Chapter Text
Some nights, he wakes her without warning. It’s hand on her shoulder, almost feverish, pressing her onto her back or wrestling her on top of him. It’s never hunger; she’s learned to recognize his lust across the years, and it’s a far cry from that. No, Raphael comes to her with sharp edges and teeth, searching for control and finding it in the play of her body.
It’s fuzzy, so fuzzy, a little like drowning. There are no dreams to aid the transition tonight; she’s too exhausted. Joi had returned from Pazunia that morning. Her body and mind scream for rest. The burns on her wrist second that opinion: hellfire has taken its toll. It answers her call but does not bend to her as readily as the Lord of Cania or Avernus. It comes at a cost. There are hands on her body, but they register as static pressure, disconnected weight on her ribs and hips. It’s dragging her up, up, up, back to awareness.
Rapahel’s teeth press to her throat, his right hand curling under her chin. His claws bite a bit, a warning as the muscles in her jaw instinctually tighten, confusion more than genuine resistance. Joi blinks, momentarily dizzy. Pazunia’s red sun is absent overhead. Instead, it’s the red of the boudoir’s ceiling and the red of her duke’s face as he claims her mouth. Pain clarifies better than pleasure, so he bites when she doesn’t immediately open to the press of his tongue.
She raises her hand, sliding it back into his hair. There’s no point trying to control him in these moods, but it is possible to guide him. Joi shifts, pulling his weight over her more evening, adjusting him within the circle of her thighs. Raphael's edges soften just enough. She will not turn him away, won't fight. She answered his call, and the air shifted.
He has control; she’s with him.
The Archduke presses nearer, the hard planes of his body threatening to bruise as he erases the sliver of light between them, driving her into the mattress. She is dizzy when he finally breaks for air, tagging his lips across her cheek, down to the hollow of her throat. The sorceress swallows, fighting to find her voice, rough for exhaustion and arousal. Joi brushes a wild curl of hair from his forehead.
“Raphael?” He pauses, lifting his head to look at her. Sleep lingers in his eyes, too, dulls the glow of hellfire. It’s a look she thinks she will never grow to love: lost, less than himself, separated. In such moments, Raphael seems a boy in her arms, not a king, petulant and lashing out at the world, breaking his toys to feel in control. Joi strokes his cheek, sweeping her fingers up and along the shell of his ear. “My duke.”
His brow furrows, tongue flicking out to wet his lower lip. It is the strangest thing to feel the emotion roiling off him: lust belongs to Joi's kin; she feels it most strongly. It is married to other emotions, sicklier, coursing below the surface like a poison, a coiled snake. She sifts through them carefully, moving each layer aside in time with the fingers stroking through his hair. Joi manages to pluck a concept from the maelstrom of his thought, the nexus of this fresh hurt.
Loss of power, self, and status: he is a little thing in his dreams. And there is another quieter voice, asking its maddening question on loop: Do devil’s dream?
And the answer is: no.
So the question shifts, a second verse in his song: you dream, little prince. So, what are you? Less than a devil, more than mortal, and the loop and the loss begin again. Raphael dips his head, mouthing at her shoulder. His tongue finds the line of her clavicle, following it inwards towards her sternum, towards the steady thrum of her heartbeat. He lingers here, face pressed between her breasts, listening for something. Whatever it is, she cannot find it in the fog.
His left hand skates up the outside of her thigh, hooking it over his hips. Joi makes a little noise of protest, nails pressing into his shoulders as she adjusts herself to make room. She sighs softly, rocking her hips, letting the muscles in her hips and legs slacken. It’s easier than she’d like to admit. He’s warm, and his weight is as familiar as breathing.
He moves his hand between their bodies, touching her, opening her. The sorceress hisses, forcing herself to stay still. Frenzied as he is, he knows better than to try and press inside; the blunt edge of his claw presses to her clit, replaced by the pad of one finger. The angles are wrong; he’s twisting his wrist in a way that can’t be comfortable, but it never matters when he is like this. He needs to touch, cover, and encompass her. He demands her everything.
She sometimes thinks that she would find it comical if it wasn’t so tragic. Raphael demands what she would give freely. Her devil comes to her in a flurry of movement, and she wants to soothe him, to help. He longs to fight and conquer, but the gates are open, her surrender tendered.
She focuses on the feeling of him, threading the sensation back into his emotions. In a moment, it will be impossible to maintain her concentration well enough to crawl inside his head; for now, she does all she can.
Do devils dream? And the answer is no.
But he is greater than a devil; the sorceress claws the uglier mantra away, replacing it with her own, breathy and earnest. Raphael has transcended his limits. His dreams might be prophecy or promise, and they are beyond his infernal ken. The devil growls, shifting enough to suckle at her breasts. Not long, he has little patience in these moods, only enough to leave her panting under him, enough to suck a bruise where the fabric of her robe will hide it.
Not a Duke; he will be more. A king.
Raphael’s tail thrashes behind him, wings fluttering. The edges scrape the sheets, buffet a gust of warm arm around them. She chews the inside of her cheek, fighting to hold onto the connection. There’s a fuzziness around the edges, hazy with pleasure. She claws it back just long enough. Raphael leads himself to her entrance. There’s pressure and resistance, no matter how wet she is; the devil shudders, canting his hips to push inside.
She feeds him her pleasure, warmth, and affection beyond the comprehension of the Hells' lesser denizens. The duchess winds her arms around him, groaning and full. Raphael stills, head sagging against her shoulder. Warm and shuddering, she strokes his back, swiping the rest of the nightmare aside. Her king, the hells are his; she is his.
“That’s enough,” he chuckles, nose tweaked against the rise of her breast. “You’ve made your point, pet.”
Joi snickers, letting the connection fall, clutching at him. The devil shifts again, moving her as he needs before fucking into her, shallow strokes opening her for him until he can finally seat himself entirely. It’s always different from their usual play, quieter. He’s always vocal, and tonight there’s nothing. A stray grunt when she clutches at him or a hiss at the bite of her nails. Raphael’s eyes are shut, mouth pulled back as a snarl as he works them higher.
Still far away. It’s easier to rock with him, to breathe and move, pressing kisses to the crown of his skull, touching where she can. Whispering to him in High infernal, his language, the language he’s so painstakingly instructed her in over centuries of life. They move together with practiced ease, Raphael building them towards the frantic pace he needs.
The pleasure builds to a fever pitch. Joi arches beneath him, her left palm pressed against his shoulder. His name is stuck on the tip of her tongue, breaking somewhere after the first syllable, and the sounds jars something free in his head.
The devil looks at her. Blinks. He stills, buried to the hilt, as she flutters around him, perched on the edge, waiting to tumble over. Sweat tracks lazily down the angular pains of his face, etching deeper streaks of red across his skin. He’s handsome and wild, and there’s so little of the man she’s come to love in his eyes. Joi traces his lower lip with her thumb. His tongue flicks out to taste her skin, heat flaring in his eyes. No challenge, not rage, something else; strange, and golden, and ephemeral.
She’s burning, pinned under his weight and stare. He’s waiting, puzzled and expectant. The Archduke hips his head as if to kiss her, pausing near enough for his breath to gust across her skin. He growls something in the language of his courts, musical, before dipping into a rougher pitch. The exact translation is impossible. The nearest she can manage is this: Name me.
“Raphael,” mumbled against his lips. “Archduke of Avernus.”
“A perfunctory offering, pet. Again.”
She hitches her legs higher around him, shifting her hips to take him deeper. The devil purrs, rolling his hips lazily. “My duke.”
A harder thrust. “Better. Again.”
Raphael is too close; her lungs are burning. Joi chews the inside of her cheek, fingers curling at the nape of his neck. He’s too close; she leads him closer. The sorceress presses her forehead to his. Forces him to see her; Raphael smirks.
“Come now,” he licks her lips, voice low. Raphael stills again, breaking their lazy rhythm, “I’m waiting.”
“My heart?”
He snorts. “A question, is it?”
And it’s obvious what he wants, what he needs, to feel in control, to own her with absolute certainty. High Infernal lacks a word for the concept; the nearest the devils come is lust or possession. Joi speaks in Common, a whisper against the shell of his ear, a secret shared between them. “My love.”
He thrusts into her hard enough to hurt, just once, before he wrestles his control back. “Ill-advised, mouse.” He kisses her again, swallowing what little air she has left. “Mine.”
They move together with a familiar ease. The sorceress tracks her lips across his face, pressing them to his forehead as he works them higher. It’s soft, too damnably soft for the hells, but Asmodeus himself will not strip her of this moment; they have earned it. He’s warm, so warm, feels so good inside her; feels like she’s whole, his, one…
She comes apart with a soft cry, almost startled, stars flashing behind her eyes. The weight of the moment presses down; she’s left to look at him, actually look at her devil, and it’s too much. She clings to him, aftershocks rocking her, clutching him. The want is still there, threatening to choke her. All she can do is chant at him, beg him to come for her. Please, please, let her feel him. The devil’s grip becomes painful, pace stuttering until he finally breaks. Raphael releases a shuddering breath, groaning into the overheated air as he spills inside her.
No breath left in her lungs. Raphael drags a kiss from the corner of her mouth to the curve of her jaw, down the column of her throat. The devil tucks himself there like some great cat, arms a vice as they slide around her.
He makes no effort to move; Joi voices no protest. He’s too heavy for this, and she will ache in the morning, but she has no desire to lose his weight over her or the feeling of him inside. Joi hums. It’s the simplest, most natural thing to stroke his hair and smooth it back into a mimicry of order before teasing it loose again.
And eventually, her devil sleeps.