Bodyguard for Hire
Neutral
Unsure
Sexuality
Single
Relationship Status
Twenty-FIve years old
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Banahogg ("Bane")
Offline
EST (GMT -5)
Tag me @rafael
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Post by Rafael Herman Thomas on Oct 16, 2015 22:57:19 GMT -6
Being a werewolf was all Rafael knew – the only world he recognized was one he saw through a monster’s eyes, because being a monster was all he could ever remember being. Other people had memories of childhood, of families that loved them (or hated them), of friendships and pets and human things. His first memory was of burning pain, and then ripping a rabbit to shreds because the wolf was starving. He didn’t know what it was like, being human, and while he was a monster, the monster within him lent Rafael certain advantages. Advantages that he used.
Advantages like being able to see that she wasn’t alright. Hearing the pickup of her heart rate. Smelling the slightest tinge of fear mixed with the exotic scent that was just Dani. It was smelling that fear that made something in Rafael’s jaw pop as his teeth ground together. A growl ripped forth from his throat – a guttural, vicious noise that hurt in a throat already raw from the shouts and cries from his transformation the night before – as the werewolf turned away from her and went back to that furious pacing. It was quite literally all he could truly do to keep from ripping something (or someone) apart, or breaking something, or harming himself. He wasn’t upset with Dani. No, of course he wasn’t. If there was one human being he could never truly be upset with, angry at, it was her. No.
He was upset with himself. He hadn’t been there, and he hadn’t protected her.
And when he saw her flinch out of the corner of his eye, saw her rubbing her wrist, the werewolf rounded on her once again, stalking up to the couch and standing over her with a scrutinizing gaze. Only the sound of his name cooled his burning ire, but only slightly, for the moment an explanation came forth, another snarl burst forward. ”John who?” He’d find him. He would find him and teach him a lesson that he would not soon forget, a message that he wished he was able to send to all men who thought themselves above the beautiful dancer sitting in front of him. Nobody touched Daniella Santos without her consent. And most certainly, nobody harmed her. That was a death sentence, as far as he was concerned. And more than anything, now that he had a definitive answer and a vague idea of what had happened, he wanted to tear this man limb from limb. Or at least give him several good blows to the face, ribs, and probably something strong to his reproductive organs to boot.
”No. Don’t say that. Someone hurt you.” Rafael made a frustrated noise as he turned away from her and retreated towards a corner as he angrily reached up to tug at the roots of his hair, a rumbling grumble rising out of his chest as he struggled desperately not to lash out. The anger had built up, and he was just so… so…
Why hadn’t he been there? Dani didn’t deserve to be harassed, to be hurt, she didn’t… she deserved only the absolute best that this world had to offer. She had given him new life, a reason to hope, a reason to try and make himself better. She brought light into lives of darkness – why would anyone ever want to harm her? It was a thought that boggled but frustrated him, and made him want to roar into the night. It was he who deserved the harm, the late night encounters with people who wished him ill. It was also he who had vowed to protect her, and no matter how much she insisted that he couldn’t always be there, that she was fine, that she could take care of herself…
The only thing stopping him from going out there to hunt the son of a bitch down himself right this very second was that Dani was here, and that he couldn’t leave her alone. It didn’t even factor in that his muscles ached terribly, screaming for him to sit down or rest, or that his head hurt, or that there were bruises on his ribs where bones hadn’t quite… clicked back together properly. Maybe he was getting old. (Old, at twenty-five.)
”What… what do you need?” His voice was suddenly hoarse, quiet, as he glanced over his shoulder at her, until realizing that he just needed to… keep his eyes on her. Just to be sure she wouldn’t disappear, or that something else might not happen. Perhaps it was absurd to be worried about it whilst they were in her own home, but- ”Tell me what you need. Tell me how to help. It’ll be done.” And so it would. She knew it would. Because it was no secret that he would do anything for her.
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Bodyguard for Hire
Neutral
Unsure
Sexuality
Single
Relationship Status
Twenty-FIve years old
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Banahogg ("Bane")
Offline
EST (GMT -5)
Tag me @rafael
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Post by Rafael Herman Thomas on Dec 7, 2014 23:46:18 GMT -6
There was nobody that Rafael Thomas was more protective of, perhaps, than the young woman who just walked through that door. But, anyone who knew their story for a second would completely understand why:
She’d found him dying in an alleyway just a few years ago. Blood everywhere – gashes and bruises and goodness knows what else had peppered his body, as he’d slowly been bleeding out in the street. He’d hadn’t had the strength to fight her as she’d managed to move him back to her apartment. Otherwise, at that moment in time, he would have asked her to let him die. Let him move on, let him be free. But the werewolf had only laid there demurely, shuffling mindlessly on as she guided him to lay down, and stayed still as she healed him. Having drifted in and out of consciousness for… days, when he’d finally woken up, he’d expected a beating. Or his least favorite… well. Something worse. From the moment he was better, he’d trailed after her like a servant, saying nothing even when she addressed him, but always doing something when he was asked to do it. Until, finally after weeks of staying with her, he’d spoken to her for the very first time in sheer confusion, asking,
”How much did you pay for me?”
He’d expected to go back into the ring, that the vicious cycle would begin again and that soon enough he’d be back to tearing apart other werewolves. But Daniella Santos hadn’t done that. Instead, she’d saved him – given him a new name, a new identity… new life. And for that, there had been no repayment that the newly named Rafael could offer, besides a simple vow: a vow that he would protect her with his life, and protect others the best that he could. Even though that meant, as the past few years had indicated, ripping apart someone else sometimes, for the sake of a loved one’s protection. And with Dani… well, as far as Rafael was concerned, she needed a lot of protecting. (After all, there was a reason that he’d been banned from the clubs where she danced after a single night of following her to work.)
Her apologetic smile, and her spoken apology, did nothing to appease him, and it was rather clear from the way Rafael stood back. He watched her with narrowed blue eyes, arms still folded tightly across his chest, and said nothing as he watched her take her jacket off. He was a man of little words, most of his thoughts conveyed through actions. Like now, how he didn’t move, frozen in his place, the suspicion in his expression and stance communicating one clear thing: ”I don’t believe you.” Rafy wanted to see, and make sure of things for himself. So he lifted his nose and sniffed the air, like that might give him some hints, and he kept a very close eye on her.
As Dani moved past him to go and change, Rafael followed. Personal boundaries, or at least understanding them, was not one of his strong-suits – and truthfully, as the dancer took off her clothes and put new ones on, there was nothing there that Rafael hadn’t seen before. He stood there in the door way, not watching her with any kind of sexual interest, simply just watching her, keeping an eye on her. His blue eyes followed every movement, looking for any hints of damage to her perfect skin – oh, Rafy was no stranger to the healer’s beauty, he was just able to view it objectively.
See, Rafael was no stranger to women, or to Dani. While the pair of them were certainly not a couple in any sense of the word, there was no denying that there’d been… encounters, when he’d first come to her. Sexual ones. He could look at her objectively now, perhaps only because he had looked at her sexually in the past, and had long since… grown desensitized to her, in the way he had virtually become desensitized to all women. At first, he’d likely held genuine affection, genuine love for the dancer, but in the end… it was the only way he knew how to express gratitude. Because he’d been trained that way, later in his life, and in the end, that was what a relationship with Dani had turned into. He’d done it because he’d thought it was what she wanted, and it was the only way he knew to repay her for all that she’d done. But now he knew that there were so many other ways to repay one’s debt, and protection was his primary means of doing so.
Which was why, though he said nothing, a rage fired in him when he caught the flashes of purple and blue and black on little patches of skin. Rafael noted how she especially tried to hide those, but her efforts had been in vain. He’d seen them.
Eventually, Dani moved back to the couch, but Rafael stayed standing, hovering nearby with that same distrusting look on his face. And he very well might have stayed standing, had she not ordered him to sit with her – and when Daniella ordered him to do something, he did it. ”I’m fine,” was all he answered. Yes, his muscles strained and ached, his head was pounding, and he was exhausted, but to Rafael, that was fine compared to some of the transformations that he’d been through. But none of that mattered – what mattered were the people he deemed worthy of his affections, and at this point? Dani was the only one.
Which was why he scowled when she tried to assure him that she was fine, and a quiet growl escaped his throat as he resumed his pacing and continued to eye her with disapproval. ”Don’t promise me with lies. I saw that you’re not fine. Tell me what happened, and who did that to you.” Flame was in his blue eyes – the fire of vengeance. You did not touch Daniella Santos, or anyone that Rafael cared about for that matter, and get away with it.
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Bodyguard for Hire
Neutral
Unsure
Sexuality
Single
Relationship Status
Twenty-FIve years old
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Banahogg ("Bane")
Offline
EST (GMT -5)
Tag me @rafael
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Post by Rafael Herman Thomas on Nov 29, 2014 0:51:16 GMT -6
Rafael was beginning to learn that it was incredibly difficult to stand still in a suit. Or perhaps it was just the suit that Dani had managed to find him – it itched and pricked at him in places that he wasn’t used to, and he found himself constantly shifting his weight only to find that it was making things worse.
He felt like a dog that had been dressed up for its owner’s amusement, though perhaps in a sense, that description wasn’t too far off the mark in this case. Today was, technically, his very first day on the job, and while he’d had to wear a suit to the interview, he hadn’t had it on nearly as long. He’d put it on, walked to the interview, and had taken off the suit and put on more comfortable clothes the second it had been over in a nearby restroom. This morning, he’d gotten up, and Dani had given him plentiful food (really, he’d actually been forced to tell her to stop trying to feed him for fear of him exploding), and had then all but put his clothes on for him. Perhaps a bit embarrassing, that a twenty-five year old man required help getting dressed for his first day on the job, but as with most things, Rafael was a sterling exception to such a societal rule.
In reality, this was Rafael’s first real job. While there were thousands, maybe even millions, of men in the city of New York that might scoff at such a thing, the only defense that Rafy really had was that… well, for over fifteen years before this, he really had had a job. It just so happened that this previous job had consisted of nothing but fighting every full moon, and eventually killing innocent fellow werewolves for the sake of sport, or rather that he might die or get beaten or maybe even something worse if he didn’t. His job had essentially been surviving, he just was never the one who got paid for his labor.
Not that this was a thought process that he really wanted to go down right now. Especially not as he waited in the posh room of a rather posh house, waiting for his new employer to enter with his new charge. In truth, Rafael didn’t know much of what to expect from a job like this – in his interview, his employer, Mr. Martin, had only made it clear that he was being brought on to help protect his newly graduated daughter, Rosalynn. A politician, he was always concerned for the well-being of his family, and had thought that a new, capable, and formidable bodyguard might do the family some good. New, capable, and formidable, and Rafael had fit all three of those bills. Especially the formidable part, once Mr. Martin had gotten into… Rafael’s background. An uncomfortable topic, to say the least, but one that Rafy found that he couldn’t lie on regardless. But something had possessed Mr. Martin to hire him, and Rafael wasn’t about to argue with the chance to make some money for himself, to help support his little sister. Or to finally start… atoning, for all of the things he’d done, by finally vowing to do the opposite of what he’d been doing for so much of his life – rather than destroying innocent lives, he would protect them. And perhaps then, finally, he might find peace of mind.
But he certainly wasn’t peaceful of mind right then, fidgeting and restlessly shifting in the corner of the room like a dog that needed to go to the bathroom. Though, fidgeting was probably a little something of an understatement. He wasn’t moving so much, nestled quietly there in the corner like a shadow – only the occasional twitch and shifting of his weight were indications that he was less than comfortable. But, when the doorknob to the room turned, Rafael suddenly straightened. Any discomfort became wiped from his face, as he strode purposefully a few steps forward so that he might be clearly visible to all who entered. Standing tall and with his hands clasped behind his back, he looked more like a soldier ready to receive orders than a bodyguard getting to meet his charge, but in a way… that was the way Rafy had been trained. He was a warrior, ready for battle at a split second’s notice.
He wasn’t, however, particularly ready for what was about to come through that door. A wee note~ If you need me to fix anything here, just lemme know and I'll fix it right up for chus!
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Bodyguard for Hire
Neutral
Unsure
Sexuality
Single
Relationship Status
Twenty-FIve years old
|
Banahogg ("Bane")
Offline
EST (GMT -5)
Tag me @rafael
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Post by Rafael Herman Thomas on Nov 19, 2014 1:12:12 GMT -6
God, he hated it when she did this.
A furious glance up at the clock only infuriated him more as he realized just how late it was getting, but he was also partially aware that it was not the clock’s fault. Damn it. Another lap of pacing around the house. Another glance at the clock. A growl, a moment of quiet, and then another lap. This had been his routine for at least an hour now, padding around the house like a fiend even though his muscles ached and groaned from last night’s transformation. But his own aches and pains didn’t matter at all in that moment – his mind was fixated on one thing, and it was on the fact that Dani wasn’t home yet. And it was almost an hour past the time she’d specified that she’d be home.
Now, that wasn’t to say that Rafael had planned on doing anything else other than fret. He almost never slept for several nights after the full moon. While this moon’s transformation had gone by without any horrendous hitches, and he’d spent most of it curled up with a bobcat at his side, they still… bothered him. In fact, they terrified him. Haunted him. Because the truth of the matter was, Rafael had spent far more full moons doing something else entirely different than just resting. The number of moons he’d fought and torn apart fellow werewolves far outnumbered the ones he’d spent curled up in some healer’s living room like a lapdog. When he transformed, he could still hear the cheers and screams of the crowd, feel the snapping of jaws and claws raking through his fur. Feel the life draining from his opponents as he shook them like ragdolls-
A growl exploded from Rafael’s throat as he resisted the urge to throw something, anything. If he started down that road, he’d be a storm by the time Dani got home – because no matter how late it was, he always had the faith that she would make it back, because she always did. And he had to keep himself under control. He didn’t want her worrying about him on top of everything else when she got home, and Rafy also just didn’t want to lose his temper. He hated being the beast that he loathed so much, and yet, half the time, it felt like it was the only thing he knew how to be.
Huffing to himself, Rafael went back to his pacing. An hour and fifteen- no, make that sixteen, minutes that she was late. If it even got remotely close to two hours, he’d be on the streets hunting her down. Or, at least, hunting down the reason that she was late. Because, in the end, he could never blame Dani for anything; she could do no wrong as far as he was concerned. If she was late, it wasn’t her fault, and if anyone had done anything to her… another growl ripped from his throat. As much as he despised being the beast, it was very much a real entity inside him, and had the tendency to manifest itself when he was most angry. Even now, after the full moon, when the moon was at its weakest. Ten years of conditioning to become the animal inside him… it didn’t reverse that easy. And so here he was. Pacing like a caged wolf with growls escaping him every few minutes as dark thoughts continued an onslaught in his brain.
That is, until the lock turned.
Immediately, Rafael’s entire frame seemed to transform. He was no longer a caged beast, but rather a dog waiting for his owner to come through the door. He perked up, and was already moving into position to make it look as though he hadn’t been losing his mind over her being late. So, by the time she walked in the door, he was simply able to ask, ”What happened?” There was no need for a follow-up, or an explanation. She’d know what he was asking: ’Why were you late? And do I have to murder anyone?’ He was, after all, a rather protective werewolf.
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