A/N: Originally in response to the prompt: Cue crazy magical boom. Everybody swaps body in the funniest, craziest manner and each of them are struggling to cope or taking full advantage of it.
Nothing good ever came out of the Black Emporium. She ought to know that by now – Xenon had an invisible statue of naked Andraste for crying out loud, not to mention that box that screamed at you and that mirror that could take your wrinkles away.
Okay, well, maybe there was nothing wrong with the mirror. But the rest of the stuff… And it wasn't like Xenon helped the situation at all, the creepifying desiccated old mage who sat there in the midst of all his cursed treasure like some kind of disgusting old dragon. He was only too happy to help his "clients" get themselves into trouble.
Really, though, they ought to have learned their lesson about coming into that place. After all, it wasn't as though it hadn't caused its share of horrible misadventures. Like the time Fenris turned into a cat for two weeks, or when she and Merrill had imbibed what they'd thought were healing potions, only to be transformed into tiny pint-sized versions of themselves. The elven couple who had adopted her in the alienage had been shocked to find the Champion of Kirkwall sitting half-naked in the ruins of a crib one morning, but they'd been surprisingly graceful about it.
So why did she keep going back there? She was going to blame it on morbid curiosity; the same morbid curiosity that made her stop and pick every lock on every chest they ever passed by, nevermind that the same pair of torn trousers kept cropping up, along with what seemed to be the same rusty spoon and moth-eaten scarf. Not to mention the plethora of shit that belonged to other people that, being the nice person that she was, she felt compelled to return.
Why, she didn't know. The Champion gets no props for returning scarves to whores. Just saying.
All she'd wanted was something to make everyone get along. Just for a day. For an hour even. She was just so tired of the bickering and the tattling, and if she was honest, she was just a little bit tired of everyone coming to her with their problems. She could barely find time to save blasted Kirkwall from itself with all the errands she was running for everybody else.
When Xenon suggested something he called the Incense of Empathy, she really should have just said no. She should have thanked him sweetly, maybe stopped off at the mirror to take care of that pesky line between her brows that kept coming back, and then run screaming for the hills, arms flailing and daggers flying every which way.
Instead, she paid for the little box, took it home, and used it.
This, in case anyone ever wondered, turned out to be the height of stupid.
The second before Fenris woke up, he knew something was wrong. His house smelled wrong, the blankets smelled wrong, and more than anything else his head felt wrong. It felt sort of… fuller… than usual.
THAT'S BECAUSE I'M IN HERE TOO, YOU FOOL.
He was not particularly proud of the squeak that came out of his mouth – his but not his – and he bolted out of bed only to trip on what seemed to be an excess of fabric wound around his legs.
Why was he wearing a dress? Moreover, why was he in Anders' clinic?
THAT REALLY ISN'T THE QUESTION YOU SHOULD BE ASKING.
That voice, that voice, so familiar and yet so… so…
"Justice!" he snarled, picking himself up out of the filthy dirt on the clinic floor and whirling around, and around, and around, in an attempt to get a fix on which direction he ought to aim his irate comments at the spirit who seemed to be echoing from… inside his mind. "What are you doing in my head?!"
I THINK THE MORE APPROPRIATE QUESTION IS, WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN ANDERS' BODY?
There was a long moment of silence, and then the bed burst into flames.
Aveline had never enjoyed sleeping alone. Oh, that was nothing she'd ever share with any of her friends, of course; they all thought she was the rough tough guardswoman from Ferelden who didn't take any crap off anyone (and that was true, naturally), but there was just something about waking up next to someone else that got her whole day off to a good start.
And even Guard-Captains had mornings when they didn't want to get out of bed.
She rolled over with her eyes closed to throw an arm over Donnic, murmuring happily and snuggling into his warm back.
And then another arm flung itself over her and her eyes shot wide open. There was something soft pressing against her back that she had a sneaking suspicion were a pair of breasts, which was made only more alarming due to the fact that she – and the breasts – were both naked.
The body she'd flung her arm over was not, in fact, Donnic. It was an elf with tanned skin and a tasteful assortment of tattoos that she found herself admiring for a moment before she woke up fully to the fact that the arm flung over what appeared to be a sleeping Fenris was not, in fact, her arm. It was a great deal more tan, sleeker, less muscled and with fewer freckles.
"WHAT THE FUCK!"
That was enough to get everyone moving, and Aveline turned to look over her shoulder just in time to see a similarly naked Hawke go flying off the bed, disappearing over one side in a tangle of blankets.
Fenris, who had dived over the side of bed for cover, now poked his head up over the edge of the mattress and stared at her as she frantically yanked the comforter around what apparently was her naked body. "Isabela? Are you okay? What are we doing in Hawke's room? Did I get drunk again? I got drunk again didn't I. That would explain why I'm naked and in Hawke's room. Only… why do I look like Fenris?"
There was only one person who babbled like that. "Merrill?" Aveline chanced guardedly, but the elf was no longer listening to her, distracted by Fenris' tattoos and the way they seemed to curl all around every body part, turning around in circles like a dog chasing its tail as she tried to get a look at the backside of her – his? – body.
"These are so neat! I wonder if I can make them- ooh!" Merrill cooed as the lines of lyrium along Fenris' arm lit up.
Obviously this was getting her nowhere.
"Maker protect us, Maker preserve us, Maker protect us, Maker preserve us…"
The repeated litany was coming from the other side of Hawke's bed, and since Aveline had never once in her life heard Hawke pray to anything (though the rogue had a stunning array of epithets involving Andraste's various body parts), she knew that could only be… "Sebastian?"
"Isabela? What's going on here? Why am I naked? Why do I have breasts? What kind of foul blood magic is this?!"
"This isn't blood magic," Merrill chirped pleasantly from the other side of the room where she was standing naked in front of Hawke's mirror and flexing Fenris' biceps. "I would know."
"But… I… What? I don't understand!"
"Everybody just shut up for a minute!" Aveline ordered, holding up her hand – Isabela's hand – for silence. The order did not come out with the steely force she was used to, and she was taken aback by it for a moment before she forged ahead. "I'm not Isabela, I'm Aveline."
"Oh," Merrill said, "That explains it."
Aveline decided she didn't really want to know what explained what, and moved the conversation right along. "That," she said, pointing to naked Fenris who was still admiring himself in front of Hawke's mirror, "Is Merrill. And you, Sebastian, seem to be in Hawke's body."
"Oh," he said in Hawke's voice, sounding very small. "I see."
"Look!" Merrill exclaimed, making the lyrium markings all across Fenris' backside light up. "I'm a firefly!"
Sighing, Aveline slapped the palm of her hand into her forehead.
The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was Andraste's face, staring at him from across the room with beady eyes peering out of a belt buckle. It was enough to make him scream like a little girl.
He'd done it. Somehow, some way, he'd slept with Sebastian. That was the only way Anders could reason out waking up half-dressed in what looked to be a Chantry cell, with Sebastian's armor laying draped over a chair.
He wasn't sure whether to be proud of himself for getting the stalwart Chantry brother to break his vows, or supremely disturbed that he didn't remember a single thing about it.
That was too bad, really. Sebastian was incredibly attractive, if you liked the sanctimonious, better-than-thou types.
(Anders had done it with Templars. There really wasn't much he could say for himself at this point.)
There was a sudden knock on the door that sent him flying out of bed, looking for his clothing. Where were his robes? Where were his robes?!
"Brother Sebastian? Is everything alright?" A voice called through the door, and in a panic Anders threw on the first thing he found – one of Sebastian's shirts – and looked around desperately for his boots, his staff, anything. Where was all his stuff? "Brother Sebastian? We heard a scream."
"Um, uh, yes! Everything's alright, sister. Just a bad dream."
It was a bad dream, in fact. The voice that came out of his mouth wasn't anything like his own, and all of a sudden he had an accent.
"What's wrong honey?" Donnic said, looking confused and a little hurt at the way his wife was hiding most of her pale, naked body behind a pillow.
"Donnic. Riiiight. Okay, here's the thing, guy." Varric had decided to tread carefully; it'd been quite a while since he was in one of these sorts of situations and-
No, scratch that. He'd never been in this kind of situation. There wasn't once in his life that he could remember waking up a) in the body of a human, b) in the body of a human woman, c) in the body of a human woman who could kill him with her bare hands, or d) next to the husband of said human woman with the death grip.
There was a reason he was a one-crossbow man. This shit was complex.
"How surprised would you be to find out that I'm not Aveline, I'm Varric?"
The look on Donnic's face moved from confused to disbelieving to annoyed and finally, to Varric's relief and the stalwart guardsman's credit, to acceptance. "Why do I feel like Hawke has something to do with this?"
"This is Kirkwall. When doesn't Hawke have something to do with it?"
"Hey Varric?" Donnic said a moment later as they dressed in silence.
"Yeah buddy?"
"Sorry for grabbing your ass."
"It's okay bro. It's okay."
Her feet didn't touch the floor when she swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Instead, they dangled about a foot from it, and she kicked them in the air, fascinated by the movement.
It was almost as fascinating, she had to admit, as the fabulous wealth of chest hair that sprouted all over her torso. Luxurious chest hair. Thick chest hair. Soft and silky like the fur of one of those posh Hightown dogs that shit all over everything, only better because it undoubtedly was Varric's chest hair, and everyone in Kirkwall knew that the dwarf had the manliest chest hair to ever manly Manly-town.
Or at least, Isabela thought they should know. If they didn't know, she intended to show them.
But, after all, first things first.
"Oh, Bianca," she purred, disturbed and aroused in equal measure at the way her words sounded coming out in Varric's voice. "I've been waiting a long, long time."
Somehow the best decision they could come up with amongst themselves was to stay put at Hawke's house until help arrived. Or, at least, until Hawke came back in whatever body she might happen to be wearing at the time and Aveline could strangle her to death.
It was a little alarming, the way no one but her seemed to be bothered by this turn of events. Merrill was still upstairs, modeling Fenris' body for herself, and Sebastian had disappeared for a disturbingly long time into the washroom. He was probably crying. At least she hoped he was crying. If he wasn't crying, she really didn't want to think about what all of those strange noises coming through the door were.
To make matters worse, the flimsy material that passed, apparently, for Isabela's smallclothes kept riding up uncomfortably. She'd helped herself to a pair of Hawke's pants to put a stop to this madness, but there was nothing to be done about the breasts.
She'd always suspected there was some sort of padding hidden in the Rivaini's clothing that turned Isabela's assets into, well, assets, but no, no. She was wrong. Isabela apparently was just blessed with the best pair of tits this side of the Minanter.
Just one more reason to hate the bitch.
She'd been sitting downstairs in the foyer for about an hour, fuming and drinking, and then fuming because she was drinking and it was still fairly early in the morning which only lead to more drinking when Sebastian ventured out of the washroom finally, wrapped up in Hawke's robe, and ducked into the kitchen for a sandwich before disappearing back into the washroom again.
Eventually Merrill brought Fenris' body downstairs (briefly; Aveline had to order her to go back upstairs and put on a pair of pants – what was wrong with the Dalish?), and half-heartedly Aveline watched her phase various body parts through random household objects.
At least until Merrill had gotten Fenris' arm stuck through the door to the foyer and couldn't seem to figure out how to get it back out again.
Aveline thought about helping. She really did. And then, uncharacteristically, just decided she didn't care.
She was starting to feel like a sailor marooned on a deserted island (not to mention the fact that she couldn't stop thinking of things in terms of sailing analogies) when the door to the cellar burst open to reveal an irate looking Anders. The ends of his hair were smoking and the feathers on the shoulders of his robe had seen better days, and on the whole he looked like a bird that someone had rolled in dirt and then struck with lightning.
"This is a disaster!" he snarled, waving both arms in a way that did nothing to dispel his bizarre similarity to a bird. On cue, a shower of smoking feathers fluffed out around him and flew every which way, and he slapped himself in the face. "No, Justice, I did not ask for your opinion! You will be silent, or else I will-"
Aveline could only watch as Anders' other hand reached out jerkily and lifted up to slap the other side of his face.
"How dare you- ow, ow!"
Justice had apparently decided to strike back with a vengeance. That was sort of funny, if you thought about it.
It had taken him a little while to understand that somehow, some way, he'd ended up in Sebastian's body.
At least he thought it was Sebastian's. Anders was pretty sure, as no one else in Kirkwall would be naïve enough to wear Andraste's face over his crotch (except maybe Merrill, but since she was a crazy Dalish blood mage who thought demons were her friends and didn't even believe in Andraste anyway, he considered that sort of unlikely). And no one else was stupid enough to wear shining white armor that said to the enemy, clearly, shoot me.
But the arms weren't his. The legs weren't his. The feet weren't his, and when he took a good long look down the front of his pants – nope, that wasn't his either. And he should know. Ever since he'd met Hawke, he and his dick had become very good friends.
It was, one could say, an injustice.
When he realized he was waiting for a mental slap to the back of the head that wasn't going to come, he really shouldn't have giggled (Sebastian sounded like a total creeper when he giggled).
What he should have done was strap on Sebastian's Great White Armor of Chastity. And he should have gone to look for Hawke and the others to find out what sort of spell-fuckery had gone wrong this time, and maybe even to track down his own body to see what had become of it and Justice.
He should have done all of those things, but instead he didn't do any of them (no one could ever say Anders was afraid to commit to a cause, one way or the other). You see, Anders needed a vacation. Badly. And this body needed to be appreciated and adored for all of its hot, holy glory. Not to mention he was pretty sure there were dust and cobwebs amassing in the priest's nether regions.
Sebastian would thank him later.
Maybe.
"I'll take one of everything."
Madame Lusine could only stare at the handsome if somewhat disheveled looking man with the Starkhaven accent, at the big pile of coins in front of her, and wonder at her good luck.
There was just so much to do. Isabela didn't know how she would remotely ever have time for it all.
Obviously the most sensible thing to do was to make herself a checklist. Varric would have been proud.
First things first, wander around shirtless. That, at least, was already being done. The bar wenches had swooned at the mighty expanse of chest hair that had burst free of the restraints of clothing with manly aplomb. Corff had turned green. Probably with envy.
Second, provide illustrations and creative editing for all of Varric's upcoming novels. The dwarf had a severe, almost terminal really, lack of the words throbbing and pulsating in his work. Everyone knew pulsating could be used to fill up any plot hole.
In more ways than one.
Giggity.
Third, fourth, fifth and sixth – polish Bianca. Polish her long and polish her hard.
Seventh, comb chest hair.
Eighth, attempt to get Norah in the sack. Possibly to be combined with number seven.
Nine through infinity – rinse and repeat.
Today, she thought with a stroke of Varric's manly chin, was going to be a very good day.
It wasn't that she didn't like being Merrill. Really.
Hawke had always been a little curious of what it would be like to be an elf – especially what with those ears being all pointy and sensitive. She got a great deal of amusement out of making Fenris' eyes cross when she licked and nibbled his, but in that regard human ears were sadly deficient.
So the ears were fine. She could keep the ears. She did, however, miss her breasts. And her hips.
And her ass. She always complained about her ass before, but faced with Merrill's lithe and slender body she felt a distinct lack. She missed it. She wanted to write it letters.
Actually, what she really wanted was to get it back, but since she had no idea how to fucking do that, she might just have to settle for love notes.
Stupid Black Emporium. She should have known nothing good would ever come out of that place. Well, of course, besides all of the actual good that came out of that place, like gear and potions and that shiny new belt she'd picked up the other day… but that wasn't the point! Once again that damned shop had taken a simple, fond, and entirely reasonable wish and fucked it up beyond all recognition. Waking up in Merrill's crappy bed in the crappy alienage had felt like someone's idea of a mean joke.
Not to mention that damned mirror. She felt like it was watching her. She wasn't sure how wrong it was to be kind of turned on by that.
This was not her fault. Nope. This was (somehow) Xenon's fault, and she was going to make him fix it.
But first she needed help because, quite frankly, walking around Lowtown barefoot was giving her the willies. That, and she kept getting stepped on, being rather too small and unassuming to make the crowd part for her.
Being Champion of Kirkwall really had its perks. Merchants were nice to you and brought out all sweet illegal secret goodies they kept in the back (it wasn't her fault she liked her shit forbidden). Bad guys averted their eyes and pulled their hats down over their faces. Babies cried. Women swooned. Men… also swooned.
Man, it was good to be the Champion.
Caught up in thoughts of her own epicness and the sheer undeniability of her awesome prowess, she walked right into the fat backside of some guy perusing the wares at one of the merchant's stalls.
"Watch it, knife-ear," he muttered at her over his shoulder.
"Why don't you say that to my face, peckerfuck?"
The words were out of her mouth before she even realized it, and the man in question turned around to tower over her with a scowl.
Holy crap. She wasn't used to bad guys being so damn tall.
Realizing she had an idiotic expression on her face, Hawke shut Merrill's mouth with a snap and did the next best thing she could think of. She punched him in the face.
Now, the bards would tell of this punch for all time to come. They would sing of the glorious way her fist zinged through the air on the sheer power of awesome to connect with a rattling snap to a chin that, if we were being honest, was a bit weak anyway.
It was epic.
At least, if failure could be measured in those terms.
The man didn't budge, she thought the crunching sound she usually associated with the bones breaking in someone's face was actually coming from her knuckles, and dammit if her hand didn't freakin' hurt like fire.
"Gotta go!" she squeaked, and ran with arms flailing, staff flying every which way, toward the Hanged Man.
Epic fail.
All things considered, he could have woken up in a worse body.
Playing a little accidental grab-ass with Donnic aside (not that he could fault the man; Aveline's body was in such good shape it was almost scary. Already there were plot bunnies hopping in his mind about his next book, possibly a sequel to Hard in Hightown involving a strong, sexy and sorrowfully typecast guardswoman whose body was a deadly weapon), he could have ended up in the body of an apostate (Anders) or a total floozy (Isabela) with who knows what going on inside him.
Initially that thought had been about Justice, but with a little more consideration he realized it was likely to be just as true about the Rivaini. Maker bless her.
As it was, he could casually stroll around the guard barracks and the Viscount's Keep like nothing was the matter, and Donnic was doing a good job of heading off any official business coming his way by telling anyone and everyone that the Guard-Captain was ill as Varric hid in Aveline's office.
The guy was such a bro. And if everyone thought Aveline was pregnant after this, well. It was nobody's fault.
Plus, since no one was willing to chance the crazed ire of a red-headed Ferelden possibly experiencing morning-sickness, he had plenty of time to surreptitiously go through all the files that Aveline, in her infinite honorability had told him he couldn't touch.
What? He was a nice guy, but he was still a rogue, and a dwarf. Opportunity was his middle name. One of them, anyway.
He finally came across a file marked Varric Tethras and went through it with a great deal of amusement, taking the time to mark out errors with a red pen and to write in a series of corrections and helpful suggestions (Aveline would appreciate this – and if she didn't, it was still hilarious). The small subfile entitled Bianca he took out and burned, even if it only included a single sheet of paper with a giant question mark on it and the words "WTF, a crossbow?" written in one corner.
He deserved to have some secrets, dang it.
He was in the process of picking the lock on what he had a sneaking suspicion was Aveline's diary (he was, after all, the self-proclaimed group historian – whatever was contained within this locked tome could be vital. Also, interesting) when there was a knock on the door and Guardsman Brennan came in with mussed hair and looking a bit red in the face.
"Guardsman?" he asked in his best I'm-the-Guard-Captain-I-have-everything-under-control voice, thankful briefly for the time he spent shadowing Donnic around Kirkwall, gathering information for Siege Harder. Writers and press, they got all the perks.
Brennan sighed and straightened her armor, smearing the hair back from her face. "We have Prince Vael in custody ma'am; I know he's a friend of yours, I thought you might want to know."
"Sebastian?" Varric marveled at the idea of Sebastian ever being arrested for anything – aside from maybe a violation of some shine ordinance somewhere, on account of his armor.
"Yes ma'am. Apparently he was causing some kind of ruckus at the Rose." Brennan paused. "I have to warn you, ma'am. He's a bit handsy."
It was all he could do not to slap his hand into his forehead. "Thank you Brennan, I'll take care of it. Dismissed."
Brennan looked relieved, nodded, and left. Hey, he wasn't so bad at this Guard-Captain thing after all.
This ship was sinking faster than a frigate with a gatlok hole through the middle.
Also, damn these sailing analogies. And damn Isabela's tolerance for alcohol; Aveline had finished off the decanter of Antivan brandy she'd found in Hawke's study and was still conscious enough to be convinced that she would never, ever, be drunk enough. At least not for this situation.
Sebastian had graduated himself from giving Hawke's body the longest bubble bath in the history of mankind and had since gone upstairs to play what she was assuming was dress-up in her clothing. The last time she'd seen him, he'd put on something with a sickening degree of lace and flouncery that she had never ever seen Hawke wear and was swanning about with a fan.
Horrible.
Anders (whom she had figured out was actually Fenris, thanks to the stream of incomprehensible Tevinter cusswords that kept pouring out of his mouth) had disappeared into the study long ago, and every once in a while she could hear him arguing with himself, punctuated by the sounds of slapping and things smashing and even the occasional small explosion.
"FOOL! YOU'VE SET US ON FIRE!"
Atrocious.
At least Merrill was still where she could see her, what with Fenris' arm stuck through the foyer door. Where, as far as Aveline was concerned, she could stay indefinitely if not for the incessant whining.
"Aveliiiiiine!"
She ignored it.
"Aveline, help!"
She ignored that too.
"Aveline, pleeeeease!"
Screw the glass, she was just going to drink straight out of the bottle.
"I have to pee!"
…fuck.
It had been a long time since Hawke was chased, chased, through the streets of Kirkwall. The Champion chased you, you did not chase the Champion. Not unless, of course, you were trying to buy her a drink. Then, and only then, was chasing acceptable. That was the order of things.
The last time she had run like this, she was sprinting in circles trying to avoid an angry Arishok intent on shoving his sword up her ass. And really, that wasn't good any which way you thought about it. She was an adventurous sort, but that was a bit more than it took to satisfy her Qun.
Hawke sprinted through the door of the Hanged Man, bowling over several drunks in the process, streaked by a baffled looking Corff, hopped over a puddle of vomit and ran up the stairs to Varric's room where her dwarven friend was (predictably) sitting at his table with papers and books spread out all around him.
Only today he had Bianca sitting in a chair next to him like a prom date. Also, he was shirtless, and lo, the chest hair was mighty. It actually gave her a little bit of a pause, blinded by its magnificence as she was, but the heavy sounds of boots behind her reminded her that yes, she was in fact in the body of a tiny, frail elven apostate, and no, she was not going to allow herself to get her face pounded in just because this body was sort of lacking in the strength-of-arm department.
Varric would protect her. His manly chest-beard would turn her attackers aside with its might and its fluffy goodness.
"I'm going to die!" she shrieked, and dove behind his chair, peeking out over his shoulder as the man she'd attempted to punch into oblivion came crashing through the door. Unfortunately she'd only managed to punch him into irate (not even a close neighbor to oblivion), and his face was quite red. Though, after catching sight of the shirtless dwarf, it began to look a bit purple. Hawke ducked down behind him again, because obviously if she couldn't see the guy who wanted to throttle her, he didn't exist, and her chances of survival rapidly increased.
"That elf is mine!"
"Think again, jackass. Say hello to my little friend!"
There was the sound of a crossbow being armed, and then the sounds of heavy boots hastily making a retreat, and then, naturally, the sound of Varric laughing (which sounded more like an insane cackle today than the rumbling chuckle she was used to).
Hawke took that as her cue to stand back up again, shaking her fist at the man's fleeing back. "Yeah! Suck on that, ya bastard!"
There was a quick reshuffling and the sound of a zipper being pulled, and Norah crept out from beneath the table, wiping her lips with the back of her hand and smirking. "Don't mind if I do."
For the second time that morning, Hawke's mouth dropped wide open.
He was pretty sure that it was Anders in the cell. While he could easily believe (and expect) these kind of drunken hijinks from Isabela, the shirtless wonder currently shaking his ass atop the rickety wooden bunk in the corner had all the dignity of a horny chihuahua. Flipping through his mental rolodex of their companions, he had to agree with himself. It was probably Anders.
Poor, extremely repressed Anders.
There was one thing he could say for the guy. He really knew how to make the best of a situation.
Not that he was sure Sebastian would agree, seeing what ol' Sparklefingers had done with his body. Likely the priest would not have been pleased to see himself clad in nothing but a pair of lace-trimmed pantaloons and a feather boa, but at least pink was his color.
"Don't know where he got the bloomers," the guardsman on duty said, baffled. "He was wearing pants when we brought him in, normal as you please."
"Aveline! Aveline, sweet, sweet Aveline," Anders slurred, staggering toward the bars. He smelled like a whorehouse – perfume, booze, and, well, whore. "I knew you'd come for me. I knew you couldn't resist. Wait, wait," he said before Varric could even begin to figure out what to say, digging around in his apparently borrowed pair of underthings and retrieving a rather impressive collection of coins from Maker-knows-where. He piled them in Varric's hand which, fortunately, had one of Aveline's gloves on it.
He made a mental note to tell her to burn that one, later.
"Is that enough for bail? I could get more, but I've already cleaned these fuckers out." Anders gestured nonchalantly to the handful of fellows in the next cell, all of whom were leering through the partition and waggling their eyebrows.
Donnic blanched visibly and Varric would have shuddered, but Aveline's body apparently was immune to such disturbances, what with her abs of steel and thighs that could crack walnuts.
(He got a little excited thinking about that, actually, and so he tried not to. Bianca would not approve.)
"Can we get him out of here?" he asked, and the guardsman seemed only too happy to comply, obviously a little creeped out by the situation and the amount of lipstick smeared haphazardly all around Anders' mouth in a rainbow of shame. Sebastian was going to murder him.
"And uh… let's never speak of this," he suggested as the man handed him a folded pair of pants and, incomprehensibly, a parasol. "His Highness obviously has a problem with his brain being missing."
"Yes ma'am, a fine plan ma'am."
Giving the fleeing guardsman the best stalwart nod he could manage while trying to ignore the hand that was persistently groping his ass, Varric turned around and slapped Anders with the pair of pants. "Stop it, dumbass. I'm Varric, not Aveline!"
"Varric? Varric! Bro! I love you, man."
"I love you too, apparently, you drunk bastard. How are you possibly this drunk? It's like ten in the morning."
"Don't you judge me. I haven't been drunk in like six years. Hey Donnic. Your wife is smoking hot."
Varric shook his head and Donnic just sighed. "If he asks you to punish him, I quit."
At the best of times, the Hawke Estate was fodder for neighborhood gossip, old biddies from far and wide trampling over one another at the windows for a peek at the Champion and the odd company she kept.
Seriously. It kept the old biddy population in Kirkwall down.
At the worst of times, it was tantamount to a three-ring-circus and not a single one of the rumors, no matter how legitimate, could hold a candle to the truth.
This, obviously, was the worst of times.
They had managed to gather in Hawke's living room, all eight of them, and currently two pairs of extremely irate eyes, four pairs of somewhat guiltily satisfied eyes, and one pair of 'hey, what the hell, I'm going with the flow, this happens like every Tuesday' eyes were locked on Hawke.
Or rather, that was to say, locked on Hawke in Merrill's body. It was a little unnerving, actually, being stared down by herself (while wearing a poncy pink dress no less that she didn't even know she had).
"You need to fix this Hawke, right now!" demanded Aveline from Isabela's body, only with the amount of alcohol the woman had consumed thus far today it came out more like fishit *hiccup* rinow. Fortunately Hawke was well versed in the language of drunk-speak, what with being best friends with a renown alcoholic (Fenris) who didn't even speak in the common tongue half the time anyway, and used her epic Champion skills to translate effortlessly.
"I tried!" she said, and gestured with Merrill's arm, the skinny limb flailing ineffectually. "Well, we did," nodding to Isabela who still sat, shirtless and now somehow oiled and gleaming, in Varric's body with Bianca on her lap. "It was closed?"
"How can it be closed, Hawke?" Demanded Anders, who was Fenris. "CLOSED STORES ARE THE HEIGHT OF INJUSTICE." Fenris slapped himself.
"I don't freakin' know," she growled. "I don't make the rules, it was just closed! What do you want me to do?"
"Did you check the manual?"
Seven sets of eyes turned toward Sebastian, who blushed a bright pink in Hawke's body and surreptitiously fanned himself. At some point Anders' parasol had ended up next to his feet, and he looked like a slightly creepy version of Little Bo Peep. "What? Don't those things usually come with a manual?"
"I thought you said the Black Emporium was a pit of temptation and representative of all things evil of which the Maker disapproves?"
Sebastian shrugged cautiously. "I was curious. The Maker forgives?"
"He better," muttered Varric, crossing his arms over his chest as a still-drunken Anders in Sebastian's body flung an arm around his (Aveline's) shoulders and not-very-subtly tried to cop a feel through her breastplate.
"Can someone please just go and get the manual, before I have to pee again?" Merrill pleaded pitifully from within Fenris' body. His arm was still stuck through the foyer door.
"Okay, okay, I'm going, I'm going." Darting upstairs and back down, she pried open the box to find, lo and behold, there actually was a manual. "Well I'll be damned. It's in Elvhen."
Merrill held Fenris' untrapped arm out for the manual and flipped through it with Hawke's help, a whispered conversation taking place between the two as Isabela continued to stroke Bianca possessively, flexing Varric's mighty chest muscles and assuming a pose that would make any Paragon proud. A drunken Aveline reached out to poke at the (now glistening) bounty of chest hair thoughtfully, only to have her hand slapped by Donnic, who was looking a bit overwhelmed and was only there to keep the peace.
"Are you freakin' serious?" Hawke demanded and Merrill shrugged, attracting the attention of all again. Seeing their stares, Hawke frowned and reached out to shut the door, pulling Merrill/Fenris (Ferrill? Menris?) into the foyer with her. "Excuse us."
A third of Fenris' arm dangled through the other side of the door like a strange and somewhat awkward decoration.
"So I have good news, and I have bad news." Hawke took a deep breath. "The condition is, in fact, reversible."
"Thank the Maker," Varric breathed, removing once again Anders'/Sebastian's sneaky fingers from where they were trying to ineffectually undo the catches on Aveline's armor. Anders rewarded him by draping his feathered boa around his neck. "Uh… thanks."
"Love you, bro."
"Super."
Fenris cleared his throat and rubbed his (Anders') cheek uncomfortably, both the right and left sides of his face a bright pink now from his continual slap-fight with Justice. "So what's the bad news? BAD NEWS IS THE HEIGHT OF INJUSTICE. Oh for Maker's sake, shut UP already!" He slapped himself. Again.
Hawke stared at him for a moment. "Uh… yeah, right. Well, you see, the thing is…"
"We have to have sex."
"…What she said," Hawke finished lamely, glancing at Merrill who shrugged Fenris' shoulders and looked rather nonchalant.
"We have to have what?" Sebastian demanded, dropping the fan Hawke's hand was holding.
"I like this plan. I feel this is a good plan," agreed Isabela, holding Bianca a little tighter in Varric's grip.
"Are you certain this is the only way?" Donnic asked, looking a little worried by the whole thing, especially after Anders raised his (Sebastian's) hand and waved it around.
"Me first!"
Hawke attempted a guilty grin, and then let it drop, feeling her wry trade-mark expression was not done appropriate justice by Merrill's sweet-faced features. "So, turns out this is actually a tool for couples with problems, hence the whole… empathy… trading body… thing… yeah. Look, suffice to say, if we bone, we switch bodies. No, not you boy," she said, waving at her mabari whose head had perked up immediately at the word 'bone'.
"But I like this body!" Protested Isabela, making Varric's glistening pectorals flex and clutching Bianca possessively to his chest. "Bianca loves me better. She's my precious. My precious!"
"I am not having sex with Anders," growled Fenris, which was a little odd, coming out of Anders' body as the statement was. "BUT I WILL. No you won't! THIS IS MY BODY TOO. Shut up, Justice! YOU ARE NOT THE BOSS OF ME."
"Well, I don't give a crap," Varric sighed, running a hand through Aveline's ginger hair. "I want my body back. Come on, Rivaini."
"You can't make me!"
"If you're a good girl, Bianca can watch."
"…okay."
This whole thing felt a bit wrong. So wrong it was almost right.
Isabela in his body followed him up the stairs into the library for some privacy, Bianca still clutched in both hands. He would be lying if he said he wasn't a little bit jealous at the way his mighty crossbow gleamed with the oil spread all over his (and this he could say proudly) chest and mighty pelt of chest hair.
Lesser men had been daunted by that luxurious fur, and he would also be lying if he said he wasn't just a wee bit intimidated by it himself. But fuck that. He wanted his crossbow back. This one was for Bianca.
And, well, maybe just a teeny tiny bit for him too. Feeling the hard, toned muscles in Aveline's body flex beneath her armor all day was hard to ignore. The woman was built like a bronto and yet managed to stay on just this side of feminine, an impressive feat if there ever was one. A woman worthy of his admiration on many levels and yet, she had Donnic, and he was as ever a one-crossbow man. Their epic love was not to be.
Well, it would be briefly, and awkwardly, and Isabela would be involved (typical), but he was so totally going to make her the heroine of his next book, kind of as an apology, but mostly as an homage. Just see if he didn't.
He stripped off most of her armor (except the breastplate, which for some reason was kind of turning him on) and bent over the desk. Too high – Hawke didn't have a stool of the proper height for Isabela to stand on. He tried down on all fours – too low, and also, kind of embarrassing.
Sometimes being short sucked big bronto balls.
Isabela laughed at him from inside his own body until he wanted to slap her, and sat down in Hawke's big chair, holding Bianca to her (his) manly chest and patting her knee. He stared at her and she shrugged. "This is not my first dwarven rodeo."
Sighing, he stripped out of Aveline's smalls and straddled her (his?) lap and put Aveline's gloved hands on her shoulders for leverage. "Don't you need to, I don't know, get ready or something?"
"Hmm, what? Oh, right." Isabela turned her attention away from Bianca long enough to undo her pants. "Nah, I've been hard since like this morning. Bianca is one sexy lady."
Varric just sighed and rolled his eyes. His body was sort of, well, dwarfed by Aveline's size and for a moment he experienced a pang of regret that he was sort of, well, on the wrong end of things as it were. Still, he reasoned as he slipped off one of her gloves (incidentally the one that had been filled full of Anders' crotch-coins) and spread some of the oil Isabela had rubbed all over everywhere onto the stiffened member between them (Isabela really hadn't been kidding), he might as well make the most of it.
Now it was a glistening member. Great.
"Mmm, that feels good," Isabela purred in his voice. "There's a lot to say for having a dick. It's throbbing. Absolutely pulsating as it were."
"Can you please shut up?" Varric groused, easing Aveline's body down on top of his until their hips met and they both sighed. "This is hard enough without hearing myself talk to… myself."
Isabela giggled. "Hard. Get it? Fine, fine, spoilsport, have it your way. Mmn, Bianca, you minx." She closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair, letting Varric do most of the work as her hands stroked up and down the crossbow's gleaming wood. "You're such a naughty girl, such a naughty, naughty girl!"
"I hate you so much."
"You love it big girl."
He did, or was, or something, but he was not about to share that with anyone (though with all of the supernatural goings-on it was almost as if he were in a story and a cluster of interested third parties were hovering just behind a screen, reading every word).
Eventually they both got into it and Isabela stopped talking and there was some moaning and sighing in Aveline's voice, and right when they both were just about there…
"Wait!" she said, and he stopped, debating whether or not it having a black eye was worth it when he switched back into his body. "I have to say goodbye to Bianca."
"Well, do it already!"
"Bianca, my love," she said, caressing the crossbow mournfully. "I'll never forget this time we had together. You have satisfied desires I never even knew I had. I will forever be ruined for other crossbows."
"That's sweet. Now can we please get on with it?"
"Yeah, yeah, okay."
He grunted, she moaned, Bianca twanged, and it all ended with a crossbow bolt embedded in Hawke's ceiling.
"Well? Did it work?"
"Just like old times," Varric agreed seconds before Donnic punched him in the face. "Ow, bro! What the fuck was that for?"
Donnic just shrugged. "Sorry, bro. Had to. You banged my wife."
"Your hot wife," Anders agreed. Somehow he had gotten a hold of the feather boa again. "Your smoking hot wife."
"You know, I'm going to have to bang your wife too," pointed out Isabela, now ensconced in Aveline's body, cocking one hip out in a seductive pose that… really, frankly, looked quite wrong with the amount of armor Aveline was wearing.
That pulled Donnic up short for a second, the guardsman looking back and forth between his wife in Isabela's body and Isabela in his wife's as though the thought had never occurred to him.
There was a moment of silence.
"I'm cool with it."
"HOT," Justice put in helpfully, before Fenris slapped a hand over his mouth.
Isabela reached longingly for Bianca, and Varric slapped her hand away.
"Hawke, not to be a selfish jerk or anything, because you know I wouldn't want to be a selfish jerk, but my arm – well, Fenris' arm really – has been stuck through this door for an awfully long time. Do you think maybe you can just do me so I can sit down for a while?"
"You want me to do you?"
"Yes, do me."
"Right now?"
"Yes, do me right now!"
"Okay, okay. I just wanted to hear you say that out loud."
"HOT," Justice agreed. Fenris slapped himself. "STOP BEING SO UNJUST!"
"He's just jealous," offered Isabela unhelpfully.
Hawke shrugged Merrill's slim shoulders. "Want to watch?"
"YES. No. YES. No. YES! No! Dammit, no!"
"…YES."
Snickering, Hawke stepped into the foyer and shut the door behind them.
"Okay, so… how is this going to work with my arm stuck through the door?" Merrill asked, giving Fenris' arm an experimental tug. Once again, she was defeated.
"You can hold me up with one arm. Trust me, we've tried it, and your body is lighter than mine."
"Oh," Merrill paused. "You three must do some creative things. Isabela tells me things sometimes, but I never know whether or not to believe her. Some of it sounds so outlandish."
"You've read 101 Uses of a Phallic Tuber?"
"On accident. I thought it was about gardening."
"It's not that outlandish, relatively speaking. You should join us some time."
"Oh really? That's very kind of you Hawke, I just might-"
Just then a flickering blue figure stepped into the foyer from the door off from the kitchen. "YOU WILL BOTH SUBMIT YOURSELVES TO JUSTICE."
Hawke stared at him from over Merrill's shoulder, having just managed to hitch her legs around Fenris' waist. "Say what?"
"J/K. JUSTICE HUMBLY REQUESTS A PIECE OF THAT SWEET ACTION."
Hawke looked at Merrill. Merrill looked at Hawke. They both shrugged. "The more the merrier, I say."
It took a little bit of moaning and a little bit of groaning and a little bit of "Watch where you're aiming that thing!" and a "SORRY", but they managed to fit themselves together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and Hawke was proud to say (and maybe a little regretful) that no phallic tubers were involved.
"LYRIUM TASTES LIKE SPARKLES," Justice commented.
"The Fade tastes like snozberries," Hawke agreed.
"What's a snozberry?" Asked Merrill, bewilderedly thrusting away between the two of them.
"Never you mind, I'll tell you when you're older."
"YOU WILL NOT."
"Yes I will! No, don't stop!"
"VERY WELL. FOR JUSTICE."
"For Justice!" Hawke repeated as she came.
"For Justice!" Merrill agreed, following suit.
And then Justice came too and the door ripped off its hinges and they all fell over with it on top of them.
And from beneath it all:
"WHO'S YOUR DADDY?"
"You are, Hawke. Now would you kindly remove Anders' cock from my ass?"
"Oh, sure thing Fen. Sorry. FOR JUSTICE!"
Hawke was starting to think the Black Emporium might not be such a bad place. Justice seemed to agree. Or at least he would, if he would stop licking the markings on Fenris' neck for half a second. Seeing as she'd never experienced the shivery tingle of lyrium before being trapped in Anders' body, she really wasn't inclined to make him stop.
"Knock it off, Hawke!" Fenris demanded, attempting valiantly to peel her and Justice off of him.
"Oh suck it up, elf. Do you have any idea how much this body's face hurts from all that slapping?"
"Do you have any idea how much my ass hurts from all that-"
Hawke slapped Anders' hand over his mouth. "Think of the children."
He smacked her hand away. "What children? The only child I see is that one," gesturing to Anders, who had plopped Sebastian's body down in Isabela's (Aveline's) armored lap and was doing something confusing with his feather boa that was currently earning him some kind of money.
"Oh, I wouldn't worry. He'll be back to his dour, frazzled self soon enough. THAT IS A GRAVE INJUSTICE. What, you'd rather be in my head? AT LEAST YOU THROW BETTER PARTIES."
"Speaking of parties-" Isabela started, attempting to prod Sebastian-who-was-Anders off of her lap with a gloved finger.
"-We should probably get ours started," agreed Aveline, who stood up slowly, weaving a little on Isabela's body's still-slightly-drunken legs.
Donnic looked a little uncomfortable. Mostly in the pants.
"Really? I thought I was going to have to arm-wrestle you into it. Not that I object to being in your sexy body. You really should get out of this giant tin can more often."
"I object to you being in my body, whore. Let's go."
"I love a woman in charge," Isabela purred, the words coming out all wrong in Aveline's voice. She picked up a recalcitrant Anders off her lap with an ease that, frankly, kind of turned everybody on, and handed him off to Sebastian who was immediately gifted with a feather boa around his (Hawke's) neck.
They went up to Hawke's room for some privacy, the place somewhat more torn apart than before thanks to Sebastian's raid on Hawke's closet.
"You know I still don't like you," Aveline said, shedding Isabela's scanty tunic and the pair of pants she'd stolen from Hawke.
"And you know I still think you're a prude," Isabela shot back, peeling herself out of Aveline's armor.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Oh yeah?!"
"Yeah!"
"Whore!"
"Prig!"
"Slattern!"
"Man-hands!"
Aveline tackled Isabela, or Isabela tackled Aveline; one of the two happened, it was all sort of confusing what with ginger hair and tanned legs and arms and breasts and freckles flying about.
They landed on Hawke's bed and proceeded to destroy it in the fiery passion of their ultimate hate sex, pillows flying, picture frames smashing off the bedside table, the canopy coming down on top of them as they rattled the bed frame. An extra-impressive feat, as it was made of solid wood and had withstood the level of awesome sexual prowess that was Fenris, Isabela and Hawke combined.
The same Hawke who right now was scuffling with Donnic in the hallway over who got to peek through the keyhole, because Donnic was curious and Justice was turning out to be sort of a perv.
When it was over half an hour, a broken window, a smashed mirror, a toppled over chair, and half a dozen orgasms later (they only needed the one, but hey, why underachieve?), they lay on the floor surrounded by potting soil, shards of glass and shreds of ripped-up fabric. Aveline's head was pillowed on Isabela's arm, and they shared a cigarette between them that the pirate had pulled out of Maker-knows-where.
"So," Aveline said.
"So," Isabela repeated.
"Do you want to come over for dinner some time?"
"Are you asking me out?"
"…No. Why, would you say yes if I was?"
"Maybe."
"…So do you want to come over for dinner sometime?"
They exchanged a glance and both pretended not to hear Donnic's muffled "Yes!" from behind Hawke's closed door.
"Why does everyone always pick me last?" Sebastian pushed Hawke's lower lip out into a pout, settling in among the frilly poofs of the gown he'd dressed her in for a sulk.
"It probably has something to do with that hideous dress."
"Strong words from a man in pantalets and a feather boa."
"At least I have a sense of style. I should get to go first."
"Says who? You're in my body, you could at least pretend to be a gentleman."
"And you have to stand around in a Chantry for six years before making any important decisions. You should be used to waiting."
"We could take this argument upstairs right now and-"
"Ladies, ladies," Hawke interceded. "There is enough of the Champion to go around. We can all go upstairs and take care of this straight away. THAT WOULD BE-"
"Hot," finished Anders-who-was-Sebastian. "Justice, we know."
"HMPH. WELL, THE LACK OF THREESOMES WOULD BE A GRAVE-"
"Injustice," supplied Sebastian-who-was-Hawke, "We know!"
Justice sulked, deprived of his catch-phrases, and Hawke-who-was-Anders-hopefully-for-only-a-little-while-longer laughed at all of them, took Anders by the hand, threw Sebastian over one shoulder and took them all up to the small spare bedroom at the top of the stairs that was, incidentally, one of the only rooms left in the house unwrecked by illicit, magic-induced and surprisingly enthusiastic sex.
"I have no idea how to take this layer cake off you," Anders said, poking ineffectually at the lacy pink dress Sebastian had dressed Hawke's body in.
"Leave it on," Hawke suggested, shucking a robe that smelled quite strongly now of burnt feathers. "THAT WOULD BE - Justice, if you say 'hot' again, I'm going to bitchslap you back to the Fade – AROUSING TO THE POINT TEMPERATURES MAY IN FACT BE RAISED. Better, but it still needs work. SORRY."
"Alright, fine, but why do I have to be on the bottom?" Anders complained when Hawke pushed Sebastian down on top of him, fluffy pink dress and all.
"Because this is kinky, weird, and vaguely incestuous feeling and I don't know if I can get it on if I have to look at my own 'O face'. Besides. Justice says you need some new fantasies, he's bored of the ones you have now."
"This is the height of injustice!" Anders exclaimed, unconvincing in the face of the enthusiasm in which he was thrusting Sebastian's hips into Hawke's body.
"YEAH, BUT YOU LIKE IT," Justice said, and joined in as well.
"This is so wrong. I should not be enjoying this. This is a sin."
"NOT AS MUCH AS THAT PINK DRESS IS."
"Shameboner!" Hawke and Anders chorused, and fist-bumped over Sebastian's shoulder.
There was some grunting, some moaning, some bemoaning the lack of the electricity trick (Hawke thought it best to err on the side of not electrocuting them all to death), a couple of uncomfortably pervy comments from Justice (including a "YOU LIKE THAT, DON'T YOU BITCH" that got Anders' face smacked for the umpteenth time), a little bit of tickling, a small amount of pinching, an endless amount of grinding and just a tiny bit of ass-slapping, but in the end they got the job done.
And the first thing Hawke did upon reclaiming her body was to give Justice a big smacking kiss, and to take off that stupid pink dress.
"I'm going to be sort of sad to see that one go," Sebastian said regretfully, sounding truly mournful.
"I tell you what," Hawke said, and winked. "You can take it with you."
The deed was done, the mission complete. Hawke and Company had officially defeated the Black Emporium. Again.
She needed to stop going there. Seriously. For real this time. Right after she fixed that pesky wrinkle, then no more!
"I just wanted everybody to get along," she was trying to explain as they sat in her kitchen, eating cookies Orana left in the pantry (thank the Maker her staff was on vacation, it would give her time to sterilize… everything), each of them bathed and scrubbed and without a trace of feather boas, pink dresses or gleaming chest hair in sight (the latter would have been perfectly permissible, but Varric had argued it was the spirit of the thing). Justice was silent once more and they all missed him, just a little.
"Well. I'd say we all were treated to some interesting ah… insights today," Varric said diplomatically, intentionally ignoring the way Isabela's finger was stroking along Bianca's handcrank and looking just a little bit wistfully at Aveline out of the corner of his eye.
"You're still going to teach me that thing with the tubers, right?" Merrill asked. Hawke winked and nodded.
"Justice says he'll let me drink again if he can lick you like a lyrium lollipop," Anders blurted suddenly to Fenris, and then turned an endearing shade of red. "Sorry."
"That might be possible," Fenris said grudgingly. "Every once in a while."
"I just have one question," Sebastian said eventually, after the giggling had died down. "Wherever did you get those pantaloons?"
Anders blushed and looked just a tiny bit pleased. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"See, look how well we're getting along," Aveline said approvingly. "Now if we could just get this kind of thing to work on the Knight-Commander and the First Enchanter-"
"Meredith! Orsino! Shit!"Hawke stood up so fast her chair flipped over, and then sprinted out of the room.
Baffled, her companions followed her all the way to the Gallows.
"I put their names in the hat too," Hawke was saying, sneaking along the shrubberies to peer in the windows. "I forgot all about them. I have no idea how I'm going to- oh. We'll I'll be damned."
Eight pairs of eyes were treated (and also cursed, because really, who was going to be able to scrub that memory out of their brain?) with the sight of the commander of the Templars and the leader of the Mages enjoying a sweaty (and given the way Meredith was slapping Orsino's ass, pulling his hair, and calling him what sounded through the glass a lot like 'pony' - a little kinky) romp on top of the Knight-Captain's desk.
Cullen, of course, was nowhere to be seen.
Probably a good thing. No amount of bleach in the world was ever going to get those stains out.
"I guess they worked out their differences." Hawke shrugged and smiled brightly. "Who's up for a drink?"
And that was how the Champion saved Kirkwall.
The end.