Raph has never had anyone who is supposed to care about him. He has never belonged to a family.
He has only ever belonged to Frank and that relationship was transparent from the start. It was never a secret that Frank kept Raph because he was useful, not because he cared for him. And that was alright. As much as Raph had wanted Frank to love him he’d never expected him to. Expecting someone to love him is as absurd as expecting someone to love a knife.
Raph knows that he can live without being loved because he has survived in the absence of it for over 21 years. He does not know if he could survive what Lucas is going through right now.
His relationship with Frank is an ugly, merciless thing, but at the very least it is real.
But Lucas Ervine grew up believing in a lie that was never going to be true. He put his heart in the hands of people who would never treat it dearly. He trusted them to love him, to protect him, to never hurt him, and now he is crumbling beneath the weight of their betrayal.
Raph has learned that it hurts more to lose something than to never have had it at all. Frank taught him that. He is still teaching him that it seems. First by leaving, and now by returning for him when he’s grown so close to so many p-
Something inside of Raph cracks and slides out of place because, suddenly, he knows he is just like all of the other people that have hurt Lucas Ervine in the past. If anything he is worse. He will disappear someday. That is inevitable now that Frank has returned. When he does he will leave Lucas Ervine alone.
And Lucas will realize that the man he confided in, cared for, and comforted was nothing more than a thin coat of lacquer painted over a murderer and a thief. He will realize that he was lied to again, trusted someone unworthy again, and was abandoned again.
Raph is gripping at Lucas’s face now. He is snarling. Lucas Ervine’s skin is warm beneath his palms and for once he is not careful. He is not scared of hurting Lucas because he already knows that this too is inevitable. Hurting people is what he does after all.
“You are not horrible,” he hisses, dragging Lucas Ervine’s face closer to his. He can feel the other man’s breath fan against his cheeks, he can see every facet of color in Lucas Ervine’s eyes. He will probably never be this close to him again.
“You are not the one who is wrong or defective. It is them. It has always been them. Because if they cannot see that you are good and that you are worth loving then they must be defective because there is nothing wrong about you.”
He is certain of this. Everything about Lucas Ervine is worth loving, all of his kindness and his honesty and his softness.
He rams their foreheads together as if he’s trying to push that knowledge from his brain into Lucas’s, and snarls from the very center of his chest.
This is bad, objectively. He was never supposed to touch Lucas Ervine in this way. He’s always wanted to keep him insulated from this kind of aggression.
But the man beneath Raphael Peruggia is incapable of moderation or gentleness. Everything about him is severe and it is him that is speaking now. It is all of them: Raphael and Amir and Henri and countless others. He does not doubt that Lucas Ervine will never want to speak to him again after this moment, and even if he does he knows he will not have many moments with him left. He needs to do this now.
His left-hand slides to cup the back of Lucas Ervine’s neck, settling in the soft hair that grows at the base of his skull. He shifts to grind their foreheads together. He knows that it must hurt but he does not care. Part of him wants it to hurt. He knows from experience that pain is a reminder and he wants Lucas Ervine to remember this. If there is anything about him that Lucas remembers he wants it to be this.
“Listen to me,” he commands in a voice that slips indelicately out of the neutral accent he’s managed to hold onto for all the time he’s been at Palmetto. “There will be other, better people who love you because there is nothing about you that is too much or too little or too heavy to love. All of you is good. All of you is worth it.”
“Do you understand?” he asks, almost desperate now. Lucas is so warm. He is so pretty. He is so, painfully, perfectly good. There is nothing he could have ever done to deserve him.
“Lucas Ervine it is impossible not to love you.”
It’s startling. It’s the first time Raph touches Lucas so abruptly and a noise of surprise escape his lips. But Lucas doesn’t move away. Not even when the grip of Raph’s fingers are a bit too tight and the words that leave the other’s lips feel heavy in the air around them. Something shifted after what Lucas had said and he’s not sure what pieces he’s missing. When it comes to Raph, it’s always a guessing game for Lucas. He’s always staring at a puzzle where he only has half the pieces and he’s trying to figure out the bigger picture.
Raph keeps talking and the words strike chords inside of Lucas that are dusty and fragile. It’s the part of him that has desperately wanted someone to tell him he’s not the person at fault, that he’s worthy of being loved. How many years has he constantly told himself that there has to be something wrong with himself? Why else would his family abandon him in the way they had? There’s still a part of him that keeps telling himself that there is something wrong. That he’s annoying. A burden. Useless. And while Raph’s words can’t fix it all, they create a little light of hope... the idea that maybe, just maybe, those thoughts he has aren’t true.
There’s tears in Lucas’s eyes that are threatening to spill over and he tries to blink them away. He doesn’t want to cry. The tears aren’t from the pain of their heads together, the roughness from Raph’s touch. That, Lucas can handle. It’s still jarring and different from every other touch they’ve had, but Lucas can handle it. He doesn’t know Raph’s past in detail, but he knows it’s full of pain and roughness. What Lucas can’t handle is Raph telling him that he isn’t too much. That he’s good. That he’s worth loving. The more Lucas hears it, the more the walls inside of him crack and he realizes how much he needed to hear the words.
Lucas tries to nod his head but it’s hard with Raph’s grip and he doesn’t trust himself to speak just yet. He does understand. He wants to hold onto those words and let them replay over and over again until he believes them wholeheartedly and confidently. Until he never doubts himself ever again.
This moment. It’s stripped down; the two of them bare and raw. Every other moment had been taking away one layer at a time, taking one step at a time. But this felt different. This felt like everything had been ripped away suddenly and it was the honest and raw versions of themselves. Together.
Carefully and gentle--a sharp contrast to Raph--Lucas reaches a hand back to ghost over the back of Raph’s hand at the base of his head. He’s crying now. He couldn’t stop the tears after hearing those last words. Partially because he’s overwhelmed with emotions but also because there’s something in those last words that make Lucas’s heart skip a beat. He wants to tear into those words, the meaning of them. Raph’s feelings. But he also wants to ask why they sound horribly like a goodbye. No... no, he can’t do that. He can’t think that way. This is what happens every time his mind tries to take over and spiral him down the negative hole.
“I-I understand...” Lucas finally manages to say. “I promise, I understand.” The words come out a little more confidently as he calms down.
His vision is clear now as the tears start to slow and his eyes find Raph’s again. These are the dangerous moments. The ones where Lucas can easily get lost in those eyes and the feeling that Raph makes stir inside of him. But in this moment... after those words...
Lucas moves his hand away from the back of Raph’s hand and instead moves his hand between them--slow to not startle Raph--and uses his thumb and index finger to grip Raph’s chin. It’s the first time that Lucas’s touch is something more than gentle. It’s firm. Confident. His eyes never waver from Raph’s, soft and warm as always.
The words don’t come out as a question. Lucas is hoping everything between the two of them from the first day they met until this moment has built up enough trust between the two of them that Lucas has no intention of hurting Raph. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.
Raph’s chin still in his grip, Lucas leans forward and turns his head before his lips find Raph’s cheek. He’s far from the other’s lips--he’s already pushing the line more than he ever has before and he knows that he’s taking a big risk. Lucas’s lips instead ghost the soft skin of Raph’s cheek, closer to his ear. And he leaves it at just a ghost of a kiss before he falls back to press his forehead to Raph’s again. He does so with pressure--not enough to hurt but to mimic Raph’s earlier action.
“Thank you. I know I’ve said it before... but thank you. For everything you’ve said and done... God, thank you for pulling me under that stupid table at that banquet because I can’t imagine not having spent all this time with you. You mean so much to me...”
