Chapter Text
It began with their return to the bedchamber, an act that seemed impulsive, almost careless. The cambion’s eyes flickered downward, catching Enver mouthing silent denials, his lips trembling as he tried to refute Haarlep’s accusations. Raphael wordlessly shattered the spell of forced silence with a snap of his fingers. The sound was sharp, final, like the breaking of a bone. Enver’s voice spilled forth in a torrent, slurred, frantic, and laced with the unmistakable stench of fear. He was drunk, his words tumbling over one another in a chaotic mess, his flash of adolescent bravery crumbling under the weight of the devil’s gaze.
Raphael dropped him unceremoniously onto the cold stone floor. Enver crashed into the ground with a dull thud, his body splayed awkwardly, a pile of gangly limbs. Luckily he was still drunk, so he wasn’t bracing. Enver slunk to the side, his movements furtive, like a beaten dog trying to avoid further punishment. The air was thick with tension as the two devils argued, their voices rising and falling in a cacophony of anger and betrayal. Finally, with the cambion snarling he pulled out a scroll. The parchment glowed faintly, its edges shimmering with an otherworldly light. The sight of it made Haarlep recoil, their usually mischievous features twisting into an expression of pure horror. Even Raphael’s face, so purely full of rage at the moment, betrayed a flicker of disgust as he held it out with two pinched fingers. The spell inscribed on the scroll was no ordinary enchantment—it was a relic of Tyr, the god of justice, and its radiant energy was anathema to creatures of the infernal.
“A spell unique to the followers of Tyr. I can use it, but radiant energy makes me ill. Come here boy.”
“Darling pleaasseee, this is utterly ridiculous.”
Haarlep’s plea was desperate, their voice trembling with a rare vulnerability and eyes wide with panic. It tried to meet Enver’s eyes to garner sympathy, but the boy averted his gaze, his jaw clenched in stubborn defiance. He felt Raphael’s hand on his shoulder, the devil’s claws digging into his flesh with a possessive intensity. The cambion’s breath was hot against his ear, a searing reminder of the danger he was in. Enver could feel the anger radiating from Raphael, a palpable force that seemed to warp the very air around them. He knew better than to-refused-to let that anger turn on him.
“Sweet boy, hold out the scroll and say None may lie in Tyr’s holy light.”
Raphael said in a sickly sweet voice that made the mortal’s skin crawl. Someone was leaving here mutilated, that was certain. Gortash gripped the scroll with two hands, trying to steady himself. He forced himself to think of Haarlep suffering, rather than the other end scenario. With that visual in mind, a cruel smile spread on his face. He was excited to cast a spell, even a preloaded one, and he was happy to punish Haarlep. Especially after they tried to throw him to the wolves.
“Who destroyed the painting?”
Raphael’s voice was sharp, cutting through the tension like a blade.
“Enver.”
Haarlep’s tinkling voice rang out like a broken music box, melodic even when tinged with unhappiness. The devil, still leaning against Gortash squeezed his shoulder threateningly, claws digging into his bony back.
“Did you conspire to destroy the painting? Do you hate Raphael? Do you think he’s a pathetic weakling and a bad lay?”
Enver butted in, a shrillness to his adolescent tenor. The boy was unwilling to be punished for something that was not his fault. Raphael glowered down at him. The room seemed to hold its breath as Haarlep answered, their voice dripping with true venom.
“Yes. Yes. Yes and yes.”
The cambion’s eyebrows shot up, his jaw set with rage.
“My darling! A-Are you really going to let a mortal come between us?”
Raphael did not respond. His face was curved into that ugly sneer he often wore when disgusted. His eyes blazed with fury, and his jaw clenched so tightly it seemed his teeth might shatter as he audibly ground his teeth. Enver understood the devil better than he understood himself, and the young man knew the cambion was about to snap. Sweat poured down Enver’s face, stinging his eyes and coating his lips with a salty tang. He wiped his brow distractedly, unwilling to miss even the slightest shift in Raphael’s expressions at this pivotal moment.
“Who do you serve?”
“Lord Mephistopheles.”
It felt as if the air was suddenly sucked out of the room. There were feelings of course, suspicions Raphael had often lamented to Enver in recent months when they were alone. As his current favorite Enver had heard it often recently, but now it was out in the open. Verbally expressed. The heat of Avernus, already sweltering, became oppressive, physically altering with the cambion’s rage. Sweat poured from Enver’s brow, getting more salty drops into his eyes and mouth. It felt like he was drinking from the sea. The mortal wiped his face distractedly, still unwilling to miss any of the cambion’s microexpressions.
“Who. do. you. serve?!”
The devil’s claws were digging into Enver’s shoulder, slicing it. The skin seared, both burning and cutting his tender flesh as he interrogated his beloved incubus. Enver whined, and the cambion abruptly threw him aside again. He crashed into the stone, falling forward and chipping a front tooth. He hissed in pain, immediately dropping to the floor to find it. Belly to the floor he scoured for the chipped piece. He knew if he had the piece in the baths the restoration water would fix it. Blood was gushing from his mouth, and he could hear the two shouting at one another, arguing. Enver tried to block it out, focusing instead on his search. The scene felt familiar. Reminding him, bizarrely, of his parents’ fights back home; shouting, accusations, the air thick with tension. But he couldn’t afford to dwell on that now. He had to find the piece of tooth. He knew Raphael would be furious if he didn’t fix it, even though it was the devil’s fault. The cambion would find a way to blame him, to call him low-class, to make him feel even smaller than he already did. After what felt like an eternity, Enver’s fingers closed around the broken piece of tooth. He scrambled to the bath, his movements frantic, like a prey animal fleeing a predator. He plunged his head into the water, pressing the broken piece to the chipped tooth. The restorative magic worked quickly, the pain from both his mouth and elsewhere receding as the tooth knit itself back together.
When he emerged, his tooth was whole again, but the air in the chamber had changed. The room was filled with a heady, cloying sweetness, the metallic tang of blood mingling with something sickly sweet, like burnt sugar. Enver’s eyes were drawn to the bed, where a low, disoriented moaning filled the air. There, standing above the bloodied form of Haarlep, was a monster. It was a grotesque, bestial thing, its form shifting and writhing as if it couldn’t decide what shape to take. It snarled, chirped and growled, bestial and horrifying as Enver’s eyes tried to follow the strange, shifting beast.
Its claws were sunk deep into Haarlep’s flesh, and with a sudden, horrifying motion, it set the incubus alight. The screams were unbearable, a high-pitched wail that seemed to echo in Enver’s very soul. Haarlep’s body convulsed, their skin flickering through a series of forms, each more mutilated than the last. Enver gagged as their flesh melted from bone. The distinct stink of burning flesh and hair consumed the room and the mortal’s stomach churned with disgust and horror. He knew, logically, that Haarlep shouldn’t burn—they had fire immunity. He had seen it himself, watched as Raphael hurled balls of fire at them in fits of irritation, only for the incubus to emerge unscathed and mildly annoyed. But this was different. This was no ordinary fire. This was something darker, more primal, a manifestation of Raphael’s rage.
Enver, knowing his best chance at staying alive was to be tethered to the restoration pool, jumped in. Enver’s instincts screamed at him to stay hidden, to remain within the bath, still and quiet. He sank deeper into the water, his dark hair obscuring his face as he watched the scene unfold. The monster—Raphael he supposed, though it bore little resemblance to the cambion now—was whining, its clawed hands pinching and dragging Haarlep’s charred corpse off the bed. It moved with strange, almost jerky movements, its actions devoid of the elegance and control that usually characterized Raphael. And then, bizarrely, it tried to smooth out the bed, its claws tearing through the fabric and setting the blankets alight. The creature let out another alien whine, its tail lashing irritably.
Enver’s heart pounded in his chest as he watched, his mind struggling to reconcile the monster before him with the devil he had come to know. This was Raphael, but it wasn’t. This was something else, something raw and unfiltered, a manifestation of the cambion’s deepest, darkest impulses. And as the creature turned its gaze slowly toward him, its eyes burning with an otherworldly light, Enver felt a chill run down his spine.
R-Raphael?”
The human tried, his voice halting and hesitant. The thing’s three animal bone heads tilted towards Enver, who was still mostly submerged in the bath. It’s form solidified at the sight of him, his eyes going big and wide like a jaguar who’d caught sight of its prey.
Enver had been with many devils. Most were not as humanoid looking as Raphael or Haarlep, but this monstrosity…
This thing was not Raphael. Not as Enver had known him all these years.
This, he’d never seen anything like it. Its body was a landscape of horror. Jagged spires of blackened animal bone jutted from its back to its tail, sharp and crooked, their edges glinting with razor-sharp malice. Between the blackened bone was translucent, revealing pulsing rivers of molten red magma coursing beneath his skin, an unnaturally hot lifeblood that illuminated its form with an eerie, ghostly glow. The beast’s head was both beast and void—a fusion of horns and three animal heads that formed a grotesque mask of horror. Their eyes were fiery balls of glowing yellow light, hot and intense, completely devoid of empathy. Its maw, upon creaking open was vast and horrific, lined with endless layers of blackened uneven teeth that seemed to extend endlessly into its fiery throat, a portal to oblivion. Their limbs were too thin and grotesquely elongated, each joint twisting at sharp angles, ending in claws that shimmered with heat. Those talons looked like they could slice through stone like paper and leave wounds that seared. Their wings, vast and pulsing with magma, spanned large behind them. They were not feathered or scaled, but ephemeral sheets of darkness, an incandescent glimmer of fire and shadow wherever they moved, creating an intense contrast in each movement. When they beat, they howled like a firestorm tearing through a wasteland, carrying whispers of despair on their winds.
If the sight of it wasn’t horrific enough, the boy saw what it did to Haarlep. They had burned, burned alive, with fire immunity. If it was Raphael, which seemed likely- it was likely the power of Hellfire. The Archdevil Mephistopheles’s flames were stronger than any other. Raphael had told him this in one of his many bedroom rants. It seemed, despite Raphael not being fully aware of it, he had the same abilities, the flames of Hellfire quite literally pumping through the black bones of this form. Enver, a human, certainly could not withstand the heat of this aberration. Especially if Haarlep could not. He cast resistance, as if it would really help. The beast stepped forward, and its talons clicked sharply against the stone floor. Its beady yellow eyes never left Enver.
“Hey…Raphael…”
Enver cooed placatingly, in a voice soft and foreign to his own ears. It came quicker now, until it was standing over the pool. Without it touching the water the pool started to heat up. It abruptly hopped in, birdlike in its movements, and the water immediately began to bubble. The bath quickly went from feeling like a warm bath to a heated hot spring. Enver hissed, tears of fear and anger flowing freely down his face. It just wasn’t fair. He’d saved himself from the prison yes, but he’d made the devil snap, and now the strange, horrible thing that lived within him was going to set Gortash aflame. He’d look just like the melting, charred remains of Haarlep
Terrified Enver put his hand out.
“S-stay b-back. Don’t touch me!”
He ordered, trying to sound firm, but fear made his voice tremble. It almost felt comical, holding his palm out to this massive monster. Raphael’s cambion form already dwarfed Enver, but this thing, he only came to its waist. It tilted its heads and made a strange, guttural sound. It’s clawed hand wrapped around Enver’s thin wrist, and to the boy’s shock and relief it didn’t burn him. He was dangling though, as the beast held the boy in front of its monsterous visage. It’s-his-yellow eyes examined him carefully.
“It’s me Raphael, me, Enver- your- your little mouse?!”
The human squeaked, using a patronizing term of endearment he himself hated, perhaps more than any other. Enver wasn’t sure if his best course of action was kicking out or dangling limp, but he really didn’t like either scenario being pulled out of the safety of the pool.
Raphael did not reply verbally, but his heads cocked to the side. Enver tried not to let the terror he felt show on his face as he was pressed against the creature’s body. It hurt, sharp and bonelike, and though it didn’t hurt him, he was uncomfortably warm. It felt like being pressed against an open-air grill that had just been put out. He grunted with discomfort, his body so slick with water and sweat it felt like being in a sauna.
“Please Raphael, you’re- you’re going to burn me…”
He whimpered, biting his thick bottom lip and trying desperately to maintain calm. Raphael, even in this bizarre form seemed somewhat aware, perhaps he would be decent and put him down if he reasoned with him. He felt one of the clawed hands digging into the supple flesh of his bottom and he felt himself choking on his own saliva. In no form was Raphael decent.
“Please Raphael….don’t…n-no!”
He yelped, unable to remain calm as those talons slipped between the cleft of his ass. He started to squirm, but froze as he felt himself be squeezed harder. It didn’t feel like flesh holding him, but like being squeezed between hard surfaces. The situation was a conundrum. He knew better than to fight the devil, years of being his plaything he was well aware resistance only made things worse. But there was a charred body on the floor only steps away. The mortal was terrified that if he allowed the cambion to touch him the wrong way in this form he’d be instantly killed. Ripped apart or maimed or burned alive. Already it was uncomfortably hot against him, and he squirmed and whined in discomfort as those talons plunged into sensitive thin flesh. Enver was very in tune with his body when it came to these matters, and adrenaline was beating out the alcohol. He could feel his skin tearing, blood dripping from between his legs. He sobbed, harsh and pained against the hard bone. Babbled little words of dissent, though he knew Raphael was likely not listening, nor cared. All he could do was hope Raphael didn’t kill him, dangling helplessly in his arms just above the restoration water. He tried to stretch his legs out best he could as the beast “prepared” him, hoping a toe would touch the water, fortify him. His hole burned terribly, and Enver himself was so slick with sweat it was hard to see, fat salty droplets from his forehead dripping liberally and mixing with angry tears, forming little pockets on the bow of his lip, the back of his neck. He was so helpless. Everything hurt, and the panic was making him so ill, he was trembling terribly. This form too, offered no comfort. In a twisted way Raphael’s face was stabilizing, because the boy could read his facial expressions, figure out what the devil was feeling. Staring at the three animal bone heads the human could discern nothing at all. He tried to stop thinking, dissociate from the situation as the sharp talons slid in and out of him. At least his entire body being coated in sweat seemed to have stopped him from tearing as he was stretched out by the solid finger’s of this monstrosity. His stomach kept lurching and it only gave him a modicum of relief when those fingers were finally removed. For a moment, Enver played with the idea that it was over, as the creature lifted him higher, angling his body just so. But then he felt the pressure. Detachedly the human thought that this form must have a sheath, because he hadn’t seen a cock. That made sense, plenty of devils the mortal had been with did, though neither Raphael’s nor Haarlep’s normal forms were so animalistic. The pressure was intense, wrong. Enver yelped despite himself, despite everything. Even the blood and the sweat couldn’t make its cock fit easily. The feeling of forcing something far too big into something far too small was visceral and intense.
Raphael growled with something that sounded almost like frustration. The beast suddenly thrust into Enver with a brutal force, and the boy screamed, loud and shrill. He was tearing! No, he was torn, and his insides were likely being rubbed raw and ripped up as well. His pain tolerance was high, and he’d been split before, but this, this was brutal. Enver couldn’t stop screaming, his little face going bright red, and thrashing against the bony creature with the mad desperation of an endangered animal. This only seemed to enrage the devil further. The cambion's hands gripped Enver's hips tightly, his claws digging into the soft flesh hard and drawing gushing rivers of blood and chunks out of his already thin flesh. Enver could only sob and scream as he was stretched and filled, the pain immense, impossible. Raphael's movements were erratic and aggressive, each thrust sending waves of agony through Enver's body. Enver felt like he was being torn apart, the thick heat of the devil's shaft burning each time it filled him. The boy’s shrill shrieks became miserable little whimpers. He still was pushing against the solid mass of ebony bone, but he was weakening quickly, bleeding out. Detachedly Enver thought about how it didn’t feel like a cock, it felt like a foreign object, perhaps a block of wood, a sword hilt, or a wine bottle (The devils he’d been pimped out to over the years were as creative as they were cruel.). Those were more aligned with what the boy was feeling. The edges of his sight were dulling, and his vision became quite fuzzy. How ridiculous it would be to die like this. How utterly mortifying. How perfectly apt. Enver had the pathetic wish for Haarlep, so the pain wouldn’t be so unbearable. So, (And it was a childish, pathetic feeling, he knew.) he could be touched by the one creature that touched him nicely, even with an ulterior motive. His eyes drifted towards the body on the floor, and he cried harder. Sobbed for his friend that wasn’t his friend, who’d never once cared for the human, but the human had indeed cared for them. Now he was alone, all alone with Raphael. That was a fate worse than death. At least it wouldn’t be long. He welcomed an ending, as dull and humiliating sparks of pleasure began to pump to his dying mind. The final coherent thought that crossed his mind was a smug, spiteful one. That his death would upset the cambion, which pleased the boy.
Raphael continued to use him like a rag-doll, unaware or uncaring (likely the latter) of the teen’s torment. The devil bounced his limp body up and down on his cock, Enver’s head lolling and jerking.
The devils movements became more frantic, and with a guttural roar, he spilled his seed deep inside Enver, filling him up. The human was barely conscious now, his body a limp, broken thing in the devil’s grip. Slowly, almost tenderly, the creature pulled out. Enver was a mess, his insides torn and destroyed, his lower half a crimson canvas of gore. His legs twitched, and his intestines hung inside out, like twisted streamers of viscera. Raphael dipped him in the water like one might try and clean off a stained washed cloth, and Enver, head lolling, felt consciousness snap back to him in a rush. He squealed in indignation, realizing that Raphael was aware enough to know the torment he was putting the teen through, at least somewhat. Enough to at least keep him from dying. He screamed, kicking out in a madness that echoed his younger days. The devil’s heads cocked again, and Enver, through his haze of rage watched the form shift again, down into Raphael’s cambion form. It happened in a couple of seconds this time, like a candle flickering before quickly being snuffed out. Enver couldn’t help but continue his fit of rage, shoving the man and screaming.
Raphael didn’t stop him, sinking into the bath while huffing. He was covered in blood and viscera, most from Haarlep, some from Enver certainly, maybe even some of his own.
“You’re a fucking bastard! I loathe you! Oh I loathe you!”
Enver sobbed, his voice cracking.
“Stop acting like a child. I’m the one who just went through the Hells.”
Raphael snapped irritably. He was rigid, back straight as if afraid to turn. He ran his hands over the patches of blood on his arms, and the teen caught his bottom lip quivering.
“Come clean me. Now.”
“Clean you?! You almost killed me, my organs were hanging-“
The boy caught himself, catching Raphael’s eyes narrowing. The devil wouldn’t ask again. He huffed, swallowing his rage. He didn’t really want to be ended, or be punished like he’d been before, like he’d almost been today. He didn’t really want to die. Maybe he did. Out of spite. But….no, no he didn’t. He wanted to live, despite everything.
Sure, the devil had hurt him, mutilated him- but he’d ended up alive. It was all fine. Another day was another opportunity to live, to escape. Enver realized he was mumbling to himself when he saw Raphael had started to squint. Quickly he grabbed the wash cloth out of the hand of Raphael, who’d been clutching it tightly. He wet it, put it out for the cambion to touch.
“It’s fine.”
The devil muttered. There was blood in his ringlet curls, caught between his scales and body hair- everywhere. Enver wordlessly scrubbed him, and the devil helped him here and there, lifting an arm, tilting his head back so Enver could wipe his face, comb the bits of charred skull and cooked brain matter out of his hair. The silence between them was heavy, broken only by the occasional splash of water as Enver worked methodically to clean the blood and gore from Raphael’s body. The cambion still sat rigidly, his expression sharp, and his jaw remained clenched. His golden eyes flickered with an intensity that betrayed the storm raging within him. Enver’s hands trembled as he scrubbed, his own body still trembling with phantom aches from the brutal ordeal of being nearly torn in two, but he knew better than to continue his tantrum, not when Raphael was like this. Even though…part of him wanted to continue. It felt unfair, having to stifle his own pain. He forced himself to think of the plan. He’d be whatever the devil wanted him to be, for now. Until an opportunity to escape presented itself, he’d survive.
Unlike Haarlep.
The water around them was tinged red, swirling with the remnants of dead incubus’s charred remains and Enver’s own blood. The metallic scent of it mixed with the sickly sweetness of a sex devil’s burnt flesh, creating a nauseating aroma that made Enver’s stomach churn. He focused on the task at hand, his movements deliberate, though his mind raced with a torrent of emotions, rage, fear, and a twisted, reluctant sense of duty. He hated Raphael, hated him with every fiber of his being, but he also knew that survival depended on playing the part of his obedient mouse. For now, at least.
Raphael’s voice broke the silence, sharp and commanding, though there was an undercurrent of something else, something Enver couldn’t quite place.
“You’re taking too long. Hurry up.”
He stood up, giving the boy a full view of…everything. Enver’s jaw tightened, mirroring his master, but he said nothing, merely nodding and increasing the pace of his scrubbing. He worked his way down Raphael’s broad shoulders, over the ridges of his scaled back, his wings, and along the curve of his spine. The cambion’s skin was warm, almost feverishly so, and Enver could feel the faint tremors running through him, as if Raphael were struggling to maintain control over whatever emotion lay beneath the surface. He cleaned robotically as he went lower, trying not to think so hard about the blood all around the cambion’s now soft cock and pubic hair. When the devil was finally clean he was pulled into his lap. Neither of them spoke, which was shocking, considering how much the devil loved the sound of his own voice. A large hand dragged over him like one might pet a cat, petting the moist, sweat and gods-knew-what-else slicked skin of the human over and over. The devil’s lip curled up after about a minute, looking at his own hand with annoyance before snapping the boy clean. Another shot of irritation ran through Enver, that the cambion could do that and still made the mortal clean him meticulously.
“You know….I cannot speak in that form.”
“And you do love to speak.”
The boy just couldn’t help himself. Raphael cut eyes to him, but just continued speaking while idly petting the mortal.
“It is my ascended form.”
“Is that what you really look like?”
The human said, staring at the pink tinted water. He knew most devils were quite monstrous, it wouldn’t surprise him if that was the case.
“No!”
Raphael snapped with both shock and annoyance. He scoffed, and then sighed. It seemed that for once he couldn’t manage a cruel retort or remark.
“No. Look at me, you think that is my true form?”
Raphael tilted the human’s head up, his eyes meeting the mortals. The boy saw this idea that someone might think the ascended form was his true form deeply offended the cambion. Enver shook his head.
“No, my lord.”
Raphael nodded relievedly, as if thinking otherwise was disturbing to him. The cambion brushed the boy’s wet hair out of his face, making sure his eyes stayed trained on the devil. Raphael’s golden eyes flickered, their usual sharpness softened by something Enver couldn’t quite name. Regret? Vulnerability? The boy wasn’t sure. He had never seen Raphael quite like this before.
“It is….a gift. From my father.”
Raphael never spoke of Mephistopheles in this manner. Every “gift”, including the statue of the Archdevil in the hall and the portal to Mephistar in the Chamber of Egress were only mentioned with loathing and disgust. Enver had listened to many a rage filled rant about Mephistopheles in his months as the favorite, and they were always the same. This he mentioned with care he used for very little. Not loving, certainly not. But care. In the same manner one would handle explosives.
“I cannot control it. Not well.”
He said, speaking slowly, haltingly, as if what he was telling the teen was difficult for him to discuss or perhaps explain. Enver had never heard the man speak this way. He realized this was the devil almost apologizing. Or at least, attempting to explain the behavior.
“It is a good way to defend oneself. My father….installed it. When I gorge on souls I am unstoppable. Of course.”
Enver said nothing, he knew he was not to say anything. Raphael preferred speaking at him rather than speaking to him. He did look away, so Enver buried his nose into the crook of his neck, his eyes catching the image of the corpse before he purposely shut them. Haarlep deserved what they got. So why did it feel so utterly awful. Was it the being alone with Raphael?
“Sometimes it manifests in bizarre manners. Like tonight.”
Raphael continued rambling about the ascended form, how it was one of his father’s experiments other cambions had rejected, and how it made him powerful, stronger than any other cambion by leaps and bounds. Gortash so longed for power.
“It is perhaps his….most ambitious gift to me. At first he tried common cambion, when I was young. Then he attempted it on a sibling or two of mine. I was the only one able to endure it. I think he was proud when I was able to take it. Or…at least satisfied.”
Raphael sounded unsure. As if he himself did not know the truth of his father’s feelings or motivations.
“It seems like a great gift.”
The boy mumbled into his neck, his lips damp from the bath.
Raphael sighed, huffed.
“A great gift…”
The cambion repeated, his voice low and tinged with bitterness.
“Yes, I suppose it is. But gifts from my father are never… simple. They come with strings, boy. Chains, even. He is not like me. Warm-hearted and generous.”
Enver remained still, his face pressed against the crook of Raphael’s neck, his breath warm against the cambion’s skin. He could feel the rapid pulse of Raphael’s heartbeat, a rare sign of the devil’s unease. It was strange, almost unsettling, to see the usually cruel and arrogant cambion so…human. Enver didn’t know how to respond to all of this madness, part of him finding the idea of him warm and generous darkly comedic, given the circumstances. He wasn’t sure he was supposed to respond. So he just stayed quiet, his fingers lightly tracing patterns on Raphael’s arm, a small, practiced gesture of intimacy he’d learned from Haarlep.
Raphael’s hand moved from Enver’s hair to cup the back of his neck, his touch firm but not unkind. He tilted the boy’s head back slightly, forcing their eyes to meet once more.
“You think it’s wonderful, don’t you? Power. Strength. The ability to crush your enemies without a second thought. But it’s not that simple. It’s never that simple.”
Enver’s throat tightened. He didn’t know if he should lie. Power, in any shape or form the teen would grasp hungrily and greedily for. Even with drawbacks like-his eyes were drawn to the body of the concubi. He’d take the ability. Without question. He decided in this case the truth was the best option. The teen nodded slightly, his dark eyes searching Raphael’s for some hint of what the devil was truly feeling. Sometimes, often times getting things wrong was a test or trick that involved punishment, which was why reading Raphael’s microexpressions was so important. But this time, this day- everything was off, wrong. For some reason. Perhaps the body of their friend in the middle of the room. But he felt in his core the devil would not snap on him.
“My father-“
Raphael muttered, his voice quieter now, the steady tinge of rage on the edge of his words. That almost eased the boy, as it was familiar.
“He does not give gifts out of kindness. He gives gift’s to control. To bind. This form… it is a great weapon, yes, but it is also a leash. A reminder that no matter how far I rise, in his mind I am still his. Still bound to him. The incubus was another gift.”
“They…They were a good incubus…they did their job well.”
Enver said haltingly, not wanting to set Raphael off. He had a distinct sense of deja vu, a memory of early childhood bubbling up. Enver had tried to comfort a young girl in his neighborhood after some thugs had killed her dog for barking. The boy had really been trying to comfort her, but it had come out overly logical. He’d explained that the arrow had gone through it’s upper neck, into the medulla oblongata and breathing likely ceased immediately. The dog didn’t suffer long, was what that boy had been trying to say. He thought it would be a comfort, but the girl only cried harder, just as his father in a drunken stupor had stumbled out because of the racket. He’d been badly beaten for that misspeaking.
Raphael cut eyes to him, a sneer immediately forming on his lips.
“You think this is the first plaything I’ve lost? I’ve had hundreds, thousands of lovers. Unfathomable to you. Haarlep meant nothing to me.”
The tenor of his voice said otherwise, and Enver was hyper attuned to these minor fluctuations. He didn’t dare continue speaking. So instead, he stayed still, his body pressed against Raphael’s, his fingers still tracing faint, meaningless patterns on the devil’s arm. The silence stretched between them, heavy and suffocating, until finally, Raphael sighed and released his grip on Enver’s neck.
“He was a traitor. Served Mephistopheles. It’s good he’s dead.”
The boy peeked up again, staring at the body. The devil was speaking to himself again. There was no need fo add any input. He noticed the body was slowly melting. He remembered reading devils and demons bodies didn’t rot in the same way mortals did, their internal heat melting them into ichor one could gain power from. Enver wondered what would happen if he drank concubi ichor. He did want power, but something in his gut said that would likely have terrible consequences.
“And I always knew. Didnt I? How could I let him worm himself so fully into my life. Distract me from my birthright. Damn that damnable incubus. What a waste of my time.”
The melancholy in his voice was rising. It sounded strained.
“They were a traitor. And concubi, they’re lower life forms. Devils in name only. No better than beasts.”
He was ranting, but Enver felt it, like the night he’d had Enver hold him. He was crying. The human didn’t dare look. He had the feeling he may still end up a body next to Haarlep if he did. Raphael’s grip on Enver tightened suddenly, his claws pricking the boy’s skin as if he could sense the direction of his thoughts. The cambion’s voice dropped to a low, dangerous growl, his breath hot against Enver’s ear.
“Do you think I’m pathetic? A weak devil?”
The question hung in the air like a blade poised to fall. Enver’s pulse spiked, his body going rigid. This was a test, one he couldn’t afford to fail. He swallowed hard, forcing his voice steady despite the tremor beneath. All he had to do was please him. It’s all he ever had to do. For once, it came easily.
"No, my lord."
He said quickly, and it was genuine. Horrible, unstable, vile, repulsive, even embarrassing at times he would have to lie. But Enver feared the devil, he never understood Haarlep’s rants about his “pathetic” nature. He did fear him. Raphael’s fingers dug deeper, drawing fresh beads of blood.
"Liar."
His voice was a snarl, the rawness and instability in his voice making Enver’s heart pound wildly. Would he transform again? Into that horrible beast? Would he punish Enver anyway, even though the painting’s destruction and all that came before and after it was Haarlep’s doing?
"You saw me lose control. You saw me—"
He cut himself off, jaw clenching so hard Enver heard the grind of teeth. He sniffed, and the human pictures him steadying himself, the shakiness of crying starting to fade away.
The boy’s mind raced. He had to choose his words carefully, but hesitation would be just as damning as the wrong answer.
"I saw power.”
He murmured, pressing flush, his lips brushing the devil’s jugular, kissing it softly.
"I saw what happens when someone betrays you."
A low, shuddering breath escaped Raphael. His grip loosened slightly, but his voice remained sharp.
"You think Haarlep deserved it?"
Enver hesitated. That truth was complicated. Haarlep had been cruel at times, and an opportunist, but they had also been the closest thing to company. Enver’s only companion in this Hellish place. Still, survival demanded sacrifice, Haarlep had been willing to do it to him, so he couldn’t afford to care. Not about the incubus, or Hope, or anyone.
"They served another master.”
Enver said tactfully.
"They lied to you. That’s unacceptable.”
Raphael exhaled sharply, and even laughed a little.
“Such a practical little mouse."
His claws traced idle circles on Enver’s back, each motion threatening to break skin.
"And what of you? Who do you serve?"
“You father. Of course.”
He said immediately, without even thinking about it. The devil chuckled, and genuinely sounded a bit calmer. Enver decided to risk a peak. He was slightly unnerved to see the devil staring intently at him.
Then Enver realized it was expectantly. He swallowed the sigh of annoyance that wanted to bubble up, particularly after his ordeal, but he’d been taking on Haarlep’s responsibilities for a while. Enver didn’t wait for the command.
The look was enough—the weight of it, the unspoken expectation pressing down on him like a physical force.
So he moved.
His body protested as he pulled himself from the bath, muscles stiff, skin still tender from the ordeal. Luckily the restoration bath had healed everything, even though the phantom pains lingered. The water dripped from him, pooling at his feet as he walked toward Haarlep’s remains. The incubus was little more than a slick, shimmering smear now, the heat of the Hells and their own internal heat already reducing them to something unrecognizable, something that did not resemble the sharp-tongued, laughing creature who had once shared whispered jabs with him behind Raphael’s back.
Enver swallowed hard, forcing his hands to steady. He grabbed a discarded cloth, one of Haarlep’s underclothes, he realized distantly, and knelt.
The ichor seemed to cling to the stone flooring, thick and stubborn. It bubbled faintly where it touched his skin, leaving a low, persistent tingle, but he ignored it. He worked in silence, scrubbing methodically, his movements efficient. There was no point in dwelling on what he was doing. No point in thinking about what or who this was.
If he thought, he’d remember Haarlep’s smirk, the way they’d rolled their eyes at Raphael’s dramatics. The way they’d felt like an ally, once. How sometimes they would be kind to him, even if it was always to squeeze pleasure from him. But Haarlep had betrayed Enver. And they deserved what they’d got.
The cloth darkened as he worked, the fibers starting to dissolve under the corrosive remains. He didn’t stop.
Behind him, Raphael hadn’t moved. The devil’s gaze was a brand between his shoulder blades, heavy and unrelenting. Enver could feel the weight of it, uncomfortable and constant.
He didn’t look back to check if he was looking. He knew he was.
When the last traces were gone, when the floor was clean, when the air no longer reeked of scorched sugar and charred flesh—Enver finally straightened. His knees ached. His hands stung.
He turned.
Raphael was indeed still watching him, sunset colored eyes half-lidded, his expression inscrutable. He snapped, and both the underclothes and the strangely discolored spot on the floor where the incubus’s body had melted was gone. Finally the devil stood, stalking towards his bed, suddenly fixed. His journal appeared in his hands, and he was scribbling, quick and erratic. Raphael wrote every day. This was nothing new. He crawled into bed beside him. The silence stretched between them, thick and suffocating, as Raphael’s quill scratched furiously across the parchment. Enver lay beside him, his hands still tingling slightly from the ichor, his mind a whirlwind of exhaustion and lingering terror. The bed was warm, the sheets smooth against his skin. It was so unlike the jagged, brutal reality of the last few hours.
He wanted to sleep. He wanted to forget this horrible awful day. But he knew better than to even close his eyes without permission when Raphael was in such a state.
So he waited, watching the devil’s profile in the dim light, the way his brow furrowed, the way his lips moved silently as he wrote. He looked again strangely mortal like this, shadows of a human man lost in thought, and not a monstrosity who had just torn apart his own lover in a fit of rage. Finally, Raphael snapped the journal shut and poofed it away, the sounds sharp in the quiet. He exhaled through his nose, long and slow, before turning his gaze to Enver.
The boy tensed instinctively, bracing for whatever came next, another demand, another test, another mood swing. But Raphael only reached out, his fingers brushing against Enver’s cheek, almost tender, if such a thing were possible—before suddenly pulling him close, pressing the mortal flush against the furnace of his body. Enver remained rigid, his muscles coiled tight, but this, at least, was again familiar. Raphael had long since grown fond of curling around him, lying against the coolness of his mortal skin.
Eventually, the steady rhythm of the devil’s breathing filled the silence. In and out. A deep, even, steady thrum. Only then did Enver allow himself to relax, though the heat was stifling and oppressive, like being pressed beneath against a wall with a furnace.
He closed his eyes.
And as always, he slept in the devil’s shadow.