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infernally-fond · 5 months ago

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dark/cunty raphael, devils being devils (this has been done to death but i just wanted to write him being awful) once again thank you @pouralaura for your advice and encouragement you are the best

He wasn't supposed to be back yet.

Tav panicked. Wide eyed, she pleaded with Hope's flickering apparition. “Are you sure?” She hissed. “Are you sure he's back?”

“YesyesYES can't you feel it?! He's home, the master is home and he brings blood and pain and death!” Hope shrieked. “I have to go, you have to go, we all have to go!”

“No, Hope, wait! I need your help!”

“I can't help you anymore,” the poor crazed thing said, coherent for this moment just to fix Tav with a sad, pitying look. “Just like you can't help me anymore. But thanks for trying. I'll remember it forever. He's going to hurt you and he's going to kill you and I'm sorry.”

Her phantom faded into nothing and Tav was left alone in the claustrophobic halls. Maybe she tripped a hidden alarm or ward. Maybe she simply took too long. All she knew was that, if Hope was right, she'd squandered likely the only chance she had of sneaking into Raphael's home and taking the hammer. And Hope was definitely right. Tav felt it. A change to the air. The wailing of souls muted, exhalated.

He was here.

The plan had been very simple: her friends distract Raphael by pretending to consider and discuss his contract “behind her back”, and she heads to the diabolist to get a portal open, go in, steal the hammer, and leave. It was much easier to sneak a single person through, and Raphael would've been none the wiser. Only, she wasn't prepared enough for the House of Hope. She wasn't prepared for its namesake. She wasn't prepared for Raphael's dark, dirty secrets parading in her face.

Gale called her ludicrous. Mad. Idiotic. And yet when she pressed him for a better option, for a way to keep the crown and save Orpheus from the Emperor's vile clutches, he came up empty. They were stretched thin, resources and resilience at their breaking points.

“Let it be me, then,” he'd said. “Let it be me who gets the hammer.”

“I'm a better sneak than you,” Tav had argued. She was willing to take the risk for him. So he could be free of Mystra, free of the orb. Free. He knew. He'd pressed their foreheads together, holding her close.

“Come back to me,” he'd whispered. “Promise you'll come back.”

Tav might not be able to deliver the hammer, but she could still escape. All she had to do was hide, and sneak back to her portal before Raphael found her. The house was so big, like a damn maze. Tav tried to remember where she'd come from, where she'd left her portal, but the gaudy halls and creepy gilded statues all looked the same. She thought she recognised the dining room from when he'd first brought her here so long ago, taunting her with the offer of aid. The table was covered in rotten food. Mutilated skeletons filled the seats. Shaken, Tav moved on.

Shit.

She caught sight of Raphael prowling the corridors outside, his expression stormy. He was still in his human guise, but his hellish fury bubbled just barely beneath the surface. Swallowing a sharp inhale before it gave her away, Tav tucked herself behind a pillar and prayed he hadn’t seen her.

“I know you're here, little mouse,” he rumbled, burning brown eyes scanning every nook and cranny. Tav bit her lip. Her stomach dropped. He exuded overwhelming diabolical power. Tav knew she stood no chance against him alone. “You must think me a dullard. Your friends show up at the Devil's Den without you, interested in a contract of all things when they were so staunchly against me before, and then I feel my wards breached telling me there is an intruder scurrying about my home…why, such coincidental timing. I wonder, who could be creeping around? What could they be looking for?”

In hindsight, the plan was never going to work. Of course he had wards everywhere. Of course he was too clever for their ruse. But they were desperate. Just as the devil promised they would be, by the end. Just the way he wanted them. All hope wasn't yet lost. If she could only escape…

“Did you think you could fool me? That any hair-brained schemes concocted in your simple, tadpole-addled minds would succeed? It's almost amusing, were it not so outrageous.” Raphael ranted. So verbose even in his anger. And yet, Tav could hear his liquid smile in the words he purred next. “How about this? For old times’ sake, for my most cherished client who never was… If you show yourself now and beg me well enough, I might make your death quick. But the longer you hide, the longer it takes for me to find you - and I will find you - the longer I'll spend peeling your pretty skin from your flesh.”

The devil was striding away, deeper into his house. Tav snatched the opportunity to dart out into the foyer. She remembered now, those big metal doors. Where Hope had first been waiting. Tav’s portal was behind them. Poor Hope. Rejuvenated by relief, Tav vowed to find a way to save her. Even if she had to storm the house again, with her team this time, and swing the cudgel of justice down on Raphael’s head. Smash his dirty devil brains out. She’d relish doing so. The doors were ajar. Tav slipped through. She could practically taste her safety. The grungy corrupted streets of Baldur’s Gate had never been so welcoming…

Except there was no portal.

For a moment she simply stood there in disbelief. Denial. A scorched circle on the marble floor was the lone indicator that a portal had ever existed in the first place. A taunting shadow. As she stared at nothing, the damned souls forever trapped - just like her - seemed to laugh.

Despair. The likes of which Tav hadn’t felt since she awoke on the beach and realised everything that happened on the nautiloid wasn’t a bad dream. It crawled up her throat and threatened to make her scream. She stuffed the meat of her hand in her mouth and bit down. The pain grounded her. Panic wouldn’t help. There had to be other portals. Ones Raphael or his cronies used to get about in the material plane. She’d jump through one of them. It didn’t matter where she ended up; it would be easy enough to get back to Baldur’s Gate. She crept out into the halls again. A flash of red in the corner of her eye catapulted her into motion. She’d never been more aware of the noise her boots made, how heavy her footsteps were, how loud each panting breath was. She ran, crawled behind a big statue, and made herself as small as possible.

“Come out, little mouse,” the devil crooned sweet poison from somewhere, his voice drifting through the empty spaces of his home, echoing off the walls and floors, impossible to ignore. “Come out come out, wherever you are…”

Fear bubbled in Tav’s churning gut. Her heart pounded against her ribs in protest. In her ever-shrinking world of mind flayers, crazed cultists, monsters and apostles and madness, Raphael had been but a blip on her threat radar. She hadn’t given him much concern, or consideration. A mistake. One she might not live to rectify.

I’m sorry, Gale…

“It was bold of you to come here alone, you know. Bold, but so very foolish. I suppose you got the idea in your worm-eaten skull that you were faster than your companions. Stealthier. Or was it they who convinced you?” Raphael’s tone twisted, honed into a dagger aiming at a specific target. A soft target. “I wonder, did they do it because they really thought you might succeed? Or because they knew you wouldn’t? A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, after all…”

Tav chewed the inside of her cheek. Raphael, she’d learned, was very good at hurting people without even raising a finger. Words were weapons for him as much as his claws or infernal magics. She wouldn’t let him bait her.

Peering out of her spot, the coast was clear enough for Tav to risk moving. She thought about it. The devil was quiet, had been for a little while, either out of things to say - unlikely - or finally far away enough that she could no longer hear him. After another few moments of hesitation, Tav took the chance, flitting down an empty corridor. Prayed the next room she entered would hold something useful.

She never made it.

As she rounded a corner, a hand shot out and snatched her by the hair. Thick fingers dug into her scalp, yanked her so harshly a joint in her neck popped.

“Got you,” the devil snarled, right into her ear. Tav shrieked, instinctively scratching at Raphael’s hand. All it seemed to do was incense him further.

“Let go of me!” She yelled.

“Oh, how the mouse squirms when it’s been caught,” Raphael intoned, low, almost sensual were it not for the bite of murder lingering in the depths. He manipulated her to look at him, so she could see the contempt and loathing on his handsome face. “But you aren’t a mouse, are you? No. You’re a rat. Just like your little friends.”

“Did you hurt them?!” The pain of her hair being pulled at the roots made tears bead at the corners of Tav’s eyes. She fought to regain her footing. Glared at Raphael anyway.

“And what would you do if I had?” The devil jeered. He released her hair, only to close his fist around her throat instead. “No, no. Despite your collective stupidity, someone still needs to clean up the mess that is the netherbrain. Although I don’t imagine they have much chance of success after this…” Raphael squeezed her throat harder. Claws dug pinpricks into her skin as he let his rage change him, shed his human disguise. He shook her, easily lifting her from the ground so her legs dangled, black and orange eyes ferocious. “You had every opportunity to accept my deal. It was fair. The hammer for the crown. An artefact you cannot even hope to use or understand, for the only chance you had to free yourself from the Emperor. To free Orpheus. And yet you’ve chosen to spit in my face despite my patience, my clemency. Why?”

Tav gagged, struggled to speak around her crushing windpipe. Black spots began to dance at the edges of her vision. The devil loosened his grip enough so she could answer. His pride demanded it. “You…the crown should…go to Mystra. For Gale. He spoke to her. She said…said she could fix him, get rid of the orb if…if he…the crown…” Tav broke off, coughing, choking, gasping for air. Her tears finally spilled over, dripping down her cheeks.

“You’ve done this for Gale?” Raphael seethed with peculiar jealousy. He dropped her, watched her stumble. Then he laughed; a cruel, sharp sound that went on for too long. “If you truly believe your precious wizard intends to return the crown to his cantankerous trollop ex-lover instead of using it for himself, then you are more naive and gullible than I ever imagined.”

Tav scowled, rubbing her neck. “He promised,” she rasped. “He…”

“He promised,” the devil mocked. “Oh yes, I’m sure he did. I’m sure he meant it.”

“He wouldn’t lie! He’s never lied to me!”

Raphael tilted his horn-crowned head. Stared at her like she was an idiot. “Hasn’t he?”

Just like before, Raphael was aiming for her soft spots - but this time, this one, was already bruised. He was right. Gale had lied. About the orb, about his feelings for Mystra, even about abandoning his desire to ascend. The first thing he’d done when he learned the true nature of the crown was consider how he could take advantage of it. Not the behaviour of a man changed. But Tav had faith in him. Believed in him. Her niggling doubts meant nothing.

“No.” She said in defiance. Ignored the way her weak voice wobbled. “You’re just trying to poison me against him. You don’t understand anything.”

“Don’t I?” Raphael crooned, viciously amused. “I think it’s you who doesn't understand. Let me put it this way, so that even you can comprehend: why would a power-hungry magelet with a chip on his shoulder abandon decades of ambition for some little bint he found on the roadside, when he could have hundreds – thousands of warm and willing holes to wet his cock with if he becomes a so-called god? Do you think you’re worth that sacrifice? Does Gale think you are? I’m sure he says lots of sweet things when he’s inside you, just as I’m sure he said the same things to Mystra, and we all know how that worked out…”

“Stop,” Tav begged. Sobbed.

“No,” the devil sneered. Utterly merciless. “It’s high time you faced the reality of your actions. You have doomed a future for the githyanki free from tyranny, you have doomed your friends’ chance to escape the emperor’s machinations, and you have doomed yourself, sweet pet, to reap what you sow – all for the sake of a man who rolled over you because you were the first woman in years to say yes. You wanted to enter my house without permission? Fine. Then you’ll stay for eternity.”

She recoiled in horror, the implication making her blood run cold. She’d rather he killed her and he knew it. “You can’t keep me here!”

“I think you’ll find I can, girl,” Raphael said, malicious, quiet. His gaze flayed her alive, peeled away layers of skin and muscle to stare at her very soul. “For in this house, in this pocket of Hell, I am the master, and that means I can do whatever I want.”

A sick, bitter pill to swallow: he was right.

“Fine!” Tav laughed maniacally, the futility of the situation driving her to reckless anger. “Fine, you evil bastard! I suppose you’ll have a pet squid soon, then. Have you always wanted one of those? Was it a boyhood dream, if you were a boy once? I hear ink stains are a bitch to get out of silk rugs.” As soon as she said it, Tav wished she had kept her mouth shut. She’d done everything wrong since entering that portal. Everything. Raphael’s shrewd hellish eyes narrowed as he considered something. Tav watched him raise his fingers, ready to snap, with dawning horror; if he did this, she wouldn’t just be stuck with him forever. She would owe him forever. A fate so much worse. “No! Wait! You don’t – I’m sure I won’t transform! It’s different in Hell, right?!”

“I’d rather not take the chance,” Raphael murmured, enjoying this moment of despair. “I’m not too fond of tentacles, you see. And besides…I promised I could be your saviour, didn’t I? Even though you hardly deserve it, I'm nothing if not magnanimous, after all.”

CLICK.

Such a small sound heralding a monumental, irreversible change.

Agony. The likes of which Tav couldn’t comprehend. Her skull splitting apart, bursting from the inside, her brains chewed up and spat out, eyes and teeth and tongue destroyed, sinuses burning…it only lasted for a few brief seconds, maybe, but the next thing she knew she was on her hands and knees. Frothy blood and bile oozed from her nose and mouth. Her body shook violently. Her head felt like it was full of water. She wasn’t sure, but she might have pissed herself a little bit. She stared up at the devil through bleary wet eyes and saw him watching her. Savouring her suffering. Floating in his palm was her tadpole, sluggish and covered in gore. Covered in her brains.

“Hmmm…I suppose I could have used less force for the extraction,” Raphael mused, unapologetic. He squinted at the ugly cosmic horror larva with disdain. “I was led to believe these things were near-impossible to remove. Clearly not. Such weak magic. That worthless boy still has a lot to learn.” He curled his fingers inward and the tadpole caught fire, writhing and screaming as it died. Rendered to ash. Then he smiled at Tav, placid, almost business-like, as if he hadn’t just up-ended her entire existence. Her suffering had greatly improved his mood. “There we are. Now you won’t have to worry about those lovely guts of yours dissolving any time soon. Not before I get to sample them, at least.”

“I’d rather be a mind flayer,” Tav slurred quietly. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She felt hollow. Without that tadpole – as awful as it had been – she couldn’t reach her friends or even the emperor to beg for help. She knew they were pragmatic. They would stick to the plan, even Gale. They’d realise something went wrong and cut their losses. Poor Orpheus. She’d known the risk, being the one breaking in. Made certain they wouldn’t risk storming this infernal psycho’s little castle to rescue her, not when the elder brain was so unstable and they were so close to vanquishing the Absolute cult, but at least pretending it was an option would’ve given her something to hold onto.

“And ruin that delightful complexion of yours? Perish the thought.” The devil reached to wrap one big paw around her forearm and tugged her upright. Tav was too weak to pull away. She barely stayed on her feet. The room and everything in it swayed. Until it was forced to stop by his hot clawed hand holding her jaw firm. Raphael’s image swam into focus. He gently turned her head this way and that. He was examining her; examining his new property. His new trophy. “Can’t fault the magelet’s taste. You are a pretty little thing. And now you’re my pretty little thing.”

He pushed his thumb into her mouth. She could taste the sulphur and hellish magic even over the copper sticking to her gums and teeth. She bit him, tried to, but Raphael wasn’t phased. He dug his thumb claw into her tongue instead, pressing until he pierced the muscle, until Tav cried out. Fresh blood welled from the small puncture wound.

“Behave,” the devil simply said, like he was talking to a naughty puppy.

“Never,” Tav spat. Raphael seemed to like that answer, if the sparkle in his eyes and his rich chuckle were any indication.

“Oh, you’ll learn, my little pet. One way or the other.” He dragged his thumb out of her mouth, smearing blood and spit across her lips. His pupils expanded as he looked upon her. He found this arousing, Tav realised, more repulsed than she’d ever been in her life.

“You make me sick,” she hissed.

“You have no idea just how sick I could truly make you,” he purred around a sinister smile, “but we have all the time in the world for that, don’t we? Thanks to you, I’ve got a lot more work to do now. Plans to tweak, contingencies to set up, that sort of thing. I don’t expect you to understand, but unfortunately it means I won’t be able to break you in quite yet. But fret not, you shan’t be alone. Haarlep can keep an eye on you until I return.”

Tav didn’t get the chance to ask what a Haarlep was. Raphael displaced them both into the boudoir. So sudden, and she was still so unsteady. She’d have fallen on her face if Raphael wasn’t holding her. Instead she leaned on him until her vision stopped spinning. He chuckled cruelly.

“Not to worry, love. I’ve got you.”

Tav yanked herself free – he let her go this time – and staggered away from him, collapsing onto the big bed nearby. She wasn’t the only one sprawled on those red silk sheets; a creature that looked like Raphael but softer, younger, and dressed much skimpier, lounged. He perked up with interest, peering at her. Two of them…Tav truly was in Hell.

“What’s this?” The lookalike asked in a perfect, if airy, imitation of Raphael’s voice.

“A new pet. Clean her up. And don’t do anything else or you’ll be skinned and hung out to dry like Nubaldin. I mean it, Haarlep.”

Another click of those devilish fingers and Raphael was gone. Haarlep crawled across the bed like a huge, nasty cat, eyeing Tav up and down.

“Hmm…not quite breeding stock, but I suppose you’ll do.” He pawed at her. “Come on, then. Get up.”

“Take your hands off me!” Tav cringed away, drooling pinkish red froth. “I’ll kill you, I swear it.”

Haarlep tutted, amused. “You couldn’t kill a mouse right now, little pet. And I don’t need your compliance to get you off this bed. There are many ways, and I can’t promise you’ll enjoy all of them…”

The suggestion in his voice made Tav grit her bloodied teeth. Her skin crawled. “You’re just as twisted as Raphael, aren’t you?”

Haarlep cackled. “Oh no, sweet thing. I’m much worse.”

Tav ended up in the luxurious bathing pool, only after Haarlep callously pulled her clothes and armour off, telling her she should get used to it because the concept of her privacy no longer existed. The steaming water seemed to heal her physical injuries, easing the savage pain in her skull, but that simply meant she had more cognizance to think about how awful her situation really was. Her attempt at drowning herself was thwarted by a heavy clawed hand pulling her head out of the water by her hair. They seemed to like doing that, these fiends.

“Now, now. Don’t make me charm you,” Haarlep chided as Tav coughed and sputtered. “As funny as it would be for my brat to come back to a floating corpse, he obviously doesn’t want you dead yet, and I’d rather not be flayed. It’s not as erotic as those priests of pain make it out to be, trust me.”

“Fuck you,” Tav spat, digging her nails into Haarlep’s hand. He didn’t seem to feel it. Just like his master. A fly biting a dragon.

“In due time, lovely. In due time. Now…do you prefer red or gold?”

Like an overzealous child with a new doll, Haarlep stuffed Tav into a gold silken house robe – sheer, reaching just above her knees, thin enough that her nipples were easy to see. By this point she was despondent, allowing him to pull her this way and that. When he deemed her “good enough” he grew bored of her and went back to lounging on the bed. Tav wandered the boudoir aimlessly, not really seeing anything, until she found herself on a balcony overlooking the destitute landscape of Avernus from a great height. The House of Hope must be floating somewhere, she thought absently. Isolated even in Hell. If she jumped, Tav wondered how long she’d be falling before she hit the ground and what kind of mess she’d leave behind.

“Don’t even think about it,” Haarlep cheerfully called to her.

Tav slid to the ground, buried her face in her knees, and wept.

Time passed differently, strangely, in Hell. Tav existed in a fugue state of misery, unable to be sure. Days, weeks, months could have passed since she failed to steal from Raphael; since Raphael stole her. Almost all of it had been spent in the boudoir, an incubus and cambion her keepers both.

She sat on the balcony when Raphael came to her, as she often did. Passing the minutes, hours, staring out at Avernus. The devil had been away for a while. He smelled of fresh air, of the material plane, taunting her with what she’d never experience again. He seemed strangely pleased despite all his plans going awry. “I thought you might like to know that your friends destroyed the brain,” he told her as he poured himself some wine. “Baldur’s Gate – and Faerun as a whole, is saved.”

At least that was a relief.

“And you should also know that Gale decided to use the crown of Karsus to ascend. I believe he is now calling himself the god of ambition…how very droll.” Although Tav had come to accept this was a likely outcome, the information still sank like a rock in her stomach; of course, the devil wasn’t done. “I had thought he might come knocking at my door, threatening to smite me should I not release your soul, but…it seems your darling has forgotten about you, pet. Much more interesting things to do now that he’s reached the Heavens, I would imagine.”

Tav bit her tongue. Hope truly came to these cursed halls to die. Snuffed out before it had a chance to unfurl, but she wouldn’t give this wretch the satisfaction of knowing she was upset.

“So…what are you going to do, then? The crown is completely out of your reach.” She thought that would sting him. An acknowledgement of his own failure. Of a dream ruined. If he lashed out, all the better, because she’d know she’d got under his skin. Small (miniscule) victories.

“Hmm…for now,” he hummed. He swirled the wine in his goblet as he spoke. “You see, I came to quite an interesting realisation. Had you honoured the deal, I could have taken the crown and ascended to Archdevil Supreme. Yes, I could have conquered the Hells and perhaps moved on to other realms to unite under my power, but there would have always been a place I simply couldn’t reach.”

“The heavens…” Tav breathed in slow, horrifying realisation. Raphael smiled widely, dark eyes glittering.

“Yes, very good. Right where your little godlet is now. The very place he will eventually destroy. Just like Karsus, Gale Dekarios’ hubris will ruin him. Unlike Karsus, Gale will bring the heavens down with him, and when he does, who shall be there to gleefully sift through the ashes but I? You see, I will get the crown, my dear, sweet pet. All I have to do is wait.” He reached forward, tucking a lock of Tav’s hair behind her ear. His touch deceptively tender. Like a lover. “I should thank you, in fact. If you hadn’t broken into my home, it’s likely you would have convinced Gale to give the crown to Mystra, and then it truly would have been beyond my grasp. But without your voice of reason and support, well…old habits die hard, don’t they? I must say, I’m looking forward to the day the heavens crumble. The collapse of Karsus’ empire was breathtaking, but this…oh, this will be something else entirely. And don’t worry, pet. Whether it happens in one hundred years or one thousand, I’ll make sure you’re there to see it, too.”

#bg3 raphael #damn(ed) good writing #and as always I love how you write Tav too!!

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