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Entry tags:
"Astral Weeks," Raphael/Sara, PG-13 [unfinished]
Fandom: Angel Sanctuary
Pairing: Raphael/Sara
Rating: PG-13
Warnings/Etc.: Implied, but not overly explicit sex. The dreaded normal!AU. Or maybe it's closer to a deluded!AU. Also known as the only time I have ever given Raphael and Sara a happy ending.
"Astral Weeks"
by Acey
"Tell me a secret."
"What kind of secret?"
"It doesn't matter."
--
He thinks about that days after they've both slunk out of that hotel room, caught separate trains to work. Tell me a secret.
He'd been sober enough to only admit one-- that he'd cheated on a test in the fifth grade.
"We were studying the Great Depression," he'd said, and she nodded. "There were a few fill-in-the-blank questions there at the bottom, and of course I hadn't studied. For all I remembered, Mickey Mouse could have formed the WPA."
She didn't laugh. He didn't expect her to.
"The girl who sat in front of me was short enough that I looked over her shoulder for the answers. I remember being sure the teacher knew, that she was just waiting for me to turn in my test so she could tear it up in front of the class. But she didn't."
"Did you feel bad?"
"No." He brushed a strand of blond hair away from his face, pausing to look at her a little more carefully. "But I never did it again, either."
"Then you did feel bad."
"Maybe." He hadn't been up for the debate. "What about you? What's your secret?"
"It's no good," and she'd smiled. "Someone knows all of mine."
--
He's not sure if he ought to call her again. During lunch break, he stares at the phone like a pitiful schoolgirl in scrubs, and the worst part is, he doesn't know why. She hadn't been remarkable, hadn't really been the prettiest girl he'd ever taken to bed. But there'd been a wistfulness to her that he wanted.
It's always her place. He finds himself intruding in small, subtle ways-- bringing a few groceries by when she mentions offhand she's been too busy to manage. His business suits start to fill a corner of her closet, his handkerchiefs on her nightstand. She always demurs when he offers to have her over instead.
Her apartment is cramped, faded. The wallpaper peels a bit at the corners. Her bedroom has a single picture on the nightstand; her and two boys, grinning for the camera.
"My brother," she says when he asks. "My brother and his best friend."
"I didn't think you had any siblings."
"I only have him. He's a year older." A pause. "Do you have any brothers or sisters?"
"Three." He takes the food out of the fridge. "I have a sister two years younger than I am, two brothers. One's a year older, the other.. well. He's still in high school."
"They don't live in Tokyo too, do they?"
"Oh, no. My sister's on a humanitarian mission in Africa, my older brother is a florist-- both my brothers are still in the States."
"You must miss them."
"Only from time to time." He laughs, not harshly. "We're all adopted. My sister and I are blood siblings, none of the rest of us are related. Biologically. Here, I have a picture of the whole family in my wallet..."
He digs it out. It's battered, a few years old.
"This was after I completed my internship."
"I like it! Your parents... they look like wonderful people."
"They are."
--
"My brother was my lover. I... I don't expect you to understand--"
He's silent. He's thinking of that picture beside her bed. He's thinking of her brother's coloring, her brother's hair, that shade between blond and brown.
"I couldn't even explain it to myself. I thought I was a bad girl. That I was sick, wrong. I tried so hard to be good and ignore what I felt but it just hurt me worse. And when I found out it was the same for him... Raphie, I was so happy. I was fifteen. I thought we'd run away together-- he wanted me to. We had it planned out."
"Do you hate me now?"
--
The next few days are a haze. He stays over the weekend as usual.
Cheated, he thinks, he's been cheated. The man he's replacing isn't even a dead lover-- that he could take. That he has taken.
He thinks of Barbiel for the first time in years. Practical Barbiel who studied for the MCAT with him, Barbiel, always high-heeled and proper. Barbiel, killed in a car accident when she was twenty-five.
He wasn't pasting faces. Not the way Sara was. He hadn't looked for Barbiel in any other woman.
Pairing: Raphael/Sara
Rating: PG-13
Warnings/Etc.: Implied, but not overly explicit sex. The dreaded normal!AU. Or maybe it's closer to a deluded!AU. Also known as the only time I have ever given Raphael and Sara a happy ending.
"Astral Weeks"
by Acey
"Tell me a secret."
"What kind of secret?"
"It doesn't matter."
--
He thinks about that days after they've both slunk out of that hotel room, caught separate trains to work. Tell me a secret.
He'd been sober enough to only admit one-- that he'd cheated on a test in the fifth grade.
"We were studying the Great Depression," he'd said, and she nodded. "There were a few fill-in-the-blank questions there at the bottom, and of course I hadn't studied. For all I remembered, Mickey Mouse could have formed the WPA."
She didn't laugh. He didn't expect her to.
"The girl who sat in front of me was short enough that I looked over her shoulder for the answers. I remember being sure the teacher knew, that she was just waiting for me to turn in my test so she could tear it up in front of the class. But she didn't."
"Did you feel bad?"
"No." He brushed a strand of blond hair away from his face, pausing to look at her a little more carefully. "But I never did it again, either."
"Then you did feel bad."
"Maybe." He hadn't been up for the debate. "What about you? What's your secret?"
"It's no good," and she'd smiled. "Someone knows all of mine."
--
He's not sure if he ought to call her again. During lunch break, he stares at the phone like a pitiful schoolgirl in scrubs, and the worst part is, he doesn't know why. She hadn't been remarkable, hadn't really been the prettiest girl he'd ever taken to bed. But there'd been a wistfulness to her that he wanted.
It's always her place. He finds himself intruding in small, subtle ways-- bringing a few groceries by when she mentions offhand she's been too busy to manage. His business suits start to fill a corner of her closet, his handkerchiefs on her nightstand. She always demurs when he offers to have her over instead.
Her apartment is cramped, faded. The wallpaper peels a bit at the corners. Her bedroom has a single picture on the nightstand; her and two boys, grinning for the camera.
"My brother," she says when he asks. "My brother and his best friend."
"I didn't think you had any siblings."
"I only have him. He's a year older." A pause. "Do you have any brothers or sisters?"
"Three." He takes the food out of the fridge. "I have a sister two years younger than I am, two brothers. One's a year older, the other.. well. He's still in high school."
"They don't live in Tokyo too, do they?"
"Oh, no. My sister's on a humanitarian mission in Africa, my older brother is a florist-- both my brothers are still in the States."
"You must miss them."
"Only from time to time." He laughs, not harshly. "We're all adopted. My sister and I are blood siblings, none of the rest of us are related. Biologically. Here, I have a picture of the whole family in my wallet..."
He digs it out. It's battered, a few years old.
"This was after I completed my internship."
"I like it! Your parents... they look like wonderful people."
"They are."
--
"My brother was my lover. I... I don't expect you to understand--"
He's silent. He's thinking of that picture beside her bed. He's thinking of her brother's coloring, her brother's hair, that shade between blond and brown.
"I couldn't even explain it to myself. I thought I was a bad girl. That I was sick, wrong. I tried so hard to be good and ignore what I felt but it just hurt me worse. And when I found out it was the same for him... Raphie, I was so happy. I was fifteen. I thought we'd run away together-- he wanted me to. We had it planned out."
"Do you hate me now?"
--
The next few days are a haze. He stays over the weekend as usual.
Cheated, he thinks, he's been cheated. The man he's replacing isn't even a dead lover-- that he could take. That he has taken.
He thinks of Barbiel for the first time in years. Practical Barbiel who studied for the MCAT with him, Barbiel, always high-heeled and proper. Barbiel, killed in a car accident when she was twenty-five.
He wasn't pasting faces. Not the way Sara was. He hadn't looked for Barbiel in any other woman.