The Inquisitor's Ghost

Author's Note: This chapter has a soundtrack: Sometime Around Midnight by The Airborne Toxic Event.

Chapter 21 – Green-Eyed Monster

O Maker, hear my cry

Guide me through the blackest nights

- Transfigurations 12

Sera was sitting at the long table with the other companions, scowling. The archer's legs were crossed, her dangling foot bouncing in the air. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her fingers drumming on her upper arms. Her eyes continued to restlessly shift to the bard who was singing by the fire on the first floor, playing her lute.

Shite. She's pretty. Hazel-eyed lovely, shite. I kissed her. Why'd I do that? Stupid shite. She tasted like oranges. Shite. If she calls me knife-ear, I'll punch her.

Concealed completely by shadow, Cole came to stand unseen behind the bard, and when he spoke in her ear it entered the bard's mind as if from a dream, "You should tuck her hair behind her ear, let your finger linger on the lobe, and tell her how much you love her ears." Cole stepped back from the bard, wiping the memory of himself from the bard's mind.

Moments later, Sera went to the bar and the bard put her lute down and followed her. The bard did as he'd suggested, and the whispers of joy and excitement in Sera's head were loud as she pushed the bard into the back room before kissing her hard on the mouth.

Invisible, Cole chewed on a cinnamon stick as he moved through the crowded tavern, whispers of lyrics echoing in his head. He passed Dorian, who was sitting on a young man's lap. The young man's fingers were twirling the magister's facial hair while Dorian was singing, "Mu-stache. Mu-stache. I have the most glorious mu-stache!"

Cole listened to the whispers coming from Dorian, and despite the mage's glittering and joyful exterior, inside was wishing but wondering, wounded and wistful.

Festus bei um canaverum. His skin is so tan, like fine whiskey, his cheekbones shaded, and his lips curl so delectably when he smiles. What if he doesn't want me after?

Unawares by them, Cole stealthily replaced their drinks with glasses of water to slow down their drinking so they would remember this night. The water also had some crushed healing herbs he'd taken from the garden to help with their oncoming headaches.

Josephine leaned forward across the table toward Grim - one of the Bull's Chargers. With a sultry smile she placed her hand on top of his, saying they should get out of here and go back to her room for the night.

Heart throbbing. Aching. Bleeding. He's gone. Left me naked in my bed without saying one damn word. Heartless bastard. Selfish prick. I hate Blackwall.

Cole reached into his black leather armor and removed the letter Blackwall had left for her on her desk. But Josephine had left her window open and the wind had blown the letter under her desk. Imperceptibly, Cole dropped Blackwall's letter into Josephine's lap under the table.

Josephine's eyes fell to the letter now resting in her lap, wondering how it had gotten there. She frowned and pulled her hand back from Grim's. She opened the letter and read it fast. Her fingers flew up to her lips, tears in her eyes, a small smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. She stood swiftly and uttered her apologies to Grim, saying that she wasn't feeling well, and then she left the tavern, the letter crushed to her chest.

Cole moved like a ghostly predator through the crowd - lean muscles coiling with each step, his head turning, scanning, listening. More came, barreling into his head, but Cole shoved the whispers away. The people either didnt notice him or regarded him warily with a frown, as if they could sense him as unnatural and inhuman. He fell into the seat opposite of Varric at a little table at the back of the room on the first floor. The tavern was loud. It was loud with music, chatter, laughing, and fighting. It was louder to him because of the whispers that crawled into his head, like the wasps did when they swarmed the nest hanging outside of Leliana's window.

Cole rested his elbows on his knees, rubbing his temples. The noise was making his head hurt. His eyes were stingy and his body ached. He was exhausted. Candy had drained him of all his strength last night. She didn't let him sleep. She kept him up all night. His ears hurt. Candy could scream very loudly.

Cole's hands fell from his face to dangle between his knees. His eyes lifted to scan the room. The people here were full of pain. It didn't make sense. How could there be so much pain in a place where there was so much joy? The pain made them open, their minds bare for his help. That was why he came. He wanted to find that pain, to ease it, and then make them forget. That was his purpose. Heal, forget, disappear. But he'd grown distracted the moment he saw a flash of red.

He was happy Ember was here. She made his job so much easier. The hurt in the room seemed to dissipate simply because she was in it. In her they found hope, faith, and courage. In her they found more than just their salvation, found more than a chance at survival. In her they found peace.

Amazing.

She truly was.

He tried so hard to make just one person happy for only a fleeting moment, while her heavenly presence alone could ease the suffering of hundreds and instill in them the grace of the Maker. She made them brighter. She made them better. Simply because she was her.

Beauty. It was there in the tilt of her head, in the sway of her long flowing red curls, in the sun of her smile, in the fire in her eyes, in the curl of her lips. His eyes slid down her body, admiring her strength, in the way her sylph form held a will of tempered steel. His gaze came to rest on the fire banked deep inside of her chest. His eyes narrowed, as though he was staring into the sun, longing for her to fill the empty place in his chest.

Ember laughed and the warm tones carried to him across the room. The sound of her laughter actually made his heart hurt. All of a sudden, his chest was on fire, and it felt as if a wave of heat had rolled down the entire length of his body, like fire licking at parchment. He wondered how much of himself was left for her to burn.

"Kid?" Varric said, pulling him from his broody thoughts.

"Yes?" Cole inquired as he turned his gaze to Varric who was sitting at the small table across from him.

"You were watching the Inquisitor, with great interest I might add," Varric said with a mischievous gleam in his eyes. "With this sad, almost-longing look."

"It's hard not to look. Nothing more beautiful than starlight," Cole whispered, his eyes returning to Ember's face. "Gentle and strong. Will unshakeable, spirit unbreakable. Voice delicate and delectable, backed by dragon fire. A scarlet firebrand."

Varric swallowed some of the ale in his mug, watching him closely. "You look like you could use a drink."

"The Iron Bull says that is just another way of saying someone looks terrible."

"Well, you sure as hell don't look pretty," the dwarf uttered with a sly smirk. "So, what happened?"

Cole continued to stare at Ember as he answered honestly, "She touched me and I her."

Varric spit a mouth full of ale out. "You slept with her!"

Cole sighed wistfully. "Ruby lips sweet, warm, soft against mine. The taste of starlight on my tongue. Sighs that dissolve in my mouth, breathing life into me, light transferred. Body soft and glistening with sweat that tastes of fire and ice. Burning through the sheets as she works me. Drowning, sinking, swallowed whole, yet more alive than ever before. Her fingers tangled in the sheets, her legs locked around my waist, urging me to-"

"Shit. You're in love with her." Varric was starring at him as if he'd grown two heads.

Cole blinked, brows furrowing. "Love? I don't know. That word is always tangled with many other things – hate, anger, jealousy, pain. You can never tug it loose to stand on its own without tearing it." Blonde strands covered one eye, but the other shifted to Varric. "I breathe her. Is that the same?"

Varric gazed at him almost pityingly. "Be careful, Kid. These sorts of romances often don't end well."

"What sorts?"

Varric gestured with his hand. "Mage and demon. Two worlds tearing them apart with only love to keep them together." Varric shook his head. "Plus, you've got it bad for a rare breed - the driver of a story, a protagonist. And a good story. Well, that's about hurting good characters and seeing how they react. I've seen it. And wrote it. A thousand times. Expect some dramatic bumps in the road that's all."

Cole's eyes flickered away. "A sack on the side of the road, struggling. The boy runs from it, crying."

"Yeah… sure, Kid." Varric exhaled heavily as he ran a hand over his hair, eyes watching Cole with great interest. "So… you slept with her. Then what?"

His face dropped, shoulders sagged. "I ran away, like you did the first night Bianca's parents sent assassins to kill you. Returned while she slept, unable to stop. But ever since…" Cole absently rubbed at his chest, right over his heart. "Inside is cracked, split, jagged. Better for her if I'd stayed away, never touched her, never hurt her and made her bleed, but that isn't what demons do."

"Blood? What do you mean-" Varric's eyebrows shot to his hairline with understanding. "Oh… Oh! You mean like it was her first time?"

Cole visibly swallowed. "Yes. First time. And I hurt her."

"Ah, shit. I think I'm starting to see what happened. You freaked the hell out, didn't you?" Varric rubbed his forehead with a sigh, then muttered to himself. "Of course you did. You are you after all."

Cole dropped his head into his hands. "Yes. I am me. A monster."

"Shit, that didn't make you a monster, Kid. If it did, then just about every guy in the world would be a monster." Varric took a long pull on his ale. "Look, I get it. The same thing happened to me, Kid. Bianca and I were so young our first time. We didn't know what the hell we were doing, or what to expect. When you care for them… it's hard to see them in pain, especially when you know you're the one causing it. But it's just what happens, you know." Varric shrugged. "It's just part of it. And when you think about it, wouldn't you rather be the one with her, making it easier on her, helping her through it than someone else?"

Cole fell silent for a long time, thinking on that. Suddenly, images seared across his mind along with whispers coming from Varric. "Yes. I understand now. I see it."

"What?"

Cole looked at the dwarf. "You were thinking about the time you and Bianca first-"

"Kid, don't go there," Varric cut in.

Cole immediately felt Varric's sorrow rise up around him, old pain cutting that still cut deep. But the whispers were louder now, Varric's memory playing in front of his eyes. "Her body warm, leaning against the wall, blonde hair tangled in your fingers. Bianca grimaces, blue eyes creased, cheekbones flushed. She is hurting. This is causing her pain. You are hurting her. Shame, guilt, regret like an arrow to your heart. Her lips curl when she smiles up at you, reassuring, despite the pain she is feeling."

As he spoke, Cole could feel hatred wash through Varric, directed into the center of his own chest. Cole glanced across the shallow table. The dwarf's eyes met his own. "In your mind, she hated you for hurting her, but you're doing it wrong. That isn't what Bianca thought."

Varric's expression was doubtful. "Well, then… what did she think?"

"Harder."

Varric's eyes turned sorrowful. "Oh… yeah."

The dwarf's loneliness and misery hit him in a great swell, and Cole actually swayed under the emotion's force. "No, that didn't help - I tugged on the tangle and tore it-"

Varric's voice was thick, "It's all right, Kid. I'm fine."

He wasn't, but Cole was learning when the Stone needed him to stop talking. Cole felt the silence along with Varric's sad song. They were quiet for a long time. Then he whispered to the dwarf, "I was wrong. I understand now. When I was with her… there was blood and hurt, but it wasn't real."

The lyrics of Varric's broken soul faded to nothing. "Yeah. Something like that."

Cole sighed. "But forgiveness for hurting her won't make anything better. It's more complicated than that."

With a small smile, Varric uttered, "I think that's the first time I've heard you admit anything is complicated."

Cole looked down at his finger drawing circles on his thigh. "I don't understand all of it. I'm trying."

"Why is it more complicated?"

"Because…" Cole bit his lip, trying to put a difficult thought into words. "Because I want her so much…" Cole groaned the last two words through clenched teeth, as if in dire pain, eyes shut tight. "…so much that I want to live inside of her. Be one with her. Exist within her where it's warm and bright and safe. Become a physical part of her."

Varric blanched, his face as white as a sheet. "Cole, what you're saying…" the dwarf swallowed fearfully with mounting dread. "…it sounds like you want to… to…"

"Yes," Cole answered sharply.

Varric's eyes widened with alarm. "But she's a mage… and you're a… you couldn't possibly mean that you actually want to poss-"

Ice blue eyes slashed to the dwarf. "Yes."

Varric' eyes rounded, bulging in his head, and Cole sensed the chill of dismay mixed with apprehension shooting through the dwarf, sucking the warmth out of his body.

Cole tucked his chin, his eyes flashing dark navy, his jaw clenched. "I am me. Not a human, even though look like one." Cole's eyebrows drew tight and low over his stormy eyes. "She's safer when I only watch over her. Must unlearn to hope for more. Stumbling steps where the wall used to be."

After several moments of silence, Varric leaned back in his chair and rubbed his jaw. He shook his head, sighing heavily, before pulling a flask from an internal pocket of his jacket and taking a long swig. He put the cap back on before tossing the flask to Cole who caught it with a deft hand.

Cole eyed the flask in his hand warily as he offered it back to the dwarf. "I do not drink alcohol."

Varric refused the flask and answered, "You do today, Kid."

Cole stared down at the flask as if it were a poisonous plant before bringing the flask to his lips. The liquid burned something terrible as it scorched down his throat leaving charred flesh in its wake. He grimaced then sputtered and coughed the vile liquid, shaking his blonde head violently as if the motion would somehow remove the vile liquid now coursing through his stomach.

Varric let out a chuckle as he observed Cole's reaction. "Good stuff, huh?"

Cole coughed harshly. "What is this? Deathroot? Acid?" he croaked, wincing as he rubbed his raw throat.

Varric clapped a hand on Cole's back. "No, nothing quite so healthy I assure you, Kid."

Cole dragged the back of his hand across his mouth. "Kid, says the stone. Kid, kidding. It would keep me kept with a name, but the cairn can't catch me."

"Here you go, Master Storyteller," the serving girl named Mary chirped as she placed a fresh mug of ale in front of Varric, who thanked her with a wink and five silver coins.

Varric took a long pull on his new drink while he eyed Cole watchfully. Cole took another sip of from Varric's flask and grimaced, coughing again. Varric set his mug down and stared into the golden liquid for a long while before looking back up at Cole.

"Hey, let me ask you a question, Kid. If she's starlight, then what are you?"

Cole stared miserably down at the flask before taking another sip. "Darkness."

There was another long pause. "Let me ask you something else, Kid. When you look up at the night sky, what do you see?"

Cole's eyebrows drew together. "Stars?"

Varric nodded. "And what do you see with them?"

Cole's head lifted and he stared at the dwarf. "I don't understand."

Varric gestured with his free hand. "What's always with a star - surrounding it, holding it?"

Cole bit his bottom lip. "Darkness?"

"Yeah," Varric nodded with a soft smile. "One might even say they were meant to be together."

Cole looked back down at the finger that had returned to drawing circles on his thigh. He turned the dwarf's words over in his brain, as if he could examine them. After a while Cole had to blink a few times to clear his watery vision, wondering why it felt like he was falling when he wasn't.

"Varric," he murmured, his lips twisting in an exaggerated look of confusion. "I feel funny."

"That's because you're drunk, Kid," Varric chuckled.

"Drunk?" Cole gasped, his eyes rounding. "I've never been drunk."

"You are now." Varric winked at him. "And it's a great place to be. Trust me."

Cole shook his head in an attempt to clear the hazy fog that clouded it. He saw a flash of red out of the corner of his eye and his gaze shifted to find Ember sitting at a table across the room from him, deeply engulfed in a conversation with Cullen. She was having that affect on him, he realized. The one where his body visibly reacted to her, leaning in the direction her body was in the room, as if magnetically pulled to her.

As he watched her, a red curl kept falling in her eyes, and Cole reached out unconsciously to brush it out of the way, though he touched only air and heard Varric chuckle beside him.

Cole swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat as he watched Cullen smile at her as she brought her wine glass to her lips, taking a small sip of the red liquid. He envied the glass as it touched her mouth.

Something stirred deep inside him, something electric, like a low hum of excitement in his blood. It awakened something inside of him, something hungry, though he still had trouble accepting its name. It was changing him, making him other. Always wanting to break free. He still couldn't understand its nature and was too afraid to even acknowledge its existence.

A smile twitched on Ember's ruby red lips - the soft one that was his favorite.

But she wasn't giving it to him.

She was giving it to Cullen, as if sharing some sort of secret only between them, something meant for just the two of them.

There was an unfamiliar uneasiness that came over him. It brought a strange welling in his chest. He was starting to feel a little queasy, thought he didn't understand why.

Cullen moved his chair closer to her, his arm touching hers, and the sensations invoked within him were difficult to pinpoint, swirling within him like a giant mixing pot. The conflicting chaos inside of him was inexplicable in its complexity.

Cole sat stiff in his seat, observing with a deep brooding glower as Cullen's eyes discreetly wandered the length of her body when she looked away, causing Cole's jaw to clench with escalating annoyance.

He didn't like that.

He didn't like that at all.

He didn't like the way Cullen was looking at her.

He didn't like it at all.

Strangely, he felt a jagged spike of something poke at him and he shifted in his seat. Why was he so… angry all of a sudden? It made him feel strange: irritated and restless in a way that he didn't like.

Cullen's hand came to rest on top of Ember's on top of the table they were sitting at, absently stroking her fingers as he talked.

Cole stared fixatedly at where Cullen's hand lingered on hers, as if he could remove it with his mind. He didn't like how Cullen's thumb swept back and forth along her bare flesh. He didn't like the way Cullen looked at her while he did it. He especially didn't like how she let him.

Cole felt something being born inside his chest, something dark and heated. He didn't know exactly what it was, but it seemed to start to nip at his heart's lining.

Cullen cupped her cheek, looking deep into her eyes, saying something that caused her cheeks to blush an appealing rosy color.

Cole instantly felt something swell within his skin, bundled up beneath the fleshy surface like molten lead, running fire-hot in his veins. He was hurting. What he was seeing… it was like taking a sharp knife to the torso. It was cutting him up into pieces with every word and touch he gave her.

The more he focused on them, the more Cole's head was flooded with the whispers coming from Cullen. Unable to resist, Cole listened to Cullen's song. He heard Cullen's suffering. Addiction - clawing and biting - rattling chains that linked him to a belief long lost. Cullen thought losing himself in the Inquisitor would be like a cleansing fire - burning away the layers of blood, shame, guilt, and pain. He wanted her fire to purge his sins. Like the others, he saw her as his salvation. Cullen saw her as the Herald of Andraste, the one who could grant him absolution.

But Cole knew only the Maker could absolve one's soul, and he was very far away.

…I want her… she'd be wild for me…

Cullen's thoughts were a knife ripping through Cole's flesh. His body was clenched. His jaw, his chest, his fists. Clenched. He didn't tell his body to be that way, yet here it was. Clenched.

…That hair… amazing… I want to put my face in it…

The whispers coming from Cullen caused anger and anxiety to mix together, boiling in his belly until it kneaded into a knot. Only the lifting of Varric's flask to his mouth and swallowing was keeping him together from the feeling that was tearing through his insides like acid. It felt ugly and made him feel unsatisfied in his own skin. It was a terrible emotion that was so powerful and harrowing - no wonder demons fed off it.

…I really want to taste her, hear her voice screaming my name in ecstasy as I pleasure her with my fingers and my lips and my tongue. She wouldn't be thinking of that guy then, whoever he is, not when she's screaming my name to the Maker…

As Cullen's thought continued to pound into his brain, a potent anger rose like molten lead in his chest as possessiveness bit into his guts like a darkspawn. Cole realized his dagger was in his hand under the table, thought he didn't remember drawing it.

…all that fire beneath me, her nails digging into my back, her legs wrapped around my hips, her tongue in my mouth as I thrust into her over and over again, erasing the man that was before me from her memory entirely, until I'm all she can see, hear, and think of…

Cullen's lustful thoughts funneled into his head, causing his blood to boil within his veins. Searing, biting, clawing, suffocating. He was trembling, almost violently, as he felt something inside - a primal, instinctive part of his conscience - clawing to the surface.

Mine, a haunting little voice whined in the back of Cole's mind that sounded frighteningly like the many demons he'd heard in the Fade.

Cullen's finger ran down her arm, like he was marking her.

Cole's reaction was so fierce and instantaneous that had he been thinking rationally, it might have concerned him. But he wasn't rational at all. He was furious. He wanted to grab her chin and put his face directly in front of hers so he was the only one she saw.

Suddenly it was very important that he stand.

Cole shot to his feet. His body was humming, his skin prickling, his muscles twitching. His chest squeezed tight, the room spinning in a swirl of color and noise that didn't make sense. His blood pounded in his ears, his heart rate soaring.

It was suddenly very important that he go over to her.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Ember was happily drunk and sleepy. The pain she'd felt at seeing Cole after his night with Candy had faded to a dull ache. She hadn't seen him since she saw him in the piece of glass. He must've left. Good. She didn't want to see him. Not now. Not when the pain of him being with someone else was still so fresh, still bleeding.

Cullen was sitting beside her, saying something to her. He was touching her arm, trying to get her attention, but she was having trouble focusing on him. Ember's eyes shifted to find Bull sitting in the chair across from her. He was snoring, for the massive Qunari had fallen asleep in his chair, with his pants undone. His mug tipped from his hand, dripping whiskey onto the wooden floor.

"I think…" Ember hiccupped. "… I think it's time for me to go."

"Really?" Came Cullen's velvety response in her ear. "Do you want me to help you to your room?"

Inexplicably, the fine hairs at the back of Ember's neck prickled and goosebumps formed on her skin. Her instincts bristled and her mind sharpened as she sensed him before she even saw him by the invisible wire in her heart that was connected to his.

Ember turned her chin and to find Cole standing right behind her, his body heat at her back, pressed up against the back of her chair.

Her pulse arrested when her eyes lifted to meet his. It was like a picture of the ocean in his eyes - raging dark waters, stormier than the skies of any thunderstorm, with flecks of silvery-white in them like seafoam streaked across them.

The dim lighting in the room had most of the strong angles of his face in shadow, but she could see a line was between his eyebrows, his nostrils were flaring, those eyes were watching her with the hungry acuity of a predator, and his mouth was curled in a look so possessive it was almost frightening.

Cole didn't even acknowledge Cullen, who was saying something, she realized. Cole continued to stare at her for several seconds, only breaking his gaze from hers to look down at Cullen's hand that was resting on her thigh, as if he wanted to cut it off.

Ember purposefully looked away from him. Her eyes stayed firmly on Cullen as she smiled at him, as if nothing had happened and there wasn't a spirit standing directly behind her, his eyes drilling into the back of her head.

"Thank you for your kind offer to escort me to my room, Commander. Why don't we-?"

Ember jerked when she felt fingers in her hair.

Cullen stared wide-eyed at her. "Inquisitor…" the Commander drawled. "Why is it grabbing your hair like that?"

Ember swallowed. "I don't know."

Cole's fingers tightened in her hair as well as pull her closer to him, forcing her back to arch.

"It is looking at you as if… as if it wants to devour you," Cullen murmured to her, though his eyes remained on the one standing behind her with his hand still fisted in her hair. "It's… disturbing." His eyes returned to hers. "Is it hurting you?"

Cole's fingers loosened slightly in her hair.

Ember's hands were tightly clenched fists under the table. She had to get out of there. The awkwardness was too absolute. The fingers in her hair made her feel claustrophobic. The space around them was electrically charged with a caged intensity and she couldn't seem to get enough air into her lungs. The presence of the man behind her was wreaking havoc on her emotional stability.

Her voice wobbled, "I… I think I'm going to go."

Before Cullen could answer, Ember was out of her seat. Thankfully, the hand in her hair had fallen away without taking a chunk of her hair with it. The Inquisitor was hasty in her escape to the front door, unaware that every single eye was following her as she practically fled the tavern needing to put distance between herself and Cole as quickly as possible.

Cole turned and stalked out of the tavern after her. On his way to the door he wiped the memory of himself from every mind in the room. No one would remember how the strange young man they all found so odd and unsettling had his fingers wrapped possessively in the Herald of Andraste's hair while he held a dagger in the other, his unnatural blue eyes glaring around the room, warning and threatening not to touch.