Cause I got issues but you got ‘em too

[Raphael Malai]

"Nope." Because if he suggested it, Rhys would either do the complete opposite or if he listened and something went wrong, Raphael was afraid that he would be blamed for it—forever. And that was going to be a wedge between them that he didn't think even the power of love and positive thinking could remove. He didn't want that on his head. It might just ruin whatever tentative friendship they had at the moment.

But he cast the seed of doubt, he hoped. Maybe his questions would make Rhys really think about what he was doing, instead of blindly following orders. Raphael did just that for his entire life and he never once felt... right about doing what he did. He did it because someone else told him to and because he wanted to fit in, but not because his whole heart was in it. He didn't believe in what he did. Maybe Rhys didn't subscribe to all of it wholesale, either—he could only hope.

"You have to do what's right for you." He closed his eyes. "I think deep down you know what's right and what's not, though."

[Rhys McCabe]

Right. Rhys rolled his eyes. Nope, he said, after clearly trying to steer Rhys in the direction he hoped that Rhys would take. But he claimed it was for Rhys, whatever was right by him. That sounded like a cop out to him; like if Rhys didn't do what felt right to Raphael, it wouldn't count as right.

Anyway, it didn't much matter because Rhys didn't know what was right, so how dare he suggest to him that he knew. Rhys had been raised without a moral compass. More than half his life was spent without feelings, other than that ever present feeling of boredom.

So which was worse? Being so bored he didn't care if he died? Or being so filled with emotions he couldn't handle that he hoped that he died? Which was right, there? Was he really just supposed to do the right thing by whomever thought it was right? Like Raf? Or was he supposed to figure out what was best for him? And even so, what was that? Because Rhys thought going home, getting these wings off, and doing his job was the right thing to do.

Raphael was clearly not on board with that, chastising him about his brothers and their stupid lives...

"There is nothing right for me," he intoned. "There's just what you want and what my father wants and what my mother wants and what my brothers want and what my sister wants. And whatever choice I make, I'm fucking somebody over."

[Raphael Malai]

So Rhys didn't know what he wanted then. The right thing was not to screw people over, even brothers he never knew, but he seemed reluctant to admit that. Well, it was likely because everything Rhys knew was tied to the wrong side—the bad side! The side that killed people and tortured them for information and left their mangled, corrupted bodies out in the woods to crumble to dust. The bad side that wanted to erase an entire civilization of fae from the face of the earth, simply because one man decided that he didn't want them around.

Defecting was scary. Leaving everyone he knew and everything that was familiar behind, it was terrifying! Raphael didn't blame Rhys for hesitating, and for wanting to stick with what he knew. That was... easy. The path of least resistance was to offer no resistance. He didn't judge Rhys, though, because obviously he had been part of the Fallen world in a much more involved way that Raphael. He was the prince of the Fallen—people looked to him as an example of the future of the kingdom.

Who was Raphael but a mere pauper, serving at his feet? How could Raphael comprehend the immense pressure that had been heaped onto Rhys' shoulders since birth?

He tried, though. It wasn't in him to simply give up—not on Rhys, especially. Sighing, he wrapped his arms around Rhys' legs as though that might comfort him. "And you think what I want is for you to jump over to the other side? But I want you to be happy. Even if you went back to your father, I'd still feel the same way about you, you know. That wouldn't change. It's just that maybe... sometimes we should think about what we're doing instead of blindly following orders, that's all. Right and wrong, it's all subjective anyway. But it doesn't hurt to think..."

[Rhys McCabe]

It was definitely easier before, when there were no feelings to consider. And Rhys was intelligent but he didn't have to think much about what he was doing. There was never any point where he had to agonize over his choices when he was a Fallen because he rarely had to make them. And even when he did, the choice was always... whatever amused him most. And that usually meant toying with a victim for a while before killing them.

Which now translated to guilt, which he very much did not want.

Death was looking preferable from all angles at this point. Death looked good from either end. Dead instead of bored. Dead instead of living in emotional agony.

"Happy?" His laugh was scornful. He almost spit out that he was never happy, that he never knew what that felt like but he stopped because... it wasn't true. He was happy, once. When he was coddled by his mother, when he was playing with his sister. Elaborate, creative stories that only somebody with spirit could come up with. He'd come home dirty as hell, without telling his mother or his shadow--Raphael--where he'd been. But he was happy. At least, until his father intervened. And when he intervened, people died. People were tortured.

And he could have sworn, that he'd gone out with Raf a few times, when they were young, when Satine was being punished or had work to do, studies to complete, or was otherwise not available to play. But it all stopped. One day. When Raphael was beaten in front of him and taken away. And when he finally came back, he was different. Rhys felt cold inside.

"What did my father do to you?"

[Raphael Malai]

What were they if not the sum of their choices? Good and bad, right and wrong, everything added up on different ends of the scale. The bad choices weighed them down; the good choices lifted them up. Where they ended up, no one knew. The totality of their decisions didn't matter until the end, when they laid on their deathbeds and reflected back on their lives. Then, it was the moment of truth. Would there be regret? Or peace?

Raphael wanted peace. So much of his young life had been lived in regret, in torment and darkness. His light strove to shine through but in that oppressive environment it was repressed and beaten back—sometimes literally. Literally beaten back. They tried to slice off his wings again and again, torturing him down in those cold, dark cells underneath the castle where such things were kept away from prying eyes. Where screams couldn't be heard.

Somehow they couldn't do it. And they were forced to leave him as he was, because he learned that if he didn't resist and if he obeyed their word, they were willing to turn a blind eye. If he killed someone because they said so, they stopped trying to corrupt his wings and he could avoid being hurt needlessly and senselessly. And those decisions, they weighed down the scales heavily—and Raphael had to live with that on his newfound conscience for the rest of his life. But still he hoped that when it came time to close his eyes for that eternal sleep, that he would be allowed to go peacefully.

He could at least live what life he had happily. But Rhys didn't believe that and Raphael couldn't force him to, either. He sighed at the tone of Rhys' voice, feeling despondent. Would Rhys ever learn to accept his new feelings? To embrace them as being a long-repressed part of himself? Raphael had—and he was happier for it. There was nothing wrong with having feelings—not having them, that made them wrong.

"Huh? Your father?" He looked up, startled, confused. "What? Nothing. I'm still here!"

[Rhys McCabe]

"I can see that," he said dryly. "I have eyes."

Obviously Raphael was still here. But what an odd way to phrase his response. All Rhys was asked was what did my father do to you? And that was his response? I'm still here? He was, that much was true. But what happened when he took Raphael away? And why did he take him away? What did they do that day that warranted such a long punishment period?

They left the way Rhys always left when he wanted to go out and be left alone--without a parade of guards. Out through the labyrinth garden. Turn left three times and it was there--a gate out into the fields beyond. He went with Satine all the time. She was the one who showed him the gate. He went with Raf a few times before, too.

It was different that time, though. Why...?

"You don't remember?" he asked, and his hand moved from the top of Raphael's head to the side, the tips of his fingers brushing an ear, the side of his neck. His hand rested on Raphael's shoulder as his brow furrowed. "We went through the secret gate... and when we came back, father took you away. I didn't see you again for months."

[Raphael Malai]

"They're very nice eyes," Raphael said in what could only be described as a completely sappy manner. Hazel eyes, so pretty. They changed colors depending on Rhys' mood, he could have sworn. Light green when he was pleased; darker, almost brown, flecked and speckled with golden motes of magic when he was displeased, or when he used his abilities—often when he was displeased. Or bored. Looking for entertainment.

Mmm but what was Rhys doing with his hand? It felt like he was stroking an invisible line from the top of his head to his shoulder. It was nice. Raphael's eyes half-closed like a contented cat; he would have purred if he knew how. But Rhys' words made his good mood disappear. Suddenly he didn't feel very good at all. He felt sick—sick to his stomach.

The door creaked open with a loud and ominous noise. The guard behind him shoved him hard in the back, causing him to stumble inside. His clumsy, dirty, bare foot stepped on something fleshy and-and he tripped over the object. Landing with a low grunt, he was startled to find that it was not the floor he felt under him but... but... a body.

A torch was lit behind him.

Looking down at the thing he fell onto, he let out a shrill, frightened scream.

The blue-black, swollen face of a dead boy greeted him. He scrambled back as far as he could and as quickly as he could, still screaming, screaming in terror as his eyes refused to leave the body of the young boy with brown-black hair and open, staring eyes. Someone cuffed him hard on the side of the head and told him harshly to shut up. When he didn't, they gagged him and even then he screamed, the sound muffled into the dirty, filthy rag they tied around his mouth.

The boy was dressed in the tattered clothes of a noble. His wings were bent at odd angles behind his back but he was broken all over. Tortured. Beaten, burnt, cut up, torn apart. He couldn't have been much older than Tarwyn himself, although he was obviously brought up in luxury, and not in the slums.

"Strip him and prepare his soul." A high, cruel voice behind him finally made him stop. It was the voice that everyone knew—and feared. The voice of the Fallen King, Drake Nightshade. "Maybe this one will be more obedient than Raphael."

Raphael shrugged off Rhys' hand and stood up. Goosebumps ran all down his arms and he shivered a little inside, feeling chilled. "You—oh you haven't even seen the gift I made you Rhys!" Hurrying over to his fallen messenger bag, he dug down into it and pulled out a small plaque. He held it up with a bit of a forced smile. "I was going to give you wings! But you already had them! Isn't that funny?"

The plaque had a mosaic of blue stones in the shape of a butterfly, a little sentimental gift that had taken him years to make.

[Rhys McCabe]

Well. Rhys didn't know quite how to take that, now that feelings were involved. He had nice eyes? Compliments were just par for the course normally; he expected them, they bored him. And now... there was this. Compliments from... somebody that he might maybe sort of... like a little bit. Maybe. Rhys cleared his throat.

"Thanks," he said, a little gruffly. He was out of practice; thanking people was not something Rhys ever really had to do. At least, not when his soul had completely instilled itself into a void of nothingness. Now... He was about to say more but when he touched Raphael's shoulder, something seemed to come over him. Rhys blinked and watched his expression change.

But then, he was back to himself. Like whatever he thought about was being swept under the rug. Rhys knew a little something about that. It must have had something to do with Rhys' question. About what the Fallen King had done to him. Rhys felt... strangely pained. Was that what it meant, when it felt like somebody was physically squeezing his heart and taking the breath from his lungs?

Whatever he remembered, Raf was apparently in no place to share it. Instead, he scurried off to get something out of his bag. Presumably, it was The Thing he was going to give Rhys before he vanished and they never saw one another again.

Wings.

Rhys swallowed. He lowered his gaze. Wings. He suppressed the urge to touch the wings that had apparently grown on his back. Oh... he was still without a shirt. When had he...? Oh right, the burning sensation from the blight. He'd torn off his own shirt to rid himself of the feeling. Lightly, he reached up to touch his shoulder, but didn't go all the way back to the actual wing. He was... admittedly... half afraid to touch it now.

"I bet with some magic," Rhys said, trying to fill the ensuing silence with words, "you could have made them real..."

But they would have been the equivalent of magically gluing wings to his back. They wouldn't have any of his magic in them, they would have been mostly like a glamor, visible but not really usable. Still... Sensing something was wrong, Rhys forewent the sarcasm and just said, "It's a cute... gift, Raf."

[Raphael Malai]

Rhys could never know. What happened down there in the dungeon, he could never find out because it wasn't just a matter of hurting him—hurting Rhys with the truth. There were other lives on the line too, people who were never a part of all this but who were being used as leverage to ensure Raphael's silence. For now, he only had to know that something 'bad' happened but that Raphael was still here.

I'm still here!

Strangely, Rhys didn't push or poke or outright command Raphael to tell him what happened. He was distracted by the plaque and by the blue wings that Raphael made for him. Was that a product of his new wings, and his newfound... humanity? Whatever the reasoning, Raphael was glad and relieved, and bounced back to the couch to sit beside Rhys. "I think your real wings look much prettier than this!"

There was something odd going on with Rhys, in the way he kept lowering his gaze and touching his shoulder. What happened to normally haughty Rhys who always kept his head high? The feelings? The wings? He was becoming a whole different person now! ...downright nice, actually... which was surprising and unexpected and a little weird? Thanking people? Thanking Raphael?! Just a little weird.

"See, each one is from a different place we've been together! This one is from home, from that big lake we used to go fishing in. And this one, it's from the first time we came to the human realm. Remember how Keith yelled at me for digging around while we were spying on Professor Jack? I was pulling this out of the ground! And this." His fingertip slid over a long, shiny piece. "This is from right here. It's the last one that fit the frame. I found it just outside Birdy Bee Cafe, someone dropped it I think."

Raphael gently placed the gift onto Rhys' lap. "I'm glad you like it, Rhys. And thank you for... calling it cute. You're pretty cute yourself!"

[Rhys McCabe]

"...I can't see them." They were too small. All he'd done was feel them, grasp them, and pull with all of his might. Stupid move, he saw. Of course, hindsight was always 20/20 and in this case, he felt like he had done the least intelligent thing possible. He'd panicked. That wasn't like him. And then he did something out of character. And it felt like he was continuing down that path, what with the gift. And... gratitude.

Annoyance took over as he tried to push away the gentle moment. Hard to do, though, when Raphael pointed out that each stone in the wings were from different places they'd visited together. After he said that, Rhys could actually remember seeing some of them. He just assumed that when Raphael started collecting them that he planned to make a collection display, like he did with his various cups.

It was set in his lap and Rhys just sort of stared at it, feeling almost numb from an overwhelming amount of conflicting emotions. He was, on the surface, annoyed. Because he was touched and he didn't want to be touched. It was just a silly collage of gems arranged as wings. So why did it get under his skin like that? He only let out a snort. Being called cute, now that was new. Rhys was anything but cute.

And he was still half thinking about whatever happened with Raphael with his father. It seemed to be either a big deal that Raf wanted to hide from him or he genuinely had no memory of it. Both were equally plausible. But he thought he saw something in Raf's gaze for a moment that belied his lack of memory.

"...is that why you don't want to go back?" Rhys asked. "My father?"

[Raphael Malai]

"You can look in the mirror later!" They were very pretty, even if they were nothing more than the beginnings of wings. It wasn't the shape or the color, really, but the purity. Their newness made them pretty, the way they glistened. Raphael was tempted to touch them, but of course that was quite a big no-no. It was taboo to touch a fae's wings without invitation or permission! (Even a Fallen, at that!)

As usual, Rhys was inscrutable. He appeared annoyed judging by the furrow between his brows, and he didn't touch the gift. It sat on his leg. Raphael couldn't tell what he was thinking, what he really was going to do with the plaque. Put it up? On a wall somewhere? Or throw it away? Raphael didn't want him to toss it into the garbage but maybe that was its eventual home, if Rhys went back... Having contraband like this on him--something associated with a traitor--would land him in quite a lot of hot water, too!

"Oh." Raphael sat there in silence for a long moment. Then he shrugged gently. "Yes... but it's also... everyone. All the Fallen there. There's no happiness, no color. We can't laugh, we can't sing, there aren't any teacups. It's just... dark there."

He stood up and walked over to Brayden's bookshelf, which was stocked with all sorts of things. Books, yes, but also knick-knacks and figurines. "I like it here. There's all kinds of different people, and they like me and they're nice!"

[Rhys McCabe]

Yeah, right. Part of him was curious but not curious enough. Mostly, he just wanted them... gone. He kept telling himself that, especially the more he started to feel. The numbness was fine, though. And understandable when so much wanted to express itself after years of not being able to do so. Who knew it would backfire so hard? To take his soul and his personality and throw it away... only to find it was still there, under layers of dark magic...?

Lightly, he touched the blue glass, half afraid that the corruption was going to spread across everything Raphael had created. But it didn't. And he felt silly for thinking it would. After all, he touched Raphael earlier and the side of his head hadn't melted off. His shoulder hadn't corrupted. He was fine, and so, too, were the blue gems and stones of the mosaic wings.

Rhys listened in silence. All those things still felt like home to a big part of him. The darkness and the lack of color. He had grown used to it. Sometimes, he thought this world was too annoying, too loud. Now... He didn't know. As Raf stood and crossed the room, Rhys finally looked up. He watched as Raphael brushed his hands over books and other odds and ends.

"You've said all that before," he said with a sigh. And here he thought there was some legitimately dark reason for Raphael's reluctance to go back. He just didn't want to go back to being with a bunch of boring, dark, serious types. (Which really begged the question: what the hell did he ever see in Rhys?)

[Raphael Malai]

"Well... yes!" He picked up a little fairy figurine and smiled at it. It was colorfully painted, a tiny wispy pretty girl sitting on top of a mossy rock. Its wings were like butterfly wings, a multitude of colors to show off how happy it was, how joyous. Fairies were supposed to be happy. They—the Fallen—were aberrations, Raphael was almost certain.

Why would their wings come back? Why did they have to remove them to become Fallen? To Raphael, it didn't feel natural. It wasn't organic. The way he was now, that felt right, more so than being gloomy and forced to endure harrowing 'jobs' out here in the human realm. Going to classes and watching movies at the theater and even dancing at the club, those things seemed so much more fascinating than hunting and killing and spying!

He returned to the couch with the figurine, sitting beside Rhys again. Raphael dared to sit closer to him this time, such that their shoulders brushed. After a brief moment's thought he laid his head against Rhys' shoulder but he didn't look over. He kept looking at the beautiful fairy. "You were the only reason I ever stayed. I thought you might be lonely if I left."

Not lonely in the physical sense, but perhaps... emotionally. Perhaps in the sense that there would be one less person who truly liked him and whose intentions were only pure. Someone who kept an eye out for him without expecting a reward at the end of the day.

[Rhys McCabe]

"But I didn't feel anything."

Why should he worry about some prince with no emotions? If Raphael wanted to disappear so badly, he could have. Rhys didn't think he had much of anything by the way of feelings for him back then. Maybe in some small way, before all that made Rhys Rhys vanished. But after that? There was no point in sticking around. It was only a matter of time before Rhys became his father. Or like... Keith. Or many of the others.

"One--you weren't supposed to feel anything so why would you even think that?" Rhys asked. "And two--I didn't feel anything except this overwhelming sense of boredom. Every day, it only got worse. I didn't even know what loneliness was."

[Raphael Malai]

"I've always felt things. Just... no one knew about it." He had to become good at hiding it, or he would have been killed. Raphael felt things. He was killed. The person whose soul was forced into his body felt things too, but he knew better than to say anything or show anything while he was 'home.' Perhaps the real Raphael had been too naive and too sheltered; he didn't know suffering until the last moments of his young life and by then it was already too late. His wings had already gained colors and that meant he had to go before he 'tainted' the prince.

And when he—Tarwyn—took over, they tried to remove his wings so that it wouldn't happen again. For some reason it didn't quite work and by then it was too late to find another soul. He was trapped in Raphael's body, masquerading as the prince's companion. Those months that he was locked away in the castle, he was taught everything he needed to know about serving the royal family. He was brainwashed and they tried to remove as much of his wings as possible, to no avail.

"I guess you wouldn't understand unless you've been in love," he sighed resignedly, shrugging again. Raphael patted Rhys' knee gently. "It's okay. You don't have to try and... be nice. I know that when you go back home... All of this will mean nothing."