Originally published on Tumblr over a year ago, I decided it was time to post here as there is a dreadful lack of Justice x Hawke fics.
Blustering wind swept off the sea and threatened to rip a few adventurous souls from the cliffs above. Adel sank her heavy blade into the ground to anchor every step as she edged along the thin, twisting trail. Anders had both of his hands in a vice grip about her waist. A step behind, Varric was holding onto the tails of the mage's coat, both to root himself in place and keep the fabric from flapping into his face. Fenris alone walked without clutching at anything. He marched stubbornly forward with his arm held up against the wind.
A feather slipped from Anders' coat and whipped into Fenris' mouth. "Blech."
He tried to throw the offending plumage aside, only to have it blow right back into his face. He spat out a long string of curses in Arcanum. Adel threw a wide smile over her shoulder.
"Relax, Fenris. Just think, Tevinter slavers! We'll be there soon enough and then you can tear out all the little, black hearts you want. That's like catnip to you."
"He's no cat," Anders snorted.
Fenris rolled his eyes. "I suppose I am meant to despair over your opinion of me?"
Varric glanced back and forth between the quickly bristling mage and elf. "Could you two at least find something less ridiculous to argue about? Better yet, we could all just focus on not plummeting into the sea? You can kill each other as soon as I get to safer ground."
An especially strong gust punctuated the dwarf's plea and the bickering grew silent immediately. They rounded a few more perilous bends before the path expanded to a comfortable width at last. Not much further on, a dark fissure opened in the cliff. Eager to be out of the wind and away from the dangerous drop, Adel jogged forward, dragging Anders with her. Too late, Varric noticed the trap in the mouth of the tunnel. By the time Adel reacted to his warning, a stone wall had sprung from the earth and cut her off from the others.
"Maker's balls."
Frustrated, she punched the barrier. She regretted it immediately, as the impact jolted up her bones. Thankfully she wasn't completely alone. Anders had his hands on her arm before she had a chance to feel the pain. He then formed a fireball in the palm of his hand to cast some light on their otherwise pitch black surroundings.
"You and Blondie alright in there? I heard a thud. I hope you're not trying to use that hard head of yours as a battering ram, Hawke."
Adel traded Anders an elbow in his side for the smirk he gave her. "We're fine, Varric. Just try to find another way in." Even through the thick stone, she could hear Fenris growling about mages. Adel took Anders' free hand to pull him forward. She was in no mood to listen to a shouting match with a wall. "Come on. No point in waiting to see if they can free us. I'd rather find the slavers before they realize someone's sprung their trap. Speaking of, let's really try to avoid more-"
A bright flash of light and the ground beneath their feet crumbled away.
"-traps."
Adel shook her head. Why was she talking about traps? She was safe in her own bed. She was warm. She was comfortable. Assuming Carver wasn't an absolute wretch, she'd have plenty of time to sleep in. For that matter, maybe she would just spend the day in bed. She didn't have anything important that needed doing. Although it might be Bethany and not Carver that kept her from peace. Her bed was far too small for two.
"Another nightmare? Aren't you a little old to…"
The rest of the words died on her lips when she saw who was sharing her bed. It was a mage at her side, though not her sister looking for comfort from a bad dream. She recognized the man, but he was out of place… wasn't he? It didn't make sense. She felt like she was fumbling in the dark, trying to make a picture out of what she felt beneath confused fingers. Understanding formed from the shadows and she remembered.
How could she have forgotten? She did know this man. She'd known him for years. He'd come through Lothering not long after escaping the Circle. Her father had insisted on taking him in and keeping him safe from the Templars. They'd all been together for years. Just one more apostate in their little family of fugitives.
"This is a demon's trick. We must not linger or your mind will become clouded further."
That deep voice sliced through the fog. Adel squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them wide. Anchored to reality, she saw everything fresh. She wasn't in her bedroom in Lothering but she was indeed in bed. In the Fade. With Justice. Her fingers were still twined with his from walking hand in hand with Anders. It was only when he caught her staring that Justice snatched his hand back. They quickly edged off the bed in opposite directions.
Everything looked precisely as she remembered from her early years in Lothering. The quilt her mother had made was bunched at the foot of her bed. Muddy boots and worn armor littered the ground. The floorboards gave a familiar creak as she walked by her sister's tiny bed. Gentle light poured through too thin curtains
Adel looked out the small window. The interior still threatened to pull her into the illusion, but she could spy the differences outside. The rolling fields and quaint houses were twisted and blurred at the edges. Everything was as faded as her fuzzy memory of the place. Above, the gloomy specter of the black city hung in the sickly green sky. She wondered if she ever would have noticed any of it had she ended up here alone.
"I'm not a mage. How did I get here?"
Luminous eyes narrowed. Justice spread a hard, angry palm against one of the walls. "Trapped by foul magic."
"Of course, because no encounter with Tevinters would be truly complete without a demon or two. Maybe some blood magic sprinkled in to spice things up." Adel pinched the bridge of her nose. "How do we get out of here? Spirit and all that. This is your domain, so I'll follow your lead."
"We must defeat the one holding us here if we are to escape. Once the demon is slain, we will be released."
"Right. Easy enough. I'm quite good at killing things. Demony things, especially."
"You flirt with great peril if you do not treat this situation seriously."
Adel traipsed toward the door. She stopped with one hand on the doorknob and held her other hand to her heart. "I'll be serious as the grave and gravely serious, I swear. No flirting with danger, demons, or otherwise. Spirits only."
If Adel thought it at all possible, she would have sworn Justice was flustered. Instead she wrote off the twitch in his jaw to a suppressed desire for violence. She thanked whatever part of Anders kept Justice from rising to her persistent provocation. She decided not to press her luck any further for the time being.
She left the shade of her old bedroom behind and passed into the hall. Two doors flanked her there. One, a door which had slammed in her face more times than she cared to count, went to Carver's glorified closet of a room. The other went to her parents' room and had always been open to her if she needed. She dared not try either one, but found it impossible to simply pass them by. She needed only to extend her arms and they would be open. Whispered promises of happiness and wholeness echoed in her ears. All she had to do was go through one of those doors and she would be home again.
She tried to banish the longing that coiled through her mind. She took one slow step forward. It felt like a thick mire was pulling her down and back, down and back, until she was drowning in it. She could barely move. Barely breath. She would choke on that hesitation if she didn't free herself.
"The dead… pass through the Fade before moving on, right? That's what the Chantry says. Maybe they're not the best source, but you are. You would know if…" She hated how small her voice sounded, especially compared to the rolling thunder that answered her.
"You will find only false mirrors and lies here. I must warn you again not to linger."
There was a shuffling within her parents' bedroom and then the familiar tap of a staff on the floor. "Is that you out there, Addy?"
She could hear her father walking forward. She wouldn't even have to make a move. If she just waited a moment longer, he would be with her again. They all would. And this time she would keep them safe. None of them would be torn from her again.
She ground her teeth until her jaw throbbed from the pressure and tore from the hallway. She rushed outside without looking to see if Justice followed. She knew he would. This was a trap designed for her alone.
She stomped over the neatly tended bed of flowers that her mother and Beth had planted. The smell of daisies drifted up to her nose as she crushed them under her boots. "Why all of this? Why me? Couldn't these demons have done something to tempt you? We could have been on a kitten farm or something. It would have beat the void out of this. Although, I suppose that's Anders. It would need to be something you like." She tapped a finger to her chin. "Come to think of it, do you even like anything? Other than smashing Templar skulls, I mean."
Justice fixed his eyes on Adel. They lingered just long enough for her to feel heat blossom in her cheeks before he quickly turned and marched away.
"We should keep moving."
"Where? Where are we even going?"
Justice glared at her and then picked up his pace. Adel rolled her eyes. She ambled after him down the dusty, country lane. She should have known she wouldn't get a straight answer out of him. She'd barely managed to get more than a sentence in reply the entire time they'd been in the Fade. It was no wonder Anders was always working himself ragged. Justice didn't seem to know how to stop to take a breath. To make things worse, she was starting to feel like he was running from something. She knew why she was eager to escape the ghosts of her past, but what did he have to fear here?
They reached the neighboring home in strained silence. Ever the tempest, Justice kicked the front door down without hesitation and blew inside. Adel shook her head. She was tempted to find her own way instead of being swept up in his wake but she wasn't about to leave him alone. So she reminded herself that there wasn't really anyone to be offended by them storming through their home.
As soon as she stepped over the threshold, the world shuddered around her. In an instant, she was standing not in her neighbor's home, but back in her old bedroom. She turned, only to find the door was shut once more and couldn't be opened.
"Fantastic," she sighed. "I already know this isn't my room. Your little tricks aren't going to work on me any longer, so just come out so I can kill you already."
Her shouting fell on deaf ears, as she'd supposed it would. The demon obviously had some plan in holding them there, even if she no longer knew what it was. She leaned wearily against the wall and watched Justice pace along the perimeter of the room. Anders, Maker help him, tended to look like a half-drowned, molting pigeon. Even in the same ragged clothes, everything about Justice was sharper. She was surprised the walls didn't simply crumbled under his increasingly intense gaze.
He finally stopped on the far side of the room from her.
"I am no demon."
She blinked at him. Where was this coming from? "I've never said you were."
Lips subtly downturned, eyes distant, and eyebrows knit- Adel was familiar with the expression Justice wore, but not on him. She knew what to do with a pensive Anders. She was much less confident with a troubled Fade spirit. Dealing with Justice generally meant talking him down, not cheering him up.
"The Warden once told me that there was no harm in wanting something beautiful. I thought I understood that, but now… Kristoff was dead and I wished only for what he had with Aura, I did not want Aura. It is a demon's realm to want what is another's."
Adel tried to process what Justice was attempting to tell her. She thought back to everything Anders had told her about the spirit from before their merger. As she recalled, Kristoff was the corpse he'd possessed and Aura the dead warden's wife. Why bring them up now?
She sauntered over to him, leaned in, and flashed her best smile. "Justice, is this your way of saying that I'm beautiful, or that you want me?"
Silence and a hard stare. So her joke had hit closer to the mark than she would have guessed. She shifted awkwardly in her armor. After everything Anders had said, she'd supposed that Justice hated her. Maybe at one point he had. Apparently no longer. She finally had him talking and she was, for once, shocked into silence. What could she even start to say?
She dug her fingers into the fluffy depths of his feathered pauldrons and pushed him roughly back against the wall. She captured his mouth with hers. There was a literal charge when their lips met. It was like every kiss she'd shared with Anders and somehow completely different. Those were still Anders' lips, his coarse stubble, and his nimble tongue, but enlivened by another. Anders' scent was masked by the refreshing aroma of a thunderstorm at the height of summer. He tasted different too. Cold. Not icy but fresh and crisp, with a bite like mint.
Adel had always assumed that the passion in their meetings belonged solely to Anders. The rough, fervent joining of their lips told a different story. With one hand, Justice clutched her arm and with the other, he found the small of her back and pulled her in closer. She hummed out her pleasure and dragged her mouth away from his. She could feel his breath, hot and moist, on her neck as she made a trail up his jawline.
"You aren't taking anything. I am yours." She nipped at the lobe of his ear. "And you are mine."
She was so entirely lost in him that she didn't notice the world dissolve until she woke up on the hard tunnel floor, Justice's kiss still burning on her lips. Her fingers were braided through Anders' once more. Apparently the barrier at the entrance had been removed at some point because the scarlet light of the setting sun washed over them. Varric and Fenris loomed with mixed expressions of concern and bemusement. Fenris gave Adel a hand up and Varric helped Anders to his feet.
"You feeling okay Hawke? You look a bit flushed."
Adel glanced at Anders. She could see red spreading up his neck beyond his collar. He quirked an eyebrow at her. She bit her lip and hid her eyes behind messy bangs.
"I'm fine. The Fade was very… bracing."
"Dwarf, so I wouldn't know." Varric shrugged. "Those Tevinters were, as always, plenty eager to gloat. You and Blondie stumbled right into the middle of some scheme they'd cooked up with a demon. They seemed positively gleeful to have captured the Champion of Kirkwall. Started going on about how soon they'd have the entire Free Marches enslaved. Guess they didn't realize that would just make the Elf kill them faster."
"Thanks for freeing us."Adel cleared her throat. "Justice and I didn't have much luck on our side."
"I don't know if I'd say that. Justice seemed to be getting plenty lucky," Anders muttered.
Adel gave Anders' hand an extra squeeze. "You're the one always going on about how he's a part of you. I figured you'd be happy we… got along so well."
Fenris gagged and Varric's eyebrows shot up toward his hairline. "Oh, this I have got to hear."
Adel picked her sword from the ground and started back out of the tunnel. She waved Varric off. "My lips are sealed."
"Sure," Anders grumbled. "Now they are."
Adel could practically hear Varric writing the whole thing out in his mind on their perilous trip back to Kirkwall.