peopleofthedas | BSN Prompt Response

I respond to my own prompts. Yes I know it's sad.

Title: Styles of Command
Wordcount: Um... there are some words.
Characters: Aedan Cousland, Miranda Cousland, Alim Surana, Anders (you'll understand when you read it)
Summary: Commanders of the Grey come in all shapes and sizes.

A response to (my own) BSN prompt - Claustrophobia. I was originally thinking about my three wardens and how they're different to each other, so I thought I'd write the prompt three times in my three different universes. For anyone who doesn't know - the first is Beginnings/Losses/Of Wardens and Mages, the second is Shades of Grey and the third is Caged.

~~~

"Is this a bad time to tell you I'm claustrophobic?" he said. Miranda looked surprised, her clear grey eyes suddenly concerned for him.

"Truly?" she said. "That's terrible! Why didn't you mention it before?" He pursed his lips. Concerned was good. Concerned was nice.

"You never asked?" he said, smirking a little.

She stepped closer to him and prodded his chest. "Funny, you look like a man," she fluttered her eyelashes at him and he felt heat come to his cheeks. "Oh, and you react like a man. But you're really just scaredy like your little pussy, aren't you?"

He growled and she laughed. "Come on, Anders. I'm sure you can find something to distract you while your down there."

"Trying to make me forget about it?" he said. "Your charms won't work on me, woman."

She laughed and tossed her head, turning her back on him and walking away. His eyes followed the curve of her backside as her hips swung and he sighed lustily. You're a liar, Anders.

~~~

"Is this a bad time to mention I'm claustrophobic?"

"Yes."

Blunt and to the point. That's our Commander. He still hesitated a moment at the entrance to the deep roads, and it was only the sounds of a struggle that forced his reluctant feet into movement again. Aedan hadn't even bothered to wait for him - the only member of the party who had even noticed that Anders hadn't moved was Oghren, who was looking back at him with his eyebrow raised.

"Sodding surfacers," he muttered as Anders walked past him. "Just don't get us killed."

Anders frowned. He couldn't figure the dwarf. Aedan he knew was a rat bastard and Nathaniel was an arrogant arse, but the dwarf had moments of clarity through his drunkenness that made Anders think there was more to him.

They killed the darkspawn who were trying to drag the dwarf girl away and Anders healed her cracked ribs. She was surprisingly cheerful for a member of the Legion of the Dead and Oghren immediately started flirting with her. Anders supposed he would have done the same, if he wasn't so busy trying not to think of the walls closing in on him.

It only got worse. But it wasn't until they started having to fight those damn childer grubs that he started shaking. "What is it?" Nathaniel asked him as he wildly misdirected a cold spell at the end of the battle. He slammed his staff into the offending hand and bit his lip, noticing that Aedan was looking back at him from where he had been speaking to Sigrun, lips pursed as though he was considering something.

"Nothing," he said.

An hour later, after Nathaniel had painstakingly disarmed the nightmare network of traps that dotted the rear entrance to the fortress and they'd just dispatched yet another group of darkspawn - this time with emissaries - that he really discovered how much trouble he was in.

He'd been concentrating on ... well on not losing concentration. So hard, that when the breath was knocked out of him and he was slammed into a wall he didn't even have time to react.

"Listen to me," Aedan hissed at him, his cold blue eyes boring into him, his elbow firmly wedged in the hollow of Anders' throat. The man was shorter than Anders, but far, far bulkier and Anders had never before appreciated just how easy it was for one human to snap the neck of another. "I don't care what you're afraid of. Spiders, snakes, sodding butterflies but if it stops you from doing your job or endangers another warden I will kill you where you stand." He pushed into Anders' throat hard enough to make him gag before stepping back. "Now heal Nathaniel before he bleeds to death." The Commander spun on his heel and stalked away without even waiting for Anders to answer.

Anders rubbed his throat as he knelt to attend to his fellow warden's wounds, his claustrophobia completely cured for the moment.

Truly, he didn't need anything else to fear down here.

~~~

"Is this a bad time to tell you I'm claustrophobic?"

Alim looked back at him. "You're claustrophobic?" he said, eyebrow cocked. Anders nodded. "And I'm the elf here."

"Hah, Sparklefingers probably just wants to duck out on work," Oghren said, chortling.

"I'll have you know this is a documented and legitimate fear that even royalty have suffered from in the past," Anders said, bristling at both the elf and the dwarf's tone.

"Man up, loverboy," Alim said, grinning.

Anders shot the elf a look. "Would you stop calling me that?"

Alim shrugged. "I'll cuddle you if you start crying," he said.

"I won't!" Oghren piped in.

Anders threw up his hands. "Andraste's bloody rags!" he swore. "I happen to be legitimately frightened here."

"Commander, it'll do no one any good to have a twitchy mage in the party," Nathaniel said. Anders sneered at him. Trust the Howe to be the voice of calm reason.

The elf rolled his eyes and trudged back to Anders. "You can leave me here if you want," Anders said, then fixed the Howe with a glare. "I'd hate to go off and hurt someone accidentally."

"Honestly, will you just shut up!" Alim said, then lifted his hands and started casting. Anders was suddenly hit with a combination spell - quite complex - that settled his heart rate and soothed the fear out of him.

"What was that?" he asked.

Alim snorted. "Best spirit healer in the tower my pointy ears," he said. "Looks like someone studied harder than you," the emphasis on his words wasn't lost on Anders but the buzz of the spell stopped him from getting too irritated. Really, you get caught by the man's best friend having sex in a public place once...

BSN Prompt Response - Styles of Command

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