Warnings for mentions of minor and severe corporal punishment. Bioware claims Sebastian's been at the Chantry for 15 years by the endgame, so in order to give him time to rake and ramble across the Northern Marches, I put him at not quite twenty when he got banished to the Chantry. Aeryn Hawke was 21 when she arrived in Kirkwall, so she's 28 in the current story. So, he's not robbing the cradle.
Brief sensuality towards the end.
Bioware owns all, I'm just grateful to play in their sandbox.
Shelter: Chapter 14
Sebastian picked up the basket, balancing it while Aeryn made Anders promise to meet them at Varric's later in the week. Remembering Anders' earlier silence, he bit back his usual sniping at the apostate. Unlike Fenris, he typically did not use the term abomination out loud, if only to spare Aeryn the grief of having to balance yet another arguing pair. It was not his right to tell her who to bestow her affection on.
The mage had saved her life on more than one occasion, and held his secret, as well. If she wanted to hug him, Sebastian had no quarrel. This other he had overheard, though... They walked back up the warrens of Darktown in silence.
Aeryn glanced up at the quiet man beside her. Sebastian never required constant conversation. Like Fenris and Aveline, he knew the value of a silence and when she wasn't wrestling with the hopelessness of her...affection for him, it made him a restful companion. It was unlike him to brood though, and as attractive a look it was, with his hooded eyes and tense mouth, she thought she should ask. Andraste's tits, it was pretty. That mouth should be illegal on a man.
She enjoyed the view...er, let him brood until they reached the relatively safer surroundings of Lowtown. "Alright, then. What has you in a knot?"
"You've given Anders a key to your home?" He saw no reason to dissemble.
"Yees." She drew out her answer trying to think why it would bother him.
"Aeryn...I know he's your friend and I will not deny the man's skill." He stopped to face her and she dragged her eyes up from his lips to give him her proper attention. "Aeryn, do you trust him?"
"With my life and yours." She spoke softly. "As a healer and a friend, I trust him, yes. Outside of that? I don't know."
"He's dangerous." They were silent as a group of sailors split around them, on their way to the Hanged Man.
"So am I. And Fenris. And Merrill. Most everyone we know would bad to meet in a dark alley on the wrong day." There was a warning in the glib answer, the way her voice went smooth and Sebastian berated himself even as he pushed the issue. He was on edge. He shouldn't be pursuing this right now.
"You aren't capable of becoming a monster and turning on the people who trust you."
"I might surprise you on that point." Her eyes had shifted from their general soft grey to ice. She let the chill linger on her tone. "Would you want me to turn my back on him, leave him with no support at all? How long do you think he'd last like that? "
Sebastian clenched his jaw. "Not long," he acknowledged.
"No." She started walking again, quickly. Aiming for shadows as though she felt threatened. He lengthened his stride to catch up when a hand tugged at his elbow.
"Brother Sebastian?" He recognized the parishioner, Rafe, an elderly man who had once been an archer in the guard. He had often cornered Sebastian to discuss tactics or reminisce about times past. Usually he was happy to indulge the man, finding him a good source of stories. Today though…he glanced up, but Aeryn had disappeared down an alley.
"That was a beautiful woman, Brother. She sweet on you?"
"Not at the moment, no."
-000-
He bought the man a pint and a bit of lunch in the Hanged Man, excusing himself soon after. He went straight to the estate, not pretending to himself that he had any other intention. No, that was long past.
Bodahn answered to his knock. "Yes. I thought you'd be along, messere." The dwarf's genial expression led him to hope Aeryn had blown off some of her anger by the time she'd arrived home. "She's out in the garden."
"Thank you, Bodahn. Hullo, Sandal." He greeted the younger dwarf.
"New knives." The lad said conversationally.
"Oh?"
"Ah yes. You might be careful, Prince Vael. She had Sandal enchant a new set of throwing knives and I believe she was going to practice." Bodahn said this rather reluctantly, not quite looking at Sebastian. .
Well, at least Sandal wasn't eager to see him turned into Hawke's new pincushion. He walked through the dark, quiet house to the back entrance. He stood on the tiny porch, letting his eyes adjust to the light, looking for her in the corner where she'd set up her practice area.
He swallowed, hard. Aeryn had stripped off the padded jerkin and the bloused shirt she wore under it, leaving only a thin, short linen tunic and her leather trousers. She'd been working quite diligently, it seemed, enough to sweat through the fine fabric. It clung to the curves of her body, leaving nothing for him to fill in but the texture of her skin.
Sebastian wasn't sure when it happened, but he'd come to think of Aeryn as rather...sturdy, though with a lovely curve to her backside. Her armor, usually padded and made to deflect, hid the difference between her narrow waist and the flare of her hips. Even the short woolen house dress she'd adopted gave little impression of shape beneath its thick folds, though he admitted a fondness for the slits up her thighs.
His eyes traced along her revealed form, all the way to her bare feet, as she flexed and stretched. Her knives ran deadly patterns in the air, but he was captivated by each sway and thrust she made, her shapely strong arms and lithe figure. He shifted his stance uncomfortably and licked his dry lips. It was an awfully hot day for armor.
Aeryn finished her pattern and caught sight of him. Something of his wayward, heated thoughts must have shown in his face judging from the darkly amused smirk that twisted her lips. She walked towards him, and Oh Maker, Aveline was right. Aeryn did prowl.
"See something you want, Brother Sebastian?" There were beads of sweat running down into the valley between her full breasts and he followed them.
"Yes." He snapped out the word in a growl.
She felt her eyes widen a bit in surprise at his admission amd she slunk closer, her earlier anger pushing her to a challenge. "Hmm." She let her gaze travel upwards lingering on his lips and then she laughed coolly. "You don't want me." She drew up even with him on the steps. The flush on her skin and the scent of her threatened to set him alight. "You forget. I've seen you go after the things you want, Sebastian. If you wanted me, I'd be up against that wall, begging in minutes." Pushing aside a memory of him, gold and white in the early morning sun, she brushed past him to enter the house.
The image she'd given rocked his control and he grabbed her by the elbows and swung her back against him. "Do not tempt me, Aeryn." His voice had dropped into his chest and his brogue turned her name into a caress. "Please." The last came out a bit more desperate and concern pushed aside the smoke in her eyes.
Sebastian wasn't sure he was grateful, for once, that Aeryn's tenets of friendship trumped even this...heat that sprung up between them. If she pushed...He saw her swallow. She laid her warm, callused hand against his tanned cheek and he leaned into it. "Alright."
She pulled back from him and he let her go. Glancing down at herself, she smiled ruefully. "Let me clean up," she said, "and then we'll talk."
"Wait, I..."
"What?"
"Maker take me if I ever turn from you due to your loyalty to your friends, Aeryn." He apologized.
She looked up at him again. He did look penitent. "Did it bother you that much, my giving Anders a key?" He opened his mouth to speak, closed it and shook his head. It had but that wasn't what drove him to anger. "What is it really?"
He didn't want to tell her, but she had shared herself with him. It was only right that he trust her. Searching his face, her eyes went soft. Aeryn tucked her arm around his as if the disagreement had never happened and tugged. "Let's go back inside. If you can stay for lunch, Orana was making something that smelled lovely."
He unstrapped his armor and mail, leaving them in a neat pile by the door. His tunic was wrinkled and damp, but it dried by the time she came down. Her hair was still wet, curling slightly around her ears and she smelled freshly of her almond soap. She'd left her soft house boots off, and she padded silently across the floor to him.
Orana's steak and kidney pie was being kept warm, wrapped in a cozy on the hearth. Dispensing with formality, Hawke dished it up and they carried their plates to the study, cooler than the kitchen.
Trying an old trick that had often worked with Carver, she sat next to him on the padded chaise set against the wall, instead of across from him in her usual armchair. She could listen to a low voice and he would be able to talk without looking at her. Not to mention, she could feel the warmth of his long thigh against hers. His amused sidelong glance told her he'd worked out one reason or the other.
They ate quietly for a minute, enjoying the hearty dish. Sebastian took a long drink of the cider she'd poured. "Your parents, they were...affectionate?"
"Hugs and such?" He nodded. "Sure. They were cheap and easily portable." He'd thought as much. She was too free with such things than to have grown up without them.
Aeryn hesitated. "And yours?"
"Not particularly. Or at all. My mother would clean my face if it was smudged, or straighten my clothes if we were in public and I was not quite up to Vael standards. I don't ever recall my father touching me." Not wholly true, but he would get to that. "Oh, I had nans for the kissing of knees and like that. And my grandfather was a great one for ruffling hair." He reached his hand up and tousled Aeryn's short cap of hair, nearly dry now, catching it and enjoying the silken texture as she sidled a bit closer, a slight smile softening the edge of her lingering wariness. He left his arm draped across her shoulders, feeling a bit like a hapless youth on a first outing.
"Mother was ill for a time after I was born. I suppose it made a difference." His brothers hadn't lacked for affection, at any road.
"I was a wretch, I imagine. A grief to them. More interested in practicing my bow or sneaking through the keep than attending the lessons that the sisters laid for me. I was on my own quite a bit. My brothers were a bit older and I was little more than a pest and a tagalong. I mentioned that once, I think." He had looked up to the bigger lads, in awe of their training gear and their larger world.
She nodded. "You said you were one too many." Her voice was incredulous, the sound of an eldest daughter who had never doubted her place in her family.
"Perhaps...no, I know if I'd been a girl, it would have changed things. I could have been dolled up as a child and then married off for a good connection. Any hypothetical offspring wouldn't have been a threat to the true heir."
As it was, I was just...inconvenient." He paused and ate another bite. "Then, weel, I got to be more than that."
His accent was getting thicker and he saw Aeryn cock her head. She'd noticed.
"I found that if I was causing trouble, then I got a bit more of their attention. So, pranks and disappearing at the worst times or showing up at even worse times. Salt in the sugar bowl when the Viscount came to visit." He recalled how she had stared at the door, looking like she wanted to escape when he'd been questioning her. Now he understood the impulse. He continued, anyway. "Eventually, they pawned off my punishment onto servants as well."
"I learned not to get caught then. It made the help uncomfortable to be ruling over any of the family, even a whelp like me. And it wasn't the servants' attention I lacked. Like you, I've come ta realize what I was doing, why."
"But, at my middle brother's, Alexander's, wedding. One of the guests brought a servant with...beautiful eyes. I didn't know why I wanted to follow her 'round sae much." He grinned a bit sheepishly when she arched her fine brow at him. "I was only fourteen."
I joined in my first game of cards that night, too. The next week I was in a pub brawl and brought home by the guarda."
"That got their attention?"
"Oh, my, yes." He sat his bowl down and hugged her to his side. "Were Malcolm and Leandra strict wi' you?"
She was quiet for a moment. "Well, yes. Quite a lot depended on me doing exactly what I was told, what we were told to do, immediately." She laid her head against his shoulder. "I didn't always appreciate it as I got older. And...I think Mother told you that I was a bit, ah, free and easy with ownership?"
"Light-fingered, I believe she said."
"I am fond of shiny things." A wry smile crossed her lips.
"I had no idea. Truly, I'm shocked." He said dryly and she chuckled. The movement rippled through him, warming a knot of chill he'd been carrying since he saw the boy on Anders' table this morning.
"Yes, well. I collected my share of stripes. Mother was steady and fair with a pear switch. It was never anything like what..." She stopped, adding up a few things and he sighed. "Oh, Sebastian."
She sat up and slid her hand across the back of his neck, feeling out the welt he often rubbed when troubled. She caressed the mark with her sensitive fingers as she looked into his eyes. Her own were dark with emotion. He smiled gently at her.
"It was generally just some stripes for me, as well, leannan. And well deserved, to be honest. The keep's blacksmith, Geordi, was designated, but he had boys and wasn't a cruel man. My father would watch, to make sure I took my punishment like a Vael should." He tugged her back against him, but she left her fingers curled in his hair.
"But?"
"Our seneschal had a lovely daughter, Jillane, a year or so older than I. She caught the eye of one of my father's lesser Banns and a match was arranged. He was...well, we thought him terribly old at forty. She didn't want to go to such an ancient fellow and I...well, she was a pretty thing." He shrugged and closed his eyes. "Jilly went and told her father. She was perfectly content to never marry, that she'd asked me to ruin her. Brave little mite. I hightailed myself to a tavern right after." He shook his head. "I was three sheets gone wi'a doxy in my lap when Father's guarda found me and dragged me home."
Aeryn's other arm had curved around his chest and she cuddled against him, lending him what strength she had, as he'd done for her. Sebastian laid his head against her hair, breathing in the scent of her, comforting and settling.
"I don't say I didn't deserve some punishment. It was a sinful, wicked thing to do. They were legally wed by proxy, so it was adultery and I expected to take more than my usual. My father wasn't happy with Geordi's enthusiasm...and took up his belt and..." He breathed deeply, again, her almond soap as much a sacred scent to him now as the Chantry incense, blasphemous though it seemed. Maker, I forgive as you wish and commend his soul. "He proceeded to tell me what a disgrace I was, what a useless waste."
"He blacked my eye and split my lip for good measure. Told me he hoped it slowed me down. He gave orders that I wasn't to have any healing beyond cleaning me up and bandaging, so it scarred. And when I did heal up, they sent me to the Chantry." He felt her small fingers curling in his hair, stroking against his skull and he leaned back into the luxury of the sensation.
"Jilly sent me a note, said her husband was just as happy not to have a weeping virgin to deal with and once they were sure she wasn't carrying a bastard, she headed off to him. They've three of their own now. Turned out forty wasn't quite as decrepit as she feared."
She had been still and quiet against him but with a fluid movement, she had pulled her knees under her and was sitting up gazing into his eyes, searching. There was something black roiling behind the silver-grey and Sebastian tried to deny it. "Don't hate him, Aeryn. His methods were wrong, but I was..."
She laid her finger against his lips. "You are the saint, Sebastian, not me. You just told me that the only time the person who should have been teaching you to be a man, a prince, ever touched you was to beat you. Let me hate him." I'm so good at it, she added silently.
He shouldn't...but the fact that she cared so was a little overwhelming. He nodded, but honesty required, "Not a saint, mo chridhe."
"Someday, you're going to have to tell me what that means."
Not until I'm sure you won't bolt, little wild bird. His breath caught. She was rubbing her thumb across his cheekbone and he turned into the caress, eyes closing. He heard her sigh.
He looked so resigned and Aeryn couldn't stand it.
Softly, she asked, "May I kiss you, Sebastian?" He thought his heart might burst. Every step in this, she had offered and accepted his choice. The Maker had set her in his path and now it was his decision.
"Please."
Gentle. Oh, so gently. Cupping his face in her hands and turning him to her, she leaned in and brushed her lips, warm and soft, against his. His hands clenched into the loose fabric at her waist, then smoothed up the lithe lines he'd seen earlier. Aeryn swayed into him, pushing her hands into his hair, adding sweet pressure to the kiss. Shifting, she laid a kiss against his brow, his other cheekbone, her breath like feathers against his skin.
Aeryn's control, her refusal to push too far, shattered his. He brought his hands up to brush against the soft undersides of her breasts. When she gasped, he kissed her, twining his tongue with hers, claiming the sweetness that had haunted him since their dreaming encounter in camp. He ran one hand up into her hair and she slid closer to him, one taut thigh swinging over to straddle his hips. His other hand dropped to her knee, sliding up the bare length under her slitted skirt, roughened thumb pressing in, sliding against lean muscle. She shivered against him and he felt a wicked smile on his face even as his hips twitched up, making them both gasp apart.
Her hands were stroking into the loosened neck of his tunic, playing against his collarbone, her mouth against the hammering pulse in his throat. Head spinning from lack of air, he pulled back, shaking under her hands and Aeryn pressed her forehead to his. "I swear, before the Maker, Sebastian Vael. If you tell me you've decided to go back to the priesthood after that, I will end you."
He dropped his head back and laughed, low and rich, kissing her cheek and cuddling her against him. "No. No, that was not what I was going to say." Looking up at her, he was surprised by the wide-eyed wonder with which she was observing him. He cocked an eyebrow at her. "What?"
"Well, one...apparently, you've made a decision I wasn't aware of and two...I've never heard you laugh like that." She drew her fingers softly down his throat to the reddish brown fur at his chest, where the sound had resonated.
He blinked at her, surprised. "Am I so dour that I don't laugh?"
"No...you chuckle and you do that snorting thing that's really rather adorable, if not particularly princely...but I've never heard you laugh out like that." Oh, I want him to laugh like that again, Aeryn thought covetously.
"Perhaps it's that the company is a joyous armful?" He tightened his arms again, then shifted. He would have to admit to some small stress at her continued presence in his lap.
"Alright, then." She slid off his lap and relaxed against him, her breathing returning to normal. "Although I admit, I truly did mean to just kiss you."
"I know." She couldn't see his face, but he sounded a wee bit smug. "It seems we get on like a house afire."
"Hmm." It was a contented, purring sound and he gathered up the scraps of his control to keep himself from trying to get her to make it again.
"Aeryn. I do not intend to go back to the priesthood." He breathed in, gathering himself to say out loud what he'd known for years. "I must go back to Starkhaven. I've had letters recently. Goran does not seem to be ruling well or wisely without Lady Harimann's control."
She sat up, considering him seriously. "Does that surprise you?"
"No, as I've said, he's a bit simple. Odds are he's just saying yes to every request made of him and scrambling when they conflict. Exports are down. Yields are down, too. It's rapidly becoming a mess. Something must be done and if the nobles are writing me, then it seems I will have their support if I challenge. So, I must. I will not let my family seat fall to incompetence."
Aeryn wore an appraising look and he asked. "What are you thinking?"
"That was very princely." Her smile curled warmly into his chest.
"Hopefully, I will be more worthy of that title now." He couldn't help thinking how very unworthy all who'd known him before had thought him. If not for the letters, he might simply resign his vows to follow Aeryn to whatever end she pursued. But he wanted to give her a prince.
"Tsk. You've grown up, Sebastian. That's all. Seen more of the hard parts of life and what other people suffer when their leaders fail them. Kirkwall has been good for that, at least." There was a bitter note in her voice. "Remember them and you'll make your Grandfather proud, I'd think."
He took a moment, cherishing her encouragement, but... "I cannot go just yet. Elthina has mentioned a delegation coming from Orlais. She will need my support. And as long as I live at the Chantry, Aeryn, I feel I must keep my vows...as much as I can." He looked up through his lashes to determine her response.
She was pouting. Truly. He laughed again, delight lodging in his heart and kissed her as she chuckled. "So, kissing's allowed, then?"
" 'Lest I perish from the lack, yes."
"However did you manage for fifteen years?"
"It was never a problem." She let her skepticism show. "Honestly. Once I made up my mind to give myself to the Maker, I was never tempted. I still appreciated a well turned leg or a pretty face...but, it was as if the Maker gave me a mere aesthetic appreciation, to see the beauty, but not crave to possess it."
"Sebastian." Aeryn leveled one of her prim looks at him. Maker, she rivaled Elthina for a single word lecture.
"What, then?"
"Far be it for me to call you a liar, darling man. But I never felt merely aesthetically admired when you turned those bright blue eyes towards me." She laid her finger on the bridge of his nose and tapped.
He caught her hand and nipped the end of that slim finger. Her eyes went that smoky silver that was rapidly becoming his favorite color and he swallowed hard. "No." He admitted as he folded her hand in his and pressed it against his heart. "No, you I craved from the first moment I saw you. Craved to hear your voice, then my name on your lips. Craved your trust and your company and your approval and your attention." His voice had gone rough. "Then, oh, I woke to you in my arms and I only thought I understood temptation." Her free arm curled around his neck and she kissed him, nudging his lips open and sending heat licking through his veins.
Against his lips, she whispered. "Glad to know I wasn't alone, then. Craving." He sipped the sultry word off her lush, sweet mouth.
"Forgive me for wasting years in indecision, leannan." He tipped her chin, kissing down the white column of her neck to suck gently on the pulse point until she whimpered, her fingers clutching his shoulders to push away.
"Forgiven. But if you expect me to help you keep your vows, Sebastian, you have to stop, now." Her voice was breathy and low. Aeryn trembled in his arms and it was only the work of years of self-denial that allowed him to set her safely back instead of pressing her down to find out exactly what it would take to make her shatter, to find out what it was she had craved of him.
He kept her hand though, clasping her small fingers in his longer ones.
A knock came, signifying a need to return from this interlude into the wider world.
Author Note:
Oh, finally! But the course of true love ne'er did run smooth, so...
We're at the end of what I can post daily. New posts will come every 4-5 days, even if you get half chapters at a time. Unless I get a chance to finish up 15 tonight. No worries, though. The whole story is framed and scripted out.
Thanks again to all of you who have reviewed and favorited and signed up for alerts for the story so far. I hope you continue to enjoy.