Afraid

by Legendgrass

Blood was on her hands. All over her hands. Sudden dread knifed through her gut, but she shoved it down angrily. She'd done what she had to. She'd saved Josephine. But she'd also just beat a man to death with her bare hands right in front of her. Shit.

Ezra was the last of her party to make it into the keep after their long journey back from the Western Approach. The others had gone ahead while she took a lap of the Skyhold grounds to put her mind at ease. She liked to check in on things; to make sure the Inquisition was running safely and smoothly. And tonight, all had seemed so. The keep was quiet under the blanket of night. The only things to break the trance were the crackling of the burning braziers and the faint jingling of the night watchmen's chain mail as they paced the castle halls.

Until, as Ezra was walking the length of the great hall to finally reach her room, a cry split the air—soft, so distant that it was barely recognizable as a sound of distress, but at the same time, heart-stoppingly familiar.

It was Josephine's.

Ezra didn't even register how she got to Josephine's door. One second she was standing in the great hall, ears pricked to catch a passing noise, and the next she was bursting through the opening into the ambassador's antechamber.

There she laid eyes on the most terrifying scene she'd ever faced—and she'd met Corypheus.

A stranger was in the room. They wore an Inquisition scout uniform, except the helmet was missing and the weapons belt was different—wrong. The guard who should have been posted outside the door was on the ground, motionless. The intruder stood in front of Josephine's desk, trapping Josephine herself against the edge, one hand locked around her delicate throat and the other brandishing a knife.

Ezra's entrance didn't draw the attention of the attacker, but It did Josephine's. The ambassador's eyes darted to her and the gray pools were wide, panicked, desperate. Ezra heard her try to call out, but the unyielding grip on her throat turned it into a strangled whimper.

Again, the world blurred around Ezra, and suddenly she was somewhere else—tackling the intruder across Josephine's desk, scattering parchment and spilling ink as they tumbled across it onto the floor. She could dimly hear Josephine recovering her breath; shouting her name through a hoarse throat; speaking in stumbling Antivan in her panic, but she could not go to her yet. She was busy lunging for the assassin's throat with one hand—see how you like it—and pounding him in the head with her other fist, again and again and again—don't you ever touch her. Don't you ever hurt her.

An inhuman snarl cut through the air, and Ezra took too long to realize that it had come from her. Still she didn't let up, determined to give this sleazy piece of shit what he deserved. Her fist drew back and launched forward, swinging like a hammer, crunching bone and cutting skin, until violence was all she knew.

She might have stayed in her frenzied daze indefinitely had she not noticed the wetness of blood slipping down her wrist from her knuckles, or Josephine's muffled sobbing from someplace behind her. Ezra blinked and suddenly saw what she'd done: the assassin's face was reduced to a bloody pulp; the white of his cheekbone showing through split skin. His breathing had stopped. When she released her hand on his neck, she saw why. His neck was bruised; his airway ruined, and his blood was on her hands. All over her hands.

Sudden dread knifed through her gut, but she shoved it down angrily. She'd done what she had to. She'd saved Josephine.

But she'd also just beat a man to death with her bare hands right in front of her.

Shit. Shit, shit.

Ezra stood up and took a staggering step away from the body, turning her back on it to face Josephine. The ambassador was a mess; clinging to the column in the center of the antechamber as she sucked too-fast breaths through her damaged throat; kohl smeared by tears. Ezra wasn't sure if she was more shaken by the attempt on her life or the gruesome retaliation she'd just witnessed, but she sorely hoped it was the former.

"Josephine," she implored, taking another step toward her ambassador with hand—the one not running with someone else's blood—outstretched and voice pitched soft. "Are you hurt?"

Josephine stepped back as she stepped forward, raising her own hands to ward off Ezra's approach. She was shaking her head, but her eyes were so glassy that the Inquisitor doubted she'd even registered the question. She was still speaking fast in Antivan, and it might have been a prayer. Or a rebuke against evil. Her gaze was stuck on the body of the assassin.

"Josephine," the Inquisitor tried again, a little stronger. She tried to reach for the ambassador's shoulder; to ground her with some sort of reassuring touch, but Josephine flinched away.

Away from her. Away from Ezra. Away from the companion she'd come to know and maybe love after all these months. Just like that.

Ezra felt suddenly as if her chest cavity were imploding. Her shoulders fell and her breath left her as if sucked away by some malicious outside force. She let her hand drop limp. "Okay," she allowed, even though the simple word hurt like broken glass on its way from her chest to her tongue. She stepped away, feeling like it opened miles between herself and her ambassador rather than inches, and raised her hands in surrender. "Alright." If Josephine was afraid of her, she would leave. She would make sure she was comfortable; safe. She would never go near again, if that's what the ambassador wanted, now that she'd seen Ezra's…barbarism. Her brutality. How funny that the racist accusations against her had become true. "I'll go get Leliana," she said hollowly. She started immediately toward the door, knowing that she would do more harm than good by dallying. She threw a tortured glance over her shoulder, back at her crumpled, broken ambassador—her crumpled, broken hopes. "Hold on, Josephine."

…

Ezra bounded up the stairs to the rookery five at a time, her breath coming hard more out of worry than exertion. She was scouring the top walkway for any hint of Leliana's presence even before she reached it herself. A telling flash of red hair caught her eye.

"Leliana," Ezra called out across the remaining distance. Even though the address wasn't overly loud, it cut through the air, sharp with urgency. Several heads turned from around the rookery.

The spymaster dropped whatever she was poring over at her table and stood immediately. She was always taut as her bow at a moment's notice. "Inquisitor." Her tone was equally tense, colored by a question as Ezra approached.

Ezra didn't elaborate until she'd strode right up to the Left Hand, loath to let the whole rotunda know of her ambassador's fragile state. She would do well to preserve Josephine's unflappable reputation among as many people as possible. "Josephine needs you," she said lowly once she was looking down at Leliana from an intimate distance.

Leliana's blue eyes sharpened; hardened like that of her rooks.' "What's happened?" she demanded, clipped and direct.

"The House of Repose." Ezra swallowed down a mix of roiling feelings: anger, regret, worry, dread.

Leliana paled; took a half-step closer. "Is she hurt?"

"No," Ezra was relieved to report. Then she reconsidered. Was Josephine's mental state part of this assessment? "At least not…not badly," she said uncertainly. She was fidgeting with her hands; rubbing at her cut knuckles; the places the blood had stained. "She's mostly shaken."

The spymaster narrowed her eyes slightly; appraisingly. Then she gave a short nod toward the steps and led as Ezra followed, and the two of them began a hurried trek back toward the antechamber. As they reached the stairwell, taking them out of earshot of any listeners, the spymaster spoke again. "Why are you not with her?"

The words bounced off the close stone walls around them, hitting Ezra's ears like an accusation even though Leliana's tone was neutral. She winced. "I fear that I'm part of the problem."

That earned her a sharp look. "What? In what way?"

For a moment, Ezra let the patter of their footsteps against the stone remain the only sound. She was trying to think of a way to phrase the problem without airing the grisly details, in case this was the straw that broke Leliana's tolerance for their relationship. "I—I saved her," she began, thinking it was best to start on the right foot. Leliana nodded her along impatiently. They reached the bottom of the stairs and started across the great hall. Ezra lowered her voice: "But I might have frightened her, too."

Leliana turned to look at her with knife-sharp eyes, and Ezra slowed to a stop, frozen by that scrutiny. "The assassin," the spymaster guessed.

The Inquisitor swallowed and nodded. She hung back while Leliana placed a hand on Josephine's door, preparing to enter. She doubted her presence would do much good right now. Not until Josephine was calm. She clenched her fists in frustration; sorry that she couldn't be the one to provide that.

"You did what you had to," Leliana said softly, and Ezra knew there was a depth to her understanding that not many could match.

She gave a single sharp nod. That didn't make it any easier. "I'll be in my quarters if you need me," she grated out, and turned to reluctantly go.

Leliana's eyes followed her, softer than they'd ever seemed before. She didn't offer any protest, likely knowing that she was—unfortunately—right. As the Inquisitor shuffled to her own door, the spymaster turned to Josephine's and entered.

…

The ambassador was seated in one of the chairs in front of the hearth, her head in her hands and her elbows on the armrests. Her guard had recovered consciousness and stood at the chair back, cradling the nasty bruise on her temple. Two other guards milled uncertainly near the door, drawn by the noise of the encounter but without orders, and Josephine's assistant knelt by her knee. Leliana was relieved to see that the ambassador was not alone, but the feeling evaporated when her eyes fell on the additional body in the room: the assassin's corpse. Even from this distance and half obscured by the desk, she could see that it was mutilated from the shoulders up, face barely recognizable beneath all the blood.

She donned control of the room like a physical garment. Addressing the two guards by the door, she jerked her chin to the body and ordered, "Dispose of it." Then to the battered one by Josephine's chair: "To the infirmary with you," receiving a grateful nod in response. Finally she crossed to Josephine's side, waving off the assistant gently: "Leave us." The woman scurried from the room.

Leliana quickly took her place, circling around the chair to enter Josephine's line of sight deliberately. She did not want the ambassador to think that someone else was sneaking up on her. "Josie," she said gently, jarring the Antivan from an almost trancelike state of shock. Gray eyes blinked up at her confusedly. "Are you all right?"

Josephine's expression relaxed a hair at the same time her shoulders slumped in a sigh. "Mostly," she replied, voice coming out scratchy through her battered throat. Her makeup was still smeared dark around her eyes and her cheeks were pale, gaunt. She twisted her hands together anxiously in her lap and stared at them much too intently.

Leliana hadn't ever seen her like this; so far removed from her usual poise and composure. It made her chest ache just a bit. She knelt in front of Josephine's chair and reached out to clasp her fidgeting hands in her own, drawing her gaze once more. "Josephine. You're all right. You're safe." She raised one hand to swipe a smudge of kohl off her cheek; soothing. Inside, guilt was eating away at her. "I'm so sorry we allowed this to happen."

Josephine shook her head. Her eyes were glistening again. "I should have listened to you. I should have let the Inquisitor—" Leliana knew she was talking about the contract, but at the mention of Adaar she broke off suddenly. Then her breath came out in a shudder. "Oh, the Inquisitor." She dropped her head, and a pair of tears followed it down. "Leliana, where is she?"

The spymaster stood and turned to perch on the armrest of Josephine's chair so that she could wrap a comforting arm around her friend's shoulders. Josephine leaned miserably into her side, and Leliana felt a tug of emotion in her own chest, deep down. She could not imagine what the young woman was going through. Leliana had had attempts on her life, of course, but she was no stranger to violence. She was no innocent. Josephine was different. She was not a part of that world. She was never meant to be.

"She is in her quarters," she provided. "She thought it best to give you time to recover."

Josephine covered her face with one hand. "I'm afraid I might have hurt her."

Leliana's grip on her shoulder tightened comfortingly. The parallel between the Inquisitor's and the ambassador's worries might have been laughable, if it weren't so sad. They were so fit for each other and they didn't even realize it. Not that Leliana had been much help in that regard, if she was honest with herself. She'd been suspicious of the Inquisitor and her intentions at first. It was all she could do to remedy it now. Well—once she was sure Josephine would not crumple beneath a stiff breeze. "You will have plenty of time to reconcile with her after your visit to the infirmary."

The ambassador's nose wrinkled. "I told you, I am unhurt."

"I suppose that's a new style of Orlesian jewelry, then?" Leliana challenged, gesturing to the mottled ring of bruises around Josephine's neck. Harsh, maybe, but born of worry.

Josephine let out an annoyed sigh though her lingering tears that sounded a bit more like her, at least. "There is nothing to be done for this. I will feel better if I—" She stumbled, stopped. "Once I—" The distant look in her eyes began creeping back in.

Leliana squeezed her shoulder once more. "Tomorrow, then," she decided. For a moment she simply allowed the younger woman to lean against her, drawing a kind of warmth the fire could not provide, but she knew it was not the comfort Josephine wanted—needed. She needed to make amends with the Inquisitor, for both their sakes. "Are you ready to speak with her?" she asked gently after an indeterminate pause.

Josephine's breath shuddered out of her almost painfully. She turned her face into the spymaster's side like she might hide there. "I don't know, Leliana," she mumbled, muffled, into the delicate chain mail. She sniffed back tears again. "It was all so—so—" Words failed to capture what she was trying to express. Leliana guessed something like overwhelming might fit best. She could not remember how she'd felt, exactly, as she stood over her first dead body.

"All right," she allowed gently. She shifted her hand from Josephine's shoulder to her hair and began stroking through it, trying to lull the ambassador toward some sense of calm. She was really not very good at this, but she cared for her friend greatly. She had to at least try. "When you are ready."

Josephine relaxed—only a little, but relaxed all the same. "Thank you," she murmured, and somehow managed to communicate so much more.

…

Ezra didn't know how long she'd been slouched in her chair in front of the fire, staring emptily into the flames, when a knock sounded at her door. A shot of mingled hope and fear arrowed through her heart at the noise. She knew who it likely was, and she sorely wanted to see her. At the same time, she dreaded how their conversation was bound to go.

I'm sorry; I don't think we can see each other any more. It's not you, it's me.

Right. Like it ever was. Like it ever would be, when Josephine was prim, poised, perfect, and Ezra was nothing but a lumbering oxperson.

She had to clear her throat before her voice would work. "Come in." She would have thought the pint of alcohol she'd just consumed would keep her throat from feeling this dry. She didn't think to hide the bottle until after the door creaked open a crack. Josephine—because of course that's who it must be—saw everything.

"Inquisitor?" The ambassador's voice sounded small, timid as it floated from the doorway. It made Ezra feel worse.

"You weren't supposed to see me like this," she grumbled to the hearth, not wanting to look over and confirm her fears. Not wanting to see the carefully crafted look of polite regret that had to be on Josephine's face as she prepared to let her down gently.

Josephine scoffed lightly as if that were ridiculous. Maybe it was, since she had seen Adaar stumbling drunk after a night out with the Iron Bull—more than once. What she said next was not what Ezra expected. "Nonsense. You must have known that I would come to apologize."

The Qunari's head whipped up in surprise. "Apologize?" she echoed incredulously. "Josephine, you have done nothing wrong. I was the one who—"

"Saved my life," Josephine cut in. She stepped fully into the room and closed the door behind her, leaning against it like it was the only thing keeping her upright. Now that Ezra faced her, she could see the tragic way her brow was furrowed, though she looked miles more composed than earlier. Her next words came out in a tumble. "Ezra, I am so sorry. I was not in possession of my faculties. I should not have pushed you away."

Ezra couldn't quite believe this was happening. Josephine wasn't rejecting her? Rebuking her? "No, I understand." She shook her head, dismissing the apology. "You had every reason to." She returned her gaze to the fire, guilt licking up inside her like an echo of the flames. "Now you've seen me for what I really am." A monster. A beast, was her unspoken implication.

Josephine knew exactly what she meant and rejected it vehemently. "No." She shook her head and approached till she could look the Qunari straight in the eyes. There she knelt beside her chair and laid a hand on her knee—the first time they'd touched in what seemed like ages. "Ezra, no. I have simply become unused to violence. It…" She looked down, features shadowed in the backlight of the fire. "It reminded me of the time I had to…" She trailed off and banished the thought with a firm shake of her head before looking up again. "But you saved me. And I should be nothing but grateful."

As the ambassador raised her chin to lock eyes with her Inquisitor, it exposed the swath of bruising along her neck, reminding Ezra that as much as she wanted to believe those words, there was so much she'd done wrong tonight. She'd almost been too late. She'd taken things too far. She'd been too caught up in vengeance that she forgot to make her ambassador her first priority.

She reached out with a hesitant hand to brush her fingers along the bruised skin, and Josephine let her. "I should have been there sooner," she murmured roughly. She trailed her forefinger contemplatively down the side of the Antivan's throat. What if she'd never heard her cry? What if she had been too late? Would she have walked in the next morning to find her precious ambassador cold on the floor, her pretty neck slashed open? Or would someone else have found her first?

Josephine tilted her head almost imperceptibly to grant her access to more skin. Ezra let her touch run lightly down to the hollow between her collarbones, and when she felt an answering hitch of Josephine's breath, her gut knotted. There she went, scaring her again. Stupid. She pulled her hand back quickly with a muttered, "I'm sorry."

But Josephine caught her hand on its retreat and cradled it carefully between her own. When Ezra raised her eyes, she found that the Antivan looked anything but scared. She was instead watching her through half-lidded eyes, the pools of gray cloudy as the winter sky, the firelight making them glint.

Then, all at once, as if leaping across some invisible barrier, she leaned abruptly forward and kissed Ezra's split knuckles—the ones she'd used to crush the assassin's skull. A breathless silence tightened Ezra's chest. She couldn't tear her gaze from the ambassador—her eyes; her lips—feeling suddenly and agonizingly unsure of what to do. She knew what she wanted to do, but couldn't decide if she should.

Josephine didn't make it any easier. She gently turned Ezra's hand over and moved her lips to ghost over her palm. The Qunari hoped she could not feel the shiver that crashed through her from top to toe. "I am not afraid of you, Ezra." The words were breathed against her skin, sliding down over her wrist as the ambassador mouthed gently at her pulse point.

Ezra tried to steady her deepening breaths, her pounding heart, and fell sorely short. "Josephine," she warned tightly. What was she doing? What did she want? More pressingly, could Ezra give it to her? Should she, while one of them was drunk and the other traumatized?

As if Ezra hadn't spoken, Josephine raised her eyes and pinned her with that heavy gaze. "Are you?" she hardly more than whispered. "Afraid?"

Oh, Maker's mercy, this was going to be the death of her. She couldn't breathe with Josephine this close to her; this close to the edge of something they'd never dared broach. She knew in her head that it would be foolish to give in to her feelings for the ambassador, but she knew in her heart that she had no hope of doing otherwise. Not after tonight. "Fucking terrified," she admitted on an exhale, and it was the whole truth.

How had Josephine unfurled from her crouch without her noticing? How had she come so close that all it would take was a gentle breeze to push her forward an inch into Ezra's lap? How had her free hand inched up unnoticed to the Qunari's face, now running lightly along her chiseled cheekbone? Ezra didn't know, and she was quickly losing her capacity to care.

"Don't be," the ambassador whispered, an inch from her lips.

That was the last straw.

Ezra forced her movements to be gentle; careful as she wrapped her long hands around Josephine's hips and pulled her that final distance into the chair with her. It was just big enough to allow the Antivan's knees to land on either side so she was straddling her lap. And—

If Ezra had felt overwhelmed earlier, while she was pounding the face off of some shady piece of shit who'd almost killed her loved one, she was absolutely beside herself now. The alcohol she'd drunk had already filled her body with coursing heat, but the feeling of Josephine against her set in her a positive inferno. She couldn't hold back anymore. Before either could take a breath, she was lurching across the fragile boundary between them and catching Josephine's lips with her own.

The ambassador moaned. Ezra barely restrained herself from plowing ahead entirely too far, too fast, instead focusing all her attention on kissing Josephine as thoroughly as possible. She'd been caught staring at those lips countless times, taken by the ambassador's easy smirk; her genuine smile, so rarely on display in favor of the pleasant mask she put on for her clients and callers; the way she bit at them when an unexpected compliment made her blush. And Ezra couldn't get enough of them. For an innocent in love, as Leliana had put it, Josephine certainly seemed to know what she was doing. She'd tilted her head enough to let their lips lock and now she was sucking lightly at Ezra's lower one and the combination of the heat; the attention; the breeze of her breath against the Qunari's cheek, and her hands now massaging the tension out of broad shoulders had Ezra's previous doubts flying from her mind. That and all other coherent thought.

In all her harmless flirtations and childish hopes that Josephine more than just humored her advances, Adaar had never thought that she might someday find herself in this position. She'd hoped, obviously, but it had never gone much further than that. And any far-fetched fantasy she may have produced in her mind came nowhere close to actually feeling Josephine on top of her, breathing increasingly hard against her, her hands exploring where they would because Ezra was obviously not going to stop her. The sheer power of it all choked her for a second, and she had to break away. The air was hot and electric between them.

"Josephine." Ezra had no plan to say anything beyond that, low and hoarse, but somehow it was more than enough. Her ambassador leaned their foreheads together and flashed that little smile that dimpled one cheek and any hope of forming further words was lost.

At least until Josephine herself let her eyes drift closed and hardly more than whispered, "There is no place I feel safer than in your arms."

Ezra felt like she'd been punched in the gut. In a good way, if such a thing were possible. She couldn't keep the silly grin off her own face. "I wouldn't complain if you stayed there a while longer," she breathed back, just to hear Josephine giggle in response. She had been so worried that she might not ever hear that laugh again. That Josephine might not even talk to her again. Look at her again. She'd been worried for a lot of things.

This was better.

She slid her hands up from Josephine's hips to wind around her waist, pulling her closer, and Josephine leaned readily into her. Their heated encounter became a fond embrace, and Ezra reveled in the delight of it. Surely she would be content if they could stay like this forever. She turned her head and ghosted a kiss over her ambassador's temple, then her cheek, then trailed her lips down to her neck and felt her shiver.

She was just about to steel herself to say something—something wild, like I love you or stay the night or what does this mean for us?—something she would probably regret later, in her cynical mind, but she never got the chance.

A knock sounded at the door.

Ezra stiffened instantly, ready to leap into some less compromising position in order to save Josephine's reputation from whatever unlucky soul had just come knocking, but the ambassador made no move to separate. In fact, she might have even held Ezra tighter. That and called, "Come in," in her most pleasant diplomat's tone.

Ezra didn't even have time to hiss a protest before the door cracked open and revealed a familiar flash of red. Leliana filled the opening,

It was too late to react. The Left Hand's eyes ran critically over the unseemly state she found them in. Surely, this hadn't been what she was intending when she suggested the two reconcile. For a long moment, her expression was unreadable, and Adaar's heart rate kicked up several notches in anticipation of a vicious tongue-lashing of the not-so-pleasant kind.

Then, finally, the spymaster allowed a small smile to grace her lips. "I see you have worked things out," she observed, humor warming her voice, and Ezra felt the tension drain out of her.

Josephine squeezed her loosened shoulders affirmingly. "Yes." She aimed a full, genuine grin at her friend in the doorway. "I suppose so."

"I shall take my leave, then," Leliana returned with an upward twitch of her copper brows. Her eyes flickered between them, sharp and intent as ever. They said we'll discuss this later, loud and clear, but it didn't really seem like a threat this time. "Stay safe, Josie," she charged her friend tenderly. Then, to Ezra: "See to it, Inquisitor."

"I will." Ezra gave a single, certain nod, for that was one thing she could be sure of.

Once Leliana had bowed out of the room, closing the door subtly behind her, the Qunari let her gaze drift back to her ambassador. She no longer felt confident enough to do something so drastic as confess her love to Josephine right here and now, but she tried her best to say it through the softness of her eyes; the caress of her knuckles against the Antivan's cheek; the low promise of, "Always."

And the way Josephine smiled shyly at her and leaned slowly back in to bring their lips together again, Ezra thought she might knew what she meant, really.

Always.