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Kazaran wasn’t too proud to admit he’d fucked up.
He also wasn’t too proud that he wouldn’t seek help from Enver Gortash, though admittedly such a thing was low on his list of things he was willing to do. But he was alone and injured in the upper city and the idea of crawling back through the sewers to the temple to patch himself up was about as appealing an idea as saving starving orphans from a house fire.
Alas, sometimes these things can’t be helped.
As he tracked blood through Gortash’s hallways his servants scurried away at the sight of him as they typically did. A pitiful collection of cowards. Kazaran didn’t know how Gortash tolerated them, at least his followers had some backbone. Gortash enjoyed how they cowered around him, he supposed. Some kind of ridiculous Banite ego thing undoubtedly, although how the fear of cowards could be considered rewarding was beyond him.
It was late, Gortash’s most recent replaceable bodyguard retired for the evening, if he’d wanted to assassinate the man it would be almost woefully easy. Of course, Gortash had become cocky since their alliance had been forged, and then more still when they’d begun sleeping together.
Kazaran supposed having a metaphorical sign above one’s head reading “Property of Bhaal’s True Heir” had a way of making one feel invincible. Most of the deaths in the city were the Bhaalist’s doing, after all. Well, them and whatever went on in that gods-awful gothic palace at the far end of the upper city. Some other wannabe blood-god’s little pretender cult no doubt. It mattered little to him, as long as people were dying it mattered not who was doing it.
He didn’t bother knocking on the door of Gortash’s study, he simply barged in loudly, knowing that as soon as he appeared on the property one of his snivelling subordinates would have let him know he was coming. When he caught sight of a carefully preened head of black hair bowed over his desk, writing out some contract or another that probably had far too much fine print, his legs finally gave out.
“It would be ever so nice if you bothered to send a note before you visited occasionally,” Gortash said, not bothering to look up from his desk.
Kazaran laughed hollowly, kicking the door closed and flopping exhausted onto his side. His head throbbed, his bones ached, and as much as he liked blood he really did prefer to be covered in someone else’s. He pressed a hand to the oozing wound on his abdomen and hissed quietly before speaking. “I was in the area,” he said, hating how strained and weak his voice sounded, “Thought I’d pop in for some tea.”
Apparently enough that it caught Gortash’s attention, who finally looked up from his desk. It was subtle, but Kazaran caught how his eyes widened and his face fell. He’d usually revel in catching Bane’s chosen off guard but he had more pressing concerns at that moment.
“Gods below, what happened to you ?”
Kazaran laughed again at that, “It’s always nice to be doted upon by one’s lover when injured, don’t you agree?”
Gortash placed down his quill and stood, striding around his desk to stand above him. Usually Kazaran would enjoy the sight of Gortash standing over him, but he found himself rather unable to enjoy it as he usually would. “That doesn’t answer my question,” he said, frowning and rolling up his sleeves.
He walked over to a strange conical device on his wall (one of his over-complicated inventions no doubt) and barked into it, “Get me some healing potions and some bandages, quickly.” Then, as an afterthought, “And some tea. Ginger, two cups, not the fine porcelain.”
Kazaran grinned. He did ever so enjoy Gortash doting on him, in his own smarmy, shitty sort of way. He preferred that to actual doting anyway. Maybe that’s the reason he’d stumbled into the Banite’s home, just to have him fuss over his injuries rather than Sceleritas, whom he would have simply ended up driving a knife through his throat to shut up.
“I’m still waiting,” Gortash hummed, obviously addressing him now, and Kazaran sent him a withering look. He knew his I’m in charge and you will listen voice didn’t work on Kazaran, not in the way he wanted it to. He wasn’t one of the cowards he called servants, he was the purest Bhaalspawn ever to walk the realms. A dip in his tone and a hard edge to his voice was about as effective as a wagged finger. Still, he was probably due an answer regardless.
“Got caught,” he replied simply with a shrug, gingerly pushing himself back up into a sitting position.
“ And? ”
“ And , I had to fight off six Fists in heavy armour with nothing but my daggers because my magic is all but sapped,” he replied, puffing a long breath through his nostrils as his head grew light from the movement. “Fucking upper city and its fucking decent security,” he muttered, closing his eyes as his vision swam, “Just wanted to kill someone who doesn’t smell like piss for once, is that too much to fucking ask?”
“Well, it sounds as if you got the privilege of killing seven someones,” Gortash replied idly, wandering over from the device in the wall to crouch at Kazaran’s side. He hooked a finger under his chin, and Kazaran forced his eyes open. “Or am I mistaken and you, in fact, ran from them like a coward to hide here?” Gortash looked smug, he always looked smug, but at that moment he looked extra smug. It made him want to strike, take one of his daggers and shove it inside that smug mouth so it pushed out the other side. He wanted for nothing more than to watch him gargle his own blood and brain juices as he died.
Maybe he should have tried his luck with the sewers after all. It wouldn’t be his first infected wound from crawling through the muck half-dead.
Kazaran snarled, a scowl darkening his features at the accusation, “When was the last time you bloodied your own hands rather than ordering some minion to do it for you, tyrant?”
Gortash sighed, rolling his eyes and standing, “Ah, so you ran then, how disappointing.”
With another snarl Kazaran grabbed at Gortash’s ridiculously expensive robes and yanked with what remained of his strength, making the Banite stumble closer. The momentary widening of his eyes was altogether too satisfying, but that didn’t stop his words coming out sharp and bitter. “I slaughtered all six while my first victim bled out in a gutter watching his saviours die,” he hissed, bloodied teeth bared, “do not think to underestimate me, coddled Banite scum.”
Gortash smiled at that, the one he reserved for what he referred to as ‘positive reinforcement’, and it only made Kazaran scowl deeper. “Of course, my dear,” he said, voice falsely sweet, “It’s just so difficult to get a clear answer from you. I need to know if I’ll have the Fists kicking down my door any second now, don’t I?”
“Save your patronising for those that fall for it,” Kazaran snapped, dropping Gortash’s robe and returning his attention to not passing out.
“What happened to wanting your lover to dote on you?”
“That was before my lover reminded me who exactly he was. At least my butler doesn’t have the audacity to question me or my myriad talents.”
A timid knock at the door interrupted their bickering. It took only a moment for Gortash to retrieve his requested items and return, kneeling at his side, uncaring of the pool of blood his knees rested in.
He uncorked a healing potion and held it out silently, Kazaran took it without complaint and downed the whole thing with a grimace. Disgusting, cloying sweetness darkened his palet, but he could already feel it working. Days gone by he would never have done such a thing as accept a potion from Enver Gortash without at least sniffing it first, but times were different now. If Gortash truly wanted him dead he’d had several dozen perfect opportunities to kill him in his sleep after they had sex and had neglected to take them.
Hells, the way his head was becoming light and his vision was swimming, Gortash could probably just leave him to bleed out on his floor rather than wasting perfectly good poison on him.
Besides, Gortash was one of the few people in this gods-forsaken realm that could see the big picture. They needed each other alive.
As the potion worked its magic and knitted his smaller wounds back together, Gortash sat back on his haunches and began unravelling the bandages. “Get that armour off, will you?” He said with a dismissive wave of the hand, “I can’t exactly play the part of a fussing lover if you’re hidden under three layers of leather and assorted viscera.”
“Your care for my-“ he grunted in pain as he lifted an arm to undo the clasps on his armour, “-well-being is admirable. I almost believe you want me aa -alive.”
Gortash hummed, watching Kazaran struggle for a moment before reaching out to help with some of the more complex buckles. “Of course I want you alive, my dear,” he said, with just enough sincerity that anyone but Kazaran would fall for it, “It would be an awful pain to find someone to replace you in this little plan of ours. Not to mention I might even have to start seeking out sex again rather than just having you fall through my door with your legs open.”
Kazaran so nearly stabbed him. His eye sockets were so close, so vulnerable, and his words were practically begging for him to do it. It would be so easy to pull out one of his blood-sticky daggers and plunge it into his skull, to twist and twist until all that remained of his eye was liquid gore. But he was in control, his Urges were a tool to be wielded not the thing that controlled him. He was… calm. Yes. Calm.
Enver Gortash would die by his hand. But not today. Not right now.
“That is typically what hhhnn- happens when two people are… whatever we are, is it not?” Kazaran huffed, allowing Gortash to push his leather armour from his shoulders so only his red-stained undershirt remained, “Would you prefer we had less sex? Because unlike you I don’t care if my partner has a pulse, so my options aren’t near as slim as yours.”
Gortash grimaced then frowned, and Kazaran took a moment to revel in the cracking of his composure. He liked it when he made the Tyrant squeamish. Liked to make him squirm in general. It proved the ever infallible Enver Gortash wasn’t quite as unshakable as he led everyone to believe.
It was incredibly satisfying. Not to mention how good he looked with a scowl, something about the presence behind the glare lit him ablaze. Kazaran always thought he looked best when he was slightly put-out, doubly so when he had his mouth on Kazaran’s dick. Ah… maybe he should steer clear of thoughts like that when he barely had enough blood left inside his body to even get hard. He’d just end up working himself up and being disappointed.
“If you bring up necrophilia again I may have to say yes,” he said, and Kazaran rolled his eyes. Gortash was precious over the most random things, his morals never seemed to make sense. Slavery was fine, but necrophilia was bad, genocide was a-okay, but he drew the line at incest. Kazaran was self-aware enough to realize his own morals were beyond fucked, but at least his weren’t as seemingly arbitrary as the tyrant lord’s.
“And the dead-eyed whores who service you are different?” He all but sneered, lifting his arms gingerly so his shirt could be lifted over his head, “They surely enjoy it just as much. How are they any better? They breathe?”
“Yes, and quite crucially I might add,” Gortash grimaced again, this time in regards to the deep wound in his abdomen. A stupid mistake caused by nothing but his own cockiness. He’d been far too busy admiring his own handiwork as one of the fists choked on their own blood and another of them had gotten a good swing in on him that was enough to slice clean through his leather armour and a good few layers of his skin. It was a miracle his intestines were still inside him, he knew first hand just how easily they could be removed.
Admittedly he’d had more graceful fights in his life.
“Dear gods , Kazaran, what exactly was your plan here?” Gortash took a second healing potion and upended it over the wound, making Kazaran hiss as it sizzled away the sepsis and began closing the wound. He hated healing magic. It made him feel smothered, sick, like a poorly little plague victim begging for the mercy of the blade.
Still, the Urge to be a bastard was ever harder to resist than the Urge to kill, it seemed, “Thought I might take in the sights of the upper city,” he sneered, “Have a look around, see if there are any pompous arseholes with egos somehow bigger than their heads to take down a peg. One I’m not pact-bound not to kill, that is.”
Gortash huffed an exasperated breath and reached for the tea, pouring two cups and handing one to Kazaran. “Drink that all,” he said, ignoring the comment, “If you vomit on my floor because I gave you a healing potion again I’ll hand you in to the fists myself.”
Kazaran took the tea with little complaint, taking a large gulp of the steaming liquid and enjoying how it burned his throat on the way down. A much more tolerable sensation than the thick, cloying sweetness that stuck there from the healing potion. The ginger settled his stomach and he hummed happily as the nausea dissipated into just a whisper in his periphery.
“So I can bleed all over the floor, but you draw the line at vomit,” Kazaran wondered idly as Gortash began winding the bandages around his middle, “Good to know your standards are still as complex as I’ve come to know.”
Gortash rolled his eyes again, “They aren’t complex, my dear, you just live in a run-down temple full of rivers of blood and rotting corpses. Your own standards are decidedly not standard.”
Kazaran shrugged, and Gortash swatted at him scoldingly when it displaced some of the bandages. “Sceleritas usually cleans up the corpses before they start to truly rot,” he said, “and rivers is an overstatement, they’re more lik- AUGH !” He yelped, as Gortash abruptly pressed his thumb hard against the bandages over his wound. He had a cruel smile on his face, the kind Kazaran had come to like quite a lot given that it usually preceded him doing something downright nasty. In this case it seemed ‘downright nasty’ came in the form of shoving a thumb into Kazaran’s wounded stomach just to hear him yell.
Kazaran’s hand locked around Gortash’s throat before he even really processed what he was doing. The edges of his vision bled red and his breath came quick, but he had just enough presence of mind to keep his grip from crushing the man’s fragile windpipe. Enver Gortash probably didn’t even know how close he’d gotten to death, given the grin on his face.
“You take me too literally,” he said casually, as if he didn’t have Kazaran’s claws digging into his throat.
“You do not take me literally enough,” Kazaran grunted, breathing shallow and heavy, “One day our pact will void and then every single one of my darkest Urges will come to fruition at once and they will all be directed toward you .”
“On the bright side, I doubt the necrophilia will bother me once I’m dead,” Gortash wrinkled his nose in amusement and plucked Kazaran’s tense hand from his throat. Kazaran couldn’t help but find his effortless confidence almost annoyingly attractive. He really was far too sure that Kazaran wouldn’t kill him, pact or not. That thought should anger him, he thought, but something about it felt unreasonably charming. Novel perhaps. He didn’t often meet people who weren’t afraid of him.
Is that really all it took to woo him? A backbone?
Kazaran just grunted, scowling at the ground before reaching for his teacup. He had no desire for his thoughts to wander back to their alarmingly frequent fond thoughts of the human; he’d already prayed for forgiveness once that week if he were forced to do it again his pride would be seriously bruised.
He felt dry lips on his own and kissed back without a second thought. It really was far too easy for Gortash to manipulate his mood, he shouldn’t allow him to have so much sway over him. Alas, the way his heart hammered when he felt Gortash suck on his upper lip didn’t give him much confidence in his ability to resist the temptation he presented.
“Oh cheer up,” Gortash said when he pulled back, and Kazaran hated how he noted how his lover’s eyes sparkled amusedly and how he looked good when the corners creased. Annoyingly, Gortash had the kind of face that grew on you. “You’re just all irritable because you got stabbed. Need you sulk so much? I know it’s not your first time.”
“Do you enjoy getting stabbed, Enver?”
Gortash shrugged, “I can’t say I’ve made a habit of it the way you have. So, frankly, I think I have more room to complain.”
“Well, if you’re wanting me to cheer up and stop whining then taking me to bed and kissing me more ought to kill two birds with one stone, I would think,” Kazaran said, immediately cringing at how much that sounded like the sort of lovesick whimperings that typically invoked The Urge.
Gortash just laughed though. “I fear I may never understand just how your mind works, my dear,” he said, standing up from the sticky patch of blood and holding out a hand in offer. Kazaran inwardly appreciated that Gortash knew better than to attempt to pick him up.
He took the hand and was tugged gently to his feet. He had to blink away the black in his vision as he stood, the healing potions not quite having made up for quite how much blood he’d lost. He felt like a newborn deer, legs too long and wobbly, clumsy where he was usually graceful. Gortash placed a supporting arm around his waist to keep him from stumbling over himself too much, which was reluctantly appreciated.
Thankfully, the journey to Gortash’s quarters was short and it wasn’t long until he was lying nakedly on Gortash’s unnecessarily soft sheets. Kazaran felt his eyes drooping as he watched Gortash remove his own soiled clothes indulgently. Gods the man looked good naked and covered in blood.
It seemed his adrenaline had finally burnt itself out because he felt like he weighed several thousand tons. Aches settled in his joints from the exertion, his head throbbed as did the still tender wound on his stomach, and he felt the call of sleep like a siren song. Still, that didn’t stop him reaching out to drag Gortash into a kiss when he slipped into bed beside him.
The kiss was a lazy, sloppy sort of thing. The two of them simply lay wrapped tightly together, licking into each other's mouths with little aim other than simply to taste one another. As much as he was enjoying the kissing, his body had other ideas, and he was forced to pull back when a yawn forced its way up.
Gortash simply laughed, to his credit, patting Kazaran’s cheek fondly, “You're not going to last five seconds like this my dear,” he said, settling in beside him, “We ought to postpone any extracurriculars until morning I think. Else I’ll end up doing all the work.”
Kazaran huffed an irritable breath through his nose, but his eyes had already drooped closed. “Lazy twat,” he grumbled, earning himself another laugh, “Was gonna let you have your way with me while I slept but I suppose that means you wouldn’t be interested.”
“Ha, you can’t trick me into indulging your necrophilia fantasies that easily, Bhaalspawn,” he said, arms wrapping around Kazaran. The warmth of the live body beside him was like a sleeping potion, he felt himself slipping closer to unconsciousness by the second.
“Suit yourself,” he replied, slightly slurred, “Just know if I wake up loose and full of cum I’ll wake up much happier than I would otherwise.”
He felt Gortash’s cock stir where it pressed against his hip and smiled in self-satisfaction. He’d get what he wanted. With Gortash he always did, in a roundabout sort of way.
He fell asleep wrapped in a heady mix of warmth and arousal, deciding assuredly that he was glad he’d decided to come here rather than crawling back home. There was a part of him that got dangerously close to feeling like this was home. It twisted him with guilt to think on but he couldn’t do so for long, the heavy weight of sleep all but suffocating.
The last thing he noticed before allowing himself to pass out was a soft kiss to his forehead.
And, oh , it felt warm.