BSN Prompt - Love

[miri1984]

Title: Love
Words: 1000
Characters: Anders, Justice
Rating: T +
Summary: Justice is asking awkward questions again!

"Tell me, Anders, what do you know of love?"

Anders spluttered into his pie. "What?"

"Oghren keeps pestering me about bodily functions and the nature of Kristoff's marriage to Aura. He says that I must know something of it, yet I am uncertain to what he refers. I thought that perhaps you might be able to educate me."

Anders blinked. I'm going to kill Oghren. Slowly. With an ice spell and some very small knives. "Have you asked Alim?"

"I do not think it wise," Justice said, his ghoulish face taking on the closest it could to a forlorn expression. "The Commander seems preoccupied at present."

"True," Anders pushed his plate aside, the last of the pie consumed. He truly didn't know why Justice bothered to sit at the table with one or another of them whenever they came to the inn - the spirit didn't need to eat. More often than not he chose to sit with Anders, especially if Nathaniel wasn't around. Sigrun bemused the spirit and Oghren outright antagonised it. Velanna - well Anders couldn't blame the spirit for not wanting to sit with Velanna. He was a relieved they'd worked out how to manage his all-pervading smell, though. "Why did you think I could help you?"

"From your… conversations with Velanna I assumed you were familiar with the emotion."

"You think from my conversations with Velanna that I know something about love?"

"Yes," Justice said. He really needed to work on his tone recognition. "Is it more than the simple exchange of bodily fluids I see in Kristoff's memories?"

Anders' jaw dropped. "Uh… " he blinked and shook his head. "You can see Kristoff's memories?"

"I can. I thought you knew this."

"Well… I suppose I didn't think about it much."

"Are you going to answer my question?"

Anders grimaced. There was no point being circumspect, or exaggerating to the spirit. Any attempt at irony or innuendo would sail straight over his delicately rotting head. "To be honest, Justice, I'm probably not the best person to ask."

"You have implied on several occasions that you have engaged in sexual relations with extreme frequency."

Anders didn't really know how much more embarrassing the conversation could get. Except that it wasn't because Justice truly didn't understand that his questions could possibly be embarrassing, never having felt that particular emotion himself. He heaved a big sigh and took a long pull of his ale. "Very well," he said. "First off, let's get one thing straight. There's a big difference between sex and love."

"Truly? How intriguing. Oghren seemed to imply that they were one and the same thing."

Maker's breath. That sodding dwarf. "No. They're not. Don't get me wrong - the two can go together… very well. But they're not the same. Love is an emotion. Sex is a.. " lot of fun and something I haven't had for far, far too long. "Sex is something you do."

"Is it not necessary to love someone before you have sex with them? The words of Kristoff's marriage vows seem to imply…"

"Now that little myth you can thank the Chantry and its priests for," Anders said, somewhat bitterly. "I very much doubt Andraste had much chop with the sanctity of marriage. Or the Maker for that matter, come to think of it…"

"So you can have sex with someone other than your spouse?"

"You can yes. Whether or not you should…" Andraste's knickers, this was getting far, far to complicated. "Forget marriage for the moment. It's not important." Justice looked about to argue but Anders held up a hand. "Yes, yes it is important, but not to this discussion. You can most certainly have sex with someone you don't love. It doesn't… stop things from working, if you know what I mean. But a lot of people believe that sex with someone you love is a lot better. More… rewarding."

"I do not understand. Do you receive gifts for copulation?"

"Maker's balls, Justice, this is not easy to explain."

"I am sorry, Anders. I did not know the question was so difficult."

Neither did I.

"Let's get back to the question of love."

"By all means."

"I…" Anders paused. He had thought, when he brought the conversation back towards love that he would know what to say. But it turned out he didn't. He could say I loved my mother, but that wasn't what Justice was asking about. He could say I love my freedom but again, that would be inadequate. He could say last week, I spent an extremely entertaining night with the lovely and skillful Sergeant Maverlies and I hope to the Maker I'll be spending another one like that as soon as we get back to the keep, but that wouldn't answer the crux of Justice's question. "You know what?" he said finally. "You'd probably be better off talking to the Commander about it."

"Truly?"

Anders took another long drink of his ale. He saw the look in Alim's eyes, whenever the elf - what did Oghren say his name was? Zevran came up in conversation. Remembered the way - before Justice had joined him, Alim had tried so desperately to get information about the Crows who had been sent to kill him. There was something there that Anders wasn't as yet familiar with, and he truly wasn't sure if he wanted to be.

"The Commander knows better than I do," Anders said. "Trust me on this, Justice."

"I shall, Anders," Justice said. "I thank you for attempting to help, in any case."

Anders eyed the man across the table, sitting ramrod straight, still encased in his armour, perfectly still. He shuddered suddenly, thinking of Justice as a blank slate from one of the classrooms in the tower, ready to be overwritten with whatever people chose.

Maker help him, he thought. I wonder who's going to hold the chalk?