Work Text:
Bleary eyes stare at streaks staining canvas. Trapped in their trance, hazy hues blur together the way the surf meets shore. A brush rests behind his ear, its end caught in his purple waves, while long frozen fingers pinch another lacquered handle. Hovering in the air aimlessly, pigment drips off its bristles and trickles toward his wrist until his palm’s painted pink.
Pink has become precious to Rafayel—a romantic shade, vibrant yet soft, like a coral reef when the sun breaks through the water’s surface. She would say it’s like the flush that climbs from his cheeks to his ears when she teases him, or the splash of warmth surfacing beneath the half-blue depths of his gaze. But this shade he mixed specifically for her, exclusively for her—his missing color, now returned and never to be lost again…
No matter the hopeless portraits his nightmares try to paint.
The canvas gapes at him, covered by heavy, dark strokes—a mirror of the swirling tempest from the dream that spun him away from sleeping by her side two hours ago. His petrified paintbrush remains floating before the haunting landscape, as if unable to bear the thought of placing its bright rose tint in the midst of a seething storm.
Inspiration drifts away with a saltwater breeze, flitting through gauze curtains and toward the sea. The canvas is still dark, the paint still drips.
Rafayel sighs.
He stands from his stool.
He moves it two pointless centimeters to the left.
He fusses with his fringe.
He sits back on the stool.
Rafayel sighs again.
“Don’t fishies ever sleep?” The groggy voice startles and soothes him all at once, like his favorite symphony suddenly breaking an endless silence. His shoulders loosen at her familiar melody. When he turns, he sees her padding quietly toward him and traces his eyes up from her bare legs to her borrowed cardigan to her sleepy pout.
Cutie, he thinks.
“This fishie doesn’t always wake with the sun, you know,” he declares with his default playful lilt. Eagerly, he extends his arms and hooks two fingers around two of hers, pinkies linked as he draws her in to stand between his knees. “He rises with inspiration.”
A few blinks clear her tired gaze, vision more focused as she studies him. He watches as she catalogs the dripping paintbrush, now sandwiched between his and her hands, and the dark-washed canvas looming behind him. Her brows twist upward in worry as she pulls her cardigan—his cardigan (and his white shirt)—tighter around her body. When she peers into his red-rimmed eyes, he thinks she might actually be able to see a scene from his nightmare in his irises, as if she got front-row seats to an exhibit he had never planned to display. One warm hand comes up to cradle the side of his face, a gentle thumb tracing an arc beneath one tired eye.
“Even sun-defying artists need rest,” she murmurs, a hint of her smile replacing concern-bitten lips.
He knows she sees through him. He knows he harbors thoughts and memories he’s not ready to let rise to the surface. He knows she feels him occasionally stir in his sleep, hears his unconscious murmured pleas—a prelude to inevitable loneliness, echoes that call toward home, family, her. Still, she waits. Still, she loves all of him, even the hidden depths and the turning tides yet unseen. Still, she invites him to stay by her side. Still, she whispers beautiful words like:
“Come back to bed with me, Rafayel.”
To him, her every request is like a siren’s song, and he finds himself swaying toward her, ready to throw himself overboard if she so wishes. He traps her palm against his cheek, pressing deeper into the lure of warmth. His chest swells, then a contented hum spills on the following exhale. Without another word, he drops the pink-drenched brush upon his palette, plucks the other from behind his ear with a careless toss, and lets her pull him slowly—like a wave drawing in discarded treasures toward the deep. Always, he follows.
As she guides him, his smile stretches slowly across his face, already brighter and lighter because of her.
His teasing voice comes out as a whisper, careful not to break the spell he wants to stay under. “I’m still wide awake, cutie. Eyes like saucers. Is helping me fall asleep part of Miss Bodyguard’s job description now?”
A quiet laugh puffs from her nose as she shakes her head. “If I say it’s just a perk of being my boyfriend, do I still get paid?” she jokes.
That smile cracks wider as he hums thoughtfully, tapping his chin with a paint-smudged finger, his other hand still held in hers as they drift across the threshold to his bedroom.
“I’m sure I can arrange a more than… satisfactory compensation and benefit package.”
“Benefits, huh? Intriguing offer,” she plays along, directing him to sit on the edge of his bed. “Wait here a sec.”
Crossing his arms, he immediately sulks as she scurries off to his bathroom. Wearing puffed cheeks and an indignant pout on his lips, he calls loudly, “You’re just gonna leave me hanging like that in the middle of a contract negotiation?”
“Such an impatient employer,” she tuts affectionately.
Already skipping back toward him, her body is bathed in ethereal moonlight pouring in from the glass dome above them. He pictures them as two fish willingly bound to this grand aquarium, their own little bubble.
Slotting herself to stand between his legs, she reaches toward his face with a warm washcloth and gently sweeps away traces of paint on his skin. After cleaning his steadily warming cheeks, he watches with soft eyes as she gingerly pats over his temples and rubs featherlight circles across his forehead. Worry etches itself plainly on her pretty face once again as she works. He knows there’s no paint there; she’s silently erasing the nightmare he hasn’t told her about, softly scrubbing as if she could wipe his mind clean of any ache. One day, he will tell her about it, just not tonight. Tonight, he only wants to be a man who watches his beloved pick up his hands, one by one, and dab away the dried pigment there—between each calloused finger, over his palm lines, across each knuckle. A stubborn streak takes extra time to remove from his fourth finger, leaving a lingering ring of pink behind.
“So, Mister Qi, what responsibilities does the Sleep-Aid Girlfriend position entail?” she murmurs, her gun-calloused finger pad delicately tracing the same stain of pink she couldn’t remove from his left hand. A small smile reappears on her lips when she looks up from his fingers to his face. “Should I use the Rafayel Method and count fishies?”
Rafayel smiles brightly at the memory of how he had diligently counted a hundred fish until she drifted to sleep in his arms. A heavy chain around his heart always seems to lighten and loosen each time he hears her recall something about him, about them. She hasn’t forgotten him.
“It’s a pretty good idea, but you see, I’m concerned you may not have enough experience. You’ll need to name, like, a thousand fish species to make me fall asleep.” He muses with a touch of drama, lowering his chin and tapping his finger on the center of his forehead. Then, with a grin and snap, he says seriously, “I’ll make an exception and let you count me instead.”
“‘Count you’?” she echoes, bemused. “What does that even mean?”
“How should I know? It’s not my job, cutie,” he teases mirthfully, now far too awake for anyone’s good. “Oh, you’re hired, by the way.”
He plucks the washcloth from her hands and unceremoniously drops it onto his bedside table, before wrapping all four limbs around her like an octopus and toppling them both onto his bed.
“You—” she squeals, the sound bubbling into laughter that mirrors his. He squeezes her tighter as if he’d be able to fuse himself to the melody of her delight, soak himself in the hues of each vibrant note.
Giggles quickly fade into uneven breaths, Rafayel flat on his back and smiling at his lover above him. Moments like these, held beneath her, seen completely by her, make him wonder if this is what sinking feels like—not drowning but slowly submerging, a deliberate descent into the depths with no plans to return. He’d dive in headfirst.
“Aren’t you on the clock, Miss Sleep Aid?” he challenges with a quirked brow, quietly stirring them both from their combined daze.
Watching her eyes flit around him, he can practically see the questions and tactics taking shape inside her head as she tries to decide how she’ll “count him” to sleep. Then, she brightens. A twinkle flashes in her eyes, and he knows he’s in trouble—the good kind.
Leisurely, one finger glides up the expanse of skin exposed by the undone buttons at the top of his shirt. It scorches a slow trail up from his stuttering heartbeat, over the bob in his throat, along his jawline, and up to the center of his right cheekbone, where his skin spreads a soft flush.
“One,” she whispers.
Her finger slides a short distance to the side of his nose. “Two.”
Toward the top of his nose bridge, near the inner corner of his left eye. His lashes flutter under her touch. “Three.”
The weightless scrape of her nail drags back down his jaw, over his throat as he swallows dryly, and presses near the racing pulse beneath his neck. “Four.”
“What… are you counting?” His voice comes out raspy, eyes half-lidded, and skin tinted pink up to his ears as he awaits an answer.
“Your beauty marks,” she chimes, as if it couldn’t be more obvious. “Do you know how many you have?”
He shakes his head slowly.
“Hmm,” she ponders, keeping the tip of her finger lightly pressed to the side of his throat. “Some seem to be hiding. Mind if I do some additional observational work? In the name of sleep aid research, of course.”
“Yeah. All part of the job,” he affirms. If it sounds like a croak, he’s glad she doesn’t call him out.
With a smirk, she drags that finger down between his collarbones and plucks open a button on his shirt. Then another.
“Ah, there’s five. Six and seven too,” she murmurs triumphantly, drawing lines from each spot clustered at the center of his chest like she’s charting a constellation.
When her hands begin to wander, he knows they are both far from sleep at this point. Undoing his shirt completely, she skims the same fingertip across his skin to connect more dots lower down—numbers eight through thirteen speckling his tense abdomen. With a thoughtful pause, she circles her finger around thirteen, the mark near his navel. Lingering there for several long seconds, he feels a scorch beneath his skin, a twitch beneath his belt.
“I might have some on my arms,” Rafayel offers, his breath heavy and stuttering, his cheeks and ears flushed pink. “Should I take this off?” he asks, pinching the collar of his open shirt, bothered by the fabric against his skin.
“If you could be so kind, that would make my job easier.”
She rises on her knees to give him space but pushes the fabric off on her own, slowly dragging her palms from his chest to his back. Her hair brushes his face, his lips level with her neck as she drapes over him with her chin resting on his right shoulder. It’s impossible to resist dropping a kiss beneath her ear, so gentle it tickles a soft giggle from her. Then she gasps.
“Fourteen was hidden on your shoulder blade,” she proudly exclaims, walking on her knees to sit behind him and admire the revelation closer. Her hands caress around it before gently kneading his muscles, coaxing a quiet groan out of him. A hum of delight resounds right by his ear before she suddenly presses her smile into the spot on his shoulder, sending fire through his bloodstream that only spreads even wilder as her lips trail up to his neck and around to the spot over his pulse point, breasts squeezed tightly against his back.
“What about my arms?” he gasps when she sucks a bit harder.
“Getting there,” she murmurs against reddened skin, her arms wrapped around him from behind, drawing circles over his chest. “Don’t worry, I think I might be pretty good at this job.”
Mind rattled and panting short puffs of air, he begins to ramble in a daze.
“Did you—ah—did you know they say the location of a person’s beauty marks,” he stutters when her nail grazes over his nipple. “Uh, the marks are, like, supposedly spots where their lover from a previous life kissed most.”
That pulls her ravenous lips away from his skin for a torturous moment. The mattress shifts beneath him as she crawls and settles back in front and on top of him, thighs straddling his hips once again.
“Really? Makes me kinda jealous,” she pouts performatively, intent hidden beneath lowered lashes, her trigger finger tracing that mark near his navel again. Like a gloriosa finally unfurling its petals, each nail slowly extends outward with a gentle scrape until her hand flattens low over his stomach. Heat follows her palm as it slithers upward, back to the first spot on his cheekbone. “I’ll have to submit a revision… start over from one and erase any remaining traces.”
A thrill sparks through him at her possessiveness, his skin reddening in response—but his desire to show his devotion proves stronger than the usual instinct to tease. “It’s only a legend,” he breathes. “Besides, cutie… past, present, or future—I’m yours in every lifetime.”
It’s a vow that glows red over his heart.
She softens visibly, and he smiles against her lips when she draws him in for a kiss. It’s slow and tender, and the subtle sweetness of the dragon fruit they shared after dinner lingers on her tongue. When she pulls back, the tip of her nose brushes three times against his as her warm whispers ghost over his skin.
“Still, if past-life me was your lover, she severely neglected this spot.” Her thumb rubs the fullness of his bottom lip, eyes fixed on the kiss-bitten color with laser-sharp focus. “Shouldn’t there be beauty marks all over? Let this-life me fix that.”
Her mouth crashes against his like a tide, their lips pulling and pushing, ebbing and flowing. She sucks and nibbles on the lip she had trapped under her thumb earlier, leaving a half-ring of teeth marks in her wake. When she finally releases it, he’s panting, tongue darting out to trace the indents and taste how she lingers. He smirks. Surging forward, he rises to his knees to mirror her, both hands cradling her face as his tongue dives in for another mouthful of her sweetness. Together, they submerge back into an ocean of rumpled bed sheets.
Above her now, Rafayel raggedly breathes in the scent of her neck, licking the taste, biting, then licking again. He covers her with marks of his own design, signatures on a work of art. It pulls delicious moans from below him, her fingers scrabbling across his glistening skin so her hands are never empty, never without him.
“Wait,” she gasps, and he pulls back immediately, just enough to search her eyes for any sign of pain. Her touch lands gently on his cheek, thumb caressing mark number one. “I’m supposed to be counting.”
“I think we’re way past counting sheep, cutie,” Rafayel chuckles breathlessly, pressing a kiss to her hairline that’s more like a deep inhale of her intoxicating fragrance. He pulls back with a smile, but his brows pinch just slightly before he amends, “Or fish. Or beauty marks. Or whatever!”
When she giggles, he can’t help but place a quick peck on her lips to steal the sound.
“Guess I’m out of the sleep aid business, huh?”
Still smiling, he gently nuzzles his forehead against hers, midnight purple waves weaving with the hair at her crown. “You can always end your first and last day with a… bang,” he winks, biting back his grin.
She rolls her eyes affectionately, unable to stifle her laugh that makes the crimson-pink of his irises shine brighter.
With an expert roll, he turns himself on his back and pulls her on top of him again, kisses the corner of her smile, and whispers, “Go on, finish the job.”
Rebalancing her legs on either side of his hips, she leans forward, shrouding them in a curtain of her hair until all he can see is the face of the one he loves more than anything. Gentle as the sun rising on the horizon, her smile bathes him in a warmth he yearns to bask in forever, before she softly pecks the beauty mark on his right cheekbone. His eyelids flutter shut in blissful surrender beneath her affection.
“One.”
Her kisses remain soft and tender across the marks on his face. This time, she bypasses his neck and chest to first print her lips on the flecks spattering his arms, dedicating extra devotion to that once-hidden mark on his right shoulder blade. Time seems to move more slowly after she slides his pants and boxers off, diligently searching the newly exposed skin for any beauty marks she may have missed. By the time she returns to his neck, he’s lost track of her counting—his breath ragged, his eyes heavy-lidded, his flush a furious red, and his arousal more than obvious.
A love bite blooms brilliantly beneath her mouth as she suckles on his pulse point again. A soft whine escapes him, and it seems to embolden her further to gently rock against the hardness stirring beneath her. It feels like hours go by as she kisses her way across his chest—pressing one tender touch to the unique mark over his heart that might as well be her name scrawled on his skin in permanent red ink—then trails down his torso. When she reaches the lowest mark, he stops trying to keep quiet, groaning unrestrained with each bite, lick, and suck.
With a final delicate kiss near his navel, she tilts her face to rest her cheek just below where she had last kissed, warm breaths ghosting over the wet trails she left behind.
“I think I covered them all,” she whispers. “But what do you say we add a few new ones for our next life?”
“I’m your canvas, cutie,” he pants with a smirk and eager eyes, knowing exactly where she means to stake her claim. “Leave your mark.”
Flashing a devious grin, she plants a loud kiss right below his navel, reveling in his hiss of anticipation, before taking his fully hard cock in hand and kissing the tip.
“Oh, f-fuck,” he curses, voice raspy with restraint.
It’s cruel the way she peppers quick kisses along his length and kitten-licks his leaking tip, never taking him fully into her warm mouth—but he loves it. It’s the only time he enjoys waiting. He twitches with each drag of her lips across the bulging vein on the underside, groans at each teasing suckle on the head, whimpers when her breathy praises wash over his sensitive skin. She sings such sweet words just for him:
“So pretty, Raf.”
“How could I not leave marks here?”
“Such a perfect cock.”
“You’re covered in me now.”
“All mine.”
His fingers twitch restlessly by his sides, grasping at the bed sheets for an anchor until she pulls one listless hand to the crown of her head, weaving it through the strands there.
“And I’m all yours,” she promises before finally wrapping her lips around him.
Curses and groans spill out as his pleasure overflows, his hips lifting to wedge himself deeper toward her throat, fingers tangled in her hair as she lets him guide her movements however he wants.
That familiar coil starts to tighten, the promise of release within reach, but he keeps it at bay as best as he can—choking out a string of stuttered pleas and lifting her off him.
“Wait, wait, wait—ah. Fuck. Don’t wanna come yet, not without you, not in your mouth.” He knows he’s babbling again, but he thinks his words have never made more sense. “Wanna come inside you. You’ll let me, yeah? I’ll take care of you, cutie. It’ll feel so, so good.”
As soon as the “yes” forms on her lips, he sits up and surges forward to lick into her mouth, swallowing her moan and his own taste on her tongue. Impatiently, he pushes his cardigan off her body and manages to undo two shirt buttons before he decides to just yank it off. When she’s finally bare, she tugs at his hair, pulling him backward until he’s hovering above her.
Devoted lips worship from her neck to her breasts, then her stomach to her thighs. He hopes they’ll appear as deep beauty marks in her next life. When he finds her again in another world or era, he thinks they’ll recognize each other by these lip-painted patterns alone.
Finally, he reaches the pearl glistening between her soaked folds, admiring the sight with an appreciative groan and near-watering mouth.
“Tell me when you’re close, hm?” he murmurs into the skin of her inner thigh. “We’ll come together.”
Silently, she nods with a bitten lip, and he descends with fire catching in his eyes. Immediately, he sucks her clit into his mouth, loudly kissing and slurping her essence until she’s writhing beneath him. The way he drinks her in is relentless, tongue swirling, lips suctioning, groans vibrating straight into her core. Two long fingers slip inside with ease, her tightness fluttering around him and making him curse at the thought of how she’ll feel stretched around him soon. With the precision of an orchestra conductor, he moves his fingers just right and, as if on command, her cries rise in pitch—a captivating crescendo that makes her hips lift from the bed, makes her eyes screw shut even tighter, makes her jaw drop in a shattered scream.
“C-close, Raf,” she gasps. “Need you now.”
Smiling, he presses one final kiss to her clit before slowly withdrawing his fingers. Slick lips leave a wet trail up her body that ends at her damp cheek. His smile brushes her ear when he whispers, “Don’t worry, cutie. I’ve got you.”
Lifting her legs over his hips, he sinks into her without resistance. They groan in harmony as he begins to thrust, lips searching clumsily to trap the sounds between their mouths. The messy smack of kisses and wet slap of skin echoes in his bedroom, drowning out the sound of waves crashing on the beach.
He’s surrounded by her, submerged in her, but he wants more—deeper, deeper, deeper. As if she heard his thoughts, she opens more for him with a shift of her legs. Pleasure overwhelms his mind, and he doesn’t realize he’s speaking a different tongue until she echoes the Lemurian words back to him.
“Bushiaĝen.”
You’re mine.
His hips stutter, thrusts becoming sloppy as her nails scrape his back and her thighs tighten around his waist, keeping their bodies locked together. She pulses around him with each deep roll of his hips, chanting his name as he licks it off her tongue. Brows furrowing, teeth gritting, he pistons rapidly as he feels himself teetering on the edge. Pushing a hand between their bodies, he circles her clit and tries to match her tempo.
“Together,” he rasps.
It washes over them in waves—warm and heavy, pulling them under and stealing their breath, guided by the draw of moonlight. With a fractured groan, he releases inside her tight, fluttering walls, her legs spasming at his sides. Labored breaths meet and evaporate into the night, taking every dark storm and restless worry with them. Their shared pleasure pools, leaking from where they’re still joined, but he doesn’t notice any of it. Gaze fixed on her, he smiles and delicately brushes back sweat-slicked strands from her forehead. Those same fingers draw soft patterns on her cheek before trailing toward her chin, lifting her lips to his in a slow kiss, and stealing the breath she’s still trying to catch. When he finally relents and pulls back just enough to give her lungs space, she lets out a quiet laugh.
“My cute pink fishie,” she whispers, reaching a hand to touch his warm cheek.
“Yours,” he agrees.
They stay like that for minutes that feel like hours, basking in playful kisses, tender touches, and matching heartbeats.
As the waves of bliss settle into calmer ripples, he gazes at her soft smile and the word “treasure” comes to mind—not something to steal and own, but rather something to cherish, protect, and fight for. That young Lemurian who had freely offered his scale, who had been devastated when he couldn’t find her again at the beach, has found his treasure once again. Even when he’s away, she’s nestled in his heart. When he’s thinking of her, she’s also thinking of him. If his parents could have seen how much he brightens beside her, he knows they would have loved her just the same.
“Let’s take a bath,” Rafayel says suddenly, voice still dreamy, all soft and hazy around the edges.
“What?” she squeaks, laughing incredulously. “Raf, it’s probably two already. I really didn’t tire you out at all, huh? Let’s just get another towel and—”
A yelp cuts her sentence short as he scoops her naked body up from the bed and carries her to his bathroom. She lightly swats his chest in retaliation, but he just chuckles and holds her tighter with each step.
“Bath,” he repeats, kissing her cheek.
He sets her gently on the heated floors before unfolding a towel and spreading it across the counter by the sink. When he lifts her again, she’s more pliant, letting him place her on the fluffy makeshift cushion that separates her from the marble’s chill. A warm washcloth gently brushes between her legs, drawing a soft sigh from her lips.
Busying himself with filling the tub, his quiet humming accompanies the soothing sound of the faucet. Steam rises and fogs the mirrors. The ripple of water pulls pink bubbles to the edge of the porcelain. Gentle hands cradle her once more as he lowers them both into the bath.
Only the trickle of soapy water interrupts this moment of peace. They sit together for a longer time than either of them knows, with her back resting against his chest and his hands massaging her skin.
When he feels her lean her head back to look at him, only minutes later, his eyes are softly closed, lips drawn in a gentle smile.
“If you fall asleep in this tub, I’m not carrying you out.”
He chuckles, the movement stirring the bathwater.
“Not sleeping. But I am sleepy now,” he says in a near-whisper, voice deep and gravelly. He wraps his arms tighter around her as he continues to mumble quietly. “Even if we both still don’t know how many beauty marks I have,” he teases, “it worked. Congrats, Miss Sleep Aid. You did it.”
She doesn’t respond right away, but with her head still tilted back on his shoulder, he can feel how her cheek presses against his skin with the stretch of her smile.
A featherlight kiss warms his jaw.
“Then come back to bed with me, Rafayel.”
Still, she whispers beautiful words—enchanting even as echoes.
“Okay.”
Always, he follows.
