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Devotion

"What have you done?" Hot tears stream down Durge's face, deep within the bowels of the Steel Watch Foundry. Every corner is strewn with viscera and mechanical cogs - a factory of nightmares. He said it would make them remember - why would they ever want to remember this?

Does he feel sorry for the poor? No, because if they lack the strength and will to claw their way out of their fate then they deserve to stay there in his world view. He ended up in the Hells as a child and he escaped, then he built himself from absolutely nothing in a world that had moved on without him, and became one of the most powerful people in the city. He was a literal nobody - the son of cobblers born into debt and poverty. If he can make it and you can't with all the advantages he didn't have, then that's a you problem.

But that doesn't mean he doesn't resent all these privileged fucks who would've looked down their noses at him and have never had to work a day of their life to get the wealth and power he had to literally claw his way out of Hell for.

And now he's a high ranking figure in an organisation that exploits the hell out of them and everyone else (ha.) - He's a Banite who learnt to trade favours and blackmail and manipulate and exploit in the Hells themselves. Joy. - but I'm sure he's really enjoying that.

Somehow he's "the poor are lazy and deserve to be poor" and "eat the rich" at the same time. The only people who are "deserving" are those like him who start with nothing, end up with less, and then grab the universe by the throat and make it bend to their will.

There's that dude with the bust in his office; Durge, who also started from fuck all (thanks Bhaal); and If he didn't genuinely delude himself that he did right by Karlach, she has at least proved herself "worthy" in his eyes by now. If only she'd stop whining(!) Why on earth could she be upset??

Lord Gortash

I really think once feelings started to develop, these two began noticing little details about each other, specifically when they were truly in their element. To be the chosen of gods that hate each other and yet find things they admire all the same— I cannot see their relationship beginning from anything less than something painfully domestic.

Gortash pausing mid-fight during their heist because he finds himself distracted by Durge smiling for the first time, finding them beautiful despite being drenched in blood and gore. All frustrations with the heist getting difficult are temporarily alleviated, simply because he bared witness to the dark urge in a moment of bliss.

Perhaps Durge fell first even. Spending most of their time observing, Durge would notice things about Enver Gortash that perhaps weren’t so bad after all. The way he smiled when things went according to plan, the way his eyes focused when he was absorbed in his work, the way he didn’t mind getting dirty when he needed to, and most damning of all— the way he treated them with a kindness they were never used to.

where you're both kicking shins and trying to bite each other and your entire party and the netherbrain are just watching you, like these two idiots are the ones who started the end of the world. Oh look Gortash's arm is in Durge's mouth.