#a.rafayel

[e-r0da]

While it is true that comedy plays a major part in making Rafayel appear disarming to the outside world, I think his emphasis on humor and play in the main story is intentional in more than one sense.

Modern-day Rafayel could have picked a myriad of ways to get close to you. From the glimpses we get of the behind-the-scenes moments before you meet, it’s clear that he’s been watching you. And for some reason or other, has waited quite a while to approach you. Why? What if he isn’t just studying MC or getting his affairs of revenge in order; what if he is studying the circumstances of this life with a mind that is well-versed in all the ways history repeats himself? Because Rafayel watched that knife plunge into your chest. He must’ve seen the hurt on your face as he began to wither away right in front of you, trying to deny destiny with love. How does that change how he sees your potential dynamic in this life? Because he most definitely could have approached you differently. He could’ve courted you seriously, right from the start, romantic and fervent and soul-shattering. He could have lowered your guards with vulnerability, or made your face blister with the heat of his words.

But he doesn’t really do any of those things. He just chooses to make you laugh. He chases after your smile.

Main story Rafayel is conveniently clumsy, calls you names, and comes running when he so much as hears a “mreow.” He embarrasses himself in front of you, pouts whenever you aren’t near, and gives it his all when you sit him down in front a claw machine. He makes you laugh. It’s intentional, but not just because it’s an act.

Because Rafayel knows all too well the burden of duty. He knows the way it sits on both of your shoulders and never lets up. And maybe, even in this life, it won’t matter whether or not he’s a god. Maybe some parts of life will always be so heavy.

But your love shouldn’t be.

In every life, Rafayel sees that you never look as free, or as beautiful, when you can’t help but smile. When you let out a childish giggle, when your cheeks hurt from being held tight for so long, when you swat at him for almost making you pee—it makes him fall in love with you all over again. No painting could ever capture how he feels when you look so weightless; when you laugh.

In love there is joy.

And he’ll do anything to make sure that your life with him is filled to the brim with it.

[e-r0da]

<mdni. dark content, suggested dub-con/non-con, faux-incest(? whatever the fuck is going on with Caleb and MC).>

Nobody asked but I think if you ever had amnesia, Caleb, Rafayel, and Zayne would be the most likely candidates to pretend to be your husband and get away with it. Brief study on Caleb:

Caleb because he knows you inside out, is already in your emergency contact list when the hospital calls. Caleb because he already knows how to be your family…he just gets to do it in a different way, now. Maybe the way he always wanted it to be. He’s quick to whisk you away from your hometown; there are too many memories there, too many people who know what your real relationship was like, too many brows that would be raised at the idea of your precious gege taking his place between your thighs every night.

Caleb is used to guilt, has let it winnow away at him for every time he's looked at you while wanting more, for every pair of panties he's washed by hand, for all the boyfriends that you never had. But now, now it gets him off. It can't stop him anymore, he won't ever let it ever again, not when his precious meimei is looking at him like that, like he's everything to her, the same way she is to him. No more apprehension divides you. You'll never know how many times shame has made him spill into his hand at the fantasy of you pregnant, pliant, and lost without him. And now that he has you, has got that ring on your pretty little finger (a ring he bought in secret, long ago in a state of delirium), he won’t miss his chance to make it reality.

---

Zayne's part

[e-r0da]

By the way, Rafayel’s usage of “cutie” is 1000% a stand-in for when he finally, finally, gets to call you his “wifey.” Just be prepared.

[e-r0da]

(Going off this thought - suggestive at the end! mdni.)

I think one day, at an art exhibit just past closing, Rafayel loses his phone. And it's a big exhibit, one that's spread out across multiple rooms because Thomas had wanted it that way; had wanted to be able to separate Rafayel's paintings by motif. But that did make it a terrible place to lose a phone.

The three of you split up, everyone keeping their ears open as you get entrusted with being the one to get his phone ringing. It takes quite a few rooms of searching, but down the hall and 15 calls and 47 texts later, Thomas shouts that he hears a vibration. You come jogging down, and he tells you that the vibration isn't good in this kind of room; it echoes too much—could you maybe send a text?

So you do.

And then you hear it. It's brief, loud, and then the room is silent.

Thomas's head twists slowly, his gaze even slower. He opens his mouth. Pauses to think. Opens it again.

"...Did you just...snort?"

"What?" You blink. "Why would I do that?"

You both look at one another, each with a brow cocked, and huff out a laugh in unison. Thomas blows it off, "it's been a long day. I must be hearing things. Try again?" So you do.

But Thomas wasn't hearing things.

No. It sounded like you were fucking snorting. A classic mid-laugh, coming from the belly-type snort in your specific cadence.

You start speaking before Thomas can, "—I SWEAR I am not—"

—Thomas grabs your phone, eyes glued to your face as he sends another text.

Snort.

Thomas's eyebrows almost touch. "What the actual—"

It sounded like it was coming from behind one of the paintings.

You race forward. No fucking way that was your snort. Why in the hell were you hearing your snort in a dignified art gallery where paintings worth millions of dollars lined the walls? It couldn't be. It better not. You bark at Thomas to do it again, now. And when you hear it that one last time, you pinpoint the easel in question, turn it on its back and—

"—my phone!"

You're still holding onto it when you and Thomas regroup with Rafayel. Your cheeks are a few degrees hotter than when you left him, but Rafayel still gives one of them a peck anyway, unaware.

"Thanks cutie." He gives you one more peck just cuz. "Now we can finally get outta this—" but you don't let him finish.

"—Rafayel Qi." Both men flinch. Instinctively, Rafayel whips his head to Thomas for guidance—because what was that tone and why did it make him want to shit himself—only to find that Thomas had become the walking embodiment of the stone-face emoji right now. Oh fuck.

He slowly pans back to you.

"...Love of my life?" You glare at him.

"...Keeper of my heart?" You glare at him.

"...My beautiful muse and most merciful bodyguard?" You glare at him. Hard.

"Rafayel," you grit out. "Why. Is the sound. Of my SNORT—your ringtone?"

Silence. Thomas closes his eyes. Hopefully Rafayel was smart about this but in the event he was not: no witness, no crime.

"Oh, that."

Thomas squeezes his eyelids even tighter together.

But Rafayel just exhales in relief. He laughs.

"Cutie it's my favorite sound!"

—And that's how I think you discover that Rafayel has a favorite sound. Yes, you do eventually get him to change the ringtone. But yes he certainly fights back at first. Throws in a little pout. And you hate to admit it, but hearing his reasoning does make you a little more reluctant to not have your snort sounding off at fancy banquets and in front of Rafayel's peers.

That night, the two of you bicker in the loving and playful way you always do, all the way back to his studio. You keep trying to be serious and end up in giggling fits instead. Exasperated, and dangerously close to snorting again, you try to compromise—just use any other sound, okay? There have to be other noises I make that are more pleasant? Maybe even a list of favorite sounds? Even just the top five.

"I mean I could go down the list since you do make all my favorite sounds," He starts, pretending to contemplate. Then he smirks. "We'd have to film a...special kinda video for that though, cutie."

[e-r0da]

Rafayel on the other hand is really into ropes

[e-r0da]

Even gods must bear the weight of time.

[e-r0da]

The ‘I missed you sex’ with rafayel (aka what you think is your two’s first time)…well…I think I’m going to be ill cuz

[e-r0da]

btw when rafayel gets whiny and huffy it’s because he’s in need of a good face-sitting session. u can’t neglect your good boy now can you.