Chapter 5: History Lesson
The distant chime of the doorbell echoed through Shoto’s cavernous living room, a stark contrast to the muffled bass still thrumming in Dabi’s bones. He winced, shifting on the sleek, uncomfortable modernist sofa. Every muscle, every tendon, felt stretched, bruised, and deliciously used. A phantom ache pulsed deep inside him, a visceral reminder of Dante’s relentless possession, the tearing silk restraints, the sheer, terrifying power barely leashed beneath satin cords. He traced the faint, crescent-shaped marks on his hip – Dante’s fingerprints – with a strange mix of apprehension and illicit thrill.
Hawks let himself in, wings tucked neatly, radiating his usual effortless swagger. He tossed a bag of takeout onto the chrome coffee table, his sharp eyes immediately scanning Dabi, lingering on the dark smudges beneath his eyes, the slight stiffness in his posture, the subtle flush that hadn’t quite faded from his neck. "Rough night?" Hawks asked, a knowing smirk playing on his lips as he dropped onto the sofa opposite. He popped open a container, the scent of spicy noodles filling the air.
Dabi grunted, reaching for a bottle of water Shoto kept stocked in the minimalist fridge behind him. "Something like that." He took a long swig, the cool liquid a temporary balm. The image of Dante, sweat-slicked and roaring beneath him, then pinning him with ancient, furious eyes, flashed behind his lids. Your turn to lie still, pretty boy.
Hawks slurped noodles, watching him with unnerving focus. "Club was packed last night. Saw you vanish upstairs with the big boss again." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "What's his name again? Dante... something?"
"Dante," Dabi confirmed, his voice flat. He wasn't in the mood for Hawks' usual brand of teasing.
Hawks chewed thoughtfully. "Morningstar, right?"
Dabi paused, the water bottle halfway to his lips. He frowned. "I don't know. Maybe? Didn't exactly exchange surnames." He thought back. Dante had introduced himself only by his first name, with that arrogant tilt of his chin that suggested anything more was redundant.
Hawks stopped eating. He lowered his chopsticks, staring at Dabi with an unnerving stillness. "You don't know."
"Know what?" Dabi snapped, irritation flaring. The phantom ache intensified, a weird counterpoint to Hawks' suddenly serious expression.
Hawks leaned forward, his voice dropping, losing its usual playful edge. "Dabi. The club. The Inferno Club. Who the fuck do you think owns it?"
Dabi stared back, a prickle of unease starting at the base of his spine. "Dante owns it. So fucking what? Guy runs a nightclub. Big deal." He tried for nonchalance, but it sounded brittle. Dante wasn't just a club owner. The sheer, unnatural power radiating off him, the palpable sense of ancient awareness in his gaze, the way he’d torn silk like paper... that wasn't normal.
Hawks let out a low whistle, shaking his head slowly. A flicker of something that looked almost like pity crossed his features. "Shit. You really don't know who you've been sleeping with."
The unease solidified into a cold stone in Dabi's gut. He slammed the water bottle down on the glass table. "Will you stop talking in fucking riddles?!" The sound echoed sharply in the pristine room. "Know what? Spit it out, birdbrain, or fuck off."
The silence after Dabi’s shout hung thick and sharp as broken glass. Hawks didn't flinch. He just stared, those unnervingly keen eyes dissecting Dabi’s simmering anger and the raw vulnerability beneath it. "Dante," Hawks said, the name dropping like a stone into the quiet, "fucking Morningstar."
Dabi blinked, the word echoing strangely. "Morningstar? Like... the club?"
"The Morningstar," Hawks corrected, his voice low and devoid of its usual mocking lilt. He leaned forward, elbows on knees, wings rustling softly. "Lucifer’s firstborn son. His right hand. Ran Hell’s fucking army back in the fucking day." He paused, letting the impossible weight of it land. "Head of torture. Head of killing. Anyone his freaky-ass father didn’t wanna dirty his own claws with? Dante handled it. Which, let’s be real, was basically everyone."
Dabi sat frozen, the cold water bottle slick in his suddenly numb hand. Disbelief warred violently with a horrifying sense of rightness. The ancient, heavy energy that poured off Dante, thick enough to choke on. The way he moved, a contained storm of impossible strength. The sheer, frightening power barely leashed when Dabi had him bound. All of it. His stomach clenched. "Bullshit," he rasped, the word weak even to his own ears.
"Wish it was, hotstuff," Hawks replied, his gaze unflinching. He picked at the label on his water bottle. "Dante grew a conscience. Told Daddy Dearest he was done. Wanted out of the family business." A humorless smirk touched his lips. "Lucifer, being the charming bastard he is, said 'Sure, son, fine.' Total fucking lie. The furthest thing from fine."
Hawks’ voice turned flatter, colder. "Lucifer, Damien – that’s another brother, real piece of work – and Balial... they dragged Dante deep into the Pit. Kept him weak. Tore into him for fuck knows how long." He took a deliberate breath. "Then they brought in Azazel. Dante’s first love. Stunning angel." Hawks’ knuckles whitened on the bottle. "They made Dante watch. Ripped Azazel’s wings out. Slow. Agonizingly slow. Tortured him to death right in front of him."
Dabi felt a cold sweat break out on his neck. The phantom ache deep inside him, where Dante had been buried so brutally, flared with sickening intensity. He remembered the raw, guttural roar when Dante came, the terrifying possessiveness. He couldn’t breathe.
"They weren’t finished," Hawks continued, the words like shards of ice. "Brought in Dante’s sons next. Seraphine and Zephaniel. Kids." He looked directly into Dabi’s eyes. "Balial went for Sera first. Zeph threw himself in the way. Took the blow. Died instantly." Hawks paused, his own expression tight. "Sera… scared shitless. Tried to fly away. Balial impaled him. Mid-air." Hawks’ voice dropped to a near whisper. "People who were there… they say Sera was screaming for his dad. Asking Dante to make it stop. To help him."
The sleek lines of Shoto’s living room seemed to warp. Dabi’s vision tunneled. He saw Dante’s eyes, ancient and burning, the flicker of something terrifying and broken beneath the lust and fury. That broke Dante more.
"Dante snapped," Hawks said, the words heavy with finality. "Found his true power. The True Form. Pure fucking nightmare. Made his own Inferno. Locked Balial inside it." A harsh laugh escaped him. "Damien and Lucifer ran like hellhounds were on their asses. Dante tried… fuck, he tried so hard to save Seraphine. Kid died in his arms." Hawks paused, the silence screaming louder than words. "Then he tried to bring them back. Azazel, his boys. Failed."
Hawks finally met Dabi’s gaze again, his expression grim. "He snapped. Went ballistic. For centuries. Destroyed worlds. Millions dead. Just… ash." He shifted. "His other siblings – KJ, Vincent, Xavier, Sapphire – they fought him. Got him weak, finally. Vincent got through. Told him to wake the fuck up. Said his family wouldn’t want this. That it was the exact shit Dante tried to escape. How’d he think they’d feel, watching him become Lucifer?"
Dabi felt the sofa tilt beneath him. He remembered the look in Dante’s eyes when he’d said ‘Your turn to lie still, pretty boy.’ Not just lust. Not just anger. Centuries of grief and madness held by a fraying thread.
"Dante collapsed. Fell back to his human form. Wrecked." Hawks drained his water, the plastic crunching. "They caged him. Something that suppressed his power. Kept him locked down until they were damn sure he wouldn’t tear reality apart again."
The silence that followed was absolute. The hum of the fridge, the distant city noise – it all vanished. Dabi sat rigid. Every bruise Dante had left – the grip marks on his hips, the ache deep in his core, the tender flesh of his throat – suddenly burned with terrifying new meaning. He wasn’t just tangled with a dangerous club owner. He’d been pinned beneath the millennia-old grief and barely contained fury of Hell’s lost Prince. The phantom sensation of Dante’s seed, hot and thick inside him, felt like a brand.
He pushed himself off the sofa, the movement jerky, needing distance. He backed towards the expansive window overlooking the city, the sleek glass cool against his knuckles as he gripped the frame. The world outside seemed impossibly bright, impossibly mundane. He stared out, unseeing.
The man who’d torn silk like paper, who roared like a damned god when Dabi took him deep… was the architect of apocalypses. The man who’d looked at him with that ancient, consuming fire… was broken by the screams of his dying children. Dabi’s stomach heaved. He pressed his forehead against the cold glass, the phantom ache between his legs twisting into something like terror.
The city lights blurred below, smearing into streaks of garish color against the deepening twilight. Dabi pressed his forehead harder against the cold glass, the phantom ache deep in his gut twisting into a sharp, cold terror that had nothing to do with pleasure. The memory of Dante’s broken roar, his ancient eyes burning with fury and something shattered, slammed into him alongside Hawks’ words: screaming for his dad… died in his arms… destroyed worlds… millions dead.
Behind him, the rustle of wings and the soft clink of chopsticks resumed. Hawks watched him, the earlier intensity replaced by a weary understanding. "Heavy shit, huh?" he said, his voice deliberately casual, cutting through the suffocating silence. "Takes a minute to swallow."
Dabi didn’t turn. His knuckles were white where they gripped the window frame. "Why tell me?" he rasped, the words scraping his throat raw. "Why now?" The image of Dante, powerful and vulnerable beneath him, bound by silk he could obliterate in an instant, warred violently with the picture of a grief-maddened god raining fire on existence. The man who’d filled him, claimed him, felt terrifyingly alien now.
"Seemed like you deserved to know who you were riding bareback," Hawks replied, a hint of his usual dry humor returning, though it lacked its usual bite. He stood, stretching his wings slightly, the red feathers catching the low light. "And honestly? Because he won’t tell you. Ever. Dante… he carries that shit like a fucking mountain. Doesn’t talk about it. Doesn’t let anyone close enough to see it anymore." Hawks walked over, stopping a few feet from Dabi’s rigid back. "But you… you’re already tangled up in it."
Dabi finally turned, leaning back against the cool glass, facing Hawks. His face was pale, eyes wide with a storm of confusion and dread. "Tangled? Hawks, you just described… a monster. A fucking… demon prince who snapped and burned worlds because his kids died! How the fuck is that not the definition of bad?!" His voice rose, edged with panic he couldn’t suppress. The scent of Dante’s skin, the feel of his power vibrating through him – it all felt like a trap now, laced with unimaginable darkness.
Hawks held his gaze, unflinching. "Yeah," he said simply. "He was. Got his ass royally kicked by his own siblings for it, got locked down tight. That was centuries ago, Dabi." He took a step closer, his expression serious. "Look, I’m not saying what he did wasn’t fucked up beyond belief. It was. Apocalyptically fucked up. But the Dante you know? The one who runs the Inferno? Who lets a mouthy little shit like you tie him to his own bedspread?"
Hawks paused, letting the absurdity of that image sink in against the backdrop of apocalypse. "He’s not that rage-monster anymore. He’s contained. Lucifer’s locked out, last I heard. Dante’s… trying. Runs his club. Keeps the real nasty shit out of the city, mostly." He shrugged, a surprisingly human gesture. "Got that ancient fire still burning inside him, sure. You felt it. But it’s banked. For now."
He leaned against the arm of the nearby sofa, crossing his arms. "Point is, you hooking up with him? Or," Hawks’ eyes sharpened slightly, "if you’ve actually caught feelings for the walking disaster that is Dante Morningstar? It’s not exactly a bad thing. Not anymore. Dude’s been through hell – literally – and clawed his way back to some semblance of… functioning." Hawks offered a faint, almost apologetic smile. "He’s contained. Mostly."
Dabi stared at him, the cold terror warring with a sickening pull he couldn't deny. Contained. Mostly. The words echoed in the hollow space Hawks' revelations had carved inside him. The phantom ache flared, a traitorous pulse deep in his core where Dante had been buried so completely. He saw Dante's eyes again, not just the ancient fury, but the raw vulnerability in the moment before he took control back – the flicker of something desperate beneath the possession. Your turn to lie still, pretty boy. Was that the contained fire? Or the edge of the abyss?
He pushed away from the window, the movement unsteady. "Mostly contained?" Dabi echoed, his voice rough. He strode past Hawks, heading towards the grand staircase leading up to Shoto's private quarters. He needed space. He needed to think without the weight of Hawks' knowing gaze. "That's supposed to make me feel better? 'Mostly'?" He didn't look back, the polished marble steps cool beneath his bare feet.
Hawks watched him go, a sigh escaping him. "Would you rather he was still unhinged?" he called after Dabi's retreating back. The question hung unanswered in the cavernous room as Dabi disappeared upstairs, the silence settling back, thick with the echo of impossible truths and the lingering, visceral ghost of Dante Morningstar’s touch.