Nero was getting extremely bored. The speech the duke had made when Hawke had entered the party was boring in and of itself, but thus far he hadn't heard anybody say anything even remotely intelligent. It was all rumors and gossip that he had no interest in. He glanced across the room to where Isabela and Varric were perched around a casket of wine. At least Varric seems intrigued, I'm sure the story about all of this will be entertaining...if he exaggerates, at least. He thought.
"I haven't missed these." Fenris said quietly.
"What?"
"Nobleman parties. Denarius used to host them all the time, when he wasn't attending someone else's. It was dreadful."
"Surely it was more entertaining than this." Nero said.
"Not unless you find blood sacrifices and magical torture entertaining." Fenris told him grimly.
Nero thought about the three years Esperance had kept him in her separate quarters, the part with the large, empty, blood stained rooms. He swallowed, hard, "no, I do not."
"Were you never invited to any gatherings?" Fenris asked.
"Not of this sort."
Fenris furrowed his brow, "what-"
"You don't want to know."
Fenris nodded and surveyed the party, again. Nero looked at him out of the corner of his eye. Oh, the elf was so attractive, he could barely stand it. He wouldn't say it, but Fenris fit in almost perfectly here, minus the white hair and lyrium burns of course. He stood with such pride and refused to hide his gaze from anyone. Nero found himself looking away every time a nobleman faced him, but that was more because he didn't want to talk to any of the Orlesian's.
With a tired sigh he leaned back expecting the wall to be there. It wasn't. Instead behind him was a door, that neither he nor Fenris had noticed was open a crack. When he leaned against it he ended up falling inside and barely avoided smacking his head on the floor. Fenris turned to him with a raised eyebrow, but Nero was looking around. It was a relatively small room, and there were no other doorways in it. And it was sparsely furnished, even though it did have candles lit here and there.
Suddenly he got an idea and with a smirk he stood and motioned Fenris inside, closing the door behind him.
"What are you-" Fenris began, but was cut off as he was pushed into a wall and Nero descended on him, kissing him with such a ferocity that it was as if they hadn't seen each other for weeks. Without meaning to, Fenris kissed back. Their tongues fought with each other and Nero's hands were in Fenris' hair, tugging a little bit every now and again.
Finally Nero had to pull away to get some air, and they stood gasping and looking at each other for a few moments. When Nero moved to resume the kiss Fenris stopped him.
"Wait, what are we doing? We're supposed to be watching Hawke-"
"He won't miss us for a few minutes, Fenris. Besides, the others are watching him."
"Nero..."
Despite his misgivings about the situation Fenris couldn't help himself when Nero attacked his neck and began rubbing him through his pants. His fingers drifted to the other man's shirt and Nero pushed the elf's jacket down around his elbows so that he could better pull his shirt aside and focus his attentions on the elf's collarbone.
A few minutes later Nero's shirt was completely unbuttoned and Fenris was almost ready to climax due to Nero's hand in his pants when the door flew open. Fenris and Nero froze and slowly looked to see who had interrupted them, only to find Hawke gaping at them.
Nero sighed and pulled his hand out of Fenris' trousers and began buttoning up his shirt. Fenris scowled and shrugged his jacket back up and folded his arms so that it would, hopefully, cover his...excitement.
Suddenly Hawke seemed to return back to himself, "what are you two doing?"
"I know you aren't that innocent." Nero said, irritation evident in his tone.
Hawke shook his head, "just...just get out, we need this room so Tallis can get a guard alone and steal his key."
They left the room and Hawke closed the door behind them. Then joined Nero and Fenris where they stood not far away, to wait for Tallis to enter the room with the guard so that he could guard the door.
"You couldn't have waited?" Hawke asked, "really?"
Nero shrugged and Fenris said, "I told you elves were plucky."
...
Eventually Nero, Fenris, Sebastian, Merril, Isabela and Varric realized that they had lost sight of Tallis and Hawke and assumed that they got inside the keep. Unsure what to do they stayed at the party for a few hours, waiting for them to return. It was only when a guard stormed up to Duke Prosper and said something to him, causing the Duke to grow angry and motion for the guards to follow him inside that they realized something was wrong.
They headed back to their campsite to put on their armor and arm themselves, shoving Hawke and Tallis' armor in a pack to take with them. Before leaving the tent they packed their stuff and hid them in a tree in the woods. Nero was quite excited that he was able to call the tree to get it to lower its branch so that they could hang their stuff from it, but Merril seemed to watch admirably after that. Without having any greater plan they decided to break a window when it was dark and enter the palace that way.
Then the grueling search for the two began. They overheard some servants mentioning that they had caught a Qunari assassin and the Champion of Kirkwall trying to steal something and had them in a cell in the dungeons. Nero gaped at the news.
Isabela turned to him and whispered, "you could have told us she was a Qunari assassin, you know."
"I didn't know." He whispered back.
They finally made their way to the dungeons, and, luckily, there weren't many guards about. They were walking around for about an hour before Fenris stopped them.
"Here we are again, for the fourth time" he grumbled.
"Fifth, I think" Varric told him.
"What do we do now?"
"Play diamondback and hope Hawke frees himself and finds us?" Varric suggested.
"I could try to guess the color of your underclothes again." Isabela grinned lewdly at the elf.
"He doesn't wear any." Nero told her.
Isabela laughed, "are you serious?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Nero smirked.
"Ahem, well, " Sebastian interrupted, "now that you mention it, we have seen that chipped cornice a few times, haven't we?"
"All right," Merril said cheerfully, "don't panic! Every other time I've gotten very lost, Hawke has found me."
"Uh, Merrill? I don't think he can rescue us before we rescue him." Sebastian explained.
"Well I for one give up! We've been through every inch of this place twice, and there's no sign of them!" Isabela plopped herself down on the floor and frowned dramatically.
"Or we've been through the same twenty feet of this place about a dozen times. It's hard to tell, Rivaini." Varric said as he joined her.
Isabela sighed, "we should have gone treasure-hunting in Wildervale instead."
"You're still upset that you couldn't swipe a drink from the party, aren't you?"
"Maybe...Andraste's granny-panties! I knew things weren't going to go smoothly!" Isabela frowned.
"Does Andraste really wear granny-panties? How do you know all these things?" Merril asked.
"I don't think anybody knows what Andraste really wore, Merril." Sebastian told the Dalish elf.
"Maybe you should start praying that we'll find them." Fenris suggested to the Chantry brother.
"I have been for the last half an hour. I could do so out loud, if you'd prefer," Sebastian said, "Blessed Andraste, Bride of the Maker, deliver us from this warren of evil."
Fenris eyed him warily, "In that case, maybe you should stop."
"Please do." Nero said
Merril sat down on the floor next to Varric and Isabela and said, "tell me a story, Varric."
"Right now? I don't think we have time, Daisy."
"Maybe a very short story, then? Please?" She begged
Varric sighed, "fine. 'When the cards turned, he lost.'"
"Oh. Did it have to be so sad?"
Nero snickered, "Makers breath Varric, don't you think we're in a depressing enough situation?" He teased.
Varric rolled his eyes, "alright, 'when the cards turned, he lost, but then he realized that he had not turned one of the cards and it turned out that he won.' Better?"
Merril nodded, "I do like happy endings."
"Makers breath." Nero whispered as he shook his head, that girl is so strange.
"We probably shouldn't linger here," Fenris said, "we might as well keep trying to find them."
"Right," Isabela said as she stood up, "Eenie, meenie, miney, moe..."
Sebastian frowned, "I'm not sure that's the best way to find them."
Isabela rolled her eyes, "we already tried 'pray for Andraste to guide us' and 'wander like drunken vagrants.' We are running out of options. Unless you want to find a chicken for an augury, we're going with counting games. "