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peopleofthedas2011-04-04 04:15 pm
DA2 Oneshot fic: Angles
Title: Angles
Words: 1940
Rating: PG
Characters: f!Hawke mage (Waverly), Fenris, Anders, Merrill, and Isabela
Spoiler level: strictly Act 1 stuff
Summary: Our heroes form initial romantic impressions of each other, not all of which are compatible.
Obtuse
Seems like a waste of a perfectly pretty elf.
It is the strangest thing she could possibly have said. She startles me out of worrying about what kind of motives one mage would have to help protect me from another. Now that she knows, is she hoping that I can be lured into serving a new master? Granted, slavery is supposed to be illegal in the Free Marches, but that doesn’t keep roving gangs from finding people to sell to Tevinter.
A perfectly pretty elf.
Some kind of... noise comes out of my mouth. Something between awkward laughter and coughing. She stands there next to the Dalish mage – they both stand there, trying to look innocent and harmless after I saw them blast their way through Danarius’s minions. Trying to tell me they are innocent and harmless, as if that didn’t make them seem even more dangerous.
Hawke’s eyes aren’t as small and narrow as human eyes often are, and even in the dark I can tell how bright they are. Her hair is black or near enough to it, like the elf’s, and gathered into several tails in a tomboyish look. There is a small tattoo around her right eye, which means it’s possible she was sincere in complimenting mine – but that is absurd. Mine are a vast, glowing network, a living testament to Tevinter depravity. I am branded as a thing that should not be.
Perhaps it does make sense that a mage would find that attractive. How typical of my luck. I am to be an exotic curio of the magic of foreign lands.
Still, I remind myself that whatever else Hawke proves to be, she is not Danarius, and that she has helped me, so I owe her a debt. I pay her what I can, and promise to be helpful to her in exchange, for as long as I am here waiting for my former master to follow up on this failed attempt. I will be on guard regardless, so I know that I can disappear at the first sign that she might take this offer as the beginning of ownership. ...Although the idea of mages fighting to the death over me has a dark humor to it, and I find myself chuckling again, and both the women stare at me this time in confusion, because they have said nothing to prompt it.
If I open my mouth again, I will condemn myself further, either with the mistrust that would undermine my gratitude or with a clumsy and tardy return of her compliment. I save myself as I often do, with awkward silence. She does not retreat from it as quickly as I am used to or would like, so I emphasize my point by going into the mansion and closing the door behind me.
Danarius never spends a moment in a house devoid of liquor. Clearly it is time for me to go and find it.
Right
An apostate from Ferelden.
When I came to Kirkwall, it was with the certainty that I was going to devote myself to my work. The Circle here is the epitome of how badly this system fails; if I can make real change here, I can change things for mages everywhere. With Justice’s strength – when I can control it, keep us from going too far – I will be able to make something happen. I know it.
I assumed it meant my days of thinking about the Wardens and the Deep Roads were behind me. But I have time to kill when I’m not laying the groundwork for a mage resistance, and running a clinic for impoverished Fereldan refugees is a natural choice. I’m Fereldan myself, I’m a good healer, and the clinic itself makes a perfect stop on the underground escape route for mages fleeing the wrath of Kirkwall’s psychotic Templars. It’s tiring work, but it keeps both parts of what I now call myself satisfied.
She’s sent the whole thing sideways, showing up out of nowhere with her notions of raiding the Deep Roads for her fortune with a bunch of dwarves. It’s a ridiculous, suicidal idea, and I shouldn’t have given a moment’s thought to telling her no.
But she is an apostate from Ferelden. Constantly just a heartbeat away from being taken by the Templars herself, at least according to her annoying brother. It’s hard to resist the temptation to take it as a sign, especially now. She went with me to see poor Karl, and she was the one who helped me find the courage to end him by reminding me that being Tranquil was worse than death. She didn’t run when Justice surfaced while we were fighting to escape, and she didn’t even flinch when I told her why we are this way.
I don’t even know why I told her. It’s hardly something I share with the room every time I’m out for a round of drinks. I... suppose it’s the first time I’ve thought someone might understand. I know it’s important not to let anything distract me from the cause, but I am still a man, I think. I still do think about everything I’ve given up, and how good it would feel to have someone standing beside me in this, and lying beside me when I rest.
I hope she doesn’t think I did it for power, like some filthy blood mage. When she comes to see me at the clinic, I try to clarify it for her – which isn’t easy, given that I know Merrill is standing right outside, waiting for Hawke to finish talking to me. I try not to say anything that will get me into trouble, because I know Hawke wants to trust her and feel like they are apostates together, even though she’s got to realize how foolish that is. She shouldn’t be trusting her back to a blood mage, or that other elf who would just as soon see all mages dead. Or her brother, for that matter, since I’d lay odds he would already be a Templar if his loyalties were an ounce less sure.
She should trust me. Our needs are the same. Our cause is the same.
It’s embarrassing how I babble at her. I ask her if it makes her uncomfortable, and she doesn’t shut me down. She doesn’t bare her soul to me either, but I can already tell she’s the sort who unfolds slowly. Anyway, it’s not as if she had to come and see me, because she’s not sick and the expedition’s not ready yet.
What am I thinking? I can’t have a serious relationship with a woman, not any more. She would always end up coming in second to the cause – that’s the nature of what I’ve become. I can’t ask a woman to tolerate that.
Even so, when she goes, she leaves me smiling to myself about potentials I thought I’d lost.
Acute
“You’ve switched our drinks,” Merrill says to Isabela, interrupting my story.
The pirate shakes her pretty head. “You’re not ready for a Maferath’s Beard, kitten. You’d be out cold for a week. Go on, Hawke.”
“Right, so. He’s just finished apologizing for telling me – ” I drop my voice again, because although they know what I mean this is not the place to mention the details – “too much about himself, and then he tells me all about it again. To prove to me he’s not selfish.”
“Selfish?” Merrill asks. “What’s selfish about allowing a spir-” I shush her before she can finish the word.
“Oh, bollocks,” Isabela sneers. “He thinks he’s a hero. He says he’s selfish so you can listen to his sob story and say, no no, I think you’re a hero. Trust me, this is a type, and you don’t want any part of it.”
I nod and take a swig of my cheap-ass ale. “That’s the sense I get too. Like he’s married to his ‘big purpose’ but he wants a mistress. So I’m just listening and nodding along, right? And he gets that look, and says he feels like he knows me already, and asks if he’s making me uncomfortable.”
“Andraste’s ass,” Isabela chuckles.
“I don’t get it,” Merrill pouts. “What look?” Rather than answering, Isabela actually fixes the look on Merrill, her dark eyes sultry and suddenly full of promise. It’s such a masterful imitation that I start giggling, which doesn’t help poor Merrill blush any less. “Oh my,” she whispers.
“He feels like he knows me,” I repeat, since for me that’s the kicker. “I’ve said, what, five words to him? What is it he thinks he knows?”
“That you’re built out of the right parts,” Isabela answers, then swills down half the Maferath’s Beard she wouldn’t let Merrill have. “If you go to see him again by yourself, go with that rock-wollop you’ve got at the ready. Men like that don’t respond to subtle hints.”
“Did you tell him you were uncomfortable?” asks Merrill.
“Not... exactly. I said it was... not what I’d expected.” Even Merrill looks concerned at this, and it’s my turn to blush. I know people get used to me being blunt about most things, but I’m not used to being the one who gets this kind of attention. Everything I know about it, I learned from watching Bethany, who would have been much too polite to tell Anders to go jump off the docks.
Isabela waves it off. “It might not have made a difference. Whatever you said, he heard what he wanted to hear. But you’re going to have to be that much more forceful about it next time, and probably a few times after. The longer you let it go on, the worse it’s going to get.”
“I know. I kind of wish I hadn’t gone over there in the first place.”
But pirate girl’s attention has wandered off to the other side of the room. “Now that,” she murmurs, “would be a shell more worth cracking.”
Merrill and I look over our shoulders and see Fenris walking from the front door toward the stairs. He doesn’t take any notice of us as he crosses the room, staying near the wall. I understand only too well why he caught Isabela’s eye: he always does mine. Stark and graceful and lovely... and full of burning hatred of what I am.
So that’s going to work out, I’m sure.
“Ooh, do you think so?” Merrill asks, shuddering. “He’s a bit creepy.”
“He’d say the same about you,” I point out. “Of course, that’s the problem.”
“Oh ladies, so defeatist! Look.” She leans toward us over the table, a dangerous maneuver for her ample cleavage. “Elven men. Nine out of ten are dull as dirty socks, but the tenth one is always worth the trouble. He’s the one, I’d bet the pot on it.”
Great, now I’m imagining things that are not helping me put him out of mind in the slightest. “Well, don’t tell me about it when you get him. It’ll make me sick.”
“Me? You saw him first, Hawke. I’ll give you finder’s rights.”
“I doubt he will. The mage thing.”
Merrill nods glumly in agreement, but Isabela only laughs at both of us. “Aren’t you sweet! Trust the voice of my experience, pets, when I tell you that scorn is much easier to turn into passion than apathy is. This one just needs a bit of loosening up. I’ll take care of it for you. Consider it a gift.”
I’m not sure what she means by that, but it makes me very nervous.
ETA: Here, enjoy wot's fault this is.
Lyrics of the second verse:
Blondie was with me for a summer
He flirted like a maniac but I wouldn't bite
I'm weak and he was so persistent
He only had to have me 'cause I put up a fight
Oh God, the boy had such an ego
He liked to talk about himself all day and all night
You think you're such a ladykiller
But you were nothing special 'til you turned out the light
When he's nice to me he's just nice to himself
And he's watching his reflection
I'm a five foot mirror for adoring himself
Here's seven years bad luck (I wanna tell him)
When you say you love me you're just flattering your vanity
But I don't need your practised lines your, your school of charm mentality so
Save your breath for someone else and credit me with something more
When it comes to men like you,
I know the score,
I've heard it all before
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And this fic was loads of fun :D
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his little laugh/cough expression is so wondermous!
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Okay, seriously, loved. Isabela's perspective was just fantastic, and your Fenris is actually kind of adorkable.
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