Chapter Text
In all his thousands of years of life, a comparative millennia, in all his myriad of schemes and bets and deals, Raphael had been a million men, lived a million lives. He’d been, as the old adage goes, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king, and all other roles a charming, enigmatic devil could take on. He played every role perfectly, memorized every line and recited them as well as any actor, enough that even he himself was fooled. Indeed, he had grown comfortable treading the boards, so comfortable that the one role he never thought he would play, that of the doomed man, leapt upon him like a hungry tiger, taking him by horrible, terrible surprise.
The organ continued to play, of course it did, a haunting chorus charmed to sing throughout their battle, until the girl died or he did. It mattered not that he never expected the latter, which seemed impossible entirely. It mattered not that he had hit his knees, ascended form sloughing off of him like the dead skin off a snake to reveal not the cambion beneath, but the disgusting, weak, pathetic human. Stripped down to the barest form of himself, the least form of himself, he stared up at her, as if seeing her for the first time.
But, hells, she was beautiful. He had always thought so, ever since she quite literally crashed into his life, the last remaining corner piece to finally, finally complete the puzzle. He had been delighted, at the time, that his fated chosen, the one thing between himself and his destiny, was so easy on the eyes. She was weak then, like he was now, her powers stripped from her along with her memories. Vulnerable, and Raphael loved vulnerable. Now, though, with the roles reversed, he did not know his lines, and her beauty was a curse upon him. His vision blurred with the pain, narrowing until she was the only thing he could see, hells, the only thing left in all the world. Her long hair whipped angrily around her face in the explosion of smoke that she had created, her tail whipped back and forth in anger, blood, his blood, stained her pretty cheeks, and her eyes were windows to the fire behind them.
Yet amongst all of this beauty, Raphael found that the most beautiful still was the cool thrill of her sword against his neck.
“It’s over.” She said, and her voice wasn’t even strained. She was the picture of power, and she didn’t even have the decency to pretend to be struggling, while he was beaten and bloody on his own fucking floor. “I’m going to cut your head off your shoulders now. Have you anything to say before I end your miserable life?”
Raphael knew, distantly, that he was already dying. The girl did not need to cleave his head from his body to ensure that, which meant that she was likely taking it just to take it. A trophy. Years and years of patient waiting, years and years of slowly gaining power just for this battle. How horribly disappointing. All that work to destroy the final puzzle piece and secure his place as king, only for the girl to make him into a trophy. It was humiliating. It was intoxicating.
She stood over him patiently, a twisted smile upon her face. Her anger felt holy, its own terrifying magic reflected in her eyes. Here she was, his undoing, the only person who had ever managed to kill him in his own plane. He was going to die by her hand, and she wasn’t even a devil. By fate or by design, Raphael, in all his pride, in all his grand millenia of living, was going to die by the hand of his chosen mortal. He would laugh, if it didn’t hurt him so much.
And yet, at the end of all of it, he could not think of a thing to say. This, too, was a first for him, as were the feelings of admiration that welled up in his stomach, suffocating him. He forced a smile, and decided to say the only few words clouding his mind.
“My darling,” He said, his voice coming out more like a cough than a voice. “I fear I’ve fallen in love with you.”
The girl’s smile turned to a grimace, disgusted, and in her judgement, Raphael felt whole. Seen. He was wrong about her, after all. She was not a mouse, but a scorpion, and himself the stupid, stupid frog. Of course she was going to kill him. It was in her nature. It was in his nature, too.
A serene smile crept onto his face and he bowed his head, defeated, using the last bit of his strength to move his blood-wet hair from his neck. He was bared for her, both in heart and in body, and he had never felt such elation. Always the executioner, never the beheaded, he found himself strangely pleased to be killed. He had seen everything, been everyone, but never had he been the loser. What a terrible joy it was to be felled by her hand. His neck was an offering. When she took it, she did not hesitate, her sword swinging down with a hot, metallic shing! and the last sound Raphael heard was the organ, which faltered as he died.
Lives, he thought, as his blood gushed from his neck. All mortal lives expire.
__
Raphael did not know where dead devils go. They had no gods to claim them, of course, and every devil except the lowest of imps and fiends lived long, long lives, rarely ever touching even the outskirts of death. Would he spend another entire life as a slave to other, higher devils? Hells forbid it, would he be returned to the house of his father, to grovel at his feet? Worse yet, what if there was nothing at all? What if devils died as people did, and he was greeted with an eternity of lonely, fearsome darkness? He had never really thought about it, in truth. Like every other high-ranking cambion, he had never expected to die at all.
If he ever had to think about it, during his long stint with the living, he would never have guessed that he would wake up, plain and simple, tangled up in a mess of limbs and wings with Haarlep.
“Wh–?” He managed, before a throbbing pain in his head, like nothing he had ever felt, shut him up decisively. He squeezed his eyes shut against the light of the room, groaning. Against his shoulder, Haarlep grinned, and Raphael felt their sharp teeth prick his flesh.
Strange. When he died, Haarlep should have been blinked off to Cania to rejoin Mephistopheles. Or perhaps, this was Cania. Raphael opened one eye, pain once again shooting through him, but he let himself adjust to it this time. Instead of the blue and silver ice that decorated the palace of the great city Mephistar, he saw gold and yellow and red. Avernus’s colors. His colors. As his surroundings faded into view– red velvet curtains, floor to ceiling windows and the mountains beyond, his own plush bed– he realized he was in the House of Hope. In his own boudoir.
“What the fuck?” Raphael said, more thoroughly this time.
“Good morning, master.” Haarlep cooed in that cheeky little voice of theirs, a voice which, not so long ago, would have set Raphael’s cock stirring. Now though, he was too worried for his life to be turned on. Raphael did not know where devils go when they died, but it certainly wasn’t back to bed. Plus, it was difficult to be turned on by yourself when you were just murdered. By a mortal, in your own hall, mere minutes ago. Raphael grimaced.
“Cat got your tongue?” Haarlep continued, clearly put out at being ignored. Raphael found the sound of their voice, his own voice, truly revolting, but he didn’t tell them so. His disgust would have to wait. There were more pressing matters to attend to.
“What’s going on?” Raphael growled. He sat up, and Haarlep came with him, peeling themself off his sticky skin with unabashed glee. “Why are you here? Why am I here?”
Haarlep cocked their head, doglike, but only allowed themself a moment of confusion before breaking the silence with a burst of mirthful laughter. “Why master, I know we had fun last night, but surely we didn’t have so much fun that you’ve forgotten?”
Raphael stared at them. He was shocked, and well, dead, but he was still Raphael, and this was a lovely moment for Raphael’s legendary deduction skills. Unfortunately, the pounding in his head would not go away, no matter how hard he tried to stave it off. He stood up and stretched, and if Haarlep minded his leaving them, they didn’t say, only watched as he stumbled, exhausted, to the restoration pool. Stepping into it flooded him with relief, but did not offer him an explanation. He turned back to where Haarlep was watching him, and met their gaze. Studying their expression, he saw no signs of dishonesty, though that didn’t mean much. They shared a face, after all, and Raphael was an excellent liar. Still, he liked to think he knew that face fairly well, all things considered, and at the moment all he could read into it was curiosity. And lust, but that was a given.
Perhaps Haarlep was an illusion, or a trick of the mind. Perhaps they were here to lead him into some great purgatory, where he would have to suffer in his own home, by his own hand, as he had made so many thousands suffer for him. Though, were that the case, Raphael supposed that Haarlep was a shit choice for undertaker. They’d be more likely to hog him to themself for an eternity. Unless he really was at the mercy of his father, and Haarlep had returned to Mephistopheles’ service, but it had been only minutes since his death. Hadn’t it?
Perhaps also, and more frightening, none of this was real at all. Maybe he really was in Cania, or somewhere else half as frightening, and all of this was an elaborate illusion. Raphael wouldn’t put such magic past his father, though he couldn’t imagine how Mephistopheles had the time, unless Raphael had been dead quite a bit longer than he thought.
He took a deep breath. He was Raphael, and Raphael could put a stop to this. He just needed to catch the illusion, or the strayed Haarlep, or whatever this was, off their guard.
“Haarlep.” He started, and in an instant the incubus appeared in the bath by his side, obediently looking up at him with unabashed desire. Raphael raised a hand and shook his head. “I daresay you are correct. My memory seems to be failing me. Tell me, what did we get up to last night?”
Haarlep’s familiar face lit up with delight, and they began to recount the sordid tale of last night’s misdeeds. They gestured wildly with their hands, and added as much emphasis as possible on how dirty and nasty and bloody it had all been, as they were want to do. Finally, they squealed, a cat in heat, upon recalling that Raphael, their generous and ever-loving master, had let them prick his pretty skin. According to Haarlep, they had scratched his shoulders accidentally at first, but he had encouraged it, urging them to draw blood as they saw fit. Naturally, it hadn’t hurt all that much, given his thick devil’s skin and the overall weakness of lesser devils such as Haarlep, but still, it had been magical.
Magical, of course, was a strong word. Raphael very nearly rolled his eyes, were he not frozen in shock. He remembered this little tryst, as clear as if it actually was last night. Haarlep was describing their last night together before the nautiloid and its inhabitants had crashed into Avernus and changed his life forever. He could not forget a night like that, he was sure of it. Specifically, he remembered that their second coupling, the morning after, they were interrupted by Korrilla, barging in with the news.
“That can’t be right.” Raphael pushed. “What actually happened?”
“I’m telling the truth!”
Raphael gritted his teeth. “Do not lie to me, Haarlep, or I will crush you into dust so fine that you’ll be mistaken for ash.” Despite the very true and genuine threat on their life, Haarlep only giggled.
“My, my.” They cooed, gliding through the bathwater to press up against his side. “I do so love when you threaten me, master.” They ran a wet hand up Raphael’s bicep, and it was all he could do not to shatter their fingers. “But I fear I’m being dreadfully honest. Look, you’ve even got the scars to prove it.”
They pointed at one of several mirrors in the room, and sure enough, right between his wings, his back was painted with purple bruises and skin-scars, not deep enough to feel, but certainly deep enough to leave a mark. Raphael stared at himself in stunned silence, tracing the scars as best he could with his fingers. Last he remembered, they were long gone, replaced by the far more visible scars of having his head lobbed off.
“But that would mean…” He trailed off thoughtfully, the gears in his head beginning to turn.
Just then, Korrilla barged in.
“Master!” She cried, hair and robe aflutter, weapons out, her chest heaving with the obvious effort of one who ran all the way here. She blew the door open in a flash of magic, not caring in the slightest that her patron was naked in the bathtub with his incubus. This was far more important, and she was grinning wildly, clearly pleased to be the one bringing the news Raphael already knew she was going to share. “Raphael! Master!”
Raphael remembered sitting up in bed, deliriously angry to have been interrupted, not so long and forever ago. Now, he only stared at her.
When he said nothing, Korrilla blinked, confused, but shook her head and went on with it anyway, and Raphael felt his heart drop, whatever of it he still had, when she said exactly what he thought she would. “Master, a nautiloid! It’s here, in Avernus. Your plan—” She broke off here to laugh, crazed. “It begins today!”
Raphael remembered that laugh, and he remembered those words, and that look on her face. He remembered it because it had happened before. All of this had happened before, which meant one of two things. Either this was indeed an overdone, elaborate illusion, or, in his dying, he had been brought back to the beginning of it all, when the lanceboard of his destiny had been set. One option seemed quite a bit more plausible than the other, but if there was a chance this was real, that he somehow had earned himself another opportunity to play his part, get the crown, and achieve his dreams, he had to take it.
He doubted, very dearly, that it was real, but he had no other choice.
“Where is it?” Raphael asked, stepping out of the pool. He was dry in an instant and with a snap of his fingers, fully clothed. He strode to the same mirror that had shown him his scars and looked upon the demon within. There, he saw the large, decorated horns upon his head, the handsome red flesh of his face, and the beautiful wings that adorned his back like a cloak. There was nothing about his appearance that suggested even the faintest hint of death, and so he forced himself, tooth and nail in a matter of minutes, to forget it, at least until it reared its ugly head again.
As he said before, he was Raphael. He was bigger than death.
“Within teleporting range.” Korrilla quipped, a ball of nervous energy. “Shall I come with you?”
Last time, he said yes. The more survivors the better, and more hands made less work. There were plenty of powerful mortals aboard the nautiloid, and last time, any one of them could have proven to be the one he needed. This time, though, he didn’t need a group to choose from. He only needed one.
Raphael shook his head. “Not this time.” He said, knowing it would sound nonsensical. “I think I’ll stay closer to her this time. Await my call.”
He didn’t give Korrilla, or Haarlep for that matter, any time to pout. If this was only an illusion, his teleportation magic would not work, and they would be forced to drop the act. On the contrary, if it was real, and he snapped his fingers, he would appear inside the nautiloid in a moment, exactly where he needed to be to start this story over again. A win for him either way. Raphael took the gamble, and snapped his fingers.
When he felt the soft, fleshy floor of the nautiloid holding chamber under his shoes, he could have wept for the joy of it, were he another man. Thankfully, he was not. He was Raphael. He had a second chance. He would not be denied, not this time.
Raphael waved a hand and he was human. Soft, tanned flesh replaced his devil-skin, his claws became harmless fingernails, and his handsome horns and wings vanished as if they were never there. He shrunk nearly a foot in height, still tall, but not so intimidating. His human form always disappointed him, compared to the sheer power his other facades displayed, but Raphael refused to miss another chance for something as stupid as being “too scary.” Besides, if all went according to the plan that was slowly constructing itself in his mind, he would have to get used to being human.
He made his way through the rubble and the ruin to the same pod he had freed her from, so long ago. This too, he remembered like it was only yesterday. There, pressed slightly against the glass in fitful sleep, was her familiar, beautiful face in all its glory.
Raphael gazed at her fondly, reaching up to gently touch the glass. How sweet she looked, in sleep. Especially now, when she was still so very weak and mind-addled from the worm, and everything else that infected her. He could kill her here and now, if he wanted to. Send one of her companions from last time to retrieve the crown for him and then kill them, too, just to be sure of his own survival. He let himself fantasize about it for a moment, then tucked the idea into his pocket. The girl would not die today. Even if he did trust her foolish friends, he would rather she do it. And anyway, his great plans had need of her.
“Wake, little scorpion.” Raphael whispered, stroking her cheek through the glass. “And become a mouse.”
Leaning back, he gave the pod one final look before waving his hand once more and disappearing it. The girl fell out of the space where it had been, and he slowed her fall so that she didn’t hurt herself. She was so weak now, even a cruel touch would kill her, and he needed her alive. As her knees met the ground, she woke, raising her hands to her head in pain. Raphael smiled to himself. The lance board was set.
“Hells, are you alright?” Raphael asked, lacing his voice with all the empathy he could muster. “That looked like a nasty fall!”
The girl, still clutching her head, looked up at him. With her dirty, ragged armor and blood, dirt and illithid viscera coating her skin, she looked weak. Pathetic. Barely a scrap of the girl who had defeated him, what felt like mere moments ago. He could barely contain his delight. Here she was on her knees before him, a perfect mirror of when she took his head, but with Raphael in his rightful place above her. How perfect. How poetic. How good a way to begin again.