He glanced backwards to his father who closed the door behind him, standing in front of it as if he was guarding it. He had his hands shoved in his front pockets, leaning his back against the door and waited.
"You can leave now," Lucius said to him. "I'm sorry for going haywire, but I'd like my privacy with him."
"No." That made Lucius furrow his brows as Draco added, "I can't leave yet."
Although Lucius wanted to shove his father out of the room, he was too busy staring at Raphael's face that his father's presence completely vanished from his mind. Finally, he felt courageous enough to step forward and approach the bed.
And that was when his knees buckled and he collapsed to the floor.
"Let's face it, one of us will die in this world before we get the chance to leave—"
"No, we won't. At least I know I'm not." When he saw Lucius' eyes light up, widened in admiration, he reached forward and wrapped his arms around his shoulders. "I won't die on you, I promise. You can't get rid of me that easily; I love you too much to leave you like that."
He leaned his forehead against the bed, and his wailing sobs lasted for hours.
"You wouldn't have believed it if you didn't see the body."
Lucius could barely even hear Draco. Tears continued to leak across his cheeks as he gently lingered his fingers across Raphael's cheeks. He looked completely at peace, as if he was sleeping in his own bed. His chin had lost their softness, but it was still familiar to him. His lips had lost their colour, but he still leaned in and placed a kiss on them, the tears falling onto Raphael's cold lifeless face. He couldn't stop touching his hair, the golden locks that he always admired, because it illuminated Raphael's face, made him resemble an angel.
The feeling in his chest was indescribable. It wasn't pain, it wasn't anger, it wasn't sadness, but it was a bizarre sense of emptiness, as if his soul had been snatched into two and he had lost a piece. It felt as if there was a gaping hole in his heart, and it didn't matter how much he itched his chest, it didn't go away. It didn't matter how much he cried or how much he convinced himself that the next touch on Raphael's cheek would be the last one—nothing helped.
"What your feeling is grief, Lucius." Draco's voice had drawn closer. "Everyone in their lifetime experiences this—it's a part of life. I went through this when I was younger. That is why l tried to prevent this from happening to you all, but emotions always seem to win." After a short pause, Draco leaned forward and planted his hand on top of his son's head, watching as he quivered under his touch, struggling to breath from how much he was crying. "Don't worry, you'll be fine."
"W-When...when is this going to go away?" Lucius voice was barely above a whisper, and it cracked too many times that Draco almost didn't make out what he said.
Draco chuckled. "It doesn't go away."
Lucius leaned his forehead against Raphael's chest. It was almost as if his body was hoping to hear any sort of heart beat, or to feel his chest rise to show that he was breathing. But his brain knew none of these things would happen, and it was only causing the gaping hole in his heart to grow wider. "I can't live with this, I can't live without him."
"You can and you will." Draco stepped away from him, heading for the door. "It doesn't go away but you learn to live with it." He had waited throughout the sobbing of Lucius, waited until the reality had settled and he digested that Raphael was not ever going to return. Now, with Lucius finally realizing that he was going to have to live without Raphael, he could leave without feeling as if his son would enter another delusional rampage. However, before he left, he glanced back towards Lucius. "Grief is a beautiful thing, Lucius. It's a gift us living beings should be grateful to experience; it keeps us connected to humanity, regardless of the atrocities we cause. It's all the unexpressed love that you weren't able to show. So embrace it and don't ever forget how much you loved him."
YOU ARE READING
The Submissive Assassin (BxB)
Romance''After a few seconds of them staring at one another, Dante finally spoke. But his voice had changed; it was breathless and soft, echoing with a sweetness that Nate could have never imagined existed within him. With the knife left on his palm for Na...
