30. Dagon
Chapter thirty
Dagon
What we did in the bathroom was wild, and my skin still burned with desire for more. Submitting to Diablos, letting him ride my face and grip my horns felt divine. But him submitting to me? On his knees, letting me mark him with my cum? That sent my demon into a frenzy.
I wasn’t joking when I warned Diablos, but I also couldn’t deny the fire in his eyes, the mirrored need I saw there.
Diablos didn't just submit to me. He showed me he can handle my darkness, my obsession, my devotion. Even though I didn't give him a chance to say it out loud, I saw it in his eyes – the complete acceptance of me, the rawness of his love, the same hunger I felt within. I saw it and I felt it all.
I'm never letting go of him. Not of what we have. Not of what we're slowly, day by day, building together.
I helped him out of the shower. His legs were still unsteady, his pulse still beating fast under my fingers when I dried his hair.
I watched him from the corner of my eye.
Watched for the moment he might flinch from me.
Might look at the bruises forming on his wrists and remember what I had done with them.
Might step back and realize the man who had just used him was not, in fact, the safer version of me he had been allowed to love before.
He didn't flinch.
He met my eyes in the mirror and smiled. A loose, drowsy, well-fucked smile. Then he turned to me, kissed the inside of my wrist and said, "Stop watching me like I'm going to break."
"I'm not."
"You are."
I was. He knew. He always knew.
He kissed me one more time, softer than anything we'd done in the last hour, and reached for his clothes.
For the first time since I was twenty-one years old, I felt something I had no name for. Not joy. Joy was too clean. Not relief. Relief was too short. Something closer to rest. Like I had been holding a heavy thing for years and someone had finally come and taken half the weight.
He had seen me. The real me. The dark thing. And he had not asked me to be smaller.
I followed him downstairs to the kitchen since we were hungry. Even in the kitchen, I couldn’t keep my hands off him. He huffed when I clung to him as he chopped vegetables, but he didn’t complain.
However, when he finished, I noticed the way he bit his lip and fidgeted with his hands. I sensed the change in his mood. He was suddenly nervous, and I didn’t like it.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing. Everything’s fine.”
I placed my hands on his hips and gently turned him to face me. My palm brushed his cheek.
“Don’t lie to me, Diablos. You can tell me anything.”
He searched my eyes, and I gave him the time and space. After a sigh, he wrapped his arms around me and buried his head in my chest. “Let’s eat, and after that, I'd like us to speak. Is that okay?”
“Of course.”
The vulnerability in his gaze nearly broke me. I wanted to scoop him into my arms and shield him from everything. But I waited.
Dinner was ready, and all I had to do was bring the water. We ate mostly in silence. I could see Di deep in thought. I kept watching him, trying to figure out what was wrong.
Had I been too rough with him earlier? Was he second-guessing us? Was he worried about the demons?
“Thank you for dinner. It was delicious. I didn’t know you could cook like this.”
I shrugged. “I learned.”
“Demons taste food like humans, right?”
Chuckling, I took his hand and guided him toward the couch, “Yes, we do. Though it depends on the kind of demon.”
“I don’t want to know what the others eat.”
“For the better,” I snorted, laughing with him as he wrinkled his nose.
We sat together, and I wrapped him in my arms. Caressing his arm with one hand and playing with his hair with the other, I felt him gradually relax under my touch. I didn’t rush him. I'd wait however long he needed.
“You shared your life with me, and…" he whispered, "and I guess I want to do the same. As you know, I was adopted at seventeen. I'd been in the foster system since I was fifteen. I didn’t like talking about the time before, and I’m grateful none of you pushed me to.”
He paused. I kissed his head and said, “I don’t know what it’s like to be in the system. I wandered the surface for a long time before King found me. I was behind in school. I didn’t talk about my past, either, so I get it.”
He looked hesitant again, so I offered something in return.
“I never shared with any of you how I met King.”
“We figured it was the same as the rest of us.”
“No, it wasn’t. I tried to steal from him.”
“What?” the shock in his voice was cute.
The memory ached, but I laughed at the absurdity of that time.
“No idea what possessed me to target the wealthy man in a suit sitting alone in a park.”
“Maybe because he looked wealthy?” Di teased.
“You're probably right.” I smiled but then sobered. “Anyway, he caught me, of course, and he sat me down for a long chat."
“The stern father chat?”
“Exactly. Not that I knew what that was back then.”
That moment, when King asked if I'd like to come with him, be part of the Hughes family, I'd never forget it. He wasn't the only reason I said yes, though he mattered. What truly convinced me was when he said I'd have brothers.
Losing my brother left a wound nothing could heal. No one could replace him. But hell, I'd craved family. Even if, as a demon, I wasn't supposed to want one.
I told Di all of this. He kissed my neck and held me close, no words needed. His arms around me were everything.
He is my light. And the reason I could face the dark.
“I love you, Dagon. I love you as the brother you used to be. I love you as family. As my man. I love you as my demon, and everything you are.”
“And I love you, Diablos. All of you. I’m not so good with words and expressing my emotions as you are, but one day, I'll show you just how much you mean to me.”
His breath hitched. His fingers curled into my shirt.
“You don’t know all of me, my sweet demon.”
“I want to. I may not know everything, but I feel all of you. And I love every single part.”
“I have OCD,” he blurted.
My fingers stilled in his hair, and I felt like the air was sucked out of the room. Diablos’s heart was beating hectically. He tried to push away from me, but I grabbed his waist and kept him pinned to me.
“Look at me, Di,” I said softly, not wanting to scare him.
He shook his head. I gently took his face in my hands and guided his gaze to mine. The frightened expression, the pure fear and shame in his eyes, broke my heart.
I had a hundred questions. I felt every one of them rise in my throat – when did it start, why didn't I see it, how long have you been carrying this, what have I missed – and I swallowed every single one.
He hadn't told me this so I could ask hard questions.
He had told me because he wanted me to see this part of him, to know. He was also terrified of how I'd react.
The questions could wait. They were mine. He didn't owe me answers tonight.
"It doesn't change anything," I said again. "You hear me? Nothing about you just got smaller in my eyes."
"I'm sorry," he rasped.
"No. Don't. Don't apologize for this. You don't owe me an apology for who you are."
The last thing I wanted was to make him feel guilty.
When he didn't say anything I continued, “You don't have to answer now. I just want you to know one thing.”
“What?” His voice was fragile. Barely there.
“I’m here for you. I love you so much that words pale compared to what’s inside my heart.”
I took his hand and pressed it to my chest.
“This heart beats for you. For all of you. All of your light and all of your darkness. I don’t want to love just the parts you show to the world.
I want to dive into the darkest depths and be there for you.
I want the shadows, the depths, the horrors, everything.
And whatever you want me to know, I'll learn at the pace you give me. Not faster.”
“You’re already in, Dagon,” he said with a wavering voice. “I want to be there for you, too. I want you to see all of me.”
“I do see you, love. I see a man who grew up to be incredible. A brave soul who survived hell and didn’t let it harden him. I see a man who’s strong, but also gentle. You struggled in the darkness all alone, but you made it. I see a man who is a hero.”
“I don’t feel like a hero. I feel broken… like a fraud.”
I held him tighter.
“It’s okay to feel like that. But you're not alone anymore. You’ll never again struggle alone in the dark. I've got you, and I always will. I promise you, Di.”
“I-” he started but stopped to take several deep breaths. “I don’t know when it started or how. I didn’t even know what OCD was for a long time. I just… have these intrusive thoughts that something terrible will happen to someone I love, or that I'll cause it.”
I knew a bit about mental health, thanks to Andras, but I needed to listen, not ask.
“After the thoughts start, I feel like I have to do something to prevent it. Like I have to neutralize the thought somehow. Usually, it’s a compulsion to do things four, six, or seven times.
I like the number four for some reason. I don’t connect it with anything in particular.
But, I connect six and seven with our family. ”
“Our family?”
“You, Bren, Andras, Wild, Luc, and me. Six. If I add King, it's seven. If I do the compulsion the right amount of times, then none of you will die or get hurt.”
His words gutted me. I didn't know how to respond at first. I knew the fear of losing people, but not like this. Not every day. I didn’t live with it constantly, every day, with intrusive thoughts attacking my mind. And not wrapped in invisible or visible compulsions to keep loved ones safe.
I couldn’t imagine what it was like.
“Then there are also the right things." Di continued. "Like if I put my cup down, I have to position it right. It has to feel right in my mind, or I can’t move on.”
After inhaling deeply, he said, “Most of it is in my head. Invisible. And all my life… I've felt like a monster because of these thoughts that I have.”
“You’re not a monster! Fuck, Diablos, you’re anything but.”
This belief he had isn't true. It's something he internalized because of the OCD and trauma, not because of who he is. But it doesn't change how real it feels for him. How he can't distinguish between who he is and the intrusive thoughts that make him feel like a monster.
He broke hearing my words.
The sobs hit hard and fast. I held him close as my own tears fell. Everything I said was true, and I would do everything in my power and beyond to prove it to him.
His demons may not have physical form, but I would stand by him every damn day as he faced them. If I could, I'd slay them all. But some battles have to be fought from within.
Still, that didn't mean he had to do it alone. It didn’t mean he had to fight them wrapped in darkness, feeling like a monster and unworthy of someone standing in the dark with him.
“I’ll always be here. Always,” I vowed in a whisper.
“Always,” he vowed after me, too.
We stayed wrapped in each other through the night. We spoke more after he calmed down and he shared more about his family.
He grew up in a house of chaos. He lived with his father and uncle, both of whom were alcoholics. His father raised his voice all the time and was like a ticking bomb, and his mother left when he was a baby. His father named him Diablos because he saw him as the demon he had never wanted.
My blood boiled hotter than the flames of Hell when I heard that. Now it made sense why he always preferred us to call him Di. But he assured me he started to love hearing his full name when it was me speaking it. Something about the way I said it.
An accident took the life of his father. His uncle couldn’t bother with Diablos and gave him up for adoption. I was grinding my teeth, barely holding the leash on my powers. I wanted to rage, to destroy those who hurt him as a child. I wanted to inflict greater pain than they’d ever known.
I made a silent vow to myself. No one would ever hurt him like that again. No one would raise their voice or make him feel cornered. I would rather die than allow him to feel even an ounce of the emotions he felt as a kid.
He told me more about his OCD and intrusive thoughts, too.
He explained that almost everything was internal.
Rarely could someone see the compulsions, like how many times he took a sip, for example.
Or that earlier, when he was cutting the vegetables, he had had the intrusive thought of plunging the knife into my stomach.
He looked so ashamed when he said that. He pulled his hand from mine and wrapped his arms around himself, like he was bracing for me to recoil.
I didn't recoil.
I knew enough about OCD from Andras to understand: an intrusive thought is not a wish.
It's a fear. The brain that loves the hardest is the brain that hands you the worst images and nightmares – here is the thing you could lose, here is how you would lose it, here is the thing you could do, what if, what if, what if – and the person living inside it has to swat the thought away a hundred times a day and still feel guilty for it landing in the first place.
He hadn't wanted to hurt me with the knife. The image had attacked him, and the attack was that his brain knew exactly what would devastate him most. That's how OCD chooses its weapons. It picks the people you love.
I gently took his face in my hands.
"Di. Listen to me carefully. The thought you had with the knife? That wasn't you wanting to hurt me. That was your brain showing you the worst thing it could think of, because I matter to you. If I didn't matter to you, your brain wouldn't have bothered. Do you understand?"
He swallowed hard. He didn't answer, but he didn't pull away either.
"You are not the thought. You are the person terrorized by the thought. There is a difference. And anyone who has told you otherwise, anyone who let you carry that shame, was wrong."
He started crying again. Quieter this time. Like something had cracked that needed to crack.
I held him through it. I would always hold him.
I shared with him a bit about my time when I came to the surface, too. I wandered the streets without direction and without desire to find one. I survived day by day and, like a ghost, moved from place to place. I was lucky I was a demon because I could survive on less food than humans could.
It was a heavy night.
But in the heaviness, something lifted. Sharing our darkest times helped shine tiny sparks of light into the dark. The light was still flickering and fragile, but I knew that as long as we were together, we could face it all. Whether in the darkness or the light.