Thank you all for reading! Particular thanks to suilven for her careful betaing and support!
Varric headed back to his room feeling very pleased with himself. The night had been a success, and the story of Curly having to streak naked from the room was one he knew he would be telling for years to come, anytime anyone said the Inquisition was some kind of high and mighty holy organization, too busy to be human. It would have been better if it had been Stones, but he knew a few stories about the Inquisitor already, and Curly needed to bend a little.
Yes, it had been a very successful night, he thought, and his feeling of well-being lasted until he touched his door handle and the door swung open easily, as though it had never been locked. Since he was entirely certain that it had been locked, he felt a sense of alarm that dropped his heart right into his boots. Anyone else might have imagined a burglar, but the only thing he had of value to be stolen was already long gone, and the person who had taken it was by far the most likely candidate to have broken into his room.
Knowing that, he took a moment, standing there in the hall, to try to collect his wits and decide what he was going to say, but it was useless. Anything there was to say either had already been said or would fall on deaf ears … or would require a lot more firmness than he had ever managed to muster, with her or with anyone.
So he stepped inside, and he closed the door, and he tried not to look at the very beautiful, very naked dwarf in his bed.
"There you are," Bianca said huskily. "I expected you hours ago. I was tempted to start without you."
"I can't do this," Varric told her, keeping his eyes firmly trained on the toes of his boots. Scuffed, he noticed. Damn that Stones, he really had ruined Varric's boots.
"I know that's not true. You've done it before. Very successfully," she added, making a little moan as she stretched her body and arched her back.
"You can't just walk in here and assume that everything's back to normal. People died because of what you did, Bianca."
"I couldn't have known that! How could I have known some Grey Warden mage was Corypheus in disguise? By the fucking Stone, Varric, I didn't even know who Corypheus was."
"Of course you did! I told you all about him, how Hawke and I got trapped in that ruined tower in the Vimmarks and had to fight our way through."
Bianca waved a hand airily. "I can't keep all your stories straight, Varric. Honestly, they go in one ear and out the other."
The words sent a chill through him. "In one ear and out the other?"
She smiled, the one he usually couldn't resist. "How can I concentrate on your stories when I know what other things you can do with your mouth?"
But Varric was cut to the heart. "I am my stories, Bianca. If you can't listen to them, if you think they're so unimportant that you don't even pay attention, then what are you doing here?"
"I love you."
It was too little, too late. "I don't know what, or who, you think you love, but it isn't me."
"You love me, too, Varric. You know you do."
"I used to know that. I'm …" Even now, he couldn't cut things off as sharply as they needed to be. "I'm not sure what I feel anymore. You—you get a nice night's sleep. I'll expect you to be gone in the morning."
He pulled the door closed behind him and leaned against it, his heart pounding as if he had just run a mile—when what he had really done was much, much harder.
Blackwall sat up with a start, gathering his blankets around him, staring into the darkness and listening for the small sound that had caught his ear.
Horses snoring, one stamping its foot, the voices of the guards above on the battlements exchanging greetings … There. A whisper of movement that was not part of the usual sounds of Skyhold at night.
He got to his feet, dropping the blankets, standing there in loose tunic and sleep pants. He'd brawled plenty in his time, though, and, prepared, felt himself to be a reasonable match for anything that came at him.
Then, in the dim light through the haymow window, he saw his intruder and his heart quailed within him, because he most certainly was not a match for the small but indomitable figure with the red-gold hair who stood in front of him. "Why are you here?" he asked her. He was unable to keep the huskiness out of his voice or stop his heart from pounding at the idea of what she must mean by coming here at night to the hayloft where he slept—but he couldn't let her know how much he wanted her here, not and expect her to go.
"I came for you." Her tone brooked no argument.
"You— I— We can't."
Harding lifted her chin. "No one tells me what I can or can't do."
"Except the Inquisitor."
"You'd be surprised."
It was true—the Inquisition put a lot of faith in Harding. More often than not, she and her advance team were out there alone, the first face of the Inquisition people saw. The Inquisitor and his advisors trusted her judgment and her abilities. They rarely gave her orders, and often took her advice. But that didn't change the fact that this was a very bad idea. "You have to go."
"I told you what was going to happen when I came back."
"You said you would hunt me if I left," Blackwall reminded her. "I'm still here."
She shrugged. "I'm hunting you anyway."
"And if I refuse to be pinned to the ground like a runaway hare?"
"Blackwall," Harding said softly, coming closer to him.
"Rainier."
"Thom."
He shivered, hearing his name on her lips. It had been a long time.
"Thom, I'm about to leave for the Arbor Wilds. We're going after Corypheus, the whole army, very soon. None of us know if we're coming back."
He hadn't heard of this plan, but that didn't surprise him. The Inquisitor despised him for what he'd done—rightfully so—and no longer considered him part of the team.
"Before I go, I— I want …"
Blackwall had never heard Harding at a loss for words before. "What do you want?" he asked, forgetting himself in his concern for her, taking a step towards her that he didn't even notice, and gently lifting her chin with one hand.
"I want you. I want— I've never—"
Maker's blood. He blanched at what she was telling him, even as he knew himself to be trapped, utterly and completely. That this woman who had never been touched by a man before needed him badly enough to come to him in the dark of night, that she was trusting him to see her through the most precious of encounters— To refuse would be to break her heart, in a different way than it was already going to be broken. He couldn't bear to do that. "It'll hurt," he told her.
He didn't need light to see the one that shone in her green eyes. "I know it. I trust you."
When was the last time someone had said that to him? He couldn't recall. Wordlessly, he led her to the pallet where he slept. She sank onto it, lying on her back, lifting her arms for them, and knowing himself to be utterly lost, he went into them.
When Leliana rose from her prayers, Nathaniel was sitting in his accustomed seat, reading her mail. As usual, she hadn't heard him mount the stairs.
"Vivienne wants to see you," he told her as she approached the table. He didn't look up from his parchment. "Something about a task the Inquisitor performed for her, and its consequences."
"Vivienne wants me to support her in a bid to be Divine."
"I know you think that, but I can't imagine why. Cassandra seems no longer to be a candidate—at least, the Inquisitor would eat his heart out if she left him for the Sunburst Throne—but you've got your ambitions and your intentions and nothing to keep you from them. And Vivienne's a mage."
He was right, of course, but it stung that he considered her to have nothing. Even if she would have vehemently disagreed with anyone, except possibly Josie, who suggested that there might be something here between them. "She thinks her political power is enough to overcome that handicap."
Nathaniel did look up, at that. "And you? How is she planning to overcome you?"
She held his gaze pointedly.
"Ah." He raised an eyebrow. "And you think she has a point?"
"Of course not! I don't even know why you're still here. Every day I expect to be told you've left for Weisshaupt."
Nathaniel put the parchment down on her desk. "No, you don't."
"Why in the Void not?" she asked him. "What are you skulking around here for?"
To her surprise, he gave her the honest answer rather than the flippant, deflecting one. "Because I can't bear the thought of going to Weisshaupt. The best I can expect is an interrogation regarding what happened here and why I survived when the others didn't. More likely, they'll either throw me in a dungeon and toss away the key, or have me executed. The Wardens at Weisshaupt are widely known to have no sense of humor whatsoever."
Leliana had heard the same thing, and she didn't envy him the journey. Still … "You'll have to go eventually."
He smiled. "So does Blackwall, but you don't see him hurrying off."
"He's waiting until we defeat Corypheus."
"He's waiting because he can't bear to leave Harding."
"Are you saying you're still here because you can't bear to leave me?" It was supposed to come out tart and mocking, but her voice betrayed her, wavering and softening as though she had never trained as a bard.
Nathaniel got to his feet and came toward her, and Leliana forgot entirely to back away from him, her gaze caught in his dark eyes, which were burning with the same heat that had suddenly risen in her. "Is that what you want me to say?"
"No." But it was a soft breath of a word, lacking conviction, and neither of them paid attention to it.
"Kiss me, Leliana."
He could have kissed her, but he wasn't going to. Instead he was standing there, waiting for her to take the step, to acknowledge what she felt. Or to acknowledge that she felt, at least.
It would have been so much easier if he had taken the step, so that she could tell herself she was simply yielding to his passion, going along with him out of curiosity. But he wanted her to come to him, and if she did, she couldn't pretend that it was for any reason other than because she wanted to.
They looked at each other, each waiting, each telling the other that they weren't to be moved.
Leliana imagined herself turning away, sitting down at her desk, listening in vain for his soundless footfalls on the stairs as he left. That would be the strong thing to do, the Left Hand's thing to do. But she wasn't the Left Hand anymore. She wasn't even Sister Nightingale, much as she pretended nothing had changed. And one thing hadn't—it was still a dark, damaged Grey Warden who stood before her. But unlike Leyden, unlike Bethany, Nathaniel knew who he was, and he didn't want to die. What would it be like, to make love with someone knowing that they wanted more than simply a farewell?
She decided to find out, and let who she was be tomorrow's problem. Taking the step that would put her in front of him, she curved her hand around the back of his neck and kissed him.
Nathaniel growled with relief and appreciation in the back of his throat, his hands coming up to cup her face. Then he pulled away. "Come on."
"Where?"
"My room. I intend to take my time, and I don't want to be interrupted by your scouts all night long."
Leliana smiled. "I believe I like the sound of that."