@lucifersimp prompted: "Heyy!! The prompt is "petting" (any fandom) totally not inspired by any reblogs I've seen"
Totally Not. Totally Innocuous Prompt.
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Raphael sprawls across Michael's legs, head in his lap and more relaxed than he's seen them in millennia, accompanied by a rumbling purr of pleasure that reaches through Michael's vessel and rubs against his grace. Michael handles the sensitive joints of their wings delicately—barely there pressure and still enough to make them shiver—before brushing his fingers back through their feathers again and again.
Raphael's wings fluff and flex and fall languid around them under Michael's touch, and with a sigh, they nuzzle closer.
[cw eyeball licking. raphael would undoubtedly know that that's not a good idea but just...suspend your disbelief i guess??]
“What’s wrong?” Raphael asks after Michael rubs his eye for the fourth time in as many minutes.
Michael turns his face to Raphael, expression caught between startled and imperious. Raphael does not ask him what is wrong very much anymore. Raphael does not need to ask him what is wrong anymore, now that Lucifer and Gabriel are here to pick up their own slack.
But this afternoon, Lucifer and Gabriel are elsewhere.
“Nothing is wrong,” Michael denies, haughtiness winning out over surprise.
His pinkened, dripping left eye tells a different story.
Raphael catches his chin before he can turn away. His skin is warm against their palm, smooth under the minute texture of his body’s close-shaven facial hair. Under Raphael’s observation, Michael’s eyes go round and uncertain — but he cannot stop the reflexive blink of the irritated one, despite his distracted best efforts not to show that there is anything wrong.
Through the leaky tears, a curved, brown line can be seen just beside the outer rim of Michael’s iris.
“You have a filament in your eye,” Raphael diagnoses.
Michael blinks again, then again, harder, when Raphael raises a hand to attempt to remove the irritant.
“If I get rid of the filament, your eye will feel better,” they explain, continuing to lift their hand closer to Michael’s face.
Michael flinches.
It is rare that Michael flinches.
Raphael ceases moving.
“You could get it yourself,” Raphael offers. “Although it will be easier if you go to the bathroom, so that you can see what you’re doing.”
Michael blinks involuntarily again. A watery tear drags an erratic path down his cheek. He does not get up to go to the bathroom.
“Do you want to keep the filament? Your eye will take care of it itself after a while, but it will be uncomfortable until then.”
“No, I don’t want to keep the filament.”
‘Bitchy,’ Gabriel would snark in response to Michael’s tone, if Gabriel were here. The assessment would be correct, but Raphael does not call Michael bitchy.
They begin to raise their hand again. Michael does not flinch this time, but he doesn’t look happy.
Raphael doesn’t ask what’s wrong again; Michael wouldn’t answer. Instead they wait. He will give directions — or, at least, an indication of a direction — soon, undoubtedly.
“Your finger is dry,” he states. Blinks again, softens his tone of voice. “And…pointy.”
“Yes,” Raphael agrees.
Michael lapses into a reluctant silence that says he will accept Raphael’s finger if they try again, but Raphael considers what he has said. It is true that ‘dry’ and ‘pointy’ are not ideal characteristics of things that might go into an eye. They could wash their hands, but that only solves one problem.
They consider other appendages they have. It doesn’t take long. The human body is disappointingly limited in this way.
They lower their hand. Michael looks relieved, until Raphael begins to move their face closer to his. He doesn’t flinch, but he does look confused.
“My tongue isn’t dry or pointy, and it has a high ratio of nerve endings to surface area, so I will be able to feel when I’ve found the filament without seeing,” Raphael explains.
Michael’s eyes flick to Raphael’s mouth. He nods, and bows his neck to give them a better angle.
The eyelashes lining his eye feel interesting on Raphael’s tongue. They are useful as a point of reference, because otherwise the eyeball is somewhat difficult to understand sensorily, as it keeps flicking from side to side. They would tell Michael to keep it still, but their mouth is busy at the moment. He might not be able to help it anyway, and embarrassing him would not improve the situation.
The eye is glassy and moist, with a slightly different texture and curvature over the lens than the sclera. Once Raphael’s tongue figures this information out, it is easier to keep their bearings on the rolling ball and to search for the filament. By the time they find it, it has moved somewhat, more toward the outer corner than the lower lid, where it was before.
Raphael puts their tongue over it and withdraws. The filament does not come with their tongue. They try again, making a slight hooking motion this time. That doesn’t work either, but it’s closer.
Michael blinks, eyelids and lashes clamping shut over the tip of Raphael’s tongue and flooding the area with more salty tears.
“Sorry,” Michael breathes. The heart in Raphael’s chest gives a faint flutter.
In the wash of fresh tears, they try the hook motion again. This time the filament comes with them.
They pull back, touching their finger to their tongue so that they might inspect the filament.
Michael is blinking profusely now that he is free to do so, but his gaze trains on Raphael’s fingertip.
“A piece of hair,” he observes.
“An eyelash,” Raphael specifies.
One of Michael’s eyelashes, most likely, based on length and color. The sight of it makes their mouth twitch to smile, for no particular reason.
Michael nods.
“You should rinse your eye with drops,” Raphael instructs, when the smile passes. “There’s a bottle under the bathroom sink.”
Michael looks uncertain. Raphael waits, reflecting. Maybe he doesn’t know how to use eye drops.
“Go and get the bottle,” they instruct. It always feels bold to give Michael orders, but they are both getting better about that. “I’ll help you.”
Michael does get up then, padding across the floor tiles in his stretched out socks to the bathroom.
Raphael inspects the eyelash on their finger again. They could blow it or flick it off, but they’d rather not lose it — even though it’s just an eyelash. Tentatively, they put it back on the tip of their tongue, feeling its slight curve rubbing it against the roof of their mouth.
The bathroom cupboard door closes audibly. Raphael swallows the eyelash.
Michael comes back into the room holding the bottle of eye drops. When Raphael smiles again, Michael smiles back.
michael/raphael. when raphael gets so fed up with michael moping around and being sad about god leaving and lucifer being thrown into the cage (instead of running heaven!!! which raphael does all of!!!) that raphael decides to privately Discipline michael
this is a total shift for michael who’s usually in charge of his poorly behaved little brother! michael’s never been disciplined like this before, or even at all.
Read this Interview at Metal Sludge! BAY AREA GLAM … Michael Raphael former Jailhouse guitarist takes Fans Back to his Glam Roots with ‘You Talk We Talk’ from 1986 @mikieraph @ddrmusicgroup @neve_band @priceisrightlive #michaelraphael #youtalkwetalk #jailhouse #neve #bayareaglam #hairbands #sanfrancisco #vain #gnr #poison #jetboy #axlrose #dannysimon #simondaniels #amirderahk #genesimmons #sludge #mileycyrus #thepriceisright #sunsetstrip #metalsludge http://metalsludge.tv/bay-area-glam-michael-raphael-former-jailhouse-guitarist-takes-fans-back-to-his-glam-roots-with-you-talk-we-talk-from-1986/ https://www.instagram.com/p/Cjimr_opMBi/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
She arrives, as always, with a stroke of lightning.
Michael doesn't turn from his place in his chair, as it would be a wasted effort. His lips twitch, humorless.
"Always so dramatic, Raphael."
And then she's at his side, looking down at him through those scornful eyes. "Always so witty, Michael."
There's a smile in his eyes, one that doesn't appear on his face. He doesn't remember what it's like to truly smile. Not since Lucifer. It's easier when Raphael is around; after all, that hard glint in her eyes wasn't always there, either.
"You have news?" Michael says. His voice sounds as hollow as he feels, like the echo of a far away cry.
"No," Raphael says, seating herself on the arm of the chair. "Not today."
Michael grunts, leaning his head back on the chair as his jaw clenches. News means work, and no news means staying put and letting the story of fate unfold below him. He knows it will unfold, but his patience has long since worn thin.
Cold fingers curl on his chin, drawing his eyes back to Raphael's. Her eyes are not warm, but the familiarity provides a source of comfort, a reminder that he shares this burden.
"It will be over soon," she says.
Her lips are cold to his brow, but nothing feels sweeter.
