

He sets his notes on the podium without looking at them. You are half sure the pages are blank since he never actually looks at them.

“It is defiance.”

A slide flickers to life behind him. A submerged installation glowing faint blue beneath dark water, light threading through coral structures. Its veins beneath skin of the sea. He doesn’t turn to look at it.

“Dinoflagellates,” he continues, clasping his hands behind his back as he begins to move slow, prowling. “Noctiluca scintillans. Organisms that emit light only when disturbed.”

A faint lift of one brow.

“Light,” he says, “that exists because it has been threatened.”

He tilts his head slightly.

“What does that suggest?”

No one answers.

It isn’t fear in the crude sense. He has never raised his voice. Never humiliated anyone outright. But he dismantles imprecision the way the tide erodes a cliff steadily and inevitably, until nothing unstable remains. And, without apology. If you are wrong, he does not mock you.

He simply corrects you.

And somehow that feels worse.

“Marine Environmental Art History,” he says, drifting away from the podium, “is not about aestheticizing decay.”

He stops at the edge of the first tier.

“It is about witnessing it.”

His gaze sweeps the room.

“It is about extinction. Appropriation. The preservation of memory in the face of erasure.”

There that flicker. That flare beneath the composed exterior. Fire under glass.

When he speaks of erasure, it is never abstract.

He cites Spiral Jetty and its surrender to entropy, not with detached admiration but with critique spectacle versus responsibility. He speaks of Maya Lin with reverence, tracing how her environmental works fold geography into grief. He dissects coastal installations that harvest coral irresponsibly, condemns artists who pose as activists while accelerating reef degradation.

His arguments are specific, entirely layered. Impossible to refute.

And worse is how passionate he is about being right.

Not for his ego, but for preservation.

“I would like,” he says softly now and the softness is the dangerous part “to hear what new materials you’ve discovered for bioluminescent detailing.”

The class stiffens.

Everyone knows he has experimented with nearly everything: kelp-based binding agents, calcium carbonate composites grown rather than mined, controlled algae cultures engineered to mimic natural fluorescence without ecological harm. There are rumors he once attempted a submerged mural seeded with oyster larvae a living surface that filtered the water as it illuminated it.

Silence settles in the silt of dark water.

He is beautiful in a sharp, sea-cut way but that isn’t what holds you. It’s the way his mind moves. The way concepts ignite when he touches them. The way he speaks about marine art as if it is a battlefield and a cathedral all at once.

He does not simply teach the subject. 

He defends it.

You don’t have something revolutionary. You’ve combed through eco-art journals, conservation reports, grant archives. You have sketches in the margins of your notes color gradients mapped in tidal charts, speculative algae matrices that might hold form without harm.

Only Ideas and not proof and without a doubt something that would survive his scrutiny.

still…

“Professor,” you say carefully, “in my research I found replication iterations of dinoflagellate cultures, synthetic phosphors designed to mimic abyssal glow but nothing that felt… ethically sustainable.”

He turns toward you fully now.

“And that,” he says, “is the first honest thing anyone has admitted today.”

Heat crawls up your throat, slow and treacherous as a rising tide.

You are the first voice to break the silence and the lecture has barely begun. It makes you wonder, not for the first time, how many conversations he walks through each day where no one dares to mean what they say.

You press on before you can lose nerve. “May I ask what pigments did the Lemurian muralists use for bioluminescent detailing?”

A ripple moves through the room. The Lemurian case studies are theoretical half archaeology, half myth, used to examine lost coastal civilizations and speculative marine adaptation.

He studies you.

Not your face.

Your intent.

“They ground abyssal shells,” he says, and the words do not sound delivered so much as remembered. “Deep-sea mollusks, their nacre refracting light beyond the visible human spectrum.”

His gaze unfocuses slightly, as if he is no longer addressing a lecture hall but standing somewhere in another time.

“They understood,” he continues softly, “that there are colors the human eye was never meant to keep.”

Your thoughts outrun your caution.

“Then their retinal capacity must have differed from ours,” you murmur. “Otherwise the detailing would have been imperceptible.”.

You realize, belatedly, that you’ve spoken aloud.

His gaze sharpens, not quite with irritation, but more interest.

“Go on,” he says.

Your pulse stumbles.

“If the Lemurians evolved in prolonged low-light marine environments,” you continue, “their rods and cones would have adapted greater sensitivity to shorter wavelengths. Perhaps even structural retinal differences allow perception beyond our spectrum.”

The faintest curve touches his mouth.

“An evolutionary answer,” he says softly. “Rather than a romantic one.”

You swallow. “The ocean rarely rewards romance.”

He turns to the side with a gentle smirk.

“On the contrary,” he replies, eyes never leaving yours, “the ocean devours it.”

The words leave you settling heavy and charged.

“Thank you, Professor,” you manage.

He turns away too quickly, returning to his desk. Papers shift beneath his hands, though they had been immaculate moments before. His TA, Thomas, exhales in quiet resignation at the growing disorder.

Rafayel advances the slides.

Images bloom across the screen tidal sculptures designed to erode with lunar cycles, reef-safe installations seeded with living organisms, works responding to coral bleaching events accelerated by ocean acidification. He moves quickly, explaining the calcium carbonate fragility under decreasing pH levels, the ethics of harvesting versus cultivating shell substrates, the distinction between phosphorescence and true bioluminescent reaction.

His voice is fluid and mainly controlled.

Every so often, it falters just slightly when it passes your row.

You take notes without looking away.

You are not afraid of him. You are afraid of disappointing him though.

 And that is worse.

When the lecture ends, he does not dismiss the class immediately. He lingers, fingers resting on the crest of the silver podium as if feeling for a tide.

“Keep in mind,” he says, almost absently, “innovation without responsibility is vandalism.”

His gaze lifts to you once more.

“And responsibility,” he adds, “requires perception.”

The diffuser hums softly above.

a reminder that atmosphere matters.

This is the moment before a wave breaks. It’s suspended, inevitable, and far more dangerous than either of you are willing to admit.

Professor Rafayel is always the first to leave.

Of course he is.

You stay in the auditorium long after everyone else has gone, just as you always do.

Waiting for the shuffle of the last backpack, the echo of the last goodbye, the heavy doors closing.

When the auditorium finally empties, you gather your things slowly. The building changes at this hour. The late class leaves the halls hollow, the air quieter, as if the walls themselves are exhaling.

Several lights have already surrendered to evening. What remains is the sun spilling molten gold through tall windows, casting long panes of fire across the floor and up the walls. Orange light warm against the dark, turning dust motes into drifting embers.

It feels like trespassing into something sacred.

You know this path.

You know this building the way the tide knows the shoreline

Which classroom door refuses to close all the way, as though it prefers to listen. How long the silence lingers in the corridors before it stops being absence and starts being attention.

The late classes have drained the place of its pulse. What remains is a shell of fluorescent lights humming like restrained bees, washing the walls in a sterile, scholarly pallor. The kind of light that forgives nothing and sanctifies even less.

Just an hour ago, you asked a question.

A careful touch at the edge of his lecture where the documented histories thinned and something older seemed to breathe beneath them. 

He turned toward you with that measured calm of his. Answered cleanly. Logically. Seamless as a blade sliding back into its sheath.

But you were watching.

You saw the hesitation almost brief, almost imperceptible. The way his shoulders drew back a fraction too tight. The way his jaw set before he spoke to you.

He held your gaze as he responded.

And yet something moved behind his eyes. It was not anger, not quite. Something older. A flare quickly drowned. A shadow crossing deep water.

You tell yourself you are walking to his office for clarification. That is what office hours are for.

You want him to explain properly this time why your interpretation sparked something in him. You want footnotes and frameworks and citations.

You stop at his door and knock once.

Just enough to be heard.

“Come in.”

His voice drifts through the wood. Smooth, already aware of you.

You step inside and lock the door behind you.

It is muscle memory now. The soft click sounds louder than it should.

He sits at his desk upright, nearly posing for a portrait of himself. His jacket removed, sleeves folded with to reveal the clean lines of his forearms. Reading glasses balanced low on his nose. Lamplight pools over him in warm gold, turning order into something almost sacred.

He looks exactly as he should.

Untouchable.

“Hello, professor,” you say.

He lifts his gaze slowly, as if surfacing.

There is always that moment when his eyes find you and sharpen, when something behind them shifts from academic to aware.

“Hello, cutie.”

That nickname a spark in dry tinder.

Your pulse falters, but your face remains perfectly arranged as you cross the room and set your bag at the edge of his desk. The leather thuds softly against polished wood.

He does not look back at his papers.

He watches you approach the way you imagine he watches a theory unfold: curious to see where it will lead.

When you step within reach, his hand finds your waist.

He traces idle circles at the small of your back, warm even through the thin fabric of your top. The touch is absentminded in appearance, deliberate in execution.

“Did I not answer your question well enough?” he asks, voice lowered not to conceal, but to contain.

You meet his gaze evenly.

“No,” you reply. “I’ll need more clarity.”

A faint smile ghosts across his mouth, slow and knowing.

“Of course you will.”

Your hand rises, threading into his hair. The soft waves give easily beneath your fingers. You push them back from his forehead, studying him this up close, unguarded, stripped of podium and distance.

He tilts his head into your touch. 

You lean down.

For a suspended second, you hover there close enough to feel the warmth of his breath against your mouth. Close enough to see the flicker of anticipation.

You press your lips press to his.

This kind of kiss does not ask permission because it already knows the answer.

The warmth of his skin is not simply heat, it is tone. Burnished copper beneath your palms. A living underpainting of ember and breath. He exhales slowly through his nose, controlled, measured, as if even this is something he has chosen to allow.

He smells of a clean kind of cologne that likely isn’t cologne at all but a bath oil. A vision of him leaning carelessly in a bath comes to your mind. He is relaxed and calm and in a state you don’t get to see him in, but desperately want to.

It’s so clear, you can almost taste it.

Your mouth moves against his with quiet insistence, a measured press layered over restraint.

The feeling from the lecture hall hasn’t vanished.

It has softened.

What flickered between you then was not lightning but something subtler. A tremor. The brief, fragile shiver of his guard when it faltered and you were the only one who noticed.

That flutter has followed you here.

You lean forward to sit in his lap. His hand slides up your thigh to pull you closer to him. He tightens his grip on your waist to make you arch and grind against him, making you both moan in response.

There is no audience now.

No rows of watchful eyes.

No sharpened critique of thrown glass.

Only this.

His warmth begins to bleed into you in molten gold poured too close to bare skin, luminous and almost reckless in its proximity. You move against him with a hunger that feels indecent in its intensity. No hesitation left to hide behind.

Like a violent stroke of cadmium red slashed across a canvas. It’s reckless, irreversible, and laid down with full knowledge that it could ruin everything, but neither of you slowing your hand.

Of course isn’t the first risky stroke and yet the vibrance hasn’t dulled.

His presence is heat and cool relief in one.

You’re leaning into a bonfire you once swore you could orbit without falling in. Stepping toward the edge of a cliff just to prove you are immune to vertigo.

Your fingers slide deeper into his hair which each turn of your head. The texture is silk threaded through with stubborn wave, slipping and catching between your knuckles.

He does not pull away.

He does not flinch.

If anything, he deepens the pressure at your back, drawing you closer, until there is no clean line left from where you end and he begins only blurred edges. A tidal pull of something neither of you has ever truly tried to escape.

The kiss deepens. It’s velvet rich, indulgent, edged with teeth. His pulse beats against yours, steady and unshaken, a dark sapphire rhythm. He isn’t drowning as you are.

The tightness in your chest twists charcoal and static, rough against your ribs. You pull back just enough to breathe, to see him. His eyes are half-lidded. He already knows the question before you ask it.

“I loved the way you spoke today,” you murmur, softer now, but no less intent. “The way it mattered to you.”

Your clasp your hands behind his neck.

“Show me the rest of it. The part you don’t give to the room.”

Your voice comes out smaller than you intended pale blue porcelain with hairline cracks.

He laughs softly.

It’s low. Polished obsidian. Smooth enough to see your reflection in it.

“Cutie,” he murmurs, tilting his head, studying you as a painting he commissioned himself. “You have also have a passion i’m curious about”

He slides his arms around you and rises from the chair in one fluid motion, lifting you just enough to settle you on the edge of his desk. Then he steps between your knees, close enough to look down at you with that steady, assessing gaze.

“I want to go first.”

His thumb brushes your cheek, slow and deliberate, as if smudging away your curiosity of him with the pad of his finger.

He leans in, his lips brushing against yours in a slow, lingering kiss, savoring the moment. His hand glides down your body, fingers tracing the curves of your waist and hips with deliberate care. A soft moan escapes you, your body instinctively arching into his touch, drawn to the warmth of his hands.

His mouth trails lower, lips and tongue leaving a heated path down your neck, his breath warm against your skin. When he reaches your collarbone, he lingers, pressing a kiss there before continuing downward. His hands move to your chest, fingers teasing, coaxing shivers from you with every precise movement.

"Rafayel," you gasp, your voice barely above a whisper, your body trembling beneath him.

“Look at you,” he murmurs against your skin, amusement threading through his tone. “So responsive. And you thought you didn’t understand.”

His hand continues its descent, slipping beneath the waistband of your pants. His fingers move with ease, teasing, exploring, drawing out every reaction as if he’s memorizing the way you respond to him.

His lips follow the same path, trailing lower, his tongue leaving a warm, electric sensation against your stomach as he lowers to his knees. He pulls your pants away with a slow, deliberate motion, his eyes dark with something unreadable something intense.

His lips find you first. A kiss soft, yet claiming, as if sealing an unspoken promise. His movements are patient, controlled, the heat of his breath sending a ripple of anticipation through you before he deepens the pressure.

Your legs tighten instinctively around his shoulders, but he catches them, strong hands holding you in place. His grip is firm, steady, grounding.

“You were doing so well,” he says, catching your movement easily, steadying you with hands of carved marble warmed by sunlight. “Don’t rush ahead. You asked me to show you passion.”

Before you can respond, his lips are on you again, and the words dissolve into a breathless moan. Your fingers clasp over the edge of his desk, your body trembling against his hold. His rhythm matches your breath, slow at first exploring, savoring until he finds exactly what makes you fall apart.

His thumb works along side is tongue, building an overwhelming intensity. Working you toward an edge of needing relief and never wanting it to end. His grip on your leg tightens as he feels you teeter on the edge, his pace unrelenting, guiding you toward something inevitable, and shattering.

"Rafayel," you gasp, voice unsteady.

You grip with wood of the desktop, knuckles pale. The room feels smaller, the air thicker  honeyed smoke curling around both of you.

He hums against you, the vibration sending another wave of pleasure coursing through you. "I've got you," he whispers. "Let go.”

Relief crashes over you in waves, rippling through your trembling body. It’s luminous. White-gold light flooding your veins, washing out the static, dissolving the charcoal tension into something warm and suspended.

Your breath catches, then escapes in shallow, ragged gasps as aftershocks pulse through you.

When you finally regain enough clarity, your gaze drifts downward, drawn to the sight of him.

Rafayel is watching you, his dark, heavy-lidded eyes filled with satisfaction, admiration something deeper.

His chest rises and falls with labored breaths, his lips parted as if he’s about to speak, but he doesn’t. He only watches, mesmerized.

His tousled hair is damp, strands sticking to his forehead, making him look even more devastatingly undone. But it’s the shirt the one his keeps in the deepest v neck that could possibly be considered business appropriate. The fabric clings to his torso, wrinkled from where your hands had clutched at him, damp in places from sweat and the heat.

You want to take it off him. You need to. The urge is almost visceral. Not just to see him fully, though you ache for that too but to strip away that last remaining barrier, to feel his skin against yours without anything seperating you. Your fingers twitch, already reaching before you can think twice.

“How do you get away with tops like this?”

He chuckles, a low, satisfied sound, and leans in, brushing his lips over yours. “If you ask nicely, you just might be able to get what you want," he murmurs against your mouth” you should try it sometime cutie”

You shake your head, barely able to form words.

His breath warm against your skin, his lips brushing the shell of your ear.

"Please, tell me what it is that you want,"

his voice thick with desire as his fingers his resume his works with slow, deliberate strokes.

Your breath hitched, pleasure clouding your thoughts as your body tensed beneath him. “Rafayel… I really want you," you gasped, your voice barely above a whisper, trembling with need.

His grin was dark, full of heat and satisfaction, his eyes flickering with something primal. He moved over, his body presses into you. solid and warm, surrounding you. The hard length of him pressed against your thigh. His hands cradle your face, thumbs brushing over your cheekbones as he kisses you, deep and lingering, pouring silent praise into every movement.

His hands move with purpose, guiding rather than taking. Teaching, but never mocking.

Trust me.

His rhythm builds gradually controlled, intentional. When you falter, he steadies you. When you cling, he doesn’t tease.

His hand slid between you, aligning himself with you as your lips continued to move together, breathing in each other’s gasps. Then, with aching slowness, he pushed inside, drawing a sharp inhale from both of you.

"Take a second, darling," he whispered, his forehead resting against yours, his breath mingling with yours. His voice was steady, grounding. He waited, giving you time to adjust, to feel every inch of him, his grip firm but gentle as his hands traveled down your body.

One hand slid down your thigh, coaxing it around his waist, his fingers kneading tense muscles there, working out the pressure with care.

"If you’re hurting, please tell me," he said, voice low, his concern laced along the desire in his tone.

You shook your head, biting your lip. “No, I want…I want you closer”

A slow smile spread across his lips, something fond and reverent. "I've got you, cutie," he murmured, pressing a kiss to your forehead. "You’re getting so good at telling me what you want. I'm a good teacher aren’t I?”

With that, he started to move slow, controlled strokes, giving you time to adjust, to melt into him, to understand exactly where you needed to lean on him. His moans against your lips were beautiful, each one sending shivers down your spine. 

His grip on your hips tightened, steadying you, holding you close as he built a rhythm and his pace quickened. The friction, the heat, the way he filled you it all became overwhelming in a way that made you cling to him, each thrust drawing a sharper moan from you. Your fingers dug into his back, clinging to him, feeling every ripple of muscle beneath his damp skin.

When his hand slid between your bodies, teasing, adding to the intensity, your breath stuttered. "Rafayel " you gasped, your body trembling on the edge.

He chuckled against your neck, his breath hot and uneven. “Let yourself have this." he murmured, voice laced with command and adoration, his fingers working in tandem with his movements.

And then, it hit pleasure crashing over you in waves, your body tensing before unraveling completely. The world fractures into bright, breathless light, he’s right there holding you through it, grounding you through the tremor.

Rafayel groaned against your skin, his pace stuttering, his own release finding him in the wake of yours. He pulsed inside you, his grip tightening for just a moment before he let out a deep, satisfied sigh.

For a long moment, neither of you moves. The room narrows to the sound of shared uneven breath uneven, mingling, in the aftermath of something that refused to stay contained.

He draws you down with him as he sinks back into the chair, guiding you through the motion. Your knees settle on either side of him. His hands remain at your waist and his forehead rests against yours, damp with heat. Arm tight around your waist.

“Is that the passion you were feeling?,” you whispered, your body warm, sated, and blissfully drowsy.

“Hmm,” you murmur.

“Are you not satisfied?” he asks, feigning injury, one hand lifting dramatically to his chest. “It certainly seemed like you were.”

You lean your head against him, listening to the steady rhythm beneath his shirt. “I don’t think that’s what sparked you earlier. I think you were distracting me.”

His fingers toy absently with a strand of your hair, winding it once around his knuckle before letting it slip free.

“You can’t have all the answers,” he adjusts his leg to turn the chair toward the window. The movement shifts you closer. “That’s the point of living, cutie. We learn. We revise.”

The sunset deepens, turning the glass molten. Outside, the horizon glows as if the ocean itself were holding a coal beneath its surface.

His answer doesn’t satisfy you.

You trace the line of his collarbone through the open collar of his shirt. “Are you scared they know?”

“Know what?”

You tilt your head to look at him. “About this.”

His hand settles more firmly at your waist. “The students are intelligent,” he says lightly. “That’s why they’re in my class.” A faint smirk. “The faculty operate on ego and recycled theory. I’m not concerned those old rocks.”

You laugh softly, fingers brushing against his as they rest on your thigh. The touch lingers, small and deliberate.

“They won’t do anything,” he adds, thumb grazing your lower lip, watching it part. “They’re intimidated.”

“You’re proud of that.”

“Of course.” One brow lifts. “Fear sharpens attention. Attention produces excellence. I’m practically philanthropic.”

You roll your eyes, but your hand drifts higher along his shoulder, feeling the tension there.

The room dims further. Amber fades toward bruised violet. The artifacts in the shelves begin to blur into shadow.

“Are you ever scared?” you ask, softer now.

He studies you as if you’ve posed a flawed premise. “Of what?”

“Getting caught.”

That earns you a pause.

His fingers still in your hair. His jaw barely tightens.

“You don’t need to worry about that.”

“I think I do.”

He leans back slightly, adjusting you with him, though his grip never loosens. “My research is attracting attention,” he says. “Not academic attention. That I can handle.”

The warmth between you shifts, thins.

“I mean the kind that arrives with contracts written in disappearing ink.”

Your fingers still.

“And?”

“And that makes you… visible.” The word lands carefully. “You notice things. You ask the wrong, correct, questions.”

“Visible to who?”

His gaze sharpens, something colder sliding beneath the surface. “To people who mistake culture for leverage.”

You watch him, really watch him. The composure is there. The elegance. But beneath it, something coiled and alert.

“When people cannot replicate something,” he says evenly, “they attempt to acquire it. When they cannot acquire it, they attempt to control it.”

“And if they can’t?”

His jaw shifts.

“They become creative.”

A chill moves through you.

“That doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

His hands tighten, just slightly, at your waist.

“I have much more knowledge and experience than you do, but we are both in this field and that makes you a variable.”

“A variable in what?”

“In risk.”

The office feels smaller now. The sunset nearly gone. Only a thin line of fire left on the horizon.

“You think someone would threaten you?”

A humorless breath escapes him. “They’re welcome to.”

This edge. This sharpened version of him. It’s the one you were brushing against earlier.

“There are people who want what I’ve built,” he continues. “They believe it belongs in their hands.”

His fingers drift absently along your spine. A thoughtful path up and down, tracing the shape of something he’s memorizing. His other hand remains at your hip, thumb brushing back and forth in a small, unconscious rhythm.

“It’s about ownership,” he says finally. “And I don’t share well.”

The words hover between you.

You shift off his lap slowly, the loss of warmth is immediate. Stepping out of sunlight into shade. Your fingers trail down his arm, reluctant, memorizing the line of him before slipping away entirely.

His hand lingers for a blink of a moment before he lets it fall to the armrest.

You don’t move far. Just enough to stand on your own.

There’s too much in your head now: these contracts written in disappearing ink, visibility, leverage, risk. The word ownership still echoing in a way that feels less metaphorical than it should.

“I have to get going.” You need space to think on it properly. “have a bit of homework to do”

“I’m exhausted,” he replies, and the tone is lighter now “If I don’t get enough rest, Thomas will end up writing Friday’s exam again, and he won’t like that, considering I’ve already assigned him half the department’s administrative sins.”

“You haven’t written it?”

He offers a faint, tired smile. “I was going to do it just now, but I was preoccupied.”

You gather your things. Your bag. Your notebook. The small shell you’d been absently turning between your fingers.

“I meant to give this to you.”

He rises with unhurried ease and crosses to the bookshelf along the far wall. The shelves look less like academic storage and more like a private archive. Volumes bound in cracked leather, margins swollen with age, titles stamped in languages that no longer circulate. They look like they should be in a museum guarded behind bulletproof glass.

His fingers drift along the spines, slow, almost reverent, before selecting one.

“This will help with the writing portion,” he holds it out to you.

You take it carefully. It feels heavier than it should.

“I appreciate your help.”

A faint curve touches his mouth. “Anytime.”

He steps close enough that the space folds again, presses a kiss to the crown of your head restrained, almost formal and lets his hand trail down your arm as you turn to leave, fingertips grazing your wrist before slipping away.

The touch lingers longer than it should.

Then you’re walking toward the door, and he is already composed behind you, as though he hadn’t just let himself soften at all.

He watches you walk to the door.

The hallway light spills in briefly as you open it and not look back.

He locks the door behind you.

Crosses to his desk and slides open the bottom drawer. The second phone inside vibrates once.

He stares at it before answering.

“You’re persistent,” he says coolly.

A voice murmurs on the other end.

His gaze drifts toward the door.

“No,” he says sharply. “She has nothing to do with this.”

A pause.

His jaw tightens.

“That would be unwise.”

Another pause..

His voice lowers

calm in a way that is far more dangerous than anger. “You can posturek all you like. But if you make this personal, I promise you won’t enjoy the outcome.”

Silence.

The line clicks dead.

He stands there for a long moment, pulse visible at his throat.

Then he reaches for his other phone.

Your name glows on the screen.

His thumb hovers.

Text me when you’re home.

Deleted.

Stay alert.

Deleted.

Finally:

Trust me.

He sends it.

And for the first time, the secrecy between you feels less like a thrill.

And more like a perimeter.

[jane-the-good]

i have bits of part 3 written, but there are 2 ways i can take it!!!

one way it ends at part 3

another way, it will end at like idk part 8,9,15 something long and crazy lol

[jane-the-good]

SYLUS

bleach painted pieces i’ve made ◡̈

more colorways are on my website

SILVERWING FIEND

The overall intent centers on the design of Silverwing’s coat. Its detailing fully envelops the back, while the arms are bound in cuffs of interwoven thorns tangled together, inseparable as if by destined fate.

The hood is shrouded in roses and thorns drawn from the poem, alluding to the place where they both came to rest, in a coffin of roses...

“Beneath the firmament of frozen tears, the Rose in the Mist sleeps eternally.”

ABYSM SOVEREIGN

When a dragon senses death, it flies alone to a distant valley. In its final moments, flowers bloom from its body. The dragon dies only after the flowers cover every bone.

The back has a dragon skeleton descending. The front has datura flowers blooming from the heart.

RELENTLESS CONQUEROR

Designed to resemble Sylus' leather jacket. The details along the arms and hood are reminiscent of the visual of his Evol. it mirrors the control and power running under his skin.

On the back sits Mephisto, the creature Sylus crafted to be his eyes over the city. Perched on a skull, Mephisto spots the dangers Sylus is always on guard for, showing just how far he’ll go to keep people safe.

[jane-the-good]

office hours

WORD COUNT: 9.1K

SUMMARY: Your professor is very connected to his study. He is sassy and arrogant you are pretty sure his TA does all his grunt work. but his passion is really hot and you know how to spark a flame in him ♡

TAGS: professor! rafayel (want to note i had a sudden urge to finish this draft and started two weeks ago!!! I didn't know that his birthday was going to be a professor card!!!! I truly am divinely connected, just so you know ♡ )

WARNING: smut, oral sex, femme reader, unprotected sex (please be safe irl), reader is mentally unstable (it's tough to not feel confident in a relationship, let us have grace while recognizing her faults ♡)

rafayel masterlist

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 (soon)

The coursework is relentless this week.

Charts to annotate. Installations to critique. Three different readings arguing over the ethics of restoration. As if coral reefs and museums share the same moral spine. It should irritate you, but instead it gives your thoughts somewhere to go and something to scrape against.

Distraction can feel like relief if you let it.

The situation you’ve wandered into, or drifted toward, or possibly willingly stepped into, isn’t healthy. That part is obvious in the same way a crack in glass is obvious once you notice it.

But obvious things can still be beautiful. That makes them harder to step away from.

Sometimes you try to examine it in the same way he teaches you to examine art. By stepping back from the piece, assessing balance, weight, intention. Looking for the flaw in the composition.

If anyone were to assign fault to your relationship, it would fall neatly onto his shoulders. Professors are responsible for boundaries. You could even write it down in a paper, cite three sources, and defend it with perfect clarity. It would be his failure.

But you are the one who walks to his office door. And the one who knocks, the one who slides onto his lap and the one who wants him.

You initiate, he responds.

You encourage, he continues.

It becomes very easy, to redraw the blame until it forms a circle with no clear edge. The strangest part is that none of those thoughts actually change how you feel.

If someone offered you a clean timeline, where the both of you were never involved, you aren’t sure you could step into it.

The relationship, if that is what this is, exists in a strange space between definitions.

It is romantic, but not in any way the world would easily recognize.

There are no afternoons studying together in the library. No shared coffees between lectures. No flowers waiting for you at graduation. He does not say your name softly in crowded hallways, or slip affectionate titles between sentences where anyone might hear them.

What exists, instead lives in the margins.

It’s in private rooms and half-closed doors. In the tension of his gaze catching yours across a lecture hall and lingering a little too long. In the weight of his hands at your waist when no one else is looking. In the way his voice lowers when he speaks to you alone.

It is not something the world is allowed to see.

To everyone else, you are simply another student in his class. Indistinguishable in the rows of desks and notebooks. He is simply your professor.

But…he remembers things you have said weeks earlier. His hands are so tender resting at the small of your back. The world seems to narrow whenever you are alone together.

But, he has never called you his.

In the next class, something is off. You notice it before he even begins speaking. Its the difference between two shades of blue that only becomes obvious when they sit beside each other.

He moves the same way. Speaks the same way. But the current beneath him feels… quieter.

When he looks at you, the pull that usually exists through your gaze feels thinner. It’s not gone but the tide has retreated farther than usual.

Your pen hovers above the page while he speaks about preservation techniques and the ethics of bio-reactive materials. You manage half a sentence before the thought slips away entirely.

You can’t help your mind as it drifts back to the warmth of his office.

When class ends, no one seems eager to leave. Students linger. Backpacks zip slowly. Two people begin discussing their essays near the aisle. Someone asks him a question that could easily have been sent by email.

You stand there gathering your things with exaggerated patience. Can’t they feel it? The pressure radiating off you. The urge for them to spill into the hallway so you can escape before the tension in your chest breaks into something visible.

The hallway feels louder than usual. Your footsteps echo strangely against the tile. Two voices annoy you, somewhere around the corner, and for a moment you swear they’re talking about him.

He doesn’t turn when you open the office door. He’s seated in his chair with his back to the room, facing the floor-to-ceiling window.

The ocean stretches beyond the cliffs in slow, patient vastness, swallowing the sun in one careful inch at a time. Amber bleeds across the water, dissolving into bruised violet at the edges of the sky.

The room is dim enough now that the artifacts on his shelves glow faintly. The glass domes catch the last light. Coral fragments casting deep shadows against the walls.

One ankle rests over his knee. His fingers beneath his chin as he studies the horizon as if it might reveal something if he waits long enough.

You set your bag down quietly and cross the room.

He still doesn’t acknowledge you.

You don’t ask.

You simply slide onto his lap, turning sideways in the chair and resting your head against his shoulder as though it’s the most natural place in the world.

You’ve done it a hundred times, probably.

Only then does he move.

His arms come around your waist, pulling you closer until your knees press against the desk. He exhales slowly, the breath sinking into your hair.

“You look a little distant today,” you try to sound calm and not search his face for whatever has shifted.

“You should get your eyes checked, cutie,” he replies lightly. His chin brushes the top of your head. “I’m sitting right here.”

“Your physical presence does not preclude emotional distraction.”

You glance up at him. The sunset guilds his profile in gold.

“Don’t burn your sweet little brain,” he continues. “You have a test on Friday.”

“I’ll pass.”

“You sound confident.”

“I’m sure I could talk to the professor,” you say, fingers brushing the line of his collar. “Or… something.”

A small laugh escapes him low, a little reluctant.

He turns the chair to face the room, the last light falling behind him. His hands slide beneath your legs and lift you with effortless ease. For a heartbeat you think he’s drawing you closer.

He stands and places you gently in his seat.

He steps away.

“You’re leaving?” you ask.

“I have a gallery to attend.”

An invisible door closes.

“Could I go?”

“No.”

The refusal is immediate.

Disappointment drops painfully. Ink in water slow, spreading.

You’ve watched him charm rooms full of scholars and donors and critics. Watched strangers lean toward him, drawn in by brilliance and beauty while you stand nearby, hands folded, pretending you are only a student.

You don’t understand why this event is different. Other professors invite students to coffee. To exhibitions. To field research.

But Rafayel guards you as a flame in the wind.

“Stay however long you need,” he says instead, moving to his shelves. He selects a book with deliberate care and sets it on the desk. “This will strengthen your argument. Your current thesis lacks depth.”

You look at the book, then at him.

“I expect a perfect score,” he adds.

You open your mouth, but the words don’t arrive in time.

He’s already at the door.

For a moment he hesitates. His hand rests against the knob. His shoulders tighten. He’s bracing against something, but doesn’t look back.

The room, suddenly, feels too large.

You sit in his chair, surrounded by his things. The scent of him lingers of bergamot and amber.

It has to be the event tonight. He becomes rigid about secrecy whenever his worlds overlap.

You tell yourself it’s professional caution. That he’s protecting his work and reputation. The fragile ecosystem of academia.

But that truly doesn’t feel right. There is something else.

Your gaze drifts to his desk. His calendar lies open, neat and orderly. The handwriting isn’t his; his script is angular and precise. This one is elegant, careful, almost ornamental.

You shouldn’t look, but you’re pulled to, you have to.

Tonight’s gallery is listed with a time and location.

You search it on your phone.

It doesn’t say its open to the public or its free, but it is a listing on a museum’s webpage without advertising. It seems a little secretive, maybe exclusive.

Maybe he’s right, that you can’t go simply because you can’t go.

It is on a public webpage though… with the address and time listed…

It doesn’t really matter that he said no.

The thought is reckless, dangerous.

He’ll be furious.

Beautifully, theatrically furious. “You do have a gift,” he’ll say, eyes flashing, “for testing the limits of my patience.”

And he will mean it.

If he insists on shadows, you can surely stay in the shadows.

You close the calendar carefully, aligning it exactly where it was. The chair slides back with a rough scrape as you stand and smooth your clothes out of habit. The book he gave you disappears into your bag before you hurry back to your apartment.

By the time the building comes into view, the sun is already sinking.

The evening becomes a blur of hurried rituals. A shower taken too quickly. A dress chosen too carefully. The gown is one of your better ones. It has a soft silk that shifts with every breath. It belongs in rooms with marble floors and hushes of judgment.

You tell yourself the same thing more than once.

You are going as a student.

Still, your hands tremble slightly as the earrings fasten into place.

Running late leaves little room to linger, especially since you mistakenly went to the wrong pick up point for the ride you scheduled. The city slides past the window in long streaks of amber light and warped glass. Storefronts blur into one another, reflections folding over reflections.

With every passing block, anticipation tightens its hold.

Doubt settles neatly in beside it.

By the time the driver turns off the main road, the sky has gone deep indigo. Iron gates rise ahead, tall enough to swallow the headlights whole. Their bars curl into elaborate spirals, wrought metal shaped into elegant forms that are almost slightly cruel. They open slowly, considering whether to let the car through at all.

Beyond them, the drive stretches long and pale through carefully manicured grounds. 

Your breath leaves you.

You thought it would be a museum, it certainly looks like one. But this is someone’s house.

Stone walls climb deep into the night. The façade wide enough to feel impossible. Columns line the front as watchful sentries. Above them, relief carvings run the length of the structure with figures frozen in mythic motion. Bodies twisted in pursuit, in triumph, in ruin. Gods or monsters. It’s hard to tell which.

The landscaping is immaculate. Its almost unnerving. Grass trimmed into obedient squares. Stone paths laid out in sharp geometric patterns. Cypress trees stand in dark brushstrokes against the lawn.

Even the fountains look curated. One after another as they line the drive in wide marble basins, holding statues half lost to shadows. Water spills endlessly over the carved figures. A woman lifting a shell to the sky, a boy with wings broken mid-flight, horses rising from the stone as waves try to claim them.

A house like this is never just a house, it is a stage.

Whether the gathering serves generosity or vanity is hard to say. Probably both. Wealth has a way of blurring those intentions until charity and spectacle wear the same polished face.

Every window burns with warm light, as though the building itself is living with the people inside. Candle flames flicker along the edges of the marble basins, turning the falling water into fragments of gold. Voices drift from inside, certain of their welcome.

Whatever happens in a place like this, it was always meant to happen in front of an audience. 

Luxury cars circle the courtyard ahead, polished to blinding reflections, and your driver stops at the very front of them. Someone in a sharp suit opens your door and offers a hand to help you out of the car.

The front doors rise nearly fifteen feet into the air. Panes of glass framed in curling ironwork, and have to have been originally for a cathedral rather than a residence. They are already open, waiting, as if the house anticipated your arrival long before you decided to come.

Chandeliers hang from impossibly high ceilings, their light dimmed to a low, deliberate glow. They aren’t a blazing fire, they are gentle. Each prism catches the candlelight scattered throughout the room, multiplying it until the entire space glitters softly in a field of stars caught beneath glass.

The floor is, immense and gleaming, marble with black veins cutting through pale stone in sweeping patterns that feel almost tidal. Every step echoes faintly, your reflection sliding across the polished surface. The room itself is watching you enter.

Guests move with the confidence of people who have never had to question their belonging. Tailored suits cut sharp silhouettes against the silk dresses that catch the light. Jewelry glints at wrists and throats in small constellations of specially cut, high clarity diamonds.

Their voices stay low, amused, threaded with ease that comes from a lifetime of private rooms and exclusive invitations.

Candles rise everywhere in towers of glass cylinders on wide marble columns, along the sweeping edges of the room. Their flames tremble gently, reflecting off stone and crystal until the light seems to breathe.

There is fire everywhere.

And beyond it all, framed perfectly through the open rear of the house, is the view.

A vast garden stretches outward in careful terraces of pale stone and dark greenery. At its center lies a long reflecting pool filled with floating candles, hundreds of them drifting across the surface in scattered embers turning the water into liquid gold.

Past the garden, the land falls away, and the sea begins.

You pause just inside the doorway, momentarily suspended between the night outside and the impossible luxury within.

You didn’t know homes like this existed so close to you. Or that they could feel so much like stepping into another world.

You didn’t know your professor moved so comfortably within them.

A server appears at your elbow with a tray of champagne. You accept a glass with a genuine smile. the stem delicate between your fingers as you walk.

Art lines the walls with pieces you recognize from textbooks, from late-night research spirals, and conversations in lecture halls. Sculptures stand beneath soft lights. Paintings seem almost alive in the low lighting making the colors deepen and shadows more intimate.

From snippets of conversation, you piece together the story: the original owner passed away last year. In the transfer of assets, the collection is being auctioned. New artists will be commissioned. The house will be remade.

It all seems wrong. These works are magnificent. Otherworldly. They belong precisely here, suspended between the sea, preserved in stone and magnified by flickering gold.

Maybe it’s the house that makes them feel immortal, it could also be the champagne or the feeling that you’re somewhere you aren’t supposed to be.

“I told you not to come here.”

You jolt at the sound of his voice.

You hadn’t even seen him.

When did he see you?

You turn slowly.

Rafayel stands a few steps away, in a dark suit that was tailored by fate itself. He's immaculate. The fire's glow catches in his hair, along the sharp line of his jaw. His expression is controlled but his eyes are bright with something sharper than annoyance.

“It’s an open event,” you lift your chin.

“One you were not invited to.” His gaze flicks to the glass in your hand, then back to your face. “How do you even know about it?”

“You left me alone at your desk,” you are unable to stop the small laugh bubbling up. “With your sunset and your books and your calendar.”

His eyes narrow slightly.

“How many of these have you had?”

“just one,” the roll of your eyes makes you dizzy. “but it’s strange, my glass has never been empty, but I’ve been sipping for the past hour or… whenever I got here”

He steps closer. Close enough that you feel the heat of him, even in a crowded room.

“Let’s go.”

His hand settles at the small of your back gentle, almost possessive. He guides you toward the entrance, weaving you through clusters of patrons without effort.

“Rafayel.”

The name leaves your mouth before you can stop it. You’ve never called him that in public. Not to his face.

He stops.

He turns to you slowly, and for the first time tonight, you’ve genuinely startled him.

“It’s an art event,” you say softly, suddenly aware of the pounding in your chest. “I study art. You teach art. It’s not unlikely for both of us to be here. It’s fine.”

“We’re leaving.” His jaw tightens.

There’s urgency beneath the command now. Not just authority.

And that awful, creeping insecurity blooms inside you. He was distant earlier. Sharper and quieter. You must have said something wrong. Mentioned something you shouldn’t have. Now he’s cutting the night short because of you.

“I can leave on my own,” you step aside. The champagne haze thins under the weight of your doubt. “You have something you have to do. I’ll go by myself.”

You intend to disappear into the crowd before he can see how much it stings.

“No.”

His voice isn’t loud.

“I’m going with you,” he closes the distance. “I don’t want to be here anyway.”

That’s a lie. Or maybe it isn’t. He extends his hand. You stare at it.

The room continues around you in laughter, clinking glasses, low conversation but it feels muted. You’ve stepped into a pocket of silence carved just for the two of you. Does he actually want you to take it?

You reach out. His fingers close around yours.

You are holding his hand.

In public.

Not hidden behind an office door. Not tucked into the shadows of a hallway.

You walk beside him toward the exit, and everything feels slowed. Each step is deliberate. Each breath is amplified. The world narrows to the warmth within your palms and to the rhythm of his stride matching yours.

This is what you wanted. Since the first time you were alone with him.

Back when you hated him.

You remember that version of yourself vividly. Sitting in the front row, jaw clenched as he dismantled a student’s argument. Wondering how someone so brilliant could be so insufferable. If he didn’t want to teach, why was he doing it?

How did he get away with his methods? The impossible standards. The cutting remarks. The way he demanded excellence as if anything less were a personal offense. How did anyone pass his class?

You’d sworn you would confront him. March into his office and tell him exactly what you thought of his arrogance.

You did march into his office. You did not leave victorious.

You left breathless after you were pressed against the glass of his window, the sea sprawling endlessly behind you. His hand at your throat, his voice low and devastatingly calm as he informed you that your anger was “misplaced, but fascinating.”

Your panties never made it home that night. He slipped them into his pocket with a smirk and a promise that you would thank him later.

and you eventually did.

Now here you are, stepping back out into the night from a house carved out of ancient stone and older money that does not arrive gently. And now you walk away from it with your professor’s hand wrapped around yours, his grip warm and certain.

He doesn’t look at you as you step into the night air. But he doesn’t let go either.

You wanted him to be yours. Not quietly. Not in the polite, academic way of shared glances and measured distance. You wanted him to be a bold stroke of vermilion across an undeniable, intentional, impossible to paint over mark. And you wanted him to want you the same way.

You’re still holding his hand when the doors open, and the mansion behind you sparkles of dusted in gold leaf and set alight refracting edges into sparkles and soft halos.

The champagne in your system turns everything luminous. Your emotions feel over-saturated. Someone turned the contrast too high. Every look, every touch leaves a mark.

The night air hits you and it feels blue. A sharp cerulean that slips beneath your skin and settles in you. The silk of your dress slides coldly against your bare arms and exposed shoulders. You shiver, and before pride can stop him, Rafayel removes his jacket and drapes it over you.

His warmth, is all you have been craving.

“You didn’t drive, right?” his voice smooth but edged. “I didn’t know you couldn’t handle a drink.”

You huff softly. “I handled multiple drinks, probably. And no, I called a car and I’ll get another one.”

“Mine is almost here. Just come with me.”

The valet pulls up in something sleek and dark, polished a deep red. The door opens for you. His hand settles at your back again, guiding, steady. The leather seat is cool against your thighs. He leans over you to put your seatbelt on. His hair brushes against your cheek. It’s so comforting you want to lean forward and embrace him more than anything. 

Normally when you are close like this, you can do something like that. Since you are never in public and close, this kind of situation never comes up. You don’t have to worry about holding yourself back when you smell him or when his finger brushes against your thigh. 

You catch his eyes as he pulls up and feel your blush blooming through your cheeks. 

The door shuts with a hollow thud, and you watch him walk around to the driver side, a tinge of red on the edges of his ears. 

An attendant holds the door open for him as he sits in the driver seat.

The ocean keeps pace beside you as he drives, silver and endless.

“Oh I’m sorry I should have told you sooner, my place is actually the opposite direction.”

“And my place is actually in this direction.” 

“Oh.” The word feels small in your mouth.

“Should I call a car to pick me up from your house?” you are genuinely curious.

“You want to stay at your place when my house is much nicer?” 

“You held my hand and I get to see your house? You’re so generous tonight.” Your smile is champagne-bright.

He doesn’t answer, but something in his expression softens, a brush rinsed clean.

His home rises from the coastline in glass and stone, the architecture leaning toward the sea as if drawn by gravity rather than design. Wide panes catch the last of the night’s dim light, reflecting the dark water below so that the whole structure seems half-built from the ocean itself.

Nothing here feels like a spectacle.

The horizon stretches wide and dark behind it, ink bleeding into ink where the sea swallows the sky. Waves move somewhere below the cliffs, a slow, steady rhythm you can feel more than hear.

When the car stops, he comes around to open your door himself. He offers his hand like he did earlier, palm up, patient.

You take it without hesitation. 

Inside, the lighting is low and warm. Lamps instead of chandeliers. Soft gold across pale stone floors. Shelves of books. Artifacts that look older than the room they sit in. A few sculptures scattered near the windows, their forms smooth and abstract. The ocean is visible from almost everywhere.

It feels so lived in.

He slips off his shoes near the entry without ceremony, setting them neatly aside before glancing down at yours.

Then he kneels.

The movement is so natural it takes you a second to understand what he’s doing.

His fingers find the buckle at your ankle, careful and unhurried. He works it loose with quiet precision, the metal clicking softly as it releases.

The intimacy of it steals your breath.

Rafayel is not a man who kneels. Not in lecture halls. Not in crowded rooms full of collectors and scholars who orbit his work like satellites.

And yet here he is.

His touch is gentle as he slides the shoe free and sets it beside his own before moving to the other. His fingers brush your skin briefly, warm and steady.

He’s handling something rare.

The thought strikes you so suddenly it almost startles you.

Emotion rises fast inside your chest, thick and overwhelming. A color so saturated it threatens to drown the canvas if you’re not careful.

Before you can think better of it, you turn in his grasp and wrap your arms around his neck.

He’s still crouched when you do it, so the movement pulls him closer instead of you.

Your fingers thread into the hair at the nape of his neck, the strands soft against your skin. You tilt your head back to look at him, searching his face as though something there might answer the question forming quietly in your chest.

His surprise flashes bright and quick.

He brought you here. He held your hand. He knelt at your feet.

“I think we should get you to bed,” he says gently.

The words smear across your chest in a dull gray.

“You don’t want to go to bed with me?” The question slips out before you can edit it.

“You’ve had a few drinks. You should get some rest.”

Rest. The word feels clinical. Wiping the page before you’re ready to draw.

You step back. The room feels tilted, edges soft from alcohol and maybe fear. “Yeah. I am… tired.”

“Are you feeling sick?”

“No.” Your throat tightens. “I’m just going to go to sleep. Is the room this way?”

You turn, but your vision blurs the sudden flood of color inside you. Crimson. Indigo. embarrassment. confusion. A streak of sour insecurity. You don’t know if you’re allowed to love him. You don’t know if he’ll ever let you.

He catches you before you can move too far. When he sees your tears, he pulls you into his chest, firm and warm. “Cutie, I’m sorry. Are you not comfortable here? I can take you home.”

“No.” The word breaks. “I want to be here.” Your fingers clutch at his shirt. “I’m just confused. You make everything so secretive.” he gently holds his hand against the back of your head “and I don’t want to mess up your job. It’s hard when I don’t know if I’m allowed to care about you. I try not to.”

The confession leaves your chest like something pulled too tight for too long.

The truth that feels almost fragile once it’s spoken aloud, as if the air might bruise it.

For a moment, he says nothing. Rafayel only studies you. His violet eyes softer than you’ve ever seen them, the sharp intelligence in them dimmed by something careful.

He leans down and presses a kiss to your forehead. It’s not dramatic or consuming. Just warm.

His hand finds your back and begins to move slowly up and down your spine, steady and unhurried. The way a painter drags the brush across a canvas to soften harsh edges. To blend colors that were never meant to clash but somehow did.

Grounding you.

The rhythm steadies your breathing before you even notice it happening.

“You’re shaking,” more observation than accusation.

Before you can protest, his arms slip beneath you and he lifts you easily.

The motion steals a small sound from you, instinctive. Your hands clutch at his shoulders as he carries you deeper into the house.

The space he brings you into is an open living room crowned by a ceiling that soars impossibly high. Tall windows frame the dark ocean beyond, moonlight bleeding faint silver across the stone floor. Bookshelves climb the walls, interrupted by sculptures and artifacts that look older than the house itself.

He lowers you onto a wide, plush sofa that practically swallows you when you sink into it.

“Stay,” he says gently, already turning away.

You watch him disappear briefly into the kitchen before returning moments later with a glass of water. He presses it into your hands, fingers brushing yours briefly to make sure you’ve got it.

Only once you’ve taken a few sips does he crouches slightly in front of you again, gaze flicking over your face.

“This dress isn’t helping either,” he murmurs.

Before you can ask what he means, his fingers find the zipper along your side. He draws it down is softly. Whisper of fabric releasing tension.

There is nothing hurried in the way he moves. No tension in the air or heat in his expression.

He eases the dress from your shoulders carefully, guiding the fabric down your arms before lifting it over your head entirely. The air of the room brushes cool against your skin, leaving you in your underwear beneath the glow of the lamps.

His gaze doesn't linger.

There’s no hunger in this moment. Only care.

He folds the dress aside and reaches for the thick blanket draped along the back of the sofa. It’s heavy and comforting when he wraps it around your shoulders, tucking the edges close until you’re cocooned in it.

Safe.

Contained.

He draws you into his lap as he sits in such a natural motion.

Your head settles against his chest. His hand rests warm and steady against your side while the other drifts absently through your hair.

Outside, the sea moves in long breaths against the cliffs.

His heartbeat steadies beneath your ear.

“I’m not secretive because I want to be,” he hands you the water again. “And I’m not teaching because I really want to. There are things I have to do.”

“Do you plan on stopping then?”

“I wanted to.”

“And now you don’t?”

He exhales slowly. “I thought I wanted to keep what was mine, mine. But that isn’t what art is. Art is giving. Sharing. Teaching is the same. I didn’t realize I wanted to share what was precious to me.”

Your heart feels thin and luminous, gold leaf pressed carefully into place. “Do you want to share what’s precious to you right now?”

He studies you, eyes dark and steady. “Do you only have questions for me?”

“Yes… you are my professor.”

A faint smile touches his mouth. “You’re naked in my lap and the only desire I have in this moment, is for you to understand my intentions” His thumb brushes your cheek. "Is that enough to share what is most precious to me?"

Your thoughts are too scattered to talk about this right now. You want to and you need to. This is the most he’s ever opened up to you. But your mind feels foggy. You can’t quite hold onto a single thought long enough to speak.

So you close your eyes instead.

You focus on the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath your ear, on the slow rise and fall of his breathing. The sound grounds you, pulling your thoughts back into something quieter, something calmer. Gradually, the tension slips from your mind.

Listening to him like that, you drift into sleep.

You wake gently. The open windows with the sun beaming in panes on the walls. There is no blazing alarm. You know that you have work to do but it barely feels like a priority. You’re still heavy with sleep. You just want to stay exactly where you are, letting yourself rest a little longer until you’re fully awake.

“How do you feel?”

Rafayel is laying on his side behind you. His arm draped over your waist and with his chin on your head.

“I feel perfectly fine.”

“I forgot that’s how it is when you're 22”

“you’re not that much older than me”

“things change after 25. Waking up after drinking, you feel something”

“I do feel something, but its not bad.”

You twist around and lean close to his lips, close enough that it almost becomes a kiss, but stop just short and linger there. Your breath warm against his mouth.

He’s waiting. Expecting it.

A playful giggle accidently slips from you.

His arms slide around your back, drawing you in. One hand moves beneath your head as he gently eases you back against the sofa.

“You’re being a brat”

“That can’t be reserved for just you.”

“I sacrificed my precious bath time to wait for you to wake up.”

“What a shame.”

“You need to help make up for it.”

“I thought I was your guest.”

“guests can use my bath too, but I’ll be in there as well.”

Steam curls through the bathroom, softening the sharp edges of marble and glass. The tub itself is deep and wide, carved stone sunk into the floor, positioned so the tall windows beside it open out toward the sea.

Rafayel had insisted on preparing the bath himself.

You watched from the edge of the tub while he worked, sleeves of his robe pushed up, moving with unbothered precision. Several small bottles were lined along the ledge. He uncorked them one by one, letting you smell each before pouring.

The oils were warm and floral with notes of salt, maybe, or cedar. When you nodded your approval, he tipped a careful amount into the water, watching the surface ripple as the scent spread.

Your breath catches as his hands slide slowly down your shoulders and along your arms, a trace of soap worked between his fingers. The warmth of the bath has already loosened your muscles, but his touch goes deeper than that.

He presses his thumbs carefully into the tight place near your shoulder blade, working the soap into your skin as he massages. The movement is slow, kneading into muscles that ache from tension you hadn’t even realized you were holding on to.

The water shifts gently around you both, brushing against your ribs and knees. Outside the windows, the sea moves in long quiet swells, the sound of it faint.

His hands travel lower along your back, soap slick and warm against your skin. Rafayel says nothing, but there’s a focus in the way he moves. Gradually switching from helpful to sensual.

He leans in, his teeth nipping at your ear as his hands move lower, over the curve of your hips, then between your thighs. 

“Why were you ignoring me?”

He’s silent.

You narrow your eyes at him. The bathwater shifts softly around you both, tiny waves tapping against the edges of the tub and swallowing half the sound of your voice.

“Why were you ignoring me?” you repeat, louder this time.

He definitely hears you.

“Rafayel.”

He exhales softly against the side of your neck, almost a sigh. Instead of answering, he tilts his head and presses a slow kiss along the place he knows makes your breath hitch.

Distracting.

He lingers there, studying something. You’re a painting he’s already decided he likes but enjoys pretending he hasn’t quite figured out yet.

You feel his lips curve. It’s unfair, really. You don’t even have to see him to know the exact shape of that expression. You can feel it in the way his mouth moves against your skin.

Entirely too pleased with himself.

“answer me,” you whine

He shifts one shoulder in a shrug. The picture of innocence he absolutely does not possess.

“Ignoring?” he echoes, as if the word itself is faintly amusing. He lets it sit for a moment, tasting it. “That seems rather dramatic.”

Your expression doesn’t soften.

but his smile deepens.

“And here I thought I was being subtle.”

He’s hard against your back as he slides his fingers over you, moving them into your wet warmth, finding that spot inside you that makes everything clench. He’s always so quick to find it.

"Are you happy I brought you here”

He’s so good at distractions.

“more than you know"

You moan, your hips arching back to meet him.

"I’m so thankful for you, even though you stress me out"

His mouth moves against your neck. Teeth nipping at your skin as he teases you, holding you in place.

“Do you know how stressed I was this weekend?" you breathe

He slides his digits in with ease. It feels too good. Your toes curl, your heart thump.

“this is fun. lets play this game of which of us is worse.”

You pant, your fingers finding their way to his hair, tugging at the roots. 

"Rafayel please."

"I’ve hardly touched you."

He hums against your neck and you feel it trickle up your spine.

“You’re infuriating."

"You don’t look angry," he murmurs, his touch leaving sparks in its wake. Your breath stutters, your body betraying you as you lean into him.

His grip tightens at your waist, fingers pressing just firmly enough to leave the memory of them behind on your skin. His lips find the curve of your neck, warm against the cool air above the bathwater, his hold unrelenting in a way that is less force and more gravity.

The press of his body is grounding. Your breath catches as need coils low and slow inside you. It feels less like desire and more like the pulling tide. You think he’ll follow it, that he’ll let the moment carry him the way it’s carrying you.

But he pulls away.

The loss of his mouth leaves a coldness behind. You groan softly in frustration.

Before he can retreat further, you turn in his hold, shifting until you’re facing him. Water slides against the edges of the tub as you settle across his lap, hands braced lightly against his shoulders so you see his face.

The look in his eyes catches you off guard. It isn’t the teasing amusement he usually hides behind the one you swore you could see when faced away from him.

“Why did you pull away?” you don’t intend to whisper

He watches you, then he reaches for your hand. His fingers lace gently through yours before he lifts your knuckles to his lips, pressing a slow kiss against them. The gesture feels so formal, almost reverent.

“Yesterday…I was in this tub alone.” His thumb traces the inside of your wrist as he speaks. “You’re the only one who has ever been in a bath with me.”

The shift in mood makes your head spin. Just a moment ago the air felt thick with heat and winding tension growing tighter and tighter that was incredibly ready to snap.

Something else has settled in its place.

The sudden softness catches your breath. The way he moves now feels so intimate. It's the closeness you’ve wanted for longer than you’re willing to admit. The kind you kept telling yourself you couldn’t have with him.

“When lemurians fall in love with someone… all of our senses are committed to perceive them without question” His thumb moves slowly over your knuckles as he speaks, the motion absentminded, thoughtful.

Your heart flutters at the confession.

The knot of doubt that lived in your chest only hours ago, maybe yesterday. Maybe twelve hours.  Time has blurred too much to tell, has dissolved so completely it almost feels like it belonged to someone else.

All the uncertainty and frustration. The fear that you were imagining things between you. Gone.

A deep, steady contentment softens in your ribs. You feel so comfortable. The shape of the moment fits you both perfectly.

“your senses? like… this.” you gently touch your finger to his bottom lip. “like here?”

“your way of triggering my senses has only touched the surface.” he guides his finger to brush his lips

“like how you see me? ... and how you hear me?” Your hand drifts down the line of his neck as you speak, fingertips grazing warm skin still damp from the bath. The movement is slow, exploratory. You’re testing the truth of what he just told you. “What about how you taste?”

Your hand continues its path, sliding gradually down the center of his chest, tracing the faint rise and fall of his breathing beneath your palm.

His eyes shift. The ocean water under calm skies, bright and reflective, is now something deeper and stirs beneath the surface. The color darkens, shifting from foaming waves to the treacherous pull of deep sea currents.

One hand closes around your wrist.

Then the other.

Firm enough that your breath catches as he lifts your arms and presses them back against the smooth edge of the tub. The movement forces you to lean back slightly as he follows, bracing himself over you. Water lapping outward from the shift in weight.

His hair hangs slightly forward, shadows cutting across his face as he looks down at you.

“someone’s intentions are clear as day.” his voice has a subtle rasp to it

“you clearly like it.” your voice sounds weaker than you intend

Your voice comes out weaker than you intend, thinner beneath the weight of his gaze.

His eyes flick briefly to your mouth before returning to yours.

“only because you’re the one doing it.”

As he leans forward slightly, his stomach brushes against yours. His skin is cooler than the bathwater, and the sudden contrast tugs at your reflexes, sending a small shiver through you.

“Rafayel… your body is so cold.” the words slipping out as he leans forward.

His lips are slow and deliberate. His mouth warm even if the rest of him isn’t. When he pulls back, his breath brushes your cheek.

“and you’re warm. I like that.”

You grasp your hands on his face to attempt to bring him to reality.

For a moment neither of you move. The water glistening in the sunlight, dances across the planes of his face. Something about him feels different.

“Rafayel” Your hands slip free enough to rise to his face, fingers curling gently along his jaw as you try to draw his attention fully back to you. Your thumbs brush his cheeks, grounding him the same way he grounded you earlier. "you seem different.”

He stills under your touch.

For a moment the only sound is the ocean outside and the faint shift of water around your bodies. His gaze searches yours in a way that feels almost uncertain. It’s such a rare look on him that your chest tightens.

“will you still like me? no matter who I become?”

“It truly doesn’t matter,” you say softly.

Your hand slides behind his head, fingers threading gently into the damp strands of his hair. It’s softer than it looks, the silk of it slipping between your fingers as you comb through it slowly.

He stills at the touch.

Your other hand drifts down from his cheek to the line of his neck, tracing the warm hollow just beneath his ear before sliding lower along the column of his throat. His pulse flutters faintly beneath your fingertips.

Your fingers catch lightly on the chain at his collarbone, the necklace glinting faintly in the sunlight where it disappears against his skin. You hook it gently and draw him forward by it.

“As long as you come to me.”

He huffs a breath of surprise.

“When humans fall in love with someone, they try to leave a unique mark on them.” You feel like you could ask him to do anything.

“If you say so.” He looks like he would do anything.

His mouth trails lower, lips and tongue leaving a heated path down your neck, his breath warm against your skin. When he reaches your collarbone, he lingers, pressing a kiss there before continuing downward. His hands move to your chest, fingers teasing, coaxing shivers from you with every precise movement.

He chuckles, the sound low and indulgent. "You're human aren’t you," he murmurs, his lips brushing against your skin.

His hand continues its descent, continuing his earlier pace. His fingers move with ease, teasing, exploring, drawing out every reaction and memorizing the way you respond to him.

His lips follow the same path, trailing lower, his tongue leaving a warm, electric sensation against your stomach. He decends under the water with a slow, deliberate motion, his eyes dark with something intense.

His lips replace his fingers. Kissing you softly. His movements are patient, controlled, the heat of his mouth sending a ripple of anticipation through you before he deepens the pressure.

Your legs tighten instinctively around his shoulders, but he catches them, strong hands holding you in place. His grip is firm, steady, grounding.

He hums against you, glancing up at you from under the waterline. His purple hair floating in softly in the water.  You wonder if he is ok under the water like this, or if he even cares if he is ok.

Before you can react, his lips increase their pressure, and you dissolve into a breathless moan. Your fingers dig into the side of the bath tub, your body trembling against his hold. His rhythm matches your breath, slow at first until he finds exactly what makes you fall apart.

The pressure builds, overwhelming in its intensity, a delicate balance of wanting more and never wanting it to end. His grip tightens as he feels you teeter on the edge, his pace unrelenting, guiding you toward something inevitable, something shattering.

"Rafayel," you gasp, voice unsteady. 

He hums against you. The vibration sending another wave of pleasure coursing through you.

Relief crashes over you in waves, rippling through your trembling body. For a fleeting moment, you feel suspended in a stillness only possible in a moment like this. Your body weightless, mind blank, utterly lost in sensation. Your breath catches, then escapes in shallow, ragged gasps as aftershocks pulse through you.

When you finally regain enough clarity. Rafayel is watching you, his dark, heavy-lidded eyes filled with satisfaction, admiration. His tousled hair is soaking wet, strands sticking to his forehead, water dripping down his face  making him look even more devastatingly undone. His chest rises and falls with labored breaths, his lips parted as if he’s about to speak, but he doesn’t. He only watches, mesmerized.

Before you can catch your breath, he turns you in his arms, hands firm as he pulls you flush against him. His lips crash into yours, the kiss deep and aching, all heat and hunger.

The cool air meets your back as he presses closer, his touch deliberate, slow, knowing. He breathes your name against your lips, and you swear you’ve never felt anything like this with him before.

"Rafayel," you whisper, and he answers without words, without hesitation.

"Can I have you?"

"Please."

The water sloshes softly against the sides of the tub as he shifts beneath you, one arm sliding firmly around your back while the other hooks beneath your thighs. Before you can fully register the motion, he lifts you easily, drawing your legs up so they wrap instinctively around his waist.

The loss of the bath’s warmth sends cool air rushing over your damp skin.

He steps out of the tub with careful balance, water streaming from both of you in rivulets that patter against the stone floor. His arms are now so warm around you, holding you securely.

A thick towel waits folded along a counter nearby. He grabs it one-handed as he passes, wrapping it loosely around your shoulders and back. The fabric is soft, warm from the ambient heat of the room.

His bedroom is framed by tall windows that look out toward the dark stretch of sea. The curtains are half drawn, morning light slipping through in warm bands across the floor and the wide bed waiting at the center of the room.

When he lowers you down on his bed, his hand slips instinctively beneath your head, guiding you gently so you settle against the mattress. The towel spreads beneath you as a barrier between your damp skin and cool sheets.

For a moment he lingers above you, one hand still cradling the back of your head.

He leans down to kiss you slowly and unhurried. His hair brushes your cheek as he shifts closer, his weight settling carefully so you feel surrounded by him without being pinned beneath it.

He pulls your leg up and wraps it around his back and slowly slides in. You lean your head back against into his plush bed and groan softly.

"You okay?"  

"Mhm."  

"Can I see your eyes?" His voice is gentle.

You glance up. His expression softens, seeing something precious.  

“You know you mean everything to me." He is so sure of his words.

It makes your legs tighten around him and pulls him in deeper. You both groan.

He presses you against the bed as he slowly starts thrusting.

"Cutie" he moans 

You look down to where you both meet, when you look back up he catches your eyes. He has a smirk whispered on his face. You hide against his neck and feel the vibrations of his laugh.

He picks up the pace.

“Rafayel” it’s involuntary.

"I love hearing you say my name" He moans against your neck

His hand reaches down, his thumb finding you, adding pressure until you’re sobbing, until you’re begging.

"Please" Your hips involuntarily grind against him because your body was always his.

His forehead presses to yours, his breath fanning across your skin. “You know you’re mine,” he murmurs, his voice a rough whisper, but there’s no demand in it , only longing, only a plea wrapped in certainty.

You hum softly, a sound of agreement, of surrender, your body trembling beneath him.

His hand slides in your hair, but there’s nothing forceful in the touch , only need. “Tell me you understand,” he whispers, his voice barely holding together.

You open your eyes, meeting his, letting him see everything you feel. “I understand.” you breathe, and the way he exhales, like you just gave him the one thing he needed most. It makes your chest tighten with something impossibly tender.

His lips brush against your temple. “Thank you”

The room is warm, the air thick with the scent of sweat and lingering traces of your bath. You can feel a bead of moisture slide down your chin. Both his, yours, both of yours together as he buries his face in the crook of your neck.

Each thrust sends you spiraling closer, your fingers clawing at his back as your body tightens around him. The pleasure builds, hot and all-consuming, and then, blinding, shattering, you break.

Rafayel follows, his grip on you tightening almost desperately, the pressure of his hands grounding you as his body shudders with the force of his release. A strangled groan slips from his lips, raw and heavy, the sound carrying a mix of pleasure and something deeper, something more vulnerable.

The way his chest rises and falls, the way his breath catches, it’s not just the culmination of desire, but the release of a weight that’s been pressing on him for far longer than either of you had realized.

His body trembles against yours. He’s trying to reconnect with you after a moment that feels almost otherworldly. It’s a release not just in the physical sense, but in the way his mind lets go, the way his heart settles into a rhythm that simply exists with yours.

For a long moment, neither of you move. There’s only the sound of your breathing, your bodies pressed together, grounding you both in the reality of this moment of each other.

He doesn’t pull away. Instead, he stays there, his forehead resting against yours, his breath warm against your lips. His fingers, which had held you so firmly before, now trace slow, absentminded patterns along your ribs.

You reach up, threading your fingers through his damp hair, brushing one from his forehead. His eyes flutter shut at your touch. It soothes something deep inside him. You tilt his chin up slightly, guiding his gaze to yours, wanting him to see what he means to you.

“I’m so thankful to have you back.” you truly mean it.

Rafayel’s mind is static with thoughts he cannot say aloud.

He tried, truly tried, to stay away from you. To keep his distance. To hold the careful line he drew for himself before any of this could happen. But now he’s here with you, feeling your warmth, and something dangerously close to peace settles over him.

Beneath the surface, his thoughts churn in a storm under deep water. The currents pulling in opposite directions, pressure building where no one else can see it. One part of him wants to reach for you without hesitation. The other knows exactly what that would mean for you.

He has lived long enough to recognize the exact moment admiration turns to fear. The moment curiosity curdles into revulsion. Humans are very good at it. They dress their horror in politeness, but he always sees it eventually.

The thought of seeing that look in your eyes turns something cold in his stomach.

You are not meant to be tangled in any of this.

Least of all him.

Because the worst part, the part he cannot bring himself to confess, is that your connection to him does not protect you.

Everything that hunts the remnants of his people would notice you eventually. The longer you remain at his side, the more visible you become. A light placed deliberately in dark water.

He has tried, in delayed replies and maintained distance in lecture halls. The deliberate coldness when others were watching.

You step into a room and every one of his senses turns toward you without permission. Sight. Sound. The cadence of your voice cutting cleanly through any crowd. Even the warmth of you when you stand too close.

You become orientation. Gravity. Tide.

And Rafayel has always been terrible at pretending the tide does not exist.

So he carries the truth alone.

He tells himself it is protection. That silence is the only shield he can give you. If you never know the full shape of the danger, you will never understand how close it stands.

He will endure whatever it costs him. Even if its your anger or confusion, even resentment.

All of it is easier to bear than the alternative.

Because no matter how much it threatens to ruin him, no matter how dangerous it becomes, Rafayel will do whatever it takes to keep you safe.

[jane-the-good]

office hours

WORD COUNT: 5.6K

SUMMARY: Your professor is very connected to his study. He is sassy and arrogant you are pretty sure his TA does all his grunt work. but his passion is really hot and you know how to spark a flame in him ♡

TAGS: professor! rafayel (want to note i had a sudden urge to finish this draft and started two weeks ago!!! I didn't know that his birthday was going to be a professor card!!!! I truly am divinely connected, just so you know ♡ )

WARNING: smut, oral sex, femme reader, unprotected sex (please be safe irl)

rafayel masterlist

part 1 | part 2 (soon)

The lecture hall curves around the stage almost acting as a ribcage. Its beams bent inward, shielding the pulsing life at its center.

Dark wooden tiers descend in deliberate arcs toward a silver podium that flows in a breaking wave. Its metal lip caught forever in a single moment before a collapse. The air smells faintly of clean linen and something almost floral you can never quite name. He insists on diffusers.

“Atmosphere,” Professor Rafayel once said, adjusting the dial with delicate precision, “is the difference between immersion and observation.”

He believes that entirely. Just as well as he believes in art and in oceans.

Very clearly does he not believe in people.

You sit in the third row, a compass needle fixed on true north. He always arrives late. He keeps you, and everyone else in the course, waiting. 

Your heart thrums as you consider that you’re close enough to see the slow rhythm of his breathing. Close enough to note that he has once again left the top buttons of his blouse undone not carelessly, never that, but in an invitation he doesn’t intend anyone to accept. Close enough to watch the sweep of his lashes against the sharp planes of his cheeks when he lowers his gaze to his notes.

You’ll see that when he looks up, when he finds you already watching, there is the smallest bloom of color beneath his skin.

The door does not open on time. It opens when the room has ripened into impatience. When whispers have thinned, when the clock has begun to feel accusatory.

Only then does he enter.

His coat hangs off one shoulder as though he shrugged it on in the last second. Windswept hair, like he has come straight from the harbor instead of the faculty wing. You imagine him ankle-deep in the tide at dawn, sleeves rolled, lecturing the ocean itself for its carelessness with history before remembering he has a classroom waiting.

He does not greet anyone.

The door closed itself behind him and surveys the lecture hall as if assessing structural integrity. Violet eyes, sharp and lucid, miss nothing. He does not need to demand attention; he assumes it.

“Bioluminescence,” he begins, voice low not loud, but pitched in a way that threads effortlessly through the tiers of seats. Silken. Controlled. “Is not decoration.”

He sets his notes on the podium without looking at them. You are half sure the pages are blank since he never actually looks at them.

“It is defiance.”

A slide flickers to life behind him. A submerged installation glowing faint blue beneath dark water, light threading through coral structures. Its veins beneath skin of the sea. He doesn’t turn to look at it.

“Dinoflagellates,” he continues, clasping his hands behind his back as he begins to move slow, prowling. “Noctiluca scintillans. Organisms that emit light only when disturbed.”

A faint lift of one brow.

“Light,” he says, “that exists because it has been threatened.”

He tilts his head slightly.

“What does that suggest?”

No one answers.

It isn’t fear in the crude sense. He has never raised his voice. Never humiliated anyone outright. But he dismantles imprecision the way the tide erodes a cliff steadily and inevitably, until nothing unstable remains. And, without apology. If you are wrong, he does not mock you.

He simply corrects you.

And somehow that feels worse.

“Marine Environmental Art History,” he says, drifting away from the podium, “is not about aestheticizing decay.”

He stops at the edge of the first tier.

“It is about witnessing it.”

His gaze sweeps the room.

“It is about extinction. Appropriation. The preservation of memory in the face of erasure.”

There that flicker. That flare beneath the composed exterior. Fire under glass.

When he speaks of erasure, it is never abstract.

He cites Spiral Jetty and its surrender to entropy, not with detached admiration but with critique spectacle versus responsibility. He speaks of Maya Lin with reverence, tracing how her environmental works fold geography into grief. He dissects coastal installations that harvest coral irresponsibly, condemns artists who pose as activists while accelerating reef degradation.

His arguments are specific, entirely layered. Impossible to refute.

And worse is how passionate he is about being right.

Not for his ego, but for preservation.

“I would like,” he says softly now and the softness is the dangerous part “to hear what new materials you’ve discovered for bioluminescent detailing.”

The class stiffens.

Everyone knows he has experimented with nearly everything: kelp-based binding agents, calcium carbonate composites grown rather than mined, controlled algae cultures engineered to mimic natural fluorescence without ecological harm. There are rumors he once attempted a submerged mural seeded with oyster larvae a living surface that filtered the water as it illuminated it.

Silence settles in the silt of dark water.

He is beautiful in a sharp, sea-cut way but that isn’t what holds you. It’s the way his mind moves. The way concepts ignite when he touches them. The way he speaks about marine art as if it is a battlefield and a cathedral all at once.

He does not simply teach the subject. 

He defends it.

You don’t have something revolutionary. You’ve combed through eco-art journals, conservation reports, grant archives. You have sketches in the margins of your notes color gradients mapped in tidal charts, speculative algae matrices that might hold form without harm.

Only Ideas and not proof and without a doubt something that would survive his scrutiny.

still…

“Professor,” you say carefully, “in my research I found replication iterations of dinoflagellate cultures, synthetic phosphors designed to mimic abyssal glow but nothing that felt… ethically sustainable.”

He turns toward you fully now.

“And that,” he says, “is the first honest thing anyone has admitted today.”

Heat crawls up your throat, slow and treacherous as a rising tide.

You are the first voice to break the silence and the lecture has barely begun. It makes you wonder, not for the first time, how many conversations he walks through each day where no one dares to mean what they say.

You press on before you can lose nerve. “May I ask what pigments did the Lemurian muralists use for bioluminescent detailing?”

A ripple moves through the room. The Lemurian case studies are theoretical half archaeology, half myth, used to examine lost coastal civilizations and speculative marine adaptation.

He studies you.

Not your face.

Your intent.

“They ground abyssal shells,” he says, and the words do not sound delivered so much as remembered. “Deep-sea mollusks, their nacre refracting light beyond the visible human spectrum.”

His gaze unfocuses slightly, as if he is no longer addressing a lecture hall but standing somewhere in another time.

“They understood,” he continues softly, “that there are colors the human eye was never meant to keep.”

Your thoughts outrun your caution.

“Then their retinal capacity must have differed from ours,” you murmur. “Otherwise the detailing would have been imperceptible.”.

You realize, belatedly, that you’ve spoken aloud.

His gaze sharpens, not quite with irritation, but more interest.

“Go on,” he says.

Your pulse stumbles.

“If the Lemurians evolved in prolonged low-light marine environments,” you continue, “their rods and cones would have adapted greater sensitivity to shorter wavelengths. Perhaps even structural retinal differences allow perception beyond our spectrum.”

The faintest curve touches his mouth.

“An evolutionary answer,” he says softly. “Rather than a romantic one.”

You swallow. “The ocean rarely rewards romance.”

He turns to the side with a gentle smirk.

“On the contrary,” he replies, eyes never leaving yours, “the ocean devours it.”

The words leave you settling heavy and charged.

“Thank you, Professor,” you manage.

He turns away too quickly, returning to his desk. Papers shift beneath his hands, though they had been immaculate moments before. His TA, Thomas, exhales in quiet resignation at the growing disorder.

Rafayel advances the slides.

Images bloom across the screen tidal sculptures designed to erode with lunar cycles, reef-safe installations seeded with living organisms, works responding to coral bleaching events accelerated by ocean acidification. He moves quickly, explaining the calcium carbonate fragility under decreasing pH levels, the ethics of harvesting versus cultivating shell substrates, the distinction between phosphorescence and true bioluminescent reaction.

His voice is fluid and mainly controlled.

Every so often, it falters just slightly when it passes your row.

You take notes without looking away.

You are not afraid of him. You are afraid of disappointing him though.

 And that is worse.

When the lecture ends, he does not dismiss the class immediately. He lingers, fingers resting on the crest of the silver podium as if feeling for a tide.

“Keep in mind,” he says, almost absently, “innovation without responsibility is vandalism.”

His gaze lifts to you once more.

“And responsibility,” he adds, “requires perception.”

The diffuser hums softly above.

a reminder that atmosphere matters.

This is the moment before a wave breaks. It’s suspended, inevitable, and far more dangerous than either of you are willing to admit.

Professor Rafayel is always the first to leave.

Of course he is.

You stay in the auditorium long after everyone else has gone, just as you always do.

Waiting for the shuffle of the last backpack, the echo of the last goodbye, the heavy doors closing.

When the auditorium finally empties, you gather your things slowly. The building changes at this hour. The late class leaves the halls hollow, the air quieter, as if the walls themselves are exhaling.

Several lights have already surrendered to evening. What remains is the sun spilling molten gold through tall windows, casting long panes of fire across the floor and up the walls. Orange light warm against the dark, turning dust motes into drifting embers.

It feels like trespassing into something sacred.

You know this path.

You know this building the way the tide knows the shoreline

Which classroom door refuses to close all the way, as though it prefers to listen. How long the silence lingers in the corridors before it stops being absence and starts being attention.

The late classes have drained the place of its pulse. What remains is a shell of fluorescent lights humming like restrained bees, washing the walls in a sterile, scholarly pallor. The kind of light that forgives nothing and sanctifies even less.

Just an hour ago, you asked a question.

A careful touch at the edge of his lecture where the documented histories thinned and something older seemed to breathe beneath them. 

He turned toward you with that measured calm of his. Answered cleanly. Logically. Seamless as a blade sliding back into its sheath.

But you were watching.

You saw the hesitation almost brief, almost imperceptible. The way his shoulders drew back a fraction too tight. The way his jaw set before he spoke to you.

He held your gaze as he responded.

And yet something moved behind his eyes. It was not anger, not quite. Something older. A flare quickly drowned. A shadow crossing deep water.

You tell yourself you are walking to his office for clarification. That is what office hours are for.

You want him to explain properly this time why your interpretation sparked something in him. You want footnotes and frameworks and citations.

You stop at his door and knock once.

Just enough to be heard.

“Come in.”

His voice drifts through the wood. Smooth, already aware of you.

You step inside and lock the door behind you.

It is muscle memory now. The soft click sounds louder than it should.

He sits at his desk upright, nearly posing for a portrait of himself. His jacket removed, sleeves folded with to reveal the clean lines of his forearms. Reading glasses balanced low on his nose. Lamplight pools over him in warm gold, turning order into something almost sacred.

He looks exactly as he should.

Untouchable.

“Hello, professor,” you say.

He lifts his gaze slowly, as if surfacing.

There is always that moment when his eyes find you and sharpen, when something behind them shifts from academic to aware.

“Hello, cutie.”

That nickname a spark in dry tinder.

Your pulse falters, but your face remains perfectly arranged as you cross the room and set your bag at the edge of his desk. The leather thuds softly against polished wood.

He does not look back at his papers.

He watches you approach the way you imagine he watches a theory unfold: curious to see where it will lead.

When you step within reach, his hand finds your waist.

He traces idle circles at the small of your back, warm even through the thin fabric of your top. The touch is absentminded in appearance, deliberate in execution.

“Did I not answer your question well enough?” he asks, voice lowered not to conceal, but to contain.

You meet his gaze evenly.

“No,” you reply. “I’ll need more clarity.”

A faint smile ghosts across his mouth, slow and knowing.

“Of course you will.”

Your hand rises, threading into his hair. The soft waves give easily beneath your fingers. You push them back from his forehead, studying him this up close, unguarded, stripped of podium and distance.

He tilts his head into your touch. 

You lean down.

For a suspended second, you hover there close enough to feel the warmth of his breath against your mouth. Close enough to see the flicker of anticipation.

You press your lips press to his.

This kind of kiss does not ask permission because it already knows the answer.

The warmth of his skin is not simply heat, it is tone. Burnished copper beneath your palms. A living underpainting of ember and breath. He exhales slowly through his nose, controlled, measured, as if even this is something he has chosen to allow.

He smells of a clean kind of cologne that likely isn’t cologne at all but a bath oil. A vision of him leaning carelessly in a bath comes to your mind. He is relaxed and calm and in a state you don’t get to see him in, but desperately want to.

It’s so clear, you can almost taste it.

Your mouth moves against his with quiet insistence, a measured press layered over restraint.

The feeling from the lecture hall hasn’t vanished.

It has softened.

What flickered between you then was not lightning but something subtler. A tremor. The brief, fragile shiver of his guard when it faltered and you were the only one who noticed.

That flutter has followed you here.

You lean forward to sit in his lap. His hand slides up your thigh to pull you closer to him. He tightens his grip on your waist to make you arch and grind against him, making you both moan in response.

There is no audience now.

No rows of watchful eyes.

No sharpened critique of thrown glass.

Only this.

His warmth begins to bleed into you in molten gold poured too close to bare skin, luminous and almost reckless in its proximity. You move against him with a hunger that feels indecent in its intensity. No hesitation left to hide behind.

Like a violent stroke of cadmium red slashed across a canvas. It’s reckless, irreversible, and laid down with full knowledge that it could ruin everything, but neither of you slowing your hand.

Of course isn’t the first risky stroke and yet the vibrance hasn’t dulled.

His presence is heat and cool relief in one.

You’re leaning into a bonfire you once swore you could orbit without falling in. Stepping toward the edge of a cliff just to prove you are immune to vertigo.

Your fingers slide deeper into his hair which each turn of your head. The texture is silk threaded through with stubborn wave, slipping and catching between your knuckles.

He does not pull away.

He does not flinch.

If anything, he deepens the pressure at your back, drawing you closer, until there is no clean line left from where you end and he begins only blurred edges. A tidal pull of something neither of you has ever truly tried to escape.

The kiss deepens. It’s velvet rich, indulgent, edged with teeth. His pulse beats against yours, steady and unshaken, a dark sapphire rhythm. He isn’t drowning as you are.

The tightness in your chest twists charcoal and static, rough against your ribs. You pull back just enough to breathe, to see him. His eyes are half-lidded. He already knows the question before you ask it.

“I loved the way you spoke today,” you murmur, softer now, but no less intent. “The way it mattered to you.”

Your clasp your hands behind his neck.

“Show me the rest of it. The part you don’t give to the room.”

Your voice comes out smaller than you intended pale blue porcelain with hairline cracks.

He laughs softly.

It’s low. Polished obsidian. Smooth enough to see your reflection in it.

“Cutie,” he murmurs, tilting his head, studying you as a painting he commissioned himself. “You have also have a passion i’m curious about”

He slides his arms around you and rises from the chair in one fluid motion, lifting you just enough to settle you on the edge of his desk. Then he steps between your knees, close enough to look down at you with that steady, assessing gaze.

“I want to go first.”

His thumb brushes your cheek, slow and deliberate, as if smudging away your curiosity of him with the pad of his finger.

He leans in, his lips brushing against yours in a slow, lingering kiss, savoring the moment. His hand glides down your body, fingers tracing the curves of your waist and hips with deliberate care. A soft moan escapes you, your body instinctively arching into his touch, drawn to the warmth of his hands.

His mouth trails lower, lips and tongue leaving a heated path down your neck, his breath warm against your skin. When he reaches your collarbone, he lingers, pressing a kiss there before continuing downward. His hands move to your chest, fingers teasing, coaxing shivers from you with every precise movement.

"Rafayel," you gasp, your voice barely above a whisper, your body trembling beneath him.

“Look at you,” he murmurs against your skin, amusement threading through his tone. “So responsive. And you thought you didn’t understand.”

His hand continues its descent, slipping beneath the waistband of your pants. His fingers move with ease, teasing, exploring, drawing out every reaction as if he’s memorizing the way you respond to him.

His lips follow the same path, trailing lower, his tongue leaving a warm, electric sensation against your stomach as he lowers to his knees. He pulls your pants away with a slow, deliberate motion, his eyes dark with something unreadable something intense.

His lips find you first. A kiss soft, yet claiming, as if sealing an unspoken promise. His movements are patient, controlled, the heat of his breath sending a ripple of anticipation through you before he deepens the pressure.

Your legs tighten instinctively around his shoulders, but he catches them, strong hands holding you in place. His grip is firm, steady, grounding.

“You were doing so well,” he says, catching your movement easily, steadying you with hands of carved marble warmed by sunlight. “Don’t rush ahead. You asked me to show you passion.”

Before you can respond, his lips are on you again, and the words dissolve into a breathless moan. Your fingers clasp over the edge of his desk, your body trembling against his hold. His rhythm matches your breath, slow at first exploring, savoring until he finds exactly what makes you fall apart.

His thumb works along side is tongue, building an overwhelming intensity. Working you toward an edge of needing relief and never wanting it to end. His grip on your leg tightens as he feels you teeter on the edge, his pace unrelenting, guiding you toward something inevitable, and shattering.

"Rafayel," you gasp, voice unsteady.

You grip with wood of the desktop, knuckles pale. The room feels smaller, the air thicker  honeyed smoke curling around both of you.

He hums against you, the vibration sending another wave of pleasure coursing through you. "I've got you," he whispers. "Let go.”

Relief crashes over you in waves, rippling through your trembling body. It’s luminous. White-gold light flooding your veins, washing out the static, dissolving the charcoal tension into something warm and suspended.

Your breath catches, then escapes in shallow, ragged gasps as aftershocks pulse through you.

When you finally regain enough clarity, your gaze drifts downward, drawn to the sight of him.

Rafayel is watching you, his dark, heavy-lidded eyes filled with satisfaction, admiration something deeper.

His chest rises and falls with labored breaths, his lips parted as if he’s about to speak, but he doesn’t. He only watches, mesmerized.

His tousled hair is damp, strands sticking to his forehead, making him look even more devastatingly undone. But it’s the shirt the one his keeps in the deepest v neck that could possibly be considered business appropriate. The fabric clings to his torso, wrinkled from where your hands had clutched at him, damp in places from sweat and the heat.

You want to take it off him. You need to. The urge is almost visceral. Not just to see him fully, though you ache for that too but to strip away that last remaining barrier, to feel his skin against yours without anything seperating you. Your fingers twitch, already reaching before you can think twice.

“How do you get away with tops like this?”

He chuckles, a low, satisfied sound, and leans in, brushing his lips over yours. “If you ask nicely, you just might be able to get what you want," he murmurs against your mouth” you should try it sometime cutie”

You shake your head, barely able to form words.

His breath warm against your skin, his lips brushing the shell of your ear.

"Please, tell me what it is that you want,"

his voice thick with desire as his fingers his resume his works with slow, deliberate strokes.

Your breath hitched, pleasure clouding your thoughts as your body tensed beneath him. “Rafayel… I really want you," you gasped, your voice barely above a whisper, trembling with need.

His grin was dark, full of heat and satisfaction, his eyes flickering with something primal. He moved over, his body presses into you. solid and warm, surrounding you. The hard length of him pressed against your thigh. His hands cradle your face, thumbs brushing over your cheekbones as he kisses you, deep and lingering, pouring silent praise into every movement.

His hands move with purpose, guiding rather than taking. Teaching, but never mocking.

Trust me.

His rhythm builds gradually controlled, intentional. When you falter, he steadies you. When you cling, he doesn’t tease.

His hand slid between you, aligning himself with you as your lips continued to move together, breathing in each other’s gasps. Then, with aching slowness, he pushed inside, drawing a sharp inhale from both of you.

"Take a second, darling," he whispered, his forehead resting against yours, his breath mingling with yours. His voice was steady, grounding. He waited, giving you time to adjust, to feel every inch of him, his grip firm but gentle as his hands traveled down your body.

One hand slid down your thigh, coaxing it around his waist, his fingers kneading tense muscles there, working out the pressure with care.

"If you’re hurting, please tell me," he said, voice low, his concern laced along the desire in his tone.

You shook your head, biting your lip. “No, I want…I want you closer”

A slow smile spread across his lips, something fond and reverent. "I've got you, cutie," he murmured, pressing a kiss to your forehead. "You’re getting so good at telling me what you want. I'm a good teacher aren’t I?”

With that, he started to move slow, controlled strokes, giving you time to adjust, to melt into him, to understand exactly where you needed to lean on him. His moans against your lips were beautiful, each one sending shivers down your spine. 

His grip on your hips tightened, steadying you, holding you close as he built a rhythm and his pace quickened. The friction, the heat, the way he filled you it all became overwhelming in a way that made you cling to him, each thrust drawing a sharper moan from you. Your fingers dug into his back, clinging to him, feeling every ripple of muscle beneath his damp skin.

When his hand slid between your bodies, teasing, adding to the intensity, your breath stuttered. "Rafayel " you gasped, your body trembling on the edge.

He chuckled against your neck, his breath hot and uneven. “Let yourself have this." he murmured, voice laced with command and adoration, his fingers working in tandem with his movements.

And then, it hit pleasure crashing over you in waves, your body tensing before unraveling completely. The world fractures into bright, breathless light, he’s right there holding you through it, grounding you through the tremor.

Rafayel groaned against your skin, his pace stuttering, his own release finding him in the wake of yours. He pulsed inside you, his grip tightening for just a moment before he let out a deep, satisfied sigh.

For a long moment, neither of you moves. The room narrows to the sound of shared uneven breath uneven, mingling, in the aftermath of something that refused to stay contained.

He draws you down with him as he sinks back into the chair, guiding you through the motion. Your knees settle on either side of him. His hands remain at your waist and his forehead rests against yours, damp with heat. Arm tight around your waist.

“Is that the passion you were feeling?,” you whispered, your body warm, sated, and blissfully drowsy.

“Hmm,” you murmur.

“Are you not satisfied?” he asks, feigning injury, one hand lifting dramatically to his chest. “It certainly seemed like you were.”

You lean your head against him, listening to the steady rhythm beneath his shirt. “I don’t think that’s what sparked you earlier. I think you were distracting me.”

His fingers toy absently with a strand of your hair, winding it once around his knuckle before letting it slip free.

“You can’t have all the answers,” he adjusts his leg to turn the chair toward the window. The movement shifts you closer. “That’s the point of living, cutie. We learn. We revise.”

The sunset deepens, turning the glass molten. Outside, the horizon glows as if the ocean itself were holding a coal beneath its surface.

His answer doesn’t satisfy you.

You trace the line of his collarbone through the open collar of his shirt. “Are you scared they know?”

“Know what?”

You tilt your head to look at him. “About this.”

His hand settles more firmly at your waist. “The students are intelligent,” he says lightly. “That’s why they’re in my class.” A faint smirk. “The faculty operate on ego and recycled theory. I’m not concerned those old rocks.”

You laugh softly, fingers brushing against his as they rest on your thigh. The touch lingers, small and deliberate.

“They won’t do anything,” he adds, thumb grazing your lower lip, watching it part. “They’re intimidated.”

“You’re proud of that.”

“Of course.” One brow lifts. “Fear sharpens attention. Attention produces excellence. I’m practically philanthropic.”

You roll your eyes, but your hand drifts higher along his shoulder, feeling the tension there.

The room dims further. Amber fades toward bruised violet. The artifacts in the shelves begin to blur into shadow.

“Are you ever scared?” you ask, softer now.

He studies you as if you’ve posed a flawed premise. “Of what?”

“Getting caught.”

That earns you a pause.

His fingers still in your hair. His jaw barely tightens.

“You don’t need to worry about that.”

“I think I do.”

He leans back slightly, adjusting you with him, though his grip never loosens. “My research is attracting attention,” he says. “Not academic attention. That I can handle.”

The warmth between you shifts, thins.

“I mean the kind that arrives with contracts written in disappearing ink.”

Your fingers still.

“And?”

“And that makes you… visible.” The word lands carefully. “You notice things. You ask the wrong, correct, questions.”

“Visible to who?”

His gaze sharpens, something colder sliding beneath the surface. “To people who mistake culture for leverage.”

You watch him, really watch him. The composure is there. The elegance. But beneath it, something coiled and alert.

“When people cannot replicate something,” he says evenly, “they attempt to acquire it. When they cannot acquire it, they attempt to control it.”

“And if they can’t?”

His jaw shifts.

“They become creative.”

A chill moves through you.

“That doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

His hands tighten, just slightly, at your waist.

“I have much more knowledge and experience than you do, but we are both in this field and that makes you a variable.”

“A variable in what?”

“In risk.”

The office feels smaller now. The sunset nearly gone. Only a thin line of fire left on the horizon.

“You think someone would threaten you?”

A humorless breath escapes him. “They’re welcome to.”

This edge. This sharpened version of him. It’s the one you were brushing against earlier.

“There are people who want what I’ve built,” he continues. “They believe it belongs in their hands.”

His fingers drift absently along your spine. A thoughtful path up and down, tracing the shape of something he’s memorizing. His other hand remains at your hip, thumb brushing back and forth in a small, unconscious rhythm.

“It’s about ownership,” he says finally. “And I don’t share well.”

The words hover between you.

You shift off his lap slowly, the loss of warmth is immediate. Stepping out of sunlight into shade. Your fingers trail down his arm, reluctant, memorizing the line of him before slipping away entirely.

His hand lingers for a blink of a moment before he lets it fall to the armrest.

You don’t move far. Just enough to stand on your own.

There’s too much in your head now: these contracts written in disappearing ink, visibility, leverage, risk. The word ownership still echoing in a way that feels less metaphorical than it should.

“I have to get going.” You need space to think on it properly. “have a bit of homework to do”

“I’m exhausted,” he replies, and the tone is lighter now “If I don’t get enough rest, Thomas will end up writing Friday’s exam again, and he won’t like that, considering I’ve already assigned him half the department’s administrative sins.”

“You haven’t written it?”

He offers a faint, tired smile. “I was going to do it just now, but I was preoccupied.”

You gather your things. Your bag. Your notebook. The small shell you’d been absently turning between your fingers.

“I meant to give this to you.”

He rises with unhurried ease and crosses to the bookshelf along the far wall. The shelves look less like academic storage and more like a private archive. Volumes bound in cracked leather, margins swollen with age, titles stamped in languages that no longer circulate. They look like they should be in a museum guarded behind bulletproof glass.

His fingers drift along the spines, slow, almost reverent, before selecting one.

“This will help with the writing portion,” he holds it out to you.

You take it carefully. It feels heavier than it should.

“I appreciate your help.”

A faint curve touches his mouth. “Anytime.”

He steps close enough that the space folds again, presses a kiss to the crown of your head restrained, almost formal and lets his hand trail down your arm as you turn to leave, fingertips grazing your wrist before slipping away.

The touch lingers longer than it should.

Then you’re walking toward the door, and he is already composed behind you, as though he hadn’t just let himself soften at all.

He watches you walk to the door.

The hallway light spills in briefly as you open it and not look back.

He locks the door behind you.

Crosses to his desk and slides open the bottom drawer. The second phone inside vibrates once.

He stares at it before answering.

“You’re persistent,” he says coolly.

A voice murmurs on the other end.

His gaze drifts toward the door.

“No,” he says sharply. “She has nothing to do with this.”

A pause.

His jaw tightens.

“That would be unwise.”

Another pause..

His voice lowers

calm in a way that is far more dangerous than anger. “You can posturek all you like. But if you make this personal, I promise you won’t enjoy the outcome.”

Silence.

The line clicks dead.

He stands there for a long moment, pulse visible at his throat.

Then he reaches for his other phone.

Your name glows on the screen.

His thumb hovers.

Text me when you’re home.

Deleted.

Stay alert.

Deleted.

Finally:

Trust me.

He sends it.

And for the first time, the secrecy between you feels less like a thrill.

And more like a perimeter.

[jane-the-good]

part 2 is damn near 9k words

i’m not finishing tonight 😋

but i’ll let you know, there is a def a bathtub scene that is heavily inspired by his misty invasions card ◡̈

[jane-the-good]

♡ happy birthday sea god ♡

these are all the things I have painted for Rafayel ◡̈

Rafayel's was the first LADS design I made so he holds a special place in my heart ◡̈

I've been gifted so many opportunities to paint these for so many cuties and have sent them all over the world!!! It has been such a gorgeous and fulfilling year ♡ cheers to many more!!!!!!

they're all listed on my website HERE if you wanna match with meee ◡̈

CONCEPT:

Inspired by Rafayel’s lantern-painting memory. It is first time we truly see him working as an artist. He isn’t painting for himself alone. He’s choosing to share something genuine and sacred. Revealing that creation is born not only from pain, but also from connection. On the lantern, he paints a fish reminiscent of his Lemurian mark. As the lantern floats away, it becomes his attempt to release his worries and let them go.

The fish swim freely on the top, circling and embracing the wearer.

CONCEPT:

The Lemurian skeleton on the back is the weight Rafayel carries for Lemuria and fire lilies blaze with the fierce, unyielding passion that fuels his soul.

Rafayel may sometimes appear vulnerable or in need of protection, and may even be accompanied by a bodyguard. But he is more than capable of defending himself, and more importantly, Lemuria. His true strength lies in his dedication to restoring Lemuria’s lost honor. When he first came face to face with the Lemurian skeleton, it awakened a profound resolve inside him. He did what he had to do.

CONCEPT:

an ode to devotion dots form constellations of the fish he paints for you,

your name written in the stars details of his evol encircle the hood and arms

growing stronger the longer you choose each other

CONCEPT:

our sweet little reddy swimming around leaving trails of bubbles

alternate options ♡

[jane-the-good]

office hours

WORD COUNT: 5.6K

SUMMARY: Your professor is very connected to his study. He is sassy and arrogant you are pretty sure his TA does all his grunt work. but his passion is really hot and you know how to spark a flame in him ♡

TAGS: professor! rafayel (want to note i had a sudden urge to finish this draft and started two weeks ago!!! I didn't know that his birthday was going to be a professor card!!!! I truly am divinely connected, just so you know ♡ )

WARNING: smut, oral sex, femme reader, unprotected sex (please be safe irl)

rafayel masterlist

part 1 | part 2 (soon)

The lecture hall curves around the stage almost acting as a ribcage. Its beams bent inward, shielding the pulsing life at its center.

Dark wooden tiers descend in deliberate arcs toward a silver podium that flows in a breaking wave. Its metal lip caught forever in a single moment before a collapse. The air smells faintly of clean linen and something almost floral you can never quite name. He insists on diffusers.

“Atmosphere,” Professor Rafayel once said, adjusting the dial with delicate precision, “is the difference between immersion and observation.”

He believes that entirely. Just as well as he believes in art and in oceans.

Very clearly does he not believe in people.

You sit in the third row, a compass needle fixed on true north. He always arrives late. He keeps you, and everyone else in the course, waiting. 

Your heart thrums as you consider that you’re close enough to see the slow rhythm of his breathing. Close enough to note that he has once again left the top buttons of his blouse undone not carelessly, never that, but in an invitation he doesn’t intend anyone to accept. Close enough to watch the sweep of his lashes against the sharp planes of his cheeks when he lowers his gaze to his notes.

You’ll see that when he looks up, when he finds you already watching, there is the smallest bloom of color beneath his skin.

The door does not open on time. It opens when the room has ripened into impatience. When whispers have thinned, when the clock has begun to feel accusatory.

Only then does he enter.

His coat hangs off one shoulder as though he shrugged it on in the last second. Windswept hair, like he has come straight from the harbor instead of the faculty wing. You imagine him ankle-deep in the tide at dawn, sleeves rolled, lecturing the ocean itself for its carelessness with history before remembering he has a classroom waiting.

He does not greet anyone.

The door closed itself behind him and surveys the lecture hall as if assessing structural integrity. Violet eyes, sharp and lucid, miss nothing. He does not need to demand attention; he assumes it.

“Bioluminescence,” he begins, voice low not loud, but pitched in a way that threads effortlessly through the tiers of seats. Silken. Controlled. “Is not decoration.”

He sets his notes on the podium without looking at them. You are half sure the pages are blank since he never actually looks at them.

“It is defiance.”

A slide flickers to life behind him. A submerged installation glowing faint blue beneath dark water, light threading through coral structures. Its veins beneath skin of the sea. He doesn’t turn to look at it.

“Dinoflagellates,” he continues, clasping his hands behind his back as he begins to move slow, prowling. “Noctiluca scintillans. Organisms that emit light only when disturbed.”

A faint lift of one brow.

“Light,” he says, “that exists because it has been threatened.”

He tilts his head slightly.

“What does that suggest?”

No one answers.

It isn’t fear in the crude sense. He has never raised his voice. Never humiliated anyone outright. But he dismantles imprecision the way the tide erodes a cliff steadily and inevitably, until nothing unstable remains. And, without apology. If you are wrong, he does not mock you.

He simply corrects you.

And somehow that feels worse.

“Marine Environmental Art History,” he says, drifting away from the podium, “is not about aestheticizing decay.”

He stops at the edge of the first tier.

“It is about witnessing it.”

His gaze sweeps the room.

“It is about extinction. Appropriation. The preservation of memory in the face of erasure.”

There that flicker. That flare beneath the composed exterior. Fire under glass.

When he speaks of erasure, it is never abstract.

He cites Spiral Jetty and its surrender to entropy, not with detached admiration but with critique spectacle versus responsibility. He speaks of Maya Lin with reverence, tracing how her environmental works fold geography into grief. He dissects coastal installations that harvest coral irresponsibly, condemns artists who pose as activists while accelerating reef degradation.

His arguments are specific, entirely layered. Impossible to refute.

And worse is how passionate he is about being right.

Not for his ego, but for preservation.

“I would like,” he says softly now and the softness is the dangerous part “to hear what new materials you’ve discovered for bioluminescent detailing.”

The class stiffens.

Everyone knows he has experimented with nearly everything: kelp-based binding agents, calcium carbonate composites grown rather than mined, controlled algae cultures engineered to mimic natural fluorescence without ecological harm. There are rumors he once attempted a submerged mural seeded with oyster larvae a living surface that filtered the water as it illuminated it.

Silence settles in the silt of dark water.

He is beautiful in a sharp, sea-cut way but that isn’t what holds you. It’s the way his mind moves. The way concepts ignite when he touches them. The way he speaks about marine art as if it is a battlefield and a cathedral all at once.

He does not simply teach the subject. 

He defends it.

You don’t have something revolutionary. You’ve combed through eco-art journals, conservation reports, grant archives. You have sketches in the margins of your notes color gradients mapped in tidal charts, speculative algae matrices that might hold form without harm.

Only Ideas and not proof and without a doubt something that would survive his scrutiny.

still…

“Professor,” you say carefully, “in my research I found replication iterations of dinoflagellate cultures, synthetic phosphors designed to mimic abyssal glow but nothing that felt… ethically sustainable.”

He turns toward you fully now.

“And that,” he says, “is the first honest thing anyone has admitted today.”

Heat crawls up your throat, slow and treacherous as a rising tide.

You are the first voice to break the silence and the lecture has barely begun. It makes you wonder, not for the first time, how many conversations he walks through each day where no one dares to mean what they say.

You press on before you can lose nerve. “May I ask what pigments did the Lemurian muralists use for bioluminescent detailing?”

A ripple moves through the room. The Lemurian case studies are theoretical half archaeology, half myth, used to examine lost coastal civilizations and speculative marine adaptation.

He studies you.

Not your face.

Your intent.

“They ground abyssal shells,” he says, and the words do not sound delivered so much as remembered. “Deep-sea mollusks, their nacre refracting light beyond the visible human spectrum.”

His gaze unfocuses slightly, as if he is no longer addressing a lecture hall but standing somewhere in another time.

“They understood,” he continues softly, “that there are colors the human eye was never meant to keep.”

Your thoughts outrun your caution.

“Then their retinal capacity must have differed from ours,” you murmur. “Otherwise the detailing would have been imperceptible.”.

You realize, belatedly, that you’ve spoken aloud.

His gaze sharpens, not quite with irritation, but more interest.

“Go on,” he says.

Your pulse stumbles.

“If the Lemurians evolved in prolonged low-light marine environments,” you continue, “their rods and cones would have adapted greater sensitivity to shorter wavelengths. Perhaps even structural retinal differences allow perception beyond our spectrum.”

The faintest curve touches his mouth.

“An evolutionary answer,” he says softly. “Rather than a romantic one.”

You swallow. “The ocean rarely rewards romance.”

He turns to the side with a gentle smirk.

“On the contrary,” he replies, eyes never leaving yours, “the ocean devours it.”

The words leave you settling heavy and charged.

“Thank you, Professor,” you manage.

He turns away too quickly, returning to his desk. Papers shift beneath his hands, though they had been immaculate moments before. His TA, Thomas, exhales in quiet resignation at the growing disorder.

Rafayel advances the slides.

Images bloom across the screen tidal sculptures designed to erode with lunar cycles, reef-safe installations seeded with living organisms, works responding to coral bleaching events accelerated by ocean acidification. He moves quickly, explaining the calcium carbonate fragility under decreasing pH levels, the ethics of harvesting versus cultivating shell substrates, the distinction between phosphorescence and true bioluminescent reaction.

His voice is fluid and mainly controlled.

Every so often, it falters just slightly when it passes your row.

You take notes without looking away.

You are not afraid of him. You are afraid of disappointing him though.

 And that is worse.

When the lecture ends, he does not dismiss the class immediately. He lingers, fingers resting on the crest of the silver podium as if feeling for a tide.

“Keep in mind,” he says, almost absently, “innovation without responsibility is vandalism.”

His gaze lifts to you once more.

“And responsibility,” he adds, “requires perception.”

The diffuser hums softly above.

a reminder that atmosphere matters.

This is the moment before a wave breaks. It’s suspended, inevitable, and far more dangerous than either of you are willing to admit.

Professor Rafayel is always the first to leave.

Of course he is.

You stay in the auditorium long after everyone else has gone, just as you always do.

Waiting for the shuffle of the last backpack, the echo of the last goodbye, the heavy doors closing.

When the auditorium finally empties, you gather your things slowly. The building changes at this hour. The late class leaves the halls hollow, the air quieter, as if the walls themselves are exhaling.

Several lights have already surrendered to evening. What remains is the sun spilling molten gold through tall windows, casting long panes of fire across the floor and up the walls. Orange light warm against the dark, turning dust motes into drifting embers.

It feels like trespassing into something sacred.

You know this path.

You know this building the way the tide knows the shoreline

Which classroom door refuses to close all the way, as though it prefers to listen. How long the silence lingers in the corridors before it stops being absence and starts being attention.

The late classes have drained the place of its pulse. What remains is a shell of fluorescent lights humming like restrained bees, washing the walls in a sterile, scholarly pallor. The kind of light that forgives nothing and sanctifies even less.

Just an hour ago, you asked a question.

A careful touch at the edge of his lecture where the documented histories thinned and something older seemed to breathe beneath them. 

He turned toward you with that measured calm of his. Answered cleanly. Logically. Seamless as a blade sliding back into its sheath.

But you were watching.

You saw the hesitation almost brief, almost imperceptible. The way his shoulders drew back a fraction too tight. The way his jaw set before he spoke to you.

He held your gaze as he responded.

And yet something moved behind his eyes. It was not anger, not quite. Something older. A flare quickly drowned. A shadow crossing deep water.

You tell yourself you are walking to his office for clarification. That is what office hours are for.

You want him to explain properly this time why your interpretation sparked something in him. You want footnotes and frameworks and citations.

You stop at his door and knock once.

Just enough to be heard.

“Come in.”

His voice drifts through the wood. Smooth, already aware of you.

You step inside and lock the door behind you.

It is muscle memory now. The soft click sounds louder than it should.

He sits at his desk upright, nearly posing for a portrait of himself. His jacket removed, sleeves folded with to reveal the clean lines of his forearms. Reading glasses balanced low on his nose. Lamplight pools over him in warm gold, turning order into something almost sacred.

He looks exactly as he should.

Untouchable.

“Hello, professor,” you say.

He lifts his gaze slowly, as if surfacing.

There is always that moment when his eyes find you and sharpen, when something behind them shifts from academic to aware.

“Hello, cutie.”

That nickname a spark in dry tinder.

Your pulse falters, but your face remains perfectly arranged as you cross the room and set your bag at the edge of his desk. The leather thuds softly against polished wood.

He does not look back at his papers.

He watches you approach the way you imagine he watches a theory unfold: curious to see where it will lead.

When you step within reach, his hand finds your waist.

He traces idle circles at the small of your back, warm even through the thin fabric of your top. The touch is absentminded in appearance, deliberate in execution.

“Did I not answer your question well enough?” he asks, voice lowered not to conceal, but to contain.

You meet his gaze evenly.

“No,” you reply. “I’ll need more clarity.”

A faint smile ghosts across his mouth, slow and knowing.

“Of course you will.”

Your hand rises, threading into his hair. The soft waves give easily beneath your fingers. You push them back from his forehead, studying him this up close, unguarded, stripped of podium and distance.

He tilts his head into your touch. 

You lean down.

For a suspended second, you hover there close enough to feel the warmth of his breath against your mouth. Close enough to see the flicker of anticipation.

You press your lips press to his.

This kind of kiss does not ask permission because it already knows the answer.

The warmth of his skin is not simply heat, it is tone. Burnished copper beneath your palms. A living underpainting of ember and breath. He exhales slowly through his nose, controlled, measured, as if even this is something he has chosen to allow.

He smells of a clean kind of cologne that likely isn’t cologne at all but a bath oil. A vision of him leaning carelessly in a bath comes to your mind. He is relaxed and calm and in a state you don’t get to see him in, but desperately want to.

It’s so clear, you can almost taste it.

Your mouth moves against his with quiet insistence, a measured press layered over restraint.

The feeling from the lecture hall hasn’t vanished.

It has softened.

What flickered between you then was not lightning but something subtler. A tremor. The brief, fragile shiver of his guard when it faltered and you were the only one who noticed.

That flutter has followed you here.

You lean forward to sit in his lap. His hand slides up your thigh to pull you closer to him. He tightens his grip on your waist to make you arch and grind against him, making you both moan in response.

There is no audience now.

No rows of watchful eyes.

No sharpened critique of thrown glass.

Only this.

His warmth begins to bleed into you in molten gold poured too close to bare skin, luminous and almost reckless in its proximity. You move against him with a hunger that feels indecent in its intensity. No hesitation left to hide behind.

Like a violent stroke of cadmium red slashed across a canvas. It’s reckless, irreversible, and laid down with full knowledge that it could ruin everything, but neither of you slowing your hand.

Of course isn’t the first risky stroke and yet the vibrance hasn’t dulled.

His presence is heat and cool relief in one.

You’re leaning into a bonfire you once swore you could orbit without falling in. Stepping toward the edge of a cliff just to prove you are immune to vertigo.

Your fingers slide deeper into his hair which each turn of your head. The texture is silk threaded through with stubborn wave, slipping and catching between your knuckles.

He does not pull away.

He does not flinch.

If anything, he deepens the pressure at your back, drawing you closer, until there is no clean line left from where you end and he begins only blurred edges. A tidal pull of something neither of you has ever truly tried to escape.

The kiss deepens. It’s velvet rich, indulgent, edged with teeth. His pulse beats against yours, steady and unshaken, a dark sapphire rhythm. He isn’t drowning as you are.

The tightness in your chest twists charcoal and static, rough against your ribs. You pull back just enough to breathe, to see him. His eyes are half-lidded. He already knows the question before you ask it.

“I loved the way you spoke today,” you murmur, softer now, but no less intent. “The way it mattered to you.”

Your clasp your hands behind his neck.

“Show me the rest of it. The part you don’t give to the room.”

Your voice comes out smaller than you intended pale blue porcelain with hairline cracks.

He laughs softly.

It’s low. Polished obsidian. Smooth enough to see your reflection in it.

“Cutie,” he murmurs, tilting his head, studying you as a painting he commissioned himself. “You have also have a passion i’m curious about”

He slides his arms around you and rises from the chair in one fluid motion, lifting you just enough to settle you on the edge of his desk. Then he steps between your knees, close enough to look down at you with that steady, assessing gaze.

“I want to go first.”

His thumb brushes your cheek, slow and deliberate, as if smudging away your curiosity of him with the pad of his finger.

He leans in, his lips brushing against yours in a slow, lingering kiss, savoring the moment. His hand glides down your body, fingers tracing the curves of your waist and hips with deliberate care. A soft moan escapes you, your body instinctively arching into his touch, drawn to the warmth of his hands.

His mouth trails lower, lips and tongue leaving a heated path down your neck, his breath warm against your skin. When he reaches your collarbone, he lingers, pressing a kiss there before continuing downward. His hands move to your chest, fingers teasing, coaxing shivers from you with every precise movement.

"Rafayel," you gasp, your voice barely above a whisper, your body trembling beneath him.

“Look at you,” he murmurs against your skin, amusement threading through his tone. “So responsive. And you thought you didn’t understand.”

His hand continues its descent, slipping beneath the waistband of your pants. His fingers move with ease, teasing, exploring, drawing out every reaction as if he’s memorizing the way you respond to him.

His lips follow the same path, trailing lower, his tongue leaving a warm, electric sensation against your stomach as he lowers to his knees. He pulls your pants away with a slow, deliberate motion, his eyes dark with something unreadable something intense.

His lips find you first. A kiss soft, yet claiming, as if sealing an unspoken promise. His movements are patient, controlled, the heat of his breath sending a ripple of anticipation through you before he deepens the pressure.

Your legs tighten instinctively around his shoulders, but he catches them, strong hands holding you in place. His grip is firm, steady, grounding.

“You were doing so well,” he says, catching your movement easily, steadying you with hands of carved marble warmed by sunlight. “Don’t rush ahead. You asked me to show you passion.”

Before you can respond, his lips are on you again, and the words dissolve into a breathless moan. Your fingers clasp over the edge of his desk, your body trembling against his hold. His rhythm matches your breath, slow at first exploring, savoring until he finds exactly what makes you fall apart.

His thumb works along side is tongue, building an overwhelming intensity. Working you toward an edge of needing relief and never wanting it to end. His grip on your leg tightens as he feels you teeter on the edge, his pace unrelenting, guiding you toward something inevitable, and shattering.

"Rafayel," you gasp, voice unsteady.

You grip with wood of the desktop, knuckles pale. The room feels smaller, the air thicker  honeyed smoke curling around both of you.

He hums against you, the vibration sending another wave of pleasure coursing through you. "I've got you," he whispers. "Let go.”

Relief crashes over you in waves, rippling through your trembling body. It’s luminous. White-gold light flooding your veins, washing out the static, dissolving the charcoal tension into something warm and suspended.

Your breath catches, then escapes in shallow, ragged gasps as aftershocks pulse through you.

When you finally regain enough clarity, your gaze drifts downward, drawn to the sight of him.

Rafayel is watching you, his dark, heavy-lidded eyes filled with satisfaction, admiration something deeper.

His chest rises and falls with labored breaths, his lips parted as if he’s about to speak, but he doesn’t. He only watches, mesmerized.

His tousled hair is damp, strands sticking to his forehead, making him look even more devastatingly undone. But it’s the shirt the one his keeps in the deepest v neck that could possibly be considered business appropriate. The fabric clings to his torso, wrinkled from where your hands had clutched at him, damp in places from sweat and the heat.

You want to take it off him. You need to. The urge is almost visceral. Not just to see him fully, though you ache for that too but to strip away that last remaining barrier, to feel his skin against yours without anything seperating you. Your fingers twitch, already reaching before you can think twice.

“How do you get away with tops like this?”

He chuckles, a low, satisfied sound, and leans in, brushing his lips over yours. “If you ask nicely, you just might be able to get what you want," he murmurs against your mouth” you should try it sometime cutie”

You shake your head, barely able to form words.

His breath warm against your skin, his lips brushing the shell of your ear.

"Please, tell me what it is that you want,"

his voice thick with desire as his fingers his resume his works with slow, deliberate strokes.

Your breath hitched, pleasure clouding your thoughts as your body tensed beneath him. “Rafayel… I really want you," you gasped, your voice barely above a whisper, trembling with need.

His grin was dark, full of heat and satisfaction, his eyes flickering with something primal. He moved over, his body presses into you. solid and warm, surrounding you. The hard length of him pressed against your thigh. His hands cradle your face, thumbs brushing over your cheekbones as he kisses you, deep and lingering, pouring silent praise into every movement.

His hands move with purpose, guiding rather than taking. Teaching, but never mocking.

Trust me.

His rhythm builds gradually controlled, intentional. When you falter, he steadies you. When you cling, he doesn’t tease.

His hand slid between you, aligning himself with you as your lips continued to move together, breathing in each other’s gasps. Then, with aching slowness, he pushed inside, drawing a sharp inhale from both of you.

"Take a second, darling," he whispered, his forehead resting against yours, his breath mingling with yours. His voice was steady, grounding. He waited, giving you time to adjust, to feel every inch of him, his grip firm but gentle as his hands traveled down your body.

One hand slid down your thigh, coaxing it around his waist, his fingers kneading tense muscles there, working out the pressure with care.

"If you’re hurting, please tell me," he said, voice low, his concern laced along the desire in his tone.

You shook your head, biting your lip. “No, I want…I want you closer”

A slow smile spread across his lips, something fond and reverent. "I've got you, cutie," he murmured, pressing a kiss to your forehead. "You’re getting so good at telling me what you want. I'm a good teacher aren’t I?”

With that, he started to move slow, controlled strokes, giving you time to adjust, to melt into him, to understand exactly where you needed to lean on him. His moans against your lips were beautiful, each one sending shivers down your spine. 

His grip on your hips tightened, steadying you, holding you close as he built a rhythm and his pace quickened. The friction, the heat, the way he filled you it all became overwhelming in a way that made you cling to him, each thrust drawing a sharper moan from you. Your fingers dug into his back, clinging to him, feeling every ripple of muscle beneath his damp skin.

When his hand slid between your bodies, teasing, adding to the intensity, your breath stuttered. "Rafayel " you gasped, your body trembling on the edge.

He chuckled against your neck, his breath hot and uneven. “Let yourself have this." he murmured, voice laced with command and adoration, his fingers working in tandem with his movements.

And then, it hit pleasure crashing over you in waves, your body tensing before unraveling completely. The world fractures into bright, breathless light, he’s right there holding you through it, grounding you through the tremor.

Rafayel groaned against your skin, his pace stuttering, his own release finding him in the wake of yours. He pulsed inside you, his grip tightening for just a moment before he let out a deep, satisfied sigh.

For a long moment, neither of you moves. The room narrows to the sound of shared uneven breath uneven, mingling, in the aftermath of something that refused to stay contained.

He draws you down with him as he sinks back into the chair, guiding you through the motion. Your knees settle on either side of him. His hands remain at your waist and his forehead rests against yours, damp with heat. Arm tight around your waist.

“Is that the passion you were feeling?,” you whispered, your body warm, sated, and blissfully drowsy.

“Hmm,” you murmur.

“Are you not satisfied?” he asks, feigning injury, one hand lifting dramatically to his chest. “It certainly seemed like you were.”

You lean your head against him, listening to the steady rhythm beneath his shirt. “I don’t think that’s what sparked you earlier. I think you were distracting me.”

His fingers toy absently with a strand of your hair, winding it once around his knuckle before letting it slip free.

“You can’t have all the answers,” he adjusts his leg to turn the chair toward the window. The movement shifts you closer. “That’s the point of living, cutie. We learn. We revise.”

The sunset deepens, turning the glass molten. Outside, the horizon glows as if the ocean itself were holding a coal beneath its surface.

His answer doesn’t satisfy you.

You trace the line of his collarbone through the open collar of his shirt. “Are you scared they know?”

“Know what?”

You tilt your head to look at him. “About this.”

His hand settles more firmly at your waist. “The students are intelligent,” he says lightly. “That’s why they’re in my class.” A faint smirk. “The faculty operate on ego and recycled theory. I’m not concerned those old rocks.”

You laugh softly, fingers brushing against his as they rest on your thigh. The touch lingers, small and deliberate.

“They won’t do anything,” he adds, thumb grazing your lower lip, watching it part. “They’re intimidated.”

“You’re proud of that.”

“Of course.” One brow lifts. “Fear sharpens attention. Attention produces excellence. I’m practically philanthropic.”

You roll your eyes, but your hand drifts higher along his shoulder, feeling the tension there.

The room dims further. Amber fades toward bruised violet. The artifacts in the shelves begin to blur into shadow.

“Are you ever scared?” you ask, softer now.

He studies you as if you’ve posed a flawed premise. “Of what?”

“Getting caught.”

That earns you a pause.

His fingers still in your hair. His jaw barely tightens.

“You don’t need to worry about that.”

“I think I do.”

He leans back slightly, adjusting you with him, though his grip never loosens. “My research is attracting attention,” he says. “Not academic attention. That I can handle.”

The warmth between you shifts, thins.

“I mean the kind that arrives with contracts written in disappearing ink.”

Your fingers still.

“And?”

“And that makes you… visible.” The word lands carefully. “You notice things. You ask the wrong, correct, questions.”

“Visible to who?”

His gaze sharpens, something colder sliding beneath the surface. “To people who mistake culture for leverage.”

You watch him, really watch him. The composure is there. The elegance. But beneath it, something coiled and alert.

“When people cannot replicate something,” he says evenly, “they attempt to acquire it. When they cannot acquire it, they attempt to control it.”

“And if they can’t?”

His jaw shifts.

“They become creative.”

A chill moves through you.

“That doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

His hands tighten, just slightly, at your waist.

“I have much more knowledge and experience than you do, but we are both in this field and that makes you a variable.”

“A variable in what?”

“In risk.”

The office feels smaller now. The sunset nearly gone. Only a thin line of fire left on the horizon.

“You think someone would threaten you?”

A humorless breath escapes him. “They’re welcome to.”

This edge. This sharpened version of him. It’s the one you were brushing against earlier.

“There are people who want what I’ve built,” he continues. “They believe it belongs in their hands.”

His fingers drift absently along your spine. A thoughtful path up and down, tracing the shape of something he’s memorizing. His other hand remains at your hip, thumb brushing back and forth in a small, unconscious rhythm.

“It’s about ownership,” he says finally. “And I don’t share well.”

The words hover between you.

You shift off his lap slowly, the loss of warmth is immediate. Stepping out of sunlight into shade. Your fingers trail down his arm, reluctant, memorizing the line of him before slipping away entirely.

His hand lingers for a blink of a moment before he lets it fall to the armrest.

You don’t move far. Just enough to stand on your own.

There’s too much in your head now: these contracts written in disappearing ink, visibility, leverage, risk. The word ownership still echoing in a way that feels less metaphorical than it should.

“I have to get going.” You need space to think on it properly. “have a bit of homework to do”

“I’m exhausted,” he replies, and the tone is lighter now “If I don’t get enough rest, Thomas will end up writing Friday’s exam again, and he won’t like that, considering I’ve already assigned him half the department’s administrative sins.”

“You haven’t written it?”

He offers a faint, tired smile. “I was going to do it just now, but I was preoccupied.”

You gather your things. Your bag. Your notebook. The small shell you’d been absently turning between your fingers.

“I meant to give this to you.”

He rises with unhurried ease and crosses to the bookshelf along the far wall. The shelves look less like academic storage and more like a private archive. Volumes bound in cracked leather, margins swollen with age, titles stamped in languages that no longer circulate. They look like they should be in a museum guarded behind bulletproof glass.

His fingers drift along the spines, slow, almost reverent, before selecting one.

“This will help with the writing portion,” he holds it out to you.

You take it carefully. It feels heavier than it should.

“I appreciate your help.”

A faint curve touches his mouth. “Anytime.”

He steps close enough that the space folds again, presses a kiss to the crown of your head restrained, almost formal and lets his hand trail down your arm as you turn to leave, fingertips grazing your wrist before slipping away.

The touch lingers longer than it should.

Then you’re walking toward the door, and he is already composed behind you, as though he hadn’t just let himself soften at all.

He watches you walk to the door.

The hallway light spills in briefly as you open it and not look back.

He locks the door behind you.

Crosses to his desk and slides open the bottom drawer. The second phone inside vibrates once.

He stares at it before answering.

“You’re persistent,” he says coolly.

A voice murmurs on the other end.

His gaze drifts toward the door.

“No,” he says sharply. “She has nothing to do with this.”

A pause.

His jaw tightens.

“That would be unwise.”

Another pause..

His voice lowers

calm in a way that is far more dangerous than anger. “You can posturek all you like. But if you make this personal, I promise you won’t enjoy the outcome.”

Silence.

The line clicks dead.

He stands there for a long moment, pulse visible at his throat.

Then he reaches for his other phone.

Your name glows on the screen.

His thumb hovers.

Text me when you’re home.

Deleted.

Stay alert.

Deleted.

Finally:

Trust me.

He sends it.

And for the first time, the secrecy between you feels less like a thrill.

And more like a perimeter.

[jane-the-good]

i’m planning to post part 2 on his birthday ♡

[niisancomplex]

beta xyz...

[niisancomplex]

the urge to buy rpg maker and relearn the program to make calebmc horror game........

[jane-the-good]

office hours

WORD COUNT: 5.6K

SUMMARY: Your professor is very connected to his study. He is sassy and arrogant you are pretty sure his TA does all his grunt work. but his passion is really hot and you know how to spark a flame in him ♡

TAGS: professor! rafayel (want to note i had a sudden urge to finish this draft and started two weeks ago!!! I didn't know that his birthday was going to be a professor card!!!! I truly am divinely connected, just so you know ♡ )

WARNING: smut, oral sex, femme reader, unprotected sex (please be safe irl)

rafayel masterlist

part 1 | part 2 (soon)

The lecture hall curves around the stage almost acting as a ribcage. Its beams bent inward, shielding the pulsing life at its center.

Dark wooden tiers descend in deliberate arcs toward a silver podium that flows in a breaking wave. Its metal lip caught forever in a single moment before a collapse. The air smells faintly of clean linen and something almost floral you can never quite name. He insists on diffusers.

“Atmosphere,” Professor Rafayel once said, adjusting the dial with delicate precision, “is the difference between immersion and observation.”

He believes that entirely. Just as well as he believes in art and in oceans.

Very clearly does he not believe in people.

You sit in the third row, a compass needle fixed on true north. He always arrives late. He keeps you, and everyone else in the course, waiting. 

Your heart thrums as you consider that you’re close enough to see the slow rhythm of his breathing. Close enough to note that he has once again left the top buttons of his blouse undone not carelessly, never that, but in an invitation he doesn’t intend anyone to accept. Close enough to watch the sweep of his lashes against the sharp planes of his cheeks when he lowers his gaze to his notes.

You’ll see that when he looks up, when he finds you already watching, there is the smallest bloom of color beneath his skin.

The door does not open on time. It opens when the room has ripened into impatience. When whispers have thinned, when the clock has begun to feel accusatory.

Only then does he enter.

His coat hangs off one shoulder as though he shrugged it on in the last second. Windswept hair, like he has come straight from the harbor instead of the faculty wing. You imagine him ankle-deep in the tide at dawn, sleeves rolled, lecturing the ocean itself for its carelessness with history before remembering he has a classroom waiting.

He does not greet anyone.

The door closed itself behind him and surveys the lecture hall as if assessing structural integrity. Violet eyes, sharp and lucid, miss nothing. He does not need to demand attention; he assumes it.

“Bioluminescence,” he begins, voice low not loud, but pitched in a way that threads effortlessly through the tiers of seats. Silken. Controlled. “Is not decoration.”

He sets his notes on the podium without looking at them. You are half sure the pages are blank since he never actually looks at them.

“It is defiance.”

A slide flickers to life behind him. A submerged installation glowing faint blue beneath dark water, light threading through coral structures. Its veins beneath skin of the sea. He doesn’t turn to look at it.

“Dinoflagellates,” he continues, clasping his hands behind his back as he begins to move slow, prowling. “Noctiluca scintillans. Organisms that emit light only when disturbed.”

A faint lift of one brow.

“Light,” he says, “that exists because it has been threatened.”

He tilts his head slightly.

“What does that suggest?”

No one answers.

It isn’t fear in the crude sense. He has never raised his voice. Never humiliated anyone outright. But he dismantles imprecision the way the tide erodes a cliff steadily and inevitably, until nothing unstable remains. And, without apology. If you are wrong, he does not mock you.

He simply corrects you.

And somehow that feels worse.

“Marine Environmental Art History,” he says, drifting away from the podium, “is not about aestheticizing decay.”

He stops at the edge of the first tier.

“It is about witnessing it.”

His gaze sweeps the room.

“It is about extinction. Appropriation. The preservation of memory in the face of erasure.”

There that flicker. That flare beneath the composed exterior. Fire under glass.

When he speaks of erasure, it is never abstract.

He cites Spiral Jetty and its surrender to entropy, not with detached admiration but with critique spectacle versus responsibility. He speaks of Maya Lin with reverence, tracing how her environmental works fold geography into grief. He dissects coastal installations that harvest coral irresponsibly, condemns artists who pose as activists while accelerating reef degradation.

His arguments are specific, entirely layered. Impossible to refute.

And worse is how passionate he is about being right.

Not for his ego, but for preservation.

“I would like,” he says softly now and the softness is the dangerous part “to hear what new materials you’ve discovered for bioluminescent detailing.”

The class stiffens.

Everyone knows he has experimented with nearly everything: kelp-based binding agents, calcium carbonate composites grown rather than mined, controlled algae cultures engineered to mimic natural fluorescence without ecological harm. There are rumors he once attempted a submerged mural seeded with oyster larvae a living surface that filtered the water as it illuminated it.

Silence settles in the silt of dark water.

He is beautiful in a sharp, sea-cut way but that isn’t what holds you. It’s the way his mind moves. The way concepts ignite when he touches them. The way he speaks about marine art as if it is a battlefield and a cathedral all at once.

He does not simply teach the subject. 

He defends it.

You don’t have something revolutionary. You’ve combed through eco-art journals, conservation reports, grant archives. You have sketches in the margins of your notes color gradients mapped in tidal charts, speculative algae matrices that might hold form without harm.

Only Ideas and not proof and without a doubt something that would survive his scrutiny.

still…

“Professor,” you say carefully, “in my research I found replication iterations of dinoflagellate cultures, synthetic phosphors designed to mimic abyssal glow but nothing that felt… ethically sustainable.”

He turns toward you fully now.

“And that,” he says, “is the first honest thing anyone has admitted today.”

Heat crawls up your throat, slow and treacherous as a rising tide.

You are the first voice to break the silence and the lecture has barely begun. It makes you wonder, not for the first time, how many conversations he walks through each day where no one dares to mean what they say.

You press on before you can lose nerve. “May I ask what pigments did the Lemurian muralists use for bioluminescent detailing?”

A ripple moves through the room. The Lemurian case studies are theoretical half archaeology, half myth, used to examine lost coastal civilizations and speculative marine adaptation.

He studies you.

Not your face.

Your intent.

“They ground abyssal shells,” he says, and the words do not sound delivered so much as remembered. “Deep-sea mollusks, their nacre refracting light beyond the visible human spectrum.”

His gaze unfocuses slightly, as if he is no longer addressing a lecture hall but standing somewhere in another time.

“They understood,” he continues softly, “that there are colors the human eye was never meant to keep.”

Your thoughts outrun your caution.

“Then their retinal capacity must have differed from ours,” you murmur. “Otherwise the detailing would have been imperceptible.”.

You realize, belatedly, that you’ve spoken aloud.

His gaze sharpens, not quite with irritation, but more interest.

“Go on,” he says.

Your pulse stumbles.

“If the Lemurians evolved in prolonged low-light marine environments,” you continue, “their rods and cones would have adapted greater sensitivity to shorter wavelengths. Perhaps even structural retinal differences allow perception beyond our spectrum.”

The faintest curve touches his mouth.

“An evolutionary answer,” he says softly. “Rather than a romantic one.”

You swallow. “The ocean rarely rewards romance.”

He turns to the side with a gentle smirk.

“On the contrary,” he replies, eyes never leaving yours, “the ocean devours it.”

The words leave you settling heavy and charged.

“Thank you, Professor,” you manage.

He turns away too quickly, returning to his desk. Papers shift beneath his hands, though they had been immaculate moments before. His TA, Thomas, exhales in quiet resignation at the growing disorder.

Rafayel advances the slides.

Images bloom across the screen tidal sculptures designed to erode with lunar cycles, reef-safe installations seeded with living organisms, works responding to coral bleaching events accelerated by ocean acidification. He moves quickly, explaining the calcium carbonate fragility under decreasing pH levels, the ethics of harvesting versus cultivating shell substrates, the distinction between phosphorescence and true bioluminescent reaction.

His voice is fluid and mainly controlled.

Every so often, it falters just slightly when it passes your row.

You take notes without looking away.

You are not afraid of him. You are afraid of disappointing him though.

 And that is worse.

When the lecture ends, he does not dismiss the class immediately. He lingers, fingers resting on the crest of the silver podium as if feeling for a tide.

“Keep in mind,” he says, almost absently, “innovation without responsibility is vandalism.”

His gaze lifts to you once more.

“And responsibility,” he adds, “requires perception.”

The diffuser hums softly above.

a reminder that atmosphere matters.

This is the moment before a wave breaks. It’s suspended, inevitable, and far more dangerous than either of you are willing to admit.

Professor Rafayel is always the first to leave.

Of course he is.

You stay in the auditorium long after everyone else has gone, just as you always do.

Waiting for the shuffle of the last backpack, the echo of the last goodbye, the heavy doors closing.

When the auditorium finally empties, you gather your things slowly. The building changes at this hour. The late class leaves the halls hollow, the air quieter, as if the walls themselves are exhaling.

Several lights have already surrendered to evening. What remains is the sun spilling molten gold through tall windows, casting long panes of fire across the floor and up the walls. Orange light warm against the dark, turning dust motes into drifting embers.

It feels like trespassing into something sacred.

You know this path.

You know this building the way the tide knows the shoreline

Which classroom door refuses to close all the way, as though it prefers to listen. How long the silence lingers in the corridors before it stops being absence and starts being attention.

The late classes have drained the place of its pulse. What remains is a shell of fluorescent lights humming like restrained bees, washing the walls in a sterile, scholarly pallor. The kind of light that forgives nothing and sanctifies even less.

Just an hour ago, you asked a question.

A careful touch at the edge of his lecture where the documented histories thinned and something older seemed to breathe beneath them. 

He turned toward you with that measured calm of his. Answered cleanly. Logically. Seamless as a blade sliding back into its sheath.

But you were watching.

You saw the hesitation almost brief, almost imperceptible. The way his shoulders drew back a fraction too tight. The way his jaw set before he spoke to you.

He held your gaze as he responded.

And yet something moved behind his eyes. It was not anger, not quite. Something older. A flare quickly drowned. A shadow crossing deep water.

You tell yourself you are walking to his office for clarification. That is what office hours are for.

You want him to explain properly this time why your interpretation sparked something in him. You want footnotes and frameworks and citations.

You stop at his door and knock once.

Just enough to be heard.

“Come in.”

His voice drifts through the wood. Smooth, already aware of you.

You step inside and lock the door behind you.

It is muscle memory now. The soft click sounds louder than it should.

He sits at his desk upright, nearly posing for a portrait of himself. His jacket removed, sleeves folded with to reveal the clean lines of his forearms. Reading glasses balanced low on his nose. Lamplight pools over him in warm gold, turning order into something almost sacred.

He looks exactly as he should.

Untouchable.

“Hello, professor,” you say.

He lifts his gaze slowly, as if surfacing.

There is always that moment when his eyes find you and sharpen, when something behind them shifts from academic to aware.

“Hello, cutie.”

That nickname a spark in dry tinder.

Your pulse falters, but your face remains perfectly arranged as you cross the room and set your bag at the edge of his desk. The leather thuds softly against polished wood.

He does not look back at his papers.

He watches you approach the way you imagine he watches a theory unfold: curious to see where it will lead.

When you step within reach, his hand finds your waist.

He traces idle circles at the small of your back, warm even through the thin fabric of your top. The touch is absentminded in appearance, deliberate in execution.

“Did I not answer your question well enough?” he asks, voice lowered not to conceal, but to contain.

You meet his gaze evenly.

“No,” you reply. “I’ll need more clarity.”

A faint smile ghosts across his mouth, slow and knowing.

“Of course you will.”

Your hand rises, threading into his hair. The soft waves give easily beneath your fingers. You push them back from his forehead, studying him this up close, unguarded, stripped of podium and distance.

He tilts his head into your touch. 

You lean down.

For a suspended second, you hover there close enough to feel the warmth of his breath against your mouth. Close enough to see the flicker of anticipation.

You press your lips press to his.

This kind of kiss does not ask permission because it already knows the answer.

The warmth of his skin is not simply heat, it is tone. Burnished copper beneath your palms. A living underpainting of ember and breath. He exhales slowly through his nose, controlled, measured, as if even this is something he has chosen to allow.

He smells of a clean kind of cologne that likely isn’t cologne at all but a bath oil. A vision of him leaning carelessly in a bath comes to your mind. He is relaxed and calm and in a state you don’t get to see him in, but desperately want to.

It’s so clear, you can almost taste it.

Your mouth moves against his with quiet insistence, a measured press layered over restraint.

The feeling from the lecture hall hasn’t vanished.

It has softened.

What flickered between you then was not lightning but something subtler. A tremor. The brief, fragile shiver of his guard when it faltered and you were the only one who noticed.

That flutter has followed you here.

You lean forward to sit in his lap. His hand slides up your thigh to pull you closer to him. He tightens his grip on your waist to make you arch and grind against him, making you both moan in response.

There is no audience now.

No rows of watchful eyes.

No sharpened critique of thrown glass.

Only this.

His warmth begins to bleed into you in molten gold poured too close to bare skin, luminous and almost reckless in its proximity. You move against him with a hunger that feels indecent in its intensity. No hesitation left to hide behind.

Like a violent stroke of cadmium red slashed across a canvas. It’s reckless, irreversible, and laid down with full knowledge that it could ruin everything, but neither of you slowing your hand.

Of course isn’t the first risky stroke and yet the vibrance hasn’t dulled.

His presence is heat and cool relief in one.

You’re leaning into a bonfire you once swore you could orbit without falling in. Stepping toward the edge of a cliff just to prove you are immune to vertigo.

Your fingers slide deeper into his hair which each turn of your head. The texture is silk threaded through with stubborn wave, slipping and catching between your knuckles.

He does not pull away.

He does not flinch.

If anything, he deepens the pressure at your back, drawing you closer, until there is no clean line left from where you end and he begins only blurred edges. A tidal pull of something neither of you has ever truly tried to escape.

The kiss deepens. It’s velvet rich, indulgent, edged with teeth. His pulse beats against yours, steady and unshaken, a dark sapphire rhythm. He isn’t drowning as you are.

The tightness in your chest twists charcoal and static, rough against your ribs. You pull back just enough to breathe, to see him. His eyes are half-lidded. He already knows the question before you ask it.

“I loved the way you spoke today,” you murmur, softer now, but no less intent. “The way it mattered to you.”

Your clasp your hands behind his neck.

“Show me the rest of it. The part you don’t give to the room.”

Your voice comes out smaller than you intended pale blue porcelain with hairline cracks.

He laughs softly.

It’s low. Polished obsidian. Smooth enough to see your reflection in it.

“Cutie,” he murmurs, tilting his head, studying you as a painting he commissioned himself. “You have also have a passion i’m curious about”

He slides his arms around you and rises from the chair in one fluid motion, lifting you just enough to settle you on the edge of his desk. Then he steps between your knees, close enough to look down at you with that steady, assessing gaze.

“I want to go first.”

His thumb brushes your cheek, slow and deliberate, as if smudging away your curiosity of him with the pad of his finger.

He leans in, his lips brushing against yours in a slow, lingering kiss, savoring the moment. His hand glides down your body, fingers tracing the curves of your waist and hips with deliberate care. A soft moan escapes you, your body instinctively arching into his touch, drawn to the warmth of his hands.

His mouth trails lower, lips and tongue leaving a heated path down your neck, his breath warm against your skin. When he reaches your collarbone, he lingers, pressing a kiss there before continuing downward. His hands move to your chest, fingers teasing, coaxing shivers from you with every precise movement.

"Rafayel," you gasp, your voice barely above a whisper, your body trembling beneath him.

“Look at you,” he murmurs against your skin, amusement threading through his tone. “So responsive. And you thought you didn’t understand.”

His hand continues its descent, slipping beneath the waistband of your pants. His fingers move with ease, teasing, exploring, drawing out every reaction as if he’s memorizing the way you respond to him.

His lips follow the same path, trailing lower, his tongue leaving a warm, electric sensation against your stomach as he lowers to his knees. He pulls your pants away with a slow, deliberate motion, his eyes dark with something unreadable something intense.

His lips find you first. A kiss soft, yet claiming, as if sealing an unspoken promise. His movements are patient, controlled, the heat of his breath sending a ripple of anticipation through you before he deepens the pressure.

Your legs tighten instinctively around his shoulders, but he catches them, strong hands holding you in place. His grip is firm, steady, grounding.

“You were doing so well,” he says, catching your movement easily, steadying you with hands of carved marble warmed by sunlight. “Don’t rush ahead. You asked me to show you passion.”

Before you can respond, his lips are on you again, and the words dissolve into a breathless moan. Your fingers clasp over the edge of his desk, your body trembling against his hold. His rhythm matches your breath, slow at first exploring, savoring until he finds exactly what makes you fall apart.

His thumb works along side is tongue, building an overwhelming intensity. Working you toward an edge of needing relief and never wanting it to end. His grip on your leg tightens as he feels you teeter on the edge, his pace unrelenting, guiding you toward something inevitable, and shattering.

"Rafayel," you gasp, voice unsteady.

You grip with wood of the desktop, knuckles pale. The room feels smaller, the air thicker  honeyed smoke curling around both of you.

He hums against you, the vibration sending another wave of pleasure coursing through you. "I've got you," he whispers. "Let go.”

Relief crashes over you in waves, rippling through your trembling body. It’s luminous. White-gold light flooding your veins, washing out the static, dissolving the charcoal tension into something warm and suspended.

Your breath catches, then escapes in shallow, ragged gasps as aftershocks pulse through you.

When you finally regain enough clarity, your gaze drifts downward, drawn to the sight of him.

Rafayel is watching you, his dark, heavy-lidded eyes filled with satisfaction, admiration something deeper.

His chest rises and falls with labored breaths, his lips parted as if he’s about to speak, but he doesn’t. He only watches, mesmerized.

His tousled hair is damp, strands sticking to his forehead, making him look even more devastatingly undone. But it’s the shirt the one his keeps in the deepest v neck that could possibly be considered business appropriate. The fabric clings to his torso, wrinkled from where your hands had clutched at him, damp in places from sweat and the heat.

You want to take it off him. You need to. The urge is almost visceral. Not just to see him fully, though you ache for that too but to strip away that last remaining barrier, to feel his skin against yours without anything seperating you. Your fingers twitch, already reaching before you can think twice.

“How do you get away with tops like this?”

He chuckles, a low, satisfied sound, and leans in, brushing his lips over yours. “If you ask nicely, you just might be able to get what you want," he murmurs against your mouth” you should try it sometime cutie”

You shake your head, barely able to form words.

His breath warm against your skin, his lips brushing the shell of your ear.

"Please, tell me what it is that you want,"

his voice thick with desire as his fingers his resume his works with slow, deliberate strokes.

Your breath hitched, pleasure clouding your thoughts as your body tensed beneath him. “Rafayel… I really want you," you gasped, your voice barely above a whisper, trembling with need.

His grin was dark, full of heat and satisfaction, his eyes flickering with something primal. He moved over, his body presses into you. solid and warm, surrounding you. The hard length of him pressed against your thigh. His hands cradle your face, thumbs brushing over your cheekbones as he kisses you, deep and lingering, pouring silent praise into every movement.

His hands move with purpose, guiding rather than taking. Teaching, but never mocking.

Trust me.

His rhythm builds gradually controlled, intentional. When you falter, he steadies you. When you cling, he doesn’t tease.

His hand slid between you, aligning himself with you as your lips continued to move together, breathing in each other’s gasps. Then, with aching slowness, he pushed inside, drawing a sharp inhale from both of you.

"Take a second, darling," he whispered, his forehead resting against yours, his breath mingling with yours. His voice was steady, grounding. He waited, giving you time to adjust, to feel every inch of him, his grip firm but gentle as his hands traveled down your body.

One hand slid down your thigh, coaxing it around his waist, his fingers kneading tense muscles there, working out the pressure with care.

"If you’re hurting, please tell me," he said, voice low, his concern laced along the desire in his tone.

You shook your head, biting your lip. “No, I want…I want you closer”

A slow smile spread across his lips, something fond and reverent. "I've got you, cutie," he murmured, pressing a kiss to your forehead. "You’re getting so good at telling me what you want. I'm a good teacher aren’t I?”

With that, he started to move slow, controlled strokes, giving you time to adjust, to melt into him, to understand exactly where you needed to lean on him. His moans against your lips were beautiful, each one sending shivers down your spine. 

His grip on your hips tightened, steadying you, holding you close as he built a rhythm and his pace quickened. The friction, the heat, the way he filled you it all became overwhelming in a way that made you cling to him, each thrust drawing a sharper moan from you. Your fingers dug into his back, clinging to him, feeling every ripple of muscle beneath his damp skin.

When his hand slid between your bodies, teasing, adding to the intensity, your breath stuttered. "Rafayel " you gasped, your body trembling on the edge.

He chuckled against your neck, his breath hot and uneven. “Let yourself have this." he murmured, voice laced with command and adoration, his fingers working in tandem with his movements.

And then, it hit pleasure crashing over you in waves, your body tensing before unraveling completely. The world fractures into bright, breathless light, he’s right there holding you through it, grounding you through the tremor.

Rafayel groaned against your skin, his pace stuttering, his own release finding him in the wake of yours. He pulsed inside you, his grip tightening for just a moment before he let out a deep, satisfied sigh.

For a long moment, neither of you moves. The room narrows to the sound of shared uneven breath uneven, mingling, in the aftermath of something that refused to stay contained.

He draws you down with him as he sinks back into the chair, guiding you through the motion. Your knees settle on either side of him. His hands remain at your waist and his forehead rests against yours, damp with heat. Arm tight around your waist.

“Is that the passion you were feeling?,” you whispered, your body warm, sated, and blissfully drowsy.

“Hmm,” you murmur.

“Are you not satisfied?” he asks, feigning injury, one hand lifting dramatically to his chest. “It certainly seemed like you were.”

You lean your head against him, listening to the steady rhythm beneath his shirt. “I don’t think that’s what sparked you earlier. I think you were distracting me.”

His fingers toy absently with a strand of your hair, winding it once around his knuckle before letting it slip free.

“You can’t have all the answers,” he adjusts his leg to turn the chair toward the window. The movement shifts you closer. “That’s the point of living, cutie. We learn. We revise.”

The sunset deepens, turning the glass molten. Outside, the horizon glows as if the ocean itself were holding a coal beneath its surface.

His answer doesn’t satisfy you.

You trace the line of his collarbone through the open collar of his shirt. “Are you scared they know?”

“Know what?”

You tilt your head to look at him. “About this.”

His hand settles more firmly at your waist. “The students are intelligent,” he says lightly. “That’s why they’re in my class.” A faint smirk. “The faculty operate on ego and recycled theory. I’m not concerned those old rocks.”

You laugh softly, fingers brushing against his as they rest on your thigh. The touch lingers, small and deliberate.

“They won’t do anything,” he adds, thumb grazing your lower lip, watching it part. “They’re intimidated.”

“You’re proud of that.”

“Of course.” One brow lifts. “Fear sharpens attention. Attention produces excellence. I’m practically philanthropic.”

You roll your eyes, but your hand drifts higher along his shoulder, feeling the tension there.

The room dims further. Amber fades toward bruised violet. The artifacts in the shelves begin to blur into shadow.

“Are you ever scared?” you ask, softer now.

He studies you as if you’ve posed a flawed premise. “Of what?”

“Getting caught.”

That earns you a pause.

His fingers still in your hair. His jaw barely tightens.

“You don’t need to worry about that.”

“I think I do.”

He leans back slightly, adjusting you with him, though his grip never loosens. “My research is attracting attention,” he says. “Not academic attention. That I can handle.”

The warmth between you shifts, thins.

“I mean the kind that arrives with contracts written in disappearing ink.”

Your fingers still.

“And?”

“And that makes you… visible.” The word lands carefully. “You notice things. You ask the wrong, correct, questions.”

“Visible to who?”

His gaze sharpens, something colder sliding beneath the surface. “To people who mistake culture for leverage.”

You watch him, really watch him. The composure is there. The elegance. But beneath it, something coiled and alert.

“When people cannot replicate something,” he says evenly, “they attempt to acquire it. When they cannot acquire it, they attempt to control it.”

“And if they can’t?”

His jaw shifts.

“They become creative.”

A chill moves through you.

“That doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

His hands tighten, just slightly, at your waist.

“I have much more knowledge and experience than you do, but we are both in this field and that makes you a variable.”

“A variable in what?”

“In risk.”

The office feels smaller now. The sunset nearly gone. Only a thin line of fire left on the horizon.

“You think someone would threaten you?”

A humorless breath escapes him. “They’re welcome to.”

This edge. This sharpened version of him. It’s the one you were brushing against earlier.

“There are people who want what I’ve built,” he continues. “They believe it belongs in their hands.”

His fingers drift absently along your spine. A thoughtful path up and down, tracing the shape of something he’s memorizing. His other hand remains at your hip, thumb brushing back and forth in a small, unconscious rhythm.

“It’s about ownership,” he says finally. “And I don’t share well.”

The words hover between you.

You shift off his lap slowly, the loss of warmth is immediate. Stepping out of sunlight into shade. Your fingers trail down his arm, reluctant, memorizing the line of him before slipping away entirely.

His hand lingers for a blink of a moment before he lets it fall to the armrest.

You don’t move far. Just enough to stand on your own.

There’s too much in your head now: these contracts written in disappearing ink, visibility, leverage, risk. The word ownership still echoing in a way that feels less metaphorical than it should.

“I have to get going.” You need space to think on it properly. “have a bit of homework to do”

“I’m exhausted,” he replies, and the tone is lighter now “If I don’t get enough rest, Thomas will end up writing Friday’s exam again, and he won’t like that, considering I’ve already assigned him half the department’s administrative sins.”

“You haven’t written it?”

He offers a faint, tired smile. “I was going to do it just now, but I was preoccupied.”

You gather your things. Your bag. Your notebook. The small shell you’d been absently turning between your fingers.

“I meant to give this to you.”

He rises with unhurried ease and crosses to the bookshelf along the far wall. The shelves look less like academic storage and more like a private archive. Volumes bound in cracked leather, margins swollen with age, titles stamped in languages that no longer circulate. They look like they should be in a museum guarded behind bulletproof glass.

His fingers drift along the spines, slow, almost reverent, before selecting one.

“This will help with the writing portion,” he holds it out to you.

You take it carefully. It feels heavier than it should.

“I appreciate your help.”

A faint curve touches his mouth. “Anytime.”

He steps close enough that the space folds again, presses a kiss to the crown of your head restrained, almost formal and lets his hand trail down your arm as you turn to leave, fingertips grazing your wrist before slipping away.

The touch lingers longer than it should.

Then you’re walking toward the door, and he is already composed behind you, as though he hadn’t just let himself soften at all.

He watches you walk to the door.

The hallway light spills in briefly as you open it and not look back.

He locks the door behind you.

Crosses to his desk and slides open the bottom drawer. The second phone inside vibrates once.

He stares at it before answering.

“You’re persistent,” he says coolly.

A voice murmurs on the other end.

His gaze drifts toward the door.

“No,” he says sharply. “She has nothing to do with this.”

A pause.

His jaw tightens.

“That would be unwise.”

Another pause..

His voice lowers

calm in a way that is far more dangerous than anger. “You can posturek all you like. But if you make this personal, I promise you won’t enjoy the outcome.”

Silence.

The line clicks dead.

He stands there for a long moment, pulse visible at his throat.

Then he reaches for his other phone.

Your name glows on the screen.

His thumb hovers.

Text me when you’re home.

Deleted.

Stay alert.

Deleted.

Finally:

Trust me.

He sends it.

And for the first time, the secrecy between you feels less like a thrill.

And more like a perimeter.

[jane-the-good]

Hello !! Your shirts are so so cute !! I was wondering if we’d be able to see how the fit of the shirt on someone !!

You’re so talented I love the bleach painting so much !!

hi loveeee!!! I'm sorry im seeing this so late!!

I actually have a look book on my website now that has the fitting ♡

The listing for the tees specifically has a videos to reference for fit as well!!