Adult-FanFiction.org : Games

Unresolved Tangles (Through a Glass Darkly 4)	By : Anesor Category: +A through F > Dragon Age (all) > Dragon Age (all) Views: 3510 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: The Dragon Age world, plot, and their characters aren't mine but belong to Bioware. Some characters may be my creations. I get no money for writing this sequel.

Chapter List
- 8
- 9
- 10
He stumbled up the steps, battered and sore. His knees moved in odd directions like stilts. He couldn't remember the caverns and tunnels returning to Darktown, but suddenly there was the ladder leading up to the large chamber outside his clinic.
The dim light falling down on him almost gave him hope, until he remembered who and what he left behind.
The satisfaction of his spirit, he ignored. There was nothing to be satisfied about.
Empty of any feeling but shame and loathing for what they'd become, he climbed out of the tunnel and made his way back to his clinic. The clinic was once the symbol of his hopes, now it was only his place of shame. He might as well go into the Deep Roads now. He was... no, they were as big a threat to other mages as a Templar.
Justice either didn't understand or didn't care.
He'd always wanted to heal others, so combat magics were only theory until he survived his first darkspawn attack. Then under the Warden, he'd worked hard at polishing his attack spells against those monsters.
But Ella was no darkspawn and he was the monster.
Mages like her were why he started fighting for more than just his own survival. They didn't know the outside world. Like hothouse flowers, they were recaptured so easily. It wasn't their fault they didn't know any better.
He knew better.
Justice should know better.
When he looked into his clinic, he was surprised to see a few patients and his assistants inside. The sun had risen, life continued, and his trip into despair hadn't taken that long.
He snorted at himself. It had taken years for Justice to take more and more of his life, starting with the Wardens who had been his friends. They'd been Justice's friends too, but they would have disapproved and he didn't want their blood on his hands too.
He had enough blood already.
Before entering, he looked at himself. He didn't want to alarm his patients. Then he almost laughed hysterically, but clenched his jaw shut until the spasm ended. He looked no worse than after any other of Hawke's missions.
The rock in his gut grew larger, but he walked into the clinic.
His assistants were used to his returns like this; these missions helped provide supplies, after all. Everyone else was calm and serene. He stalked past them with only nods, easing past the rubble to the open closet where he kept his few possessions.
He looked around and almost laughed; he'd owned more in the Circle. Some spare clothing, a few references, a worn staff that Hawke had replaced even before the Deep Roads.
His reflection in the cracked mirror on the wall seemed too, too apt. He face was worn out and older than the few years since his Joining. He touched the cool glass, tracing the crease between his eyebrows. He'd never had that before Justice. His clothes in tatters...
Why should Hawke be interested, anyway?
Heedless, he smashed his fist into the mirror, reveling in the crack of the glass and the force that shook through his arm. Most of the pieces tinkled to the stone floor in metallic rush. He ground the shards into the wall with his knuckles.
Stane came close to the open door, and asked if he needed help.
He muttered a response and his assistant moved away.
He sighed and used a spell to help clean out the wound and heal himself. Bleeding on his patients was never approved.
Time to clean out everything else. He should leave the herbals and potions, he wanted the clinic as self-sufficient as he could make it. He rooted through his writings and notes, gathering the papers into an armload to take out to one of the fires. He fell to his knees beside the fire to sort through the papers, and he started tossing them into the fire, one by one.
These pages were pointless, his musings and verse scattered among notes on herbs and patient care. All the personal ones went into the fire: odes to the delicate tracery of her facial tattoo, manifesto drafts, doodles, celebrations of lethal grace, lists of people to approach, and imagined daydreams of what their life could have been.
Could have been if he hadn't become a monster. His dreams went up in smoke.
A hand touched his shoulder and he swayed a little toward her, but he refused to look at her, at them.
Hawke's voice was quiet. “I brought your proof.”
That goal seemed an age ago, and he paused in burning his papers.
She pulled on his coat, forcing him to stand and face her. With her other hand, she put a many-folded paper in his face.
He took it, looking up at her compassionate face. Only then did he notice that she hadn't brought back-up to talk to the monster and it got a trifle easier to breathe.
Only then did he read, and his jaw dropped with his surprise. The tranquil solution had been rejected. There was a small reason to hope that the mages of Kirkwall might get some relief from Meredith and her Templars.
Even more, Hawke was smiling now. She had seen him at his worst and she didn't fear him.
The rock dissolved and he felt as light as a feather.
He tried to distract himself with some small tasks, sweeping or feeding another feral cat, but Hawke watched him silently. She was waiting for something and he wasn't sure what.
His thanks to her meant so much more than just those slips of paper or the mages from Starkhaven. Justice didn't bother to object to those, as incoherently as they were coming out. She must truly believe mages like her father and sister deserved better.
That was denied when she purred that she liked underdogs. She almost said... like him.
Andraste, she was doing it for him. Her father and sister forgotten, she believed in him.
Maybe he wasn't a monster. He grasped that line to the surface and safety and her. His relief and joy and lust were flaring up as he flew higher toward...
Holding himself very still, so still it might as well have been Justice's doing, he warned her again, his voice cracking with his conflict. Please, be safe from me...from us.
Her hand ghosted along his arm. “I don't want you to resist, to keep me safe. I want you.”
Her words, her touch, and his resistance crumbled. He lunged forward to seize her head for a kiss that exploded out of him. Pleading, frustration, want, need, all he'd been holding in for so long.
After an instant, her lips softened and mouth opened. He tasted her for the first time, dizzied by her. Arms dropping he pulled her against himself and felt soft and yielding flesh against him. Trailing kisses along her jaw to her naked ear, he nipped it as he pulled her hips against his engorged hardness.
Her fingers trailed down his back and under his coat, slipping in and out, fabric and skin, pulling him closer too.
She distracts you from the mages! She is a sloth demon to make you satisfied and forget their oppression. She is a lust demon that makes you...
Makes my flesh sing. He shoved the spirit away and drank in her sweet sounds until he pulled back. She looked dazed as he felt.
Even though he stepped away, her grip slid down his forearm until she held his wrist. Without meaning to, he held her wrist as well and felt a silly smile on his face.
Justice was rumbling his disapproval.
He babbled about disasters and chances of dying at any time. One truth was that he couldn't live without her; the days since Isabela spoke made that very clear to him. The words and the need for such words were frighteningly new. “I don't want another day to pass without telling you how I feel.”
Hawke's fingers slid around his arm, out of direct sight, but reassuring. She nodded at the papers spread out on the ground, covered in his writing, and grinned. “Is it in verse? I'd like it in verse.”
He felt his ears warm, realizing how many scratched out and rewritten sheets lying there were obviously poetry. He shook his head and admitted, “That's Arcanum.” He wasn't sure if he hoped or dreaded that she could read it.
Hawke shrugged like she didn't.
She still held him by his arm, and that alone gave him hope.
“I thought after Justice and leaving the Wardens, friendship and love were over for me. I can't give you a normal life, even as much as any other apostate.” He gripped her wrist once more, before letting his arm drop. His arm felt so much colder now. “I'll come tonight if your door is open. If not, I'll know you...”
Hawke glared at him before he could finish and just left him with his mouth hanging open.
--- x ---
A/N: Some bits of this are reworks of canon dialogue. Thanks to my beta reader who has been kind enough to read this and point out stupid flubs. Any typos that remain are not intentional... Reviews or a PM to let me know what you think would be very appreciated.
- 8
- 9
- 10
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Unresolved Tangles (Through a Glass Darkly 4)