Pretty pls a request for Rafe 🥹🥹
You and Rafe fought bad over something: maybe becux he’s being emotionally unavailable, or he’s working too much, or you’ve both just been busy and out of synch. But you have a bad fight and it’s seems like it may be the end of you both.
You get in your car to leave and rafe holds himself back from stopping you Bec he’s so angry and thinks maybe you both need to cool off.
And as the hours go by he doesn’t think much of it and drinks his whiskey until he gets a phone call from the police, he was your emergency contact, not your own family but him. You had been in a car wreck, your car totalled.
Rafe rushes to the hospital to see you and apologises and begs you To never leave him again.
Sorry i wrote the whole plot! You can change everything if you want! I’m just desperate for rafe angst 😭🙏🏼
cw: very angsty... thank u anon for this idea, i been cryingggg lmao.
sunday mornings had always belonged to them. no matter how bad the week was, no matter how loud the fights or heavy the silences, sunday mornings were sacred. pancakes burning on the stove, flour on the countertops, giggles echoing through hallways. rafe remembered it as clear as day, it was their first night together and that next morning she had awoken him to the scent of fresh fruit and syrup. it became their ritual shortly after, and even with the arrival of their daughter it continued. a cacophony of y/n’s and their daughter’s little squeals of laughter as rafe twirled them both around the kitchen. those mornings had been theirs, they were messy, beautiful, whole.
he thought about it now as he ran through the hospital corridors, heart hammering against his ribs so hard it hurt.
they had fought before she left. stupid things, words neither of them meant, pride too thick to swallow down. she had slammed the door, and he had stayed behind, stewing in anger he didn’t know how to put out, reaching for the bottle of whiskey on the counter instead of reaching for her.
he didn’t even remember the drive over, didn’t remember parking, didn’t feel the broken skin on his knuckles from where he punched the steering wheel. when the call came in, when someone found her collapsed on the sidewalk, rafe had been half-drunk, half-mad, not even realizing how much time had passed.
all he knew now was that she was here, somewhere, and she needed him.
when he burst into her room, she was awake, barely. her body was swallowed up by the hospital bed, machines beeping in a way that didn’t sound hopeful. a blood clot, they said. the doctors were trying their best, but he could see the pity in their eyes. they didn’t seem hopeful.
she smiled so softly when she saw him. a thought crossed his mind of how beautiful she always looked, even now with tubes sticking out of her. she was so perfect.
rafe rushed to her side, falling into the chair, grabbing her hand like it was the only thing anchoring him to the earth. her fingers were cold. too cold.
"i’m here," he breathed, voice cracking. "i’m right here, baby."
he didn’t even try to stop the tears. they fell freely as he kissed her hand, her wrist, any part of her he could reach.
"i’m so sorry," he whispered over and over, "i’m so sorry, i love you, please, don’t leave me."
she didn’t say much. her lips parted, voice barely more than a breath. "i love you, always,” she said.
rafe nodded frantically, squeezing her hand tighter, leaning closer, trying to catch every last piece of her before she slipped away.
"i love you more," he choked out. "i love you so much, i can’t.. i can’t do this without you."
her eyelids fluttered. her breathing hitched.
and then she whispered, one last time, the words catching on a sob:
"i love you both, never let her forget that.”
then her hand went slack in his, and the machines screamed, and nurses came rushing in, and rafe just sat there, frozen, with his forehead pressed to the back of her hand, begging, pleading, but she was already gone.
they pried him away eventually, but he didn’t feel it.
he didn’t feel anything at all, only that thick lump in his throat, as he fought to breathe.
sunday mornings were different after that.
rafe would wake before the sun, lifting his sleepy little girl into his arms, carrying her to the kitchen like she was something fragile he had to protect at all costs. he’d let her stir the pancake batter, let her get flour all over the place, let her dance barefoot on the cold tiles, laughing in a way that sometimes broke him apart and sometimes stitched him back together.
he played the same songs. he wore the same stupid apron that y/n had once bought him as a joke.
he smiled for their daughter, even when the grief in his chest felt like it would crush him.
and every sunday morning, when he flipped the first pancake, he’d whisper into the quiet kitchen,
"she loved you so much, baby girl. she loved you more than anything."
and somehow, somehow, that was enough to keep going.
even when everything else hurt.
