if i killed someone for you - garnetcoloredsky (2024)

Shame on him for not hearing the click of his window latch, but Enver Gortash generally slept quite soundly in his private rooms. It was several stories off the ground with not a single vine or notch in the stone wall outside, not to mention he had several magical alarms set to trigger if someone found a less mundane way to hover or jump their way to his window. It should’ve been impossible to enter at all, unless the intruder felt like braving his Steel Watch bodyguards on foot.

Should’ve being the operative word. The sudden weight on his belly—along with the very sharp edge of a narrow dagger against his throat—rips him from sleep in an instant. Gortash wonders if he’s about to die until his eyes focus on the face hovering in the air above him.

“Still the dramatic sort, I see,” he says. He drops his head back onto the black silk pillow, parting his throat from the knife by a single inch. Then it follows him down. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I’ve come to kill you.”

Funny, that he should be so straightforward in speech despite preferring artistry in action. Gortash’s spies reported that the amnesiac killed in much the same way he always had: death by a thousand cuts, using blade and magic to scare his prey to death, if he didn’t skin them alive when his new companions weren’t looking. The knife against his throat has killed at least two dozen since the group set their sights on Baldur’s Gate.

“And I thought I got through to you earlier…” Gortash answers. “We had a pact to be allies once more, Chosen of Bhaal.”

“My name is Tav,” the assassin says, sharply.

Gortash stares up at him, seemingly unworried about the suddenly deeper press of steel to his throat. “I know,” he scoffs. “I named you.” There may have been another from his childhood but the cultist refused to speak it when asked, and calling him variations of Bhaal’s Chosen like his little band of freaks got tiring quickly.

Tav doesn’t visibly react beyond a flick of his gaze from one of Gortash’s eyes to the other. “Really?” he says, skeptical but controlled, like he’s certain it’s a lie.

“You must like my choice, to have kept it such,” Gortash answers. It had been his to use alone, before, just one more layer of disguise for his favorite assassin. He was enough of a black-robed freak that he'd drawn too much attention even before someone called him Chosen aloud, so they needed something simple. That meant Gortash improvised and the other man never gave any indication that he used it himself.

“What else?” his captor demands, suddenly.

He always did get straight to the point... “Hm?”

“Tell me something only I would know, if we were really as close as you claim.” Tav smiles without it reaching his eyes. “And if I decide you’re lying, I’ll take your head off.”

Gortash raises his brow, dickish expression on his face. “How would you know I’m lying if you’ve lost your mem—Alright, damn you!”

Tav lightens the force on the knife again, pain receding. Gortash huffs.

It takes him a moment to think of something specific under pressure. The Chosen had been standoffish at the best of times, leaving him only the knowledge he’d seen firsthand and most of that would likely be of little help to someone who'd apparently lost memory of everything but his own name. Gortash knew Tav well, but describing the ecstatic look on his face when he removed someone's fingers wasn't easy to describe in a factual sense and Gortash wasn't much of a poet. “You’re quite fond of music.”

“Everyone knows that. Again.” Tav carried his flute on his back everywhere. Well, everywhere except here, apparently. He’d left all his gear and armor back with the others, save the dagger in his hand.

“You…don’t care for sweets?”

The assassin scoffs. “Is that a guess?”

“No, but you seemed dissatisfied with my last answer,” Gortash grumbles. “You once burned a whole tray of candies, just because I bought them for you.”

“Sounds like I didn’t like you.”

“Hard to say, sometimes.”

Gortash’s eyes have finally adjusted to the dark. He sees Tav smirk faintly, the tiniest twitch of the mouth and a pinch at the corner of his eyes. He’s genuinely humored, but it’s the sort of thing only Gortash would notice. “Again.”

Gortash stares upward for a minute to think, then back at his captor. “Your past self was a cannibal.”

Tav mulls it over before finally saying, “That’s…disgusting,” though no actual distress crosses his face. There's no surprise, either. It’s hard to say whether he believes it at all or if he's merely parroting what he's expected to say in less intimate company.

“I thought so. Accidentally drank from your goblet once and it certainly wasn’t wine.” Bhaal’s Chosen also had a habit of offering him suspiciously bloody meat every time he wandered into the palace. Sometimes he didn’t even bother to take the skin off.

Tav co*cks his head. “But you’re fine with it now?”

“I’d drink whatever you want, if it would get you off of me.” That was only partially true. Gortash would happily obey Tav's whim, but is far from uncomfortable right now, even with a knife's edge tapping at his throat. It's almost nostalgic, though it's a shame that it's not really his Tav holding the blade...

Tav narrows his eyes, though he’s apparently decided he’s amused. “So far, you haven’t told me anything that confirms the truth of your words. All of those things could be known by anyone.”

Gortash stares at him and chews the inside of his lower lip like he weighing the outcome of his next words. He decides that it’s worth it. “Fine. You have three spots…here…” His hand leaves its place beside Tav’s knee to slowly glide up the top of his thigh, thumb pressing on the inside of the muscle near his groin. Three freckles, two close together and a third almost lost in the crease of muscle and skin. Only someone who’d seen Tav with his trousers off would know of them, and even then, they’d have to be quite close.

Luckily, his touch isn’t met with immediate violence. Tav hums. “Rather intimate knowledge for a friend.”

“I never said we were friends.” His voice is without scorn when he says this, and his eyes are intensely focused on Tav’s face. The hand on Tav’s leg doesn’t move.

“Then what were we?” Heat nips at the back of Tav’s knuckles, like the appendages themselves were itching to move, to maim.

Gortash’s heart jolts hard for the second time, having calmed earlier as soon as he realized the threat astride his hips was one so familiar. “You really want me to spell it out?”

“I’m still happy to kill you, if that’s easier. I’ve had lots of people to practice on lately.” People, goblins, beasts, myconids, various dead things, and the odd pickpocket…The Urge rankles at the memories, quietly enticing him to add one more person to the list.

Gortash sighs. “Tempting,” he says, but again, he seems to be calculating whether it’s worse to lie or speak the truth to the madman holding a knife to his throat. Really, what’s the worse that could happen? He uses it? There are far worse outcomes than death at such a beloved hand, even if it remains amnesiac. “But fine, you were…” Hm, but he’s never had to properly label their relationship before. Most of his options seem far too complicated: partner—though accurate, in that they were two halves of a single plan—implied overmuch, while lover didn’t seem sufficient. He settles for a repeat of his earlier expression. “…are…my dearest.”

Tav stares. For a moment, his eyes seem to flash brighter in the moonlight. Then he moves, faster than a snake striking, growling and slashing his weapon away from Gortash’s throat. A sharp sting follows.

But the pain is not enough. No steaming blood gushes from the wound and Gortash, though he jumped against his will at the apparent attack, is still very much alive.

Tav grins, apparent fury fading as quickly as it arose. “Had you, didn’t I?”

“What the f*ck is wrong with you?” Gortash snaps, exasperated. He touches his fingertips to his throat where, instead of a gaping wound, there is only a thin and stinging line of sticky blood. It’s barely more than a scratch.

The Bhaalist on his lap tips forward with sudden, unexpected familiarity, and laves his tongue over where Gortash’s bloody fingers touch his own neck. “Enver…”

Understanding dawns on him like a dunk into freezing water. “You bastard—” Gortash bucks him off, flipping their places to trap Tav against the bed instead. The assassin—much stronger, almost supernaturally so—gives him only a cursory fight, tangling the blankets, but lets him win after only a few seconds. He ends up on the opposite pillow, grinning like a fox with Gortash’s hand around his throat. “You knew the whole time!”

“Since last night,” Tav corrects. “I stole my letters out of your desk. They were uniquely informative.” There’s a smear of dark blood on his upper lip.

Still the slightest bit unsure, Gortash narrows his eyes. “But it’s you?”

“Hazy on the details, but yes. All me,” Tav says. The humor leaves, and an unexpected softness fills what should’ve been a dead expression. “I remembered you, Enver.”

That seems to break Gortash’s lingering hesitance. He moves without thinking, even knowing that Tav could still very much stab him for touching so suddenly but also not caring, because he must kiss him. They come together like an avalanche. His lover bites and the tiny dot of his own blood Gortash tastes at first becomes overwhelming, the gnarled flesh of his lower lip stinging and coppery.

The knife slips from Tav’s hand and off the mattress’s edge, hitting the plush rug with a dull thud.

They break too quickly, because while Gortash is now convinced of his most trusted assassin’s memory returning, he still has nasty, sour feelings bubbling in his gut. Things have changed, even if Tav seems whole and hale again. “And what of your…companions?” (One of them had spent their entire reunion glancing at the back of Tav’s head like the words of the gods were written amid the strands of his hair. It made Gortash want to defenestrate them.)

“Your revelations were unpopular, to say the least.” Tav licks his lips thoughtfully, chasing the taste of Gortash’s blood. “And I don’t think there’s ever going to be a good time to unmask the specifics now that I remember them, so I suppose my options are to feign ignorance forever or…”

Come back, Gortash finishes. Continue like nothing happened, finish the plan.

It’s certainly presumptuous to assume which path will be Tav’s choice, but he hopes that he knows the assassin by now, even in this new form. He’ll choose the plan, choose them. Gortash is sure of it.

Still, he finds himself wanting to tip the scales in his favor, just to be certain. “I imagine they’re all disgusted by the truth of you,” Gortash says. Somehow it sounds both cruel and perfectly sympathetic.

After a thoughtful pause, Tav sighs.

Gortash kisses him, filthy but short, pulling away just as quickly to growl against his lover’s mouth. “Their loss is my gain, but all the same—” His hand knots in Tav’s hair. “I’ll have them all killed for you.”

For him? Ha! The knot of melancholy in Tav's chest unravels just slightly at Gortash’s obvious jealousy.

“I’m going to do it, when the time is right,” Tav answers. He knows the truth of himself now, but there’s a lingering hesitancy where before there had been nothing. Slaughtering any of his camp seems…premature.

His lover’s expression colors with doubt, insultingly gentle. “You’ve been away for too long, my dear.”

An unexpected snarl sparks in Tav’s throat. “Jealousy is unbecoming,” he snaps, all at once realizing that he’s foolishly bared his belly like a pet.

It takes him less than a second to reassert himself, hooking his leg around the back of Gortash’s knee and flipping their positions once more. His Banite lover thumps against the mattress with a grunt. (Lucky for him, it’s a large bed, or else Tav would’ve tipped him onto the floor…) “And you would do well not to doubt me, or I’ll decide your time is now.”

He has no dagger now, though his bare hands are weapon enough. Tav’s sitting on him again and the heels of his palms are braced on Gortash’s collarbones. A single press down with his weight would break them like brittle firewood. Then there’s his fingers: the nails are blunt by necessity, but he has the strength to rip through the soft flesh of the tyrant’s throat, baring vein and tendon by sheer force of will.

Enver smiles. “Well, at least you haven’t lost all your edge.”

“f*ck you.” Show him the edge. Pare his skin open with a knife from neck to ankles, peeling him like a beast for leather, leaving Lord Enver Gortash raw and red and bleeding—

The mockery turns a little silkier and somehow even more smug. “I’d prefer the reverse, but whatever suits my beloved’s whims…”

Dearest, beloved, sweetling…soothing words for little girls in fairy stories, for the idiots who buy into Gortash’s lies because they want to believe them. Tav has never believed them. Even knowing the truth—that Enver actually wasn’t lying when he fed him such honeyed words—didn’t help, because then the softness of such phrases fell on Tav’s soul like the stroke of a whip. It was easier to think they were a lie. The only concession to informality was Enver’s name and the rare insistence that the other man belonged to him. The ambiguity tempered the blasphemy, somewhat. Enver was his, his to bed and to keep, and then his to kill, someday.