Title: Falling Is Like This
Author: folkhore
Fandom: Dragon Age: Awakening
Pairings/Characters: Elissa Cousland/Alistair; Elissa/Anders; Elissa/Nathaniel Howe
Rating: PG-13
Category: het (omg, right?)
Word Count: 1640
Spoilers: general spoilers for Awakening
Summary: Elissa falls easily, and falls hard. But love is never as simple as you'd like it to be, especially not when your heart thinks it can carry more than one flame at a time and not get burnt.
Notes/Warnings: Originally written for a prompt at dragonage_kink on LJ, minus the kink. Anders/F!Cousland or Nathaniel/F!Cousland, cheating. Cousland is married to Alistair but his visit to the Keep was short and disappointing. Cheating ensues? No cheating yet, but bonus for both boys? I'd really love for it to be longer, and I hope to write more about each of these loves...and a possible threesome/foursome with Elissa's most recent paramours ;) Title taken from the song of the name by Ani DiFranco. Feedback, as always, is love 3
Disclaimer: These characters belong to Bioware. I do this for love, not profit.

we can`t fight gravity on a planet that insists
that love is like falling
and falling is like this.

Not even a kiss.

You couldn't call what Alistair had given you that. For all the husky longing and warmth in his sweet voice, your king's lips had been barely there at all. Barely there, and now he's gone again.

You know it's Alistair's way. The bashful boy merging into a courtly decorum; you're surprised he didn't press his lips to your Maker-forsaken hand. Breathe, you tell yourself. He is your husband, and he loves you, and you him. You are Wardens. He a king, you a commander. You tell yourself this when it happens again. You have duties to attend to; one way or another, you've both been raised this way from the earliest of ages.

But both of you'd been willful before, rebellious. In camp, there'd been fumbling and gentleness, certainly, but oh, there'd been passion too! Years of pent-up templar passion, and your own, not without magnitude, one that you still feel burning up your skin.

There will be time for these things, Alistair assures you. If you survive, he doesn't say. If another war or noble squabble doesn't tear one of you away from the other. Plenty of time in the short life you share, right? If you can't grow old together, surely you should make every moment count.

You can all but count the moments you've spent alone since your wedding. It shouldn't be this way.

You love Alistair. That has never been a question. You think maybe you've loved him since you saw the grief he bore for Duncan - a man who felt, with no shame. A man who felt for you, and fell so quickly too. Both of you.

But you fall quickly. You feel too much. You always have. Ser Gilmore, Dairren...Maker, your own brother! In a way, he was your first love, in as a much as a child can understand it. Your mother and father had always teased you, carrying a torch for your brother so, but he'd been your hero, your everything. It had all but killed you when Fergus first left home to travel. And then he'd brought back a wife. You loved her too, like a sister, even with her strange Orlesian ways, but still you missed the days when Fergus's time and affection were all yours. And then he'd been gone again, and you thought you'd lost him...

And now you've left him. It seems to be the nature of the world. Moments like these are when you mourn Castle Cousland most - a home, a family, love that was always surrounding. It does little good to dwell on these things, though, you know. You have compatriots in this, to be sure.

You've met so many amazing people in your travels, people who have touched your heart with their strength and their beauty and all of their little idiosyncrasies. Leliana, Zevran...Teagan. They all meant things to you, and they always will. You could have loved any one of them, but you chose Alistair. Alistair chose you. And you will never regret that.

But it doesn't change how easily you love. How so very near and new and fascinating two of your Warden recruits are, and how very far your husband, even when he's not even gone at all.

Anders and Nathaniel are entertaining, to be sure. They bicker and banter to the point where you're sure there's affection there now, and that it's in part for your amusement. Or it could be a plot to drive you insane; that would be quite crafty on Nathaniel's part. Egg on Anders until you collapse from giggles or annoyance, and then bam! Another Howe takeover. It's strange, how you can almost make that jest now without a stabbing feeling in your heart. Almost.

Anders had warmed up to you immediately, and it hadn't been difficult to oblige him. You'd be a fool if you denied that he reminded you in part of Alistair. The blond hair and the scruff about the chin...Alistair's is somehow soft and scratchy all at once, and you've caught yourself wondering how Anders's face would feel cupped between your hands, the cut of his jaw beneath your lips, under the curl of your tongue.

He's funny too. Less of Alistair's adorable awkwardness and more of the snark and the silly bits - more so, if it's possible, Maker preserve you all. Anders and his constant cooing over Ser Pounce-a-lot and his love for fuzzy scarves and waffling between complaining and saying naughty things about his mage robes. His fits of rhyming when he's bored on a long march, and there are only so many fights you can break up between him and Nathaniel when Anders really gets going. One of these days, Nathaniel will concoct a relatively innocuous poison...one that merely swells Anders's tongue, perhaps. And you might or might not look the other way.

You know that you could easily love Anders as a dear friend and nothing more. You would love to. If only he didn't look at you like he does. With those adoring puppy eyes, faithful to the last...but eyes too that go dark and glitter, knowing, suggesting...lips that curl in that damned smirk. It's a wonder Anders hasn't rigged some sort of spell up that lands poor, unsuspecting girls into bed with just a twich of that mouth. Must be how he kept escaping the Tower...there's a good reason why there aren't that many female Templars.

If only he weren't so compassionate undernearth the charm and wit, the slight chip on the mage-robed shoulder. If only you didn't understand so well his need for freedom, his lust for adventure...all the while wanting a place to belong, to be safe. He's told you these things in so many words, and you know that they're words he's never spoken to anyone. You can't be gifted with that kind of trust and think nothing of it. Do nothing with it. You care for Anders, and you know he cares for you. It's so simple, really.

Ah, but then there's Nathaniel. Frankly, it should be more complicated than it is. For both of you. And sure, there are still wounds, still sore spots you accidentally prod at, which is, admittedly, a trifle more dangerous than it would be for other friends, friends not armed to the teeth, but there it is - It's the fact that you try not to, the both of you, that's so telling. That you would even call him friend. And you do.

You and Nathaniel, you've both hurt each other without even trying to, before you even met, and you're still healing. It seems ridiculous to even contemplate, but here you are, two world-weary, woe-laden souls in one spot. You've both lost your families, your sense of self. Where Nathaniel thought once you'd gained the world, you think he sees now that you are, most of all, alone and without a home.

Or you would be, without them.

It's funny, but it might be Nathaniel that reminds you of Alistair most of all. Or more, what it was like to fall for Alistair. Nathaniel ceased to be a prisoner to you, ceased to even be just a Howe in the very moment he revealed himself as such. The sorrow in his voice when he told you that he came to kill you, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. A rogue who wouldn't even kill his father's murderer - he just wanted back his family. He wanted the world to make sense. In the first few moments you'd spoken, you felt like Nathaniel had bared you his soul. Men can do few braver things.

On the surface, Nathaniel had resisted his conscription, it's true, but he fell into it soon enough. It wasn't resignation - it was finding purpose, slowly but surely. You helped him with that, and it shouldn't feel as good as it does. You should, by all accounts, not have even taken him in, let alone begun to trust him so quickly. Yet you did. And Nathaniel has never made you regret it. Only made you want more - more of his confidences, more of his rare smiles, more of his scathing Anders running commentary. You're all like one big, happy dysfunctional family. The family that you and Nathaniel both miss so desperately.

Except Nathaniel is not the brother Fergus you idolized in your girlish way. Nathaniel is not the vague memory of a quiet boy from your youth. Nathaniel is...Nathaniel. Dark hair and eyes, brooding and dangerous, even with all that you trust him. Dark where Anders...where Alistair...is light. Your mind plays through images of muscle and sinew, strong arms wrapping around you, a firm body holding yours down...Fantasies you've never entertained before. Ones you would only consider because the only threat Nathaniel poses is to your heart. Because his is just as real, alive and beating and capable of feeling, as anyone you've ever met. So no, Nathaniel is not like a brother at all. Like Anders is no bosom buddy, and Oghren is no Chantry cleric.

Anders and Nathaniel - they'll never fit anywhere else. Where would they go? It's Alistair that has escaped, and it's not fair. You'll never fit anywhere again. You'll never be just a queen, even if you wanted to be. This is where you belong, where Alistair once was. You don't begrudge him his crown - Maker's breath, you practically shoved it onto his head! - but it was simpler before. When it was just you and him, he'd said, the only Grey Wardens left.

And funny, he'd told you that one day the Blight would be over. And it would still be you two. Only it's not now. Not like either of you once imagined. You are here, and he is not. But Anders and Nathaniel...

They are.

And maybe you shouldn't, but you think you love them all.