A/N: Dragon Age and its characters are the brainchildren of Bioware, yadda yadda and all that.
But Katia is my Hawke. And in this episode, she's the poster-child for sexual frustration.
I drew a lot of inspiration from Bladesworn's style- and tried it on for size (take the bit about lyrium madness as a throwback to The Longest Night- one of the best bits of fan fiction I have ever read. If you dig this, you'll DIG that).
Perspective here swings around a bit, usually to whomever has more to be all angsty about. And tense and punctuation will be sufficiently abused. Ye have all been forewarned.
God I wrote this ages ago and didn't bother to publish it.
Originally a oneshot, but then I kept going. So, companion chapter still in progress, which is why this gets the M rating. Mild smut to be added. (Eventually). Of the classiest variety!
Lay Wardens, electricity-things...
The way Anders and Isabela were reminiscing, you'd think they took out an investment on that Ferelden brothel, and stocked it with their own private selection. And Katia ran along ahead, either oblivious or making a sincere effort to be. She was aware enough of what the act of... sex... was. Also what the other, more intimate forms likely entailed, and she had no interest. None. Whatsoever. At the moment.
Her face was Orlesian (her accent was not)- all high cheekbones and large thin eyes that pierced and hollowed you out as she spoke. Something about her appearance or her stance made one's first thoughts when speaking with her wander in the direction of sensuality. She eventually realized this at some too recent point, (that point being after leaving her dead brother's tainted body in the Deep Roads, and after gaining notoriety amongst Kirkwall's bored nobility), and was decidedly very unhappy about herself for a good amount of time. If only because she needed to be taken seriously right now and noblemen these days were distracted enough by their imaginations without encouragement.
And noblemen could be such insufferable louts.
It wasn't until some months after she'd moved to Hightown, and into a place with such time on her hands when her mother and manservant took to running errands for the day, that she found herself daydreaming. Often. Which developed into curiosities most inappropriate, and always involved that mage. The one she occasionally shot dry, flirtatious remarks at, which he consistently shot down. The one she hardly knew well enough to have on her mind with such wonderfully distracting frequency- which, she realized, made her an insufferable lout.
She'd done this only once before. She was sixteen and it was a literal roll in the hay. One of the farmer's boys- Tober, with the decent face and brutish arms and all the other basic attractions for a foolish sixteen year-old girl, had made a particularly good case out of the hayloft in his family's barn, and how no one would hear them or catch them there. And she, all curiosity and naivety, and raw inclinations of lust, agreed. They tumbled and fumbled around, his rough teenage working hands tearing away at her cheap leather strappings; those ungentle touches in her most delicate of places- places she was not fully aware she had- places she immediately felt he had no business being in the vicinity of. She felt something strange and painful that afternoon through the primitive groaning and grunting, the experience was all autumn heat and itchy hay and dirty hands with the kind of kisses a mabari would give, and absolute silence in the brief afterward. She left to find a small basin to clean up in, and became very averse to the idea of ever doing that again. And she barely saw Tober after that day. Be it her avoidance of him or his chasing the next attractive young thing to walk into Lothering that he could defile.
Her father had his suspicions on their little 'encounter', and gave Katia a veiled but somewhat passive aggressive lecture on the importance of values and integrity and other sizable words that still held little meaning to her. She usually brushed her father's lessons aside, and in this instance especially she took the opportunity to run into the yard and shout insults at a passing Carver, chasing after him and away from the stern glances and 'concerned' words.
She had it on good authority (common sense) that Tober had not survived the Blight. He was the type to swing his fists and curse his way through a tavern brawl, looking big and surly and dangerous while shouting simple threats about one's mother. There was little need for actual battle strategy in the Lothering day-to-day, thus the locals practiced none of it. And it was strategy alone that had pulled Katia and the remnants of her family past the Horde, while their village burned. Strategy and some profound form of luck.
She was twenty when the entire surviving contents of the Hawke residence took to the hills to avoid the slaughtering Blight. Twenty years of wisdom contrasted with her previous sixteen year-old decisions, and Tober was a lost thought and unhappy memory to remind Katia how not to interact with men.
But, Anders was no Tober.
There wasn't even any correlation between the two within her head until many months later, when the real fantasies started. And when a mage fantasizes in the Fade, and the Desire Demons get wind of what sort of illusion may work to their favor, it becomes all hell to sleep, and Katia soon got little to none of it- which became most taxing on her composure. Especially around the others.
It was apparent enough that Fenris- first to notice- went so far as to bother Isabela for what could be disturbing their friend so, to which he got a sincere shrug and an earful of theories that actually weren't too far off.
Anders on the other hand, was so absorbed in his routine clinical commitments and constantly keeping Justice's convictions sated that he hadn't left to join Katia and the others in their attempts at being political for many weeks now. And thank the Maker she wasn't around pestering him to do so- as though it weren't already difficult enough trying to fall asleep alone every night when your memories and ideas are so vivid and longing- yet so unsatisfying. Desire Demons must have been making mental notes left and right of the two, heeding only to Justice's occasional fuming appearances. Those nights they'd run along and bother Katia instead.
Until he needed her help.
Some fool templar had been cutting corners and causing a stir within the Circle. News that trickled down through its byways until it reached Anders. Who had a very hands-on approach and only knew what he'd heard- which, granted, was much worse than the situation.
But Katia was the sort to take action. Katia would understand. And she did understand when he nearly put an eye out in blind rage (or was it Vengeance?). Which was new.
And mark his words, the exact day Anders decided that he severely needed to have a discussion with Katia regarding the templar patrols that always seemed to linger a little too long in his end of the Undercity, she showed up as naturally and as suddenly as a rash. She was almost notorious for her timing. How did she always know?
He was currently busy with a patient- an elven girl was brought in unconscious, with a broken rib and a gash the size of his forearm, and Anders was doing his best to hold his stomach while he carefully repaired hers. He dare not ask what sort of creature- if that- could have done such a thing, and her frantic mother was absolutely no help, if he could even gather a single word out of her hysterics. Very few arguments could make him leave even Darktown for the alienage. Damn that alienage. Merrill was insane.
But some loss of blood and one very drained Anders later, the girl was carried out with a fancy scar that bore the shimmery mark of a healer's alterations, as well as her life. The room was largely empty, save a couple of weary volunteers- good people, and Anders took a moment and cleared his head. Katia had been leaning against the far wall nibbling on her nails most un-hygienically, watching the ordeal and keeping her distance, and she approached Anders with a pleasant smile and some semblance of agenda, and a vial of lyrium tonic to boost his spirits after that little healing tirade. He made a distraction of putting out a saucer of milk, ('for the cats'), bracing himself, the way he always had to brace himself to talk to her. His footing became sure, he had his thoughts nicely outlined, and as long as everything went normally, he would sleep just fine tonight.
Now, lyrium is classified as a hallucinogenic stimulant if ingested in appropriate concentrations within a small enough window of time, and it crosses her mind to down a couple of them herself before speaking with him, if only to make the conversation easier. She's had the stalking feeling that there's been much left unsaid between them after every conversation, and from that damned rueful expression he had on she was coming to all kinds of conclusions. She admires his work so much, and she admires him- his face, his hands, his purpose- and this takes the form of something akin to staring, and he will have none of it.
He takes the lyrium she hands him and makes quick work of it, doing his best to keep his eyes down or otherwise averted until it is absolutely necessary to look at her. It's strictly business from here as he holds his gaze on a piece of her hair that's fallen over her forehead, and talks to that instead- all brown and soft and beautiful and probably smells of flowers and lyrium and snow and lyrium and Maker that was strong. And for an awkward time they avoid yet address eachother in that delicate little dance until she gets that cheeky look on her face and makes some quip about 'keeping those templars on their toes, because I won't stand to see them take you from me'.
To which he is lost, his preparations prove futile and he stutters to a halt part-way through his canned reply of, "They must know what I'v-". Because her intended tone may have been a little on the saintly side, but sometimes one's voice is mutinous of one's feelings, and he knows she has that nasty sense of humor, and obviously likes to make men squirm. And his energy levels have just done something odd and overwhelming and suddenly everything seems like a bright idea. Such that:
He stares at her- not at her hair, this time her eyes. And becomes highly direct, "I'm sorry. I can't keep doing this. You've seen what I become, what I can do, what I am. But I'm still a man. And I'm capable of many things, but this teasing- you can't keep doing this and expect me to keep resisting."
Well. Now it was out there. And she gazed at him for a moment, that enigma of an expression all over her face. Damn her for being so difficult to read. Damn her for testing him.
Then the expression fell, along with any pretense, and there was no longer a mask or guise between them. "I don't want you to keep resisting," she said quietly, her voice low and primal. And very much not joking.
And that was just it. The part of him that was purely Justice began causing quite the racket in his corner as some very private, very serious emotions made themselves known to the Fade spirit that lacked a reason to understand- and all at once Anders was against her, kissing her as though he were a thirsting creature reaching water after ages of searching. At some point, before things get too far in such a public setting, he recedes, somehow, and she is able to open her eyes to remember that it was real. He tries to convince her that he is the very embodiment of a bad idea, and if this even registers with her, she only answers with an 'I don't care'- still out of breath as she contemplates dragging him back down right there to continue what he'd started.
He wants so badly to talk some kind of sense into her. She could have such a good life, so full and happy with somebody else, anyone else. But he can't sabotage himself here, not with her. Not anymore. Three years of longing and restraint doesn't argue reason as readily as a pair of soft lips and heavenly eyes and beautiful soul. He is too selfish, and he loves her. And he shudders to think how dangerous his love really is.
At least he's warned her. Because that somehow justifies everything. He warns her over and over and the part of him that is still human tacks a silly little line at the end about leaving her door open this evening, and that's all she really hears.
A/N: Highly unoriginal I know. But it was FUN to write.