Inquisition's Placeholder of Glory

[avisionofhawke]

Or, the post from which we shall dangle the actual thread.

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[cattymage]

As soon as the door was safely closed behind them, a little spell-wisp popped into being courtesy of Anders, bobbing ahead slowly ahead of them and casting a pale, eerie light onto everything.

[avisionofhawke]

The cellar was empty. That was all Hawke managed to register as she stormed through and up the stairs.

Everything seemed in order.

Everything was coated in dust.

Her heart was hammering in her chest, loud enough that she was almost certain Anders - the Anders behind her, not her Anders, not the right one - could hear it.

No sign of anyone downstairs.

[cattymage]

He sped his pace to keep up with her - the wisp did it on its own, because Hawke was the one forging ahead, he'd considered it a better idea to set it to follow her - but still, kept silent. He could tell she was evaluating with as much of a strained, panicked eye as he'd been, earlier - except worse, because this WAS her home.

[avisionofhawke]

Empty. Everything was empty.

Empty, cold, and dead.

It was as she knew it, but... The life was gone from the place. This room - empty. That room - empty. She zipped up the stairs, taking them two at a time and making a beeline for the bedroom.

Empty.

At least there were no bodies...

She rushed through, the early afternoon sun shining through the windows as if to mock her. She stopped dead, though, when she saw it - Anders' manifesto, sitting at the table by the fireplace where it always was. She stepped closer as though in a dream, her fingers brushing against the dusty paper almost wistfully.

"He would take it with him," the rogue whispered, "if he left..."

[cattymage]

He waited in the halls, each time she dove ahead into yet another abandoned room - at the bedroom, though, he dared to follow her in, after the moments stretched on a tad too far as Aisling contemplated the manifesto.

He didn't dare come much further than the open middle of the room, taken in by the sight of her - enraptured, sorrowfully, by a paper.

--A note--?

No, she would be more intense about it if it was novel, he wagered - this wasn't the look of someone reading. More the look of someone remembering.

"I know one way to check," he suggested quietly, after giving her a few more minutes of reverie. "I know what wouldn't be here for certain, if... if he was still alive."

He always, always kept it where he slept, and it hadn't been at the ravaged clinic. He'd looked. Both in the likely hiding places, and in the ashes - nothing that looked like charred fabric. All paper.

[avisionofhawke]

She jolted out of her reverie as though struck by electricity. "Of course - the pillow," she muttered to herself, going to the bed and almost frantically tearing the sheets off. It...

It wasn't there.

"Maker, it's gone," she said with a distinct note of relief.

[cattymage]

"Then he's alright," he said, with clear conviction.

Dithering time was over. Where Hawke loomed, breathless, over the roughed up bed, Anders came over and sat down on it, so that he could look up into her eyes, for once.

"...technically, though..." Anders began, tone light, as he dug into his pack with motions practiced enough to not need to even look at what he was doing. The pillow emerged shortly, and he pulled it into his lap, carefully running hands over it and straightening it out. He left his fingers perched to trace the intricate embroidering. "Technically, it's also still right here."

It looked younger.

It made sense - the poor thing hadn't had to weather the Deep Roads once yet, after all - though it still bore the mark of long years of reverent love. It was brighter, but not truly bright.

It must have been beautiful, on the day it was finished. As fresh and ready for the world as the beloved son it was diligently sewn for.

[avisionofhawke]

Aisling settled down next to him and looked at it, resisting the urge to reach out and touch it. She remembered the nightmares he had and how he would clutch the pillow to him...

And her heart broke just a little further.

At least Anders was alive, though... Two of them, she supposed, given the evidence. But they were definitely the same man. It was all so confusing, and she just didn't know quite how to handle it.

She leaned her head against his shoulder, overwhelmed by everything now that she had a moment to pause without the danger of being crept up on by Maker knew what.

[cattymage]

One hand splayed across his pillow, to keep it safe, in place - the other he reached around in a one-armed hug, firm and supporting in a moment that Aisling looked like she was about to fall over like a puppet with cut strings. He kept still as she sunk down onto his shoulder, then, bowed his head forward to rest his own forehead against her, just below her breast.

He could feel her heartbeat from here, the heave of her lungs.

"For what it's worth," said with a keen awareness of the disparity, his lack of being who ought to be here with her, because he couldn't be her matching, hopelessly smitten lover, couldn't be this missing man with his face who she ached for, "I'm here."

[avisionofhawke]

"Thank you."

It was as though an entire world lay in those two simple words. They seemed to hold much more than just gratitude, more than simple acceptance. Those words were her incredibly inadequate way of saying that she was immeasurably glad to have him with her, regardless of the circumstances, and she was glad that he cared enough to comfort her even though, as far as he was concerned, they hadn't known each other for long at all.

She reached up a hand to run it through his hair, starting at the base. She had always liked playing with his hair - it was soft and he seemed to enjoy it whenever she did. It was comforting to engage in such a familiar activity when everything else was thrown into chaos and uncertainty...

[cattymage]

The hair petting earned a soft exhale, accompanied by a pleased hum; the gentle rush of air tickling a little where it trickled in through the pores of her shirt.

After a good minute of relaxed acceptance, he made a sound that wasn't just wordless appreciation - he tipped his head back to look up at her with eyes rendered bleary and murky from the attention, then spoke up in a near-whisper.

_{"If you keep that up, I'm going to have to move. I'll end up drooling into my own lap otherwise, and then where will you be?"}

In spite of his words, he'd been running slow, soothing circles with the hand on her back - light, not something meant to fix physically like the interrupted ministrations they'd went through with earlier.

[avisionofhawke]

She couldn't help but think how alike the Anderses were - they were the same man, after all. The rogue pressed a small, affectionate kiss to his forehead and smiled slightly.

"Nowhere that it would bother me to be," she replied in a gentle tone that usually didn't surface unless it was a particularly intimate moment.

[cattymage]

He closes his eyes when she presses that kiss to his head, and they don't open back up. His head drifts back downwards, cheek pressed flush against her.

"Sit down with me?"

[avisionofhawke]

Chuckling softly, she shifted to sit with him.

"Of course, love."

Her fingers continued to run through his hair, eventually pulling out the tie to free the silky locks so she could play with them.

[cattymage]

It's a different tie in about every way you can examine a hair tie for differences - a solid, fancifully ornate loop that must take a dedicated, steady-handed twist to pull all that hair through, rather than the simple, dime-a-dozen strip of leather he'd come to favor pinning up with in later years. It gave him a bouncy, sleek ponytail that showed off both the loop holding his hair in place and the loop in his ear, as opposed to the tufty cuter style born out of rushed pragmatism; put it up fast, and get it out of the way.

He sidled up against her as well as he could while still leaving them sitting side by side, and turned his head just so to give her a clean shot at mussing about with his loosened hair.

One hand, still protectively over that pillow.

It was a surreal situation, and the longer it went on, sent twinging prickles into random nerve endings about his spine as he couldn't quite zone into it, as much as he'd hoped he would - but the man was a healer. He saw hurt.

And in this case?

The placebo treatment might actually be effective.

[avisionofhawke]

Hawke just enjoyed it for a while, sighing every now and then as she thought things through.

Maker, she didn't know what to do for a change. She always knew just what she wanted and usually knew how to go about getting it, but now she had no clue whatsoever. Everything had been turned on its head.

"You're so much like him," she observed softly, talking mostly to herself. "It's confusing..."

[cattymage]

"Well, I wager we've had a lot of similar experiences, you know," he jokes. "That tends to create some commonalities."

Just as lost as you, Hawke. Just as lost.

[avisionofhawke]

A quiet ghost of a laugh.

"I can't decide if you are him, the way he would be without Justice, or... or if you're someone else entirely. Nothing about this makes sense, but... Thank you for not making things too terribly difficult," she finished awkwardly.

She was trying to open up, really she was. It just didn't come naturally for her. It was the only way to sort this nonsense out, but... Jokes were easier. They hurt less. It was easy to dodge around the painful bits rather than face them head on.

[cattymage]

"Hmm. Suppose it like caterpillars and butterflies? --Maker, I just made myself the caterpillar in this analogy, didn't I? Or the cocoon. Yeugh. Maybe don't suppose it as caterpillars."

He's quiet, a second, until something strikes him --

"Oi, you only said not too difficult," he laughed, giving her a playful nudge. "You haven't even seen difficult yet, sweetheart." He leans his face scandalously close, dropping into something closer to the flirty purrs he'd tossed out willy-nilly yesterday. "Don't tempt me. Or... on second thought... maybe do."

Oh boy here it comes

[avisionofhawke]

"That almost makes sense," she replied with an actual smile this time. "Almost."

At the playful nudge, she giggled and shifted one hand to cradle the back of his neck. This was more her speed.

"Tempt you?" She ducked even closer, eyes sparkling with mischief. Her lips almost brushed against his as she continued, "You mean like this...?"

[cattymage]

Dodging deeper emotions via sexual tension? Not only is this his speed, it's the race he's won gold Maker-blessed medalist in several times.

His lips buzzed with a happy noise that she could practically feel on her own lips as much as she heard it, so close by. "Mmm, exactly like that." And then, he was the one to pull back, eyes dancing as much as hers.

Two professional teases on the same bed, Maker help them.

"Too bad I'm already wily to your wicked ways."

hawkehasissuesandnocluehowtoactuallydeal.jpg

[avisionofhawke]

"Oh, are you?" she practically purred, shifting to hover near his chest and peer up at him temptingly. "What makes you think you've seen the half of it?"

Without waiting for a response, she teasingly nipped his collarbone before returning to her previous position.

The subject of - well, everything - seemed to have been shelved indefinitely. They could go at this for... oh, three rounds, last time she tested their limits. If Anders would actually get enough bloody rest, they could probably go even longer. And until they were done, Hawke wasn't about to pick any of their worries back up. Nope, not her. Jokes and sex were the axis on which her crumbling world revolved, and she wasn't going to change it now of all times.

[cattymage]

He jolts, and it's all good electric, far from the discomfort he'd powered through earlier -- Amell used to tell him in no uncertain terms he was crazy, for getting off on getting gnawed on, but you know what, he was the one who had nerves that told him Maker, yes if teeth were so much as scraping on him in the right kind of way, so who was the one losing out here, honestly?

Hint: Amell. Amell could go suck it.

"Hold on, let me just--" he broke into a snicker, mostly at himself and his own absurdity, needing to move a pillow out of the way before anything fun could really happen, and what he was about to say. "Let me get this put away before we whip anything out."

[avisionofhawke]

Hawke smirked and withdrew just far enough to let him put his pillow away, taking her boots off in such a way that it showed off her lovely, well-shaped legs.

She was really beginning to look forward to this. Getting reactions out of him was always fun, but there was a bit of information she had tucked away for just this sort of occasion (namely the piercings). Testing it would make things even better than usual.

[cattymage]

The boots hitting the floor as she shed them? Yeah, pretty much the last note of finality. The final coffin nail on the oncoming petit mort, as the Orlesians would call it. This was happening. And not on a rocky, dusty mountain, either.

_{(As a man possessing an underdeveloped sense of shame, he had to admit, it was pretty damn funny when, during their last collusion, he'd turned his head to lay his cheek upon the ground and inhaled a spluttering mouthful of dirt for his trouble.)}

He rolled his pants up to the knees and reached for his laces, taking Hawke's shedded boots as a cue to make himself substantially less clothed as well - these were his trash boots, and he felt a little bad to have tracked them and their muck all through Hawke's nice house -- eh, sod it. Not worth caring. He had vague ideas of how one might use magic to carefully clean a carpet, so maybe he'd try that out later.