#idk i just hc Gortash as a cheap whiskey drinker

[aladaylessecondblog]

50:22 (Raphael x Tav, pt 9, final)

Author's Note: And here we are! Last chapter of Six Hours. The next fic in the series will start with post-nautiloid crash.

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She'd finished packing bags for them in preparation for the adventure ahead (tucking the bottle of Haarlep's semen in her own bag, far below everything else), and now she was opening the box of Gortash's things that she'd kept closed for most of the last six years.

Cald looked excitedly into the box. Tav remembered him saying that it always smelled of weird men's perfume (cologne, she always corrected him), and the two bottles of whiskey she kept. The cheapest of cheap whiskey, in a red bottle with a black label. A very "I am what I say I am, I will get you drunk. Good? I just said I'll get you drunk" sort of whiskey.

Gortash had liked it so much he'd outright bought the brewery. It had been given the name Rotgut Red, which was what everyone called it even BEFORE he'd bought the brewery.

She never drank them. But when things had hurt so badly at first, she'd open a bottle, wet her lips, and let the scent remind her...

A smile was forced onto her face when Cald asked about the additional bottle in the box.

"Your father was a wealthy man, but he didn't start out that way. So...some things he likes are...cheaper than others. That includes the whiskey. I can't let you have any, but you can smell it if you want. It...reminds me of him."

Cald took a curious sniff from the bottle but his nose wrinkled a moment later and he suddenly said, "His drink smells gross."

"It does, until you get used to it. When you love someone...sometimes things you'd never like become things you do. Because they belong to the one you love...and when you see, or smell those things...it's as if you are with them again, even if just for a moment."

"I think I understand," he said. "What's in the rest of the box?"

Two rings were pulled from a smaller box inside it. "Your father's wedding ring. And mine."

They were put aside after she let Cald look at them. Then she reached down, and pulled out a thin undershirt. "When we had to run...I didn't know what would happen, where we'd be going..."

She took a deep breath. It was a shirt he'd worn when working on the Steel Watchers, and even now, after six years in storage, it still smelled faintly of Gortash. Sweat, grease, oil.

Him.

"So I brought some of your father's clothes with me," she finally said, gesturing. "An extra pair of his boots, a few pairs of trousers..."

"What's all this gold stuff?" Cald pointed. He hadn't seen all of the box yet, and now he was spotting the rings. All twisting gold, hints here and there to the one whom he served.

"Your father's, other rings." Tav pulled them up, and gave a slight smile as her boy looked over them.

"They look..."

She slipped them on and wiggled her fingers. "They're supposed to be claws. He was quite fond of them, hardly went anywhere without them. A tyrant's grip should be a hard one, he said."

"They're gold," Cald said, "If my hands were big enough I could use them to help with the things I build. My sparks go through gold really well."

She took a string (hrm, now she remembered it, it was one that had come loose from Gortash's jacket. What a pain it had been to make him replace it) and slipped all but one of the rings onto it, before tying a small knot in the back. "Here, Cald, you can wear it as a necklace until you're big enough to use them yourself. Your father would have wanted you to have them anyway."

He quickly put the makeshift necklace on.

"I wish you could have known him," Tav said, after a short pause, "But remember this, no matter what: he loved you. Your father loved you, so much, that when a choice of saving you or himself came up, he chose you."

Cald looked down.

"Don't blame yourself, because it's not your fault." she said, kneeling to meet his eyes, Gortash's eyes. "That's just what a good father is supposed to do: protect his family. He saved both of us, at...at the cost of his own safety and memory. And I WILL give you the chance to see him, I promise."

"I know, mama."

He didn't hug her often, not anymore, but he did now. Tav returned the hug tightly.

"There is only one man you should blame for this. The only reason we're both here, and not where we should be. Cazador Szarr. Remember that name, Cald, if you remember nothing else during the adventure we'll be taking soon. HE is the reason you don't have your father. Don't be mad at yourself. Be mad at HIM."

He looked up at her solemnly, and nodded. After a moment he said, "Can I go out flying?"

"Of course," Tav smiled. "You already ate, didn't you?"

"I had breakfast," he replied, heading for the door, "And if I get hungry there's lots of things to eat outside anyway."

She gave him one more hug, let him go, and then turned back to the box. She lifted the undershirt to her nose, and breathed deeply.

He's going to learn to work on these things too. It's never too early to start.

He's banging on its leg with a wrench, Enver.

Tav opened her eyes again.

She'd heard voices after losing Astarion and Halsin, but with Gortash...there wasn't any of that. There were memories, but she never once heard his voice, and she thought how dearly she'd love to hear it again.

Maybe it was the lack of guilt. She'd felt guilty over Astarion and Halsin, and however much she had loved them then, it hadn't even been half a year they'd been hers. The life they were trying to build hadn't even a firm foundation.

Then had come Gortash and the life she had actually built with him. She had convinced Bane to bless the union.

She was his wife, his lover, his Duchess, the mother of his heir...

Tav opened another bag and folded the undershirt up and put it down. Then the boots, and the bottles of Rotgut Red.

"You can't carry them forever, you know."

She stiffened when she heard Raphael's voice behind her, but kept her tone calm. "Watch me."

"I'm surprised you didn't steal his jacket, too."

"I didn't steal any of it," Tav replied as she closed the bag, "And he needed the jacket. I didn't want to leave him completely bare...didn't want that to be the last thing I saw."

She gushed information, knowing if she didn't, he'd probably drag it out of her anyway with a demand.

"Where?" she asked quietly, "Here? The boudoir?"

"Here, since we shall not be disturbed," Raphael replied. "It would be best if I weren't so pressed for time, I would dearly love to spend the hour and twenty minutes we have--"

"Fifty minutes." Tav whipped around. "You said it yourself--you can't just ADD time like that."

"Ah, mouse, you forgot the terms of our game, didn't you?"

"I answered all your questions honestly. The five I DID answer, anyway."

Raphael smirked.

"Not all of them, my dear. You DID lie to me when you said you wanted to continue our little game. Need I remind you that you agreed to the penalty? Half an hour of time added for lying to me. And you CANNOT deny that you lied."

Tav paused--shocked--thinking over his last visit. The six questions that she had agreed to answer, the honest answers she'd told him.

But she hadn't lied for--

"Breach of contract," she said suddenly, "You asking me if I wanted to continue would count as a seventh question, and that falls outside of the agreement. And--I didn't sign anything, but--"

"But what, mouse?"

There was a silent fury on Raphael's face. Had he expected her to be stupider? To just accept his adding another half hour to her time? Maybe he thought he'd broken her more. That she'd welcome it, even. Who knew?

"But you applied the time I earned to my debt, so you can't claim there wasn't a contract, even if I didn't sign one."

Tav looked him in the eye.

"Therefore. Breach of contract. But..."

The anger in Raphael's face lifted just slightly.

"But since I would prefer not to upset you, to keep you quiet regarding...well, everything..." Tav paused. "Perhaps we might agree to remove that half hour, rather than add it. I'm sure you can do plenty with twenty minutes."

GODS, how she wanted to tease him on that. But he was already upset, and to needle him more might have...unpleasant consequences.

"That," Raphael finally spoke, with an edge in his voice so sharp it could have cut her through, "Will do suitably."

One moment he was standing there before her, glaring--

--the next he was behind her. A sudden scent of flaming hellfire told her he'd shifted to his cambion form.

"You think you're SUCH a clever mouse, don't you?" He growled, and shoved her to her knees, following soon after. Then one hand came up, pressing her face into the ground. "You think you've outwitted me, don't you?"

"I don't th--"

"Silence. Silence."

The hem of her gown was lifted, her underwear torn. There was a sound of shuffling fabric...

Tav yelped--then cried out as he thrust into her dry.

"Only twenty more minutes, you must be thinking. Only twenty more, then it will all be over. Then I will think nothing of him. Is that what's passing through your head?" Raphael brought her head up, and leaned down to speak directly in her ear, "Mouse, I hope you aren't deluded enough to think such things. Because--let us be sure to have things straight--"

Another painful series of thrusts.

"You belong to me, regardless of contract. You--are--MINE--"

Tav could not explain the sudden eruption of laughter, but she didn't stop it once it was out. She was rewarded by having her face shoved back into the floor, and another hard thrust.

He was so utterly pathetic like this, eager to fill her, mark her, break her.

Me, me, me. Why is he so OBSESSED? This is about more than just the Crown, it has to be!

She would have laughed again had doing so not had the possibility of giving her a mouthful of dirt. It was utterly ridiculous, the frenzied pace Raphael was at, the rapid rutting into her. It felt like he hated and craved her at the same time.

"I will have the Crown," he snarled, pulling her back up by the hair, hips still moving against her own furiously, "I will have YOU, and then--then, you will NEVER escape me."

A groan. One clawed hand moved to her hip and clenched hard, drawing blood, and the other moved up to her throat.

"Haarlep will have a new playmate, and you...will never..."

She heard the groan that signaled his closeness to climax, and tried to relax--but his savage pace made that impossible. His grip at her throat tightened too, making it harder and harder to breathe.

"...NEVER...leave the House of Hope...again!"

With a triumphant groan, Raphael finally spilled. Inside her his cock twitched and pulsed itself empty. She ached, from the pace, from the lack of preparation, from--

Everything.

It had been too fast for her to get anything from it, and her suspicions were only confirmed when Raphael spoke again.

"Sixteen minutes...exactly."

He was breathing hard as he let go, and Tav tried not to think too hard about the gush of his seed from her cunt when he finally withdrew.

"You won't come to bed with a man ever again without thinking of me first. That--that, I promise you."

He left.

Shaking, Tav fixed her gown and healed the wound at her hip--then reached for the bag she'd put Gortash's things in.

One drink. One small drink, something to calm the sudden rush of fear, the disgust with herself. One drink and NO MORE. She gasped as she took a swig from the bottle of whiskey, and corked the bottle again to stop herself going for a second.

Sixteen minutes. She could do that. It wasn't that long. On her knees it might mean another four or even five sessions, but if he kept up this practice of only using her like this, then...it could be less.

It was almost over, thank the gods.

The door opened suddenly, and--in walked Cald.

"Mother! Mother!"

"What, what's wrong?"

"It--the thing--"

BOOM

In the distance, a loud crash. The earth beneath them shook, and Tav fell over, nearly breaking the bottle in her hands in the process.

"The thing you talked about, the big ship! The mindflayer ship!"

Tav paled.

"I saw it burning and falling!"

No...

The nautiloid was crashing, and she still owed Raphael sixteen minutes.