Author's Notes: First time writing this ship, so I hope it's acceptable. Feedback is welcome!

The concept of soulmates had been easy enough – something to anticipate, even – before Raphael had learnt of the Shadow world.

His sudden plunge into it had been unexpected and violent. He hadn't wanted any of it – the vampires, their inexplicable desire to turn them into one of them and the Warlock's last-second rescue right before he'd tried to expose himself to sunlight – and he didn't know how it was supposed to fit with the rest of his life; didn't know what to do to get used to a whole new world.

Magnus had helped where he could and had even tried to help when it came to Raphael's attempt to find a place in the New York clan. He'd trained him to control his thirst for blood and had offered assistance with everything else he could possibly need, too – he'd introduced him to the way things worked in the Shadow world.

Raphael was a quick learner, even though Magnus wasn't always a good teacher (not that he could be blamed for that; Downworlders or not, Warlocks and Vampires didn't share too much experiences). He'd managed to get through most of his 'lessons', as Magnus tended to call them, without fail, but there was still one concept he couldn't – or rather, didn't want to – understand completely.

Immortality was not something meant for humans. It wasn't something that the human mind was supposed to accommodate. Warlocks were different – they'd been born immortal and Raphael supposed that their fate modelled itself after that fact.

But vampires? They'd been born human; with a relatively short time to work with.

And as such, they had limited time in which to find their soulmate.

Magnus had almost laughed at him when he'd heard about his concerns, even if Raphael hadn't thought the topic was particularly funny. He'd explained it to him, then; that having a longer life or having your life change unexpectedly didn't really mean that searching for your soulmate was a lost cause. Maybe it'd been destined to happen, he'd reasoned, and Raphael had scoffed. Maybe he'd just been meant to meet his soulmate a little further down the line.

It had helped him relax, more or less, but it'd also forced a deeper, different anxiety to settle inside him.

Vampires could live forever. Finding his soulmate could take ages, quite literally. And he wasn't sure how he was going to handle it if they were someone mortal.

The system was quite simple – once a person's soulmate was born, everything they wrote on themselves also showed up on their soulmate's body. It was rather convenient, or so Raphael had heard, because it allowed people to communicate with each other and eventually to arrange a meeting somewhere.

His own soulmate, however, remained silent for a very, very long time.

Moving out of Magnus's flat and into Hotel Dumort had given him a ridiculous amount of hope. He saw vampires – some of them his senior by centuries – find their soulmates and Raphael managed to convince himself that Magnus had been right – his time would come eventually. He wasn't sure when or where, but he did have a lot to look forward to.

o.O.o

The first time Raphael felt the new sensation, he was stuck in a Council meeting with a few members of the Clave.

It felt like ice sliding down his skin; a slippery sensation and cold to the point of mild pain. He hissed – nothing but fire and sun had hurt him in more than fifty years and this wasn't exactly pain, anyway; in fact, the more he got used to it, the more pleasant it got.

He pushed his sleeve back and twisted his arm around, trying to find the source of it.

The letters – low on his left arm, just above the wrist – appeared gradually. Meet C and M at JJ tonight.

Raphael stared at the words for long enough to completely lose track of the increasingly heated debate taking place around him. The handwriting was in large but neat block letters and he tried desperately to get an image – as clear as possible – of the person who could possibly be on the other side.

"You can ask for a break for this."

Started out of his reverie, Raphael glanced to his right and at Meliorn – the faerie that always attended these meetings to represent the Fair Folk. "What do you mean?"

"You can be excused out of anything for this," Meliorn clarified, nodding at the writing on Raphael's wrist. "If you'd like to go talk to your soulmate, that is."

Raphael wasn't sure what he was supposed to do. On one hand, there was nothing he would have liked more. On the other, he couldn't possibly imagine what he would do if his soulmate was still much, much younger than him and wouldn't be prepared for that reveal at all. It didn't look like it, thankfully – as much as he could gather from the handwriting, it didn't look at all like a child's.

"It can wait," he said in the end and tried to focus once more, not too successfully.

The words stayed in his mind much after they'd disappeared from his wrist – he supposed that once it faded on his soulmate's arm, it did on his own, too. He tried to decipher it, but couldn't manage, no matter how much he thought about it – it must have been a code of some kind, something that only they could understand, but if it was something so private, then why would they write it on their hand?

What followed then was even more mystifying – attack tonight at 8pm was the next one and Raphael had been alarmed. He didn't even want to think what could happen to his soulmate if whatever 'attack' they could involve themselves in. Then it had been get Clary better weapons and plan next raid tomorrow and Raphael had wanted nothing more than to answer, What are you doing?! but he managed to stop himself in time. It was none of his concern, after all, or at least it shouldn't have been, so he held back for now.

He wasn't allowed the luxury to think about that too much, though – soon not only vampires, but Downworlders in general started disappearing and Raphael's help was required. Camille had summoned him and after that, their world had fallen into chaos – Valentine's daughter had showed up out of nowhere and Valentine himself was close behind her, bringing panic that shook the Downworld to its core. Soon enough, Raphael had taken over the clan and from then on, thinking about his soulmate was the last thing on his mind. He'd abandoned Camille's ambitions of having the Mortal cup and just tried to manage what he was left with – a clan that was surprisingly loyal to him even if they didn't seem too eager to follow the Clave's rules as firmly as he wanted them to.

And then Shadowhunters started getting in the way.

Ever since he'd learnt of what Shadowhunters were, Raphael had known that the felt welcome in anyone's home – including anyone's clan – if they felt that it might help them with whatever cause they'd assigned themselves this time and their friend – Simon, the only mundane in their group – had undergone the transformation and their meddling got even worse; the Fairchild girl wanted to be close to her friend and never got tired of getting in the way of the clan's personal affairs.

"This has to stop," Raphael said one night, after he'd sent her on her way with the blood necessary to save her fellow Shadowhunter. He'd invited Simon in his office – come to think of it, he had to figure out a place for Simon to have an office of his own, now that he had a semi-official leading position in ruling the clan – and had served him with a fresh supply of blood before he'd got to the point he'd been trying to make. "I can't have Nephilim running around day and night just because they need something. I don't care if they're your friends," he added when Simon opened his mouth to speak. "Shadowhunters shouldn't visit the Hotel so often; it's making everyone nervous."

"They don't have anything to feel nervous about," Simon countered, leaning back into his armchair. He looked tired all of a sudden and Raphael almost wished he hadn't started the topic. He'd kept the details about his life a secret from his family ever since he'd been turned into a vampire and he knew just how hard it was to juggle the balance between the two different personalities he had to have; being constantly surrounded by Shadowhunters, most of which didn't like him too much, must have been even harder. "Clary wouldn't hurt any of us and you know it."

"I do," Raphael conceded. He didn't know the girl – or any of her friends – all that well, but he knew that as long as Simon was here, they wouldn't try anything that could endanger any of them. She might have been impulsive and didn't seem to think too hard about anything she did, but he could see that she meant well. "But no one else does. So you'll have to tell them."

"Do you think they'd listen?" Simon's scepticism shone through and Raphael couldn't really blame him – vampires weren't easy to convince of anything if they didn't want to believe it.

"They'll listen," he confirmed anyway and allowed himself a smile as he envisioned the meeting. Most of his subordinates hadn't trusted Simon initially, but Raphael had done his best to ease them into his presence slowly. "Or at least, they will if I'm there too."

The smile Simon gave him in return was worth the trouble Raphael was sure he'd go through to make that meeting happen. "That's good," was all he said, clearly resolved on not sounding too eager. Raphael could almost see him already making plans of what exactly he would say and made a mental note to talk to him through it in detail before he got the chance to say anything he might regret later. Under the right circumstances, vampires could be about as easy to offend as any faerie. "That's– great. When do we meet?"

"Just before sunrise," Raphael shrugged. "Five o'clock. I'll let everyone else know, so they'll show up." It was better to do it just after they'd all come back from wherever they spent their time at night, but not enough time so that they could all go to their rooms. It'd give them something to think about before they went to bed and hopefully, it would sink in better by then. Raphael supposed that they could all use a rest before the usual chaos of their day-to-day lives took up again tomorrow.

"That'll do," Simon nodded and started digging through the bottomless pockets of his jacket to come up with a pen, pulling back his sleeve to scrawl something on the inside of his palm.

He'd already said his goodbyes and stood up to leave by the time Raphael felt it again; the one thing that he hadn't thought about much these days so as not to distract himself from everything else he had to deal with. That strange, nearly irritating feeling like he'd clutched an ice cube in his hand.

Looking down at his left hand, he found – in the already painfully familiar handwriting that he'd spent hours studying when he'd first seen it – a very short note, clearly meant as a reminder.

Meeting with Raphael – 5am.

Looking around frantically for a pen of his own – this was his office, after all – Raphael pressed it into the skin of his palm, barely bothering to make the words readable.

Don't be late.

It was childish and he knew it, but he couldn't help himself; not after he'd waited for so long to be able to do this, and his smile only widened when he heard Simon turn around three rooms away, following his footsteps as he rushed back into the office.