The first time Raphael tastes blood, he doesn't even notice. His fangs break skin and dig into flesh and there's nothing on his mind but kill, feed and destroy. His claws rip throats apart and he moves so fast that he doesn't have time to think about what he does, about flesh and blood and murder.
Later, when Magnus Bane pushes him out of the sun and straps him down, when a warlock stops him from killing himself, cat eyes glowing behind glitter and make up, he screams. It's not a sound he remembers ever making and it makes him scream even louder. The warlock provides him with blood and Raphael refuses, night after night.
Magnus talks. A lot. A-lot-gnawing-your-ear-off-a-lot. A-lot-chatterbox-a-lot. A-lot-making-Raphael-want-to-crawl-back-into-his-grave-a-lot. One night, he laughs very vehemently at the fact that Raphael was named after an angel and Raphael lets out a long string of curse words that would've made his mamà gasp. Magnus grins and seems a little too smug for Raphael's liking when he realises that this is the first thing he said since he told Magnus to rot in hell. Dios, he wants to say and chokes on the word. His fangs extend in frustration.
After two weeks, he takes the blood bag Magnus hands him and gulps its content down. He hates himself for wanting more. Magnus smiles one of his unreadable smiles. Raphael really wants to rip it off his face. His fangs break the skin of his lips and the taste of his own blood fills his mouth. It's disgusting and Raphael feels somewhat relieved.
"Teach me how to wear a crucifix", he demands and Magnus looks at him as if he were loco. Raphael tried not to show how utterly terrified he is when Magnus says: "It's going to hurt." Raphael nods. He knows that. Somewhere in the back of his mind he can hear his pastor saying that faith without pain is not true faith, for God's son carried his own cross and died with a smile on his lips. So Raphael gulps down his pride and carries his own cross.
It takes decades for the pain to fade but Raphael holds his head high because even though he knows he's a monstro, he can wear a crucifix and he can walk on holy ground and he can smile at his mamà and pretend he's still her little boy who will grow up to be a good man.
Camille is nothing like he expects her to be and exactly like Magnus describes her and it makes Raphael want to recoil. He doesn't. He straightens his back and smiles a fanged smile. Camille laughs and calls him Magnus' pet. Magnus flinches and Raphael growls deep in his throat. Camille sips on a champagne glass filled with blood and Raphael's stomach aches.
He joins Camille's clan. It's simultaneously the best and the worst decision of his life. There's a constant supply of blood and he doesn't have to pretend to be something he isn't. Magnus is angry. So angry, in fact, that his glamours fall and Raphael is pushed against the wall. Raphael doesn't look at him, he's too scared to see the betrayal in Magnus' eyes.
He's Camille's second in command and he doesn't gag at the thought of blood anymore. He kills people and doesn't bat an eyelash. His mamà would be ashamed of him.
Magnus refuses to talk to him and just the thought makes Raphael want to step into sunlight. He doesn't. He promised he wouldn't and he's a man who keeps his word. He doesn't think about the fact that he will never be the man he wanted to be. He doesn't think about Ragnor who looks at him with so much pity that Raphael's fangs pop and he hisses.
Camille breaks him. He should've known. She thrives on sorrow and feeds off pain as if it were blood. She smiled fanged smiles and sank her claws into Magnus' back and he buckled like a cat. She laughs sweetly and charms mundanes and plays with them until she grows bored with them.
Raphael is just another plaything for her. He knew that the second he saw her red lips curl into a mocking smile. She was positively intrigued by the fledgling that stood in Magnus Bane's lair and growled at her, fangs bared. She took their relationship and twisted and turned it until it laid shattered at his feet. But she offers blood and safety and he swallows his hatred and only calls her names in his head.
Then she orders him to kidnap a mundane and hell breaks loose.
The first time Simon tastes blood, it isn't the blood he actually wants. He smells living blood, sweet and full and savoury and his fangs ache to break pale skin beneath ginger locks. Clary stares at him, eyes wide, on the verge of crying and that stupid wannabe Captain America wraps his arms around her. He doesn't notice those things, all he can sense is blood in their veins and hunger in the pit of his stomach.
Suddenly, his teeth break plastic and it makes him want to gag and then there's blood in his mouth and it's sweet and soothing and good and he never wants to stop.
"-you emerge hungry", he hears Raphael say, lips curled into an almost non-existent smile, fangs extended, little drops of blood glistening on his jacket. Simon wants to drag him back into the grave he just clawed his way out of, wants to wipe that smile off his lips. There's blood on his shirt and hunger in his throat and his heart doesn't beat and Clary cries and cries and cries. He wants to rip Raphael's throat out because he did this to him, took his soul and his faith and ripped God out from beneath his teeth.
He's a monster now, but he'll be damned If he doesn't drag Raphael to hell with him. He scrambles to his feet and runs.
After the worst of it, after confronting Clary, after throwing Raphael against a truck, he stands under a bridge, taking deep breaths he doesn't need and thinks about their scents. Clary smells like brightly burning flowers in the summer, smells like an unquenchable wild fire. She smells exactely like he thought she would and it makes his fingertips quiver. Jace, however, smells like an abandoned mine, like countless deaths and old kerosene lamps that somebody forgot to put out, like a hollow mountain that was exploited until there was nothing left to take. He wonders if Jace tastes like silver, wonders if Jace's blood would burn his throat.
He screams in frustration and bites into his wrist to stop himself from thinking those things. His cold, moulding blood fills his mouth and he throws up.
Months later, he lies awake at day and listens to Raphael mumbling in his sleep and he imagines sinking his teeth into Jace's neck, following the shape of his runes, he relishes in the thought of covering his body in scars and blood and bites. He longs for the taste of angel blood, of seeing Jace lose all his self-hatred, of replacing that scowl and those pained eyes with pleasure and lust.
Simon lies in his casket, his Avengers pyjama bottom pushed down to his knees and he thinks about Jace's eyes and Raphael's fangs and the pleasure is like nothing he has ever felt.
He feels bad, sometimes, for holding his breath around everybody but Jace, for letting Clary go and for purposely messing up his training with Raphael because Jace just smells so delicious and Raphael's weight is exquisite against his chest. He wonders what Raphael's blood tastes like, if it's as rotten and disgusting as his own. He really hopes it isn't, hopes it tastes like incense and wine and expensive fabric, hopes it tastes the way Raphael smells.
He's a fledgling, he's Raphael's property, he's the clan's baby. One day, when he just can't sleep, when there's an itch under his skin and burning want in his fangs, he wanders through the hotel, going wherever his clumsy feet take him. Elliot and Lily sit in the kitchen, bleary eyed and clutching onto the mugs he brought with him when Raphael took him back. They're fandom mugs and he like to think that the clan is genuinely fond of them. Elliot yawns and Lily giggles and Simon is just about to leave when Elliot says something that sounds suspiciously like "When do you think Raphael is gonna claim the fledgling?"
Simon thinks about Raphael's fangs and about the crucifix and about the hours he spent comforting his sire who isn't his sire but who Simon desperately wishes was his sire because that would mean he could belong to Raphael – wholly, completely. He tries not to think about the other things that come to his mind when he contemplates the word 'claim' in his head.
The longing under his skin intensifies and suddenly it's too much to take, too much to endure and he bursts into Raphael's room, eyes wide, fangs extended.
Raphael claims him that night and it makes Simon's head swim and his knees buckle. There are bite marks all over his body, on his throat and his chest and he's babbling nonsense. When Raphael's nails dig into his back, he cries out Jace's name and Raphael freezes.
Simon tells him about the Nephilim who smells like a mine and despair and Raphael smiles a fanged smile and calls him cariño.
The first time Jace tastes blood, he's just a boy and his father teaches him how to fight. His falcon died yesterday and the anger brews close to the surface. He swallows it down and doesn't pay attention for a moment. That's the moment his father picks to kick his teeth in. It tastes metallic and sickly sweet and he gags. His father scoffs and tells him to pull himself together. He does.
When the Lightwoods take him in, he spits and bites and hits. Izzy grins and starts a fight. Alec joins and Jace thinks Maryse will throw him out when he breaks her jaw on accident. But Maryse just sighs and tells him to accept the consequences.
He learns to survive as a Lightwood, grows teeth on his tongue and ice in his eyes, and later, when they find out what Valentine really did to him, he learns to survive as an abuse victim. Surprisingly, talking to Magnus helps.
Magnus tells him about Camille and Jace tells him about Valentine and he knows that Magnus only does it because Alec is blackmailing him, but he is thankful nonetheless. It helps with the nightmares he gets – where he is still with Valentine who pretends to be his father and it isn't the falcon's neck he snaps but Simon's. Simon, who is still geeky and clumsy but who is not a mundane anymore, who is a vampire with fangs and claws and hunger and a seductive smile.
Jace thinks he was never really infatuated with Clary, that he was just intrigued. It's a lie, but he can't get over the incest scare and how good Simon looks in a suit. He also likes to forget what he thinks about in the darkness of his own room.
He doesn't think about fangs breaking his skin, he doesn't think about claws scratching his back, doesn't think about Raphael's eyes taking in his body and Simon's giggles tickling his scarred skin. He doesn't.
Magnus notices. It makes Jace want to curl up in the corner and cry. That, however, makes him scowl and clench his jaw. Magnus sighs and offers him a drink. He tells him about Raphael for a change, about the boy who wanted to protect his village and caused more damage than he meant to prevent. He tells him about the friendship Camille turned sour and that is slowly rebuilt with Simon's help. Magnus still doesn't remember his name properly, but Jace suspects he only pretends to forget it. He gulps down his drink and feels guilty.
Magnus tells him not to feel guilty for wanting something and uncontrollable laughter tickles the back of Jace's throat. He feels like a maniac.
Simon smiles at him and Jace misses the fangs. He seems satisfied and content and happy, Raphael's arm lies loosely on his waist. Jace bites his lower lip hard enough to draw blood and Simon's eyes glaze over. Raphael's grip on his waist tightens and Jace realises what he did the second Simon breaks free from Raphael and makes a growling sound in the back of his throat. Jace wants to apologize, but suddenly there are cold lips on his and Simon sucks the blood out of his lower lip and hums in satisfaction. Jace's eyes flicker closed.
Later, Simon plays with Raphael's curls and Raphael traces patterns on Jace's scarred skin. Jace shivers as Raphael follows the line of an iratze and mumbles something unintelligible in Spanish. Simon giggles and buries his face in the crook of Jace's neck.
They comfort Raphael when he dreams about Camille, offer him a delicate glass of blood and faint kisses and Jace exchanges stories with him. Simon lies next to them and listens idly. They comfort Simon when he dreams of his Turning and killing Clary, they offer movie marathons and back rubs and submissiveness and Simon scratches their backs and sucks their blood and forgets about his fears. They comfort Jace when he dreams about Valentine, they offer him lullabies on the piano and the guitar, they offer praise and concealer to cover his runes. Jace takes it and feels human again.
Raphael gives them names, calls Simon cariño and Jace cielo. He whispers it into their kisses and into their necks, traces it into their backs and Simon arches and moans and Jace smiles.
He can grow used to this, he thinks and when he finds one of Simon's many post its that he leaves all over the house, he reads it and figures it must be clan business.
Have you noticed that our mine smells like the sun and hope now?
Si. Él cura.