Archive of Our Own

In the dark, unseen, he coaxes it out of you – it's not particularly hard, when loss has so defined you. You've learned to keep your palms pliant, because nothing you try to hold onto will stay anyway, and forgetting is easier in the absence of scars.

But it's still ugly to speak your truths into the air. The ones that crawl out of old wounds, the ones that foment in the unnatural crevices of your mangled soul. Violent and unhinged things, with sharp, malformed teeth and a hunger for the pulse of blood from any source.

It feels wrong to confess such evil, the parts of you that wish genuine harm on the world, a plea to stop mutilated into something more monstrous: I just wish they would...

Like vomiting into his outstretched hands.

These are the parts of you that should remain unspoken, you reflect to yourself. The parts you'll pack back into that little box in the morning before dropping the key into a street drain to be carried out to sea.

Still, he waits. Listens.

When you're done, when you're exhausted and heaving, comes the Now what?

Rafayel just gives a little laugh. Now, we create.

He reaches out with those elegant artist hands, plucks your words from the ground, and begins to rearrange them. Once upon a time, there was a majorrrr fucking bitch... Each verb a poisonous flower to be carefully snipped and bent and then carelessly dumped into a vase.

It is nothing like the way he mixes paint: it is a mad, haphazard swirl. As absurd as any of his little stories, confused and full of questionable improvisation. Every now and then, he nudges you for advice.

Against your better judgement, you contribute, start to laugh, too.

His fingers find your mouth at the noise, touch replacing sight, enhancing sound. You can feel, more than anything else, the smile on his face.

Feeling better? he asks.

You nod. A little.

Still upset?

Yeah.

Hmm, wanna go somewhere?

Surprisingly, you do.

He bids you follow him, coaxing you out of the house the way he coaxed your words out of you. Gently, allowing for space, but still insistent. A little cajoling. 

Your feet sink into the sand. It is soft between your toes, cool from the sea spray and the night air.

Above you, the stars glitter like crushed crystal on a bed of velvet.

Here, Rafayel bends down and picks something up. Holds it out to you. By the winking sliver of the moon, you recognise it to be a starfish. This one got left behind by the storm. 

I thought that was a made-up story, you say, reaching for it anyway. Besides, won't the tide come back? Won't throwing it hurt it?

Eh, Rafayel shrugs, shifting onto his good leg, hooking his foot around his ankle. It just insulted your outfit, soooooo even if you want to save it, make sure you peg it as hard as you can, cutie.

And you can't help but love him again, your charming liar and his whimsical nonsense.

You wind up, foot planted behind you for maximum propulsion, and throw the starfish, watching it arc through the sky like a dark meteor. It lands with a white plop into the restless waves.

He is already handing you the next one. Again. Harder.

How did this one insult me? you ask.

It didn't, he replies. It just has a mean vibe.

You throw that starfish too, returning it to its home. Saving it from suffocation, if stories are to be believed. If Rafayel is to be believed - you can never quite tell, with him. How many times am I doing this?

As many times as you need, he tells you earnestly. ...That, or until our takeout arrives. I am starrrrving.

You're laughing again – he does this to you, somehow. 

The wind ghosts over your skin, a remnant of the savage storm, gone soft as a lover’s caress. 

Together, you make your way up the beach, one starfish at a time, absorbing his silly jokes. Each new giggle a fresh inhale, an influx of air, and you start to feel yourself filling out at the edges where, earlier, they'd collapsed inward. Lungs deflated so thoroughly it takes real effort to fill them again, the walls of epithelia that line your alveoli clinging together in defiance of the atmosphere. 

That’s the last of them, he says after a while. By the way, I ordered your favourite. Wanna eat with me? 

Okay, you say. That sick anger is still inside you, but it has receded enough that you have space for other things now. Like love. Like hunger. 

Rafayel guides you home, lacing his fingers in yours. Refusing to part with you even just to bend down and grab the food at his doorstep. 

It pulls you down with him, contorting your form, but when he returns, he’s straightened you out again. 

You eat. 

He asks if you’re feeling better. 

You tell him yes, a little more, and he brings you elsewhere. 

To the studio, where he bids you create, this time. With paint, clay, words, harmony – anything. Art is purification. It is the fire by which iron is tempered and reborn to purpose, even if that purpose is beauty alone. 

When you need a break, he distracts you. Dragging you out to count stars and telling you their Lemurian names, only admitting he made them all up after you’d struggled to memorise them. 

Graciously allowing the first few outraged smacks before retaliating, wrestling you into the sand. 

You forget, sometimes, how strong he is. The way the lines of him were formed under pressure. He is your deep sea diamond, flawed and perfect, and when you press together, you feel your shape conforming to his. Stone to setting, reforged to hold him. You are a ring and an amulet; something beautiful, something functional. 

I’m sorry, you say quietly, after the first smudges of grey begin to lighten the horizon. 

There’s a tension in him, and you worry that he is worrying about you. 

Those unearthly eyes dart towards the oncoming dawn and back to your face. He inhales deeply, if only so he can release it in a greater, heaving sigh – dramatic bastard. 

He collapses his full weight onto you, tucking his face between neck and shoulder, mouth settling next to your collarbone. Nah, he says. His hand sneaks up to your mouth again, idly tracing its seam. I like it. Any artist worth their salt knows that colours are made brighter by contrast. 

Your fingers tighten around his back. You feel the slip of his expensive linen shirt. The warm skin just beneath it. You think about his species, how they might just have the right of it. Why else would Lemurians cry pearls, if not because they understand that grief is the child of love, and love is beautiful? 

You prefer to hide your darkness, he continues. You think they make you an awful person, but those feelings? They're what was done to you. The you I know is what you choose to do with those feelings. And you, cutie, Rafayel presses a kiss to your skin, are lovely. 

Emotions surge inside you at that, and you have to force yourself to become still. Because, if you move, you’ll crack. The water will press its greedy fingers into your weak points until they fail. Everything you are will come flooding out, spilling onto the sand, and you’ll lay gasping on the shore like a starfish, vulnerable and out-of-element, hoping some kind stranger will treat you tenderly and return you home. 

But water is persistent. It will carve paths where there were none before. Something itches on your skin, at the corners of your eyes. 

You realise you are crying. 

Your tears are ugly and only human, but it doesn’t matter. The beach is a place for brine; the sand does not distinguish, only accepts each fragile droplet as they become a stream and then a river, reaching for the ocean.  

Rafayel knows, too – can feel the wetness on his forehead – but he doesn’t force you to speak. Just holds you tight, drawing shapes across your lips. 

When the sun silently breaks over the horizon, you feel the rays warm your skin, dyeing you with colour. And you feel better. 

You are saturated. 

You are orange. 

Salt and sun are the oldest purifiers; they burn you clean. 

You are still crying. 

You are okay. 

Heavy above you, Rafayel pulls taut, then goes limp. He lets out a soft laugh. Hey. Let’s go home and sleep the whole day away. 

You say yes.