Fic: Dream Walk
Title: Dream Walk
Characters/Pairings: Justice/F!Hawke
Rating: Mature (NSFW)
Summary: Hawke slips into one of Anders' dreams and meets Justice there.
A/N: Originally written for a prompt on the kmeme and one of my few fills that actually, gasp, has smut in it.
The feeling of being slightly more tangible than normal alerts her to the fact that she's slipped from a simple dream to actually walking in the Fade. It is the sort of thing that had terrified her when she was younger - until her father had showed her how to understand the how to navigate through dreams, to understand the danger of the demons that lived there.
He had also told her to only trust herself when she walks in the Fade, that nothing is as it seems.
She wonders if her father had ever met a spirit within the Fade. It is likely, but he had never spoken of it. She certainly doubts that he would have ever dealt with such a spirit as she has.
She can feel him here, her spirit. The mix of Anders and Justice, a familiar presence that flickers like a half-seen figure out of the corner of her eye. They are dreaming, she thinks, just out of reach. Not fully in the Fade, not as she is.
The dream is there, little ghost-shapes that she can barely see, and if she takes a step forward - just the smallest step - she thinks that she can reach them.
Do not meddle in the dreams of others, her father had told her once. You cannot control their dream, only offer suggestion. If you are not careful, you can lose yourself.
She has only stepped into another's dream once, and that had been done only with the aid of magic outside of herself. She hesitates, there at the threshold of the dream, wondering if she should even be considering this.
But she can feel them there, Anders and Justice, almost taste their magic in the air - or, in whatever serves as the air within the Fade. Electricity and smoke and ash, with something bitter beneath it all. It is hard to separate the two, Anders and Justice so closely entwined with one another, but she thinks that she can feel Justice more strongly here.
He is a creature of dreams, and it would make sense that he is stronger within his own domain.
It is the temptation of being able to speak with him here, in the place where he is most whole, the most like himself, that draws her forward, little threads of magic pulling her through the Fade, slipping into the dream as easily as drawing breath.
There is a vibrancy within this dream, some colors so bright that they seem wrong. Blues and reds and green, flowers that spread out across a carpet of grass, the flash of a girl's dress and the yellow of a young boy's hair. But other colors are muted, the sky seeming nothing more than a grey canvas spreading out above her, and the faces of the figure that dart through the grass are indistinct, impossible to see.
She sees him, sitting in the middle of the field. It is strange, seeing him there - he, too, has a certain indistinctness to him, as though there are two images there, one overlapping the other. She sees him as a simple man, in a white shirt and pants, his feet bare as he sits on the ground. And over that, she see a figure clad in armor, sharp lines of armor and leather, plates and straps and metal. And yet it is Anders' face on both figures, with blue light spilling from cracks.
“Hawke.”
She steps towards him, the phantom figures of the dream darting past once more, echoes of laughter caught in the air. “Hello, Justice.”
He looks up at her, and even though she expects it, it is still strange to see blue light where Anders' brown eyes should be. “You are within this dream.”
“Yes, I am.” She drops to the ground before him, crushing the vibrant green grass and the yellow flowers that are spread around them. “But you're not dreaming me up, if that's what you are wondering.”
“I know it is you. When Anders dreams of you, it is never so...vivid.”
“Ah, so Anders does dream of me?”
“On occasion,” the spirit says. “But I do not wish to discuss that.”
“Of course.” She hears the laughter again, turns her head to see the figures run across the grass. “Is this a dream or a memory?” she asks, for she is curious. Perhaps this is why her father had told her not to step through another's dreams; it is too tempting to pry into the why of the dream that she sees.
But Justice does not seem to mind answering, though she thinks he looks distant, and for a moment there is more of the simply dressed man instead of the armored warrior sitting before her.
“It is both,” he says, his voice that low rumble of his, and she can just hear the sound of Anders' own voice, the barest echo to the words. “A memory...and a wish. It is him before magic came to him, and a wish for a future where someone like himself could live with that magic and not lose all they hold dear.”
There is the sense of magic in the air - not real magic, but the way that a dream conjures up things and makes one believe they are real.
“Is this your dream, as well?” she asks him, and he turns his gaze back to her.
“My dreams are Anders'. We do not exist separate from one another.”
“And yet you are separate. I am talking to you, Justice, and not to Anders. You are not the same being.”
He turns his head to the side, regarding her with those light-filled eyes. “We are the same, and yet not. Two individuals who are not separate.” He pauses for a moment as though a thought has come to him. “Do you wish to speak to Anders?”
“I came here to speak to you,” she tells him, and that is the truth. “I can speak to Anders in the waking world, but not you. And I do wish to speak with you.”
There is surprise written on his face, as though he still cannot comprehend that she might care for him as well as for the man who's body he resides within. She is not certain what it will take to make him understand that.
“What do you wish to speak of?” he finally says. She gives a small laugh, one that is caught by the dream and pulled away from her.
“Everything. Nothing. I wished to see you, Justice, and so I am here.”
He is silent for a long moment, looking at her. Around them, the dream has become muted, the figures fading away, dissolving into nothing. Laughter lingers in the air until it becomes indistinguishable from the silence.
She reaches out then, setting her hands upon his knees, and there is both the sensation of touching something and touching nothing at all. A dream, intangible and yet real within the mind of the dreamer.
“I...have wished to see you, as well,” he says, and his words are quieter. They do not fill the spaces of this world as she has heard them do before, though there is no less depth to them.
His hand touch hers, and he slowly draws her to him. It is tentative, uncertain, and she feels almost weightless as she is pulled forward. There is such ease to things within a dream, gravity imagined and yet forgotten in the space of a moment. It is almost like reality, but not quite.
His mouth touches hers, so light, and she feels the dream narrow down to them, only them. If she bothered to look, she is certain that the grass they still sit upon will begin to turn to grey and vanish.
There is so much of a dream that is not there, the mind filling in the gaps, making sense of a senseless world. It is less senseless to a mage, but she is not walking the Fade as she has done before, she is caught within a dream that is not her own.
Justice brings her hands to his chest, pressing them against the armor that has become the dominant of the images she sees. “I...had not thought to see you within the Fade again,” he admits, mouth inches from her own.
“How could I stay away?” It is meant to be said teasingly, but comes out too soft, too much like an admission that she did not want to slip free. But she loves Anders as he is, and Justice is part of him. And here, within the Fade, there is none of the anger, none of the hate that corrupts the two into that creature of vengeance that she cares nothing for.
Within a dream, transitions can become lost. Things melt from one to the next as a thought can turn into another, and as she draws her hands down his chest the armor dissolves as though it had never been there at all.
She hears Justice's breath catch, though there is no true need to breathe within a dream. “Hawke...”
She catches at his hands them, her turn to draw him to her, allowing him to touch her. He is so uncertain, the slightest tremble in his body. He does not know what to do, she thinks, does not know how to apply any memory or thought of this that he might have from Anders - or, perhaps, he is afraid to even look into that part of Anders. He is a spirit, after all, a thought, an idea given form, spun of dreams and magic.
But this dream is constructed from reality, and she knows reality. She leans forward and his hands slip to her sides, and she curls her legs around his hips, threads her fingers through his hair, and presses soft kisses to his lips, his jaw, his neck. For all that they might look similar, this is not Anders, and she cannot treat him as such.
His hands catch at her, hold her, and she feels magic spark along her skin. It is not Anders' magic, and she smells ash and smoke and something terribly sweet, none of the tang of electricity that is the scent she associates with the mage. But she feels it race through her, the dream telling her what to feel, and she tips her head back with a gasp, pressing closer to him.
“I do not know what to do,” Justice tells her, but he is doing something, and her skin feels light, incandescent, the dream running through her, and every point of contact between them feeling like bright color given form. It is like something she could never describe outside of a dream, nonsensical and yet perfect within this realm.
“You're doing fine so far,” she says, and there is a breathless quality to her voice that she does not think he misses. His hands move down her back to her hips, tracing over the contours of her bones, to the soft skin of her legs. There is the hum of that magic as his fingers slide across skin and she gasps at the sensation, hips moving forward, against him, and she hears her gasp echoed in him. His fingers spasm against her, slide down and around her, pulling her tight to him.
“I...I don't...Anders has such memories of this, and I do not know -”
She cups his face in her hands, presses a kiss to the tip of his nose. “This is not about Anders,” she tells him. “This is you and me, and you have done nothing wrong. Don't worry, Justice.”
His arms slide around her back once more, pulling her tight to his chest, and she feels the breath that he draws in. The hum of magic is like a heartbeat between them, one that echoes through the dream until it fills her ears.
“There is...something that I would try, but I-”
“Do no worry. If it is not all right, I will tell you.”
He nods, releases her slightly so that there is some space between them, then allows one of his hands to slip between them, lightly skimming her skin until he reaches her legs, and he first touches the soft skin of her inner thigh before pressing his fingers lightly to her.
And it is such a light touch, and yet there is that spark of dream-magic once more, and she inhales shakily, mouth opening wordlessly. And his movements are so small and light that she can barely stand it. She presses her hips forward, seeking pressure, and Justice gives a start.
“What did I-”
“Nothing's wrong. Just -” He moves his fingers slightly and she cannot finish her sentence. She wonders, briefly, if he is drawing from some memory or thought of Anders, and then decides that, if he is, it is a good thing. The feel of his fingers as they slip within her, and the way that the dream clings to her, some things sharp and vivid, others like half-remembered thoughts. He tips her back and she tumbles to what is the ground here, the bright green of the grass around her, and the yellow flowers that smell so sweet. She feels light, like the world is changing around her, and the only thing constant is the feel of him against and within her and the grass and flowers.
But she reaches and takes hold of his hand and he stills instantly, but she hooks her legs around his hips and pulls him to her.
“Are you -”
“I'm fine,” she says, and her voice seems to breathy, so distant. “Please, just-” Again, her words break away from her as he presses a kiss to the hollow of her neck and she feels warmth spread through her, leaving her skin feeling so sensitive, like she will break at a single touch.
For a moment, she wonders, worries, if he knows what to do, but he does - again, she wonders if it is something of Anders that he is drawing upon - and he slides into her. Slowly, so slowly, and she shuts her eyes against the dream as it sparks around her, her body still as she allows Justice to figure this out. She wonders if it is him manipulating something with the Fade, if he is why she feels so very much like she could fly to pieces at a touch. One of her hands catches in his hair, the other falls to the ground, clutching at the grass and flowers as though to anchor herself. But within a dream, there is nothing outside of herself of self to anchor her, and she smells the sweet scent of the flowers mix within the smoke and ash and magic, and she thinks that it is that same sweet tinge as the magic that clings to Justice.
She cannot help the way her body shakes as he moves against her, how her breath catches and goes ragged, and she feels like she will dissolve into the dream, utterly and completely. She claws at the ground and her fingers grip his hair, and she feels the way his body goes tense, the hot spill of his breath over her skin, and it's still all too slow, too sweet, too little and too much. Her breath hitches and wordless sounds fall from her lips, and she crushes the yellow flowers between her fingers until the scent overpowers her, and the whole dream seems to tip.
She is used to Anders' magic, but this - it's the whole dream, everything around her. It slides along her skin, surrounds her completely, and she tries to hold to whatever she can. She doesn't dare open her eyes, and now she holds to Justice with both hands, holding to his shoulders, to whatever she can reach. He presses a kiss to the base of her neck and she feels magic spread white-hot through her.
And when she finally opens her eyes it is to see Justice, there, looking at her with an expression she cannot fully grasp, and she pushes herself up from the ground as best she can and kisses him.
But there is no time for words, the dream beginning to dissolve, and even as she tries to keep hold of him, he fades.
She wakes, heart pounding, still breathless, with Anders' arms caught tightly around her. Already, the memory of the dream is dimming, feeling less real and more like the imagining of a sleeping mind. She shuts her eyes and tries to hold to it before it slips away.
Characters/Pairings: Justice/F!Hawke
Rating: Mature (NSFW)
Summary: Hawke slips into one of Anders' dreams and meets Justice there.
A/N: Originally written for a prompt on the kmeme and one of my few fills that actually, gasp, has smut in it.
The feeling of being slightly more tangible than normal alerts her to the fact that she's slipped from a simple dream to actually walking in the Fade. It is the sort of thing that had terrified her when she was younger - until her father had showed her how to understand the how to navigate through dreams, to understand the danger of the demons that lived there.
He had also told her to only trust herself when she walks in the Fade, that nothing is as it seems.
She wonders if her father had ever met a spirit within the Fade. It is likely, but he had never spoken of it. She certainly doubts that he would have ever dealt with such a spirit as she has.
She can feel him here, her spirit. The mix of Anders and Justice, a familiar presence that flickers like a half-seen figure out of the corner of her eye. They are dreaming, she thinks, just out of reach. Not fully in the Fade, not as she is.
The dream is there, little ghost-shapes that she can barely see, and if she takes a step forward - just the smallest step - she thinks that she can reach them.
Do not meddle in the dreams of others, her father had told her once. You cannot control their dream, only offer suggestion. If you are not careful, you can lose yourself.
She has only stepped into another's dream once, and that had been done only with the aid of magic outside of herself. She hesitates, there at the threshold of the dream, wondering if she should even be considering this.
But she can feel them there, Anders and Justice, almost taste their magic in the air - or, in whatever serves as the air within the Fade. Electricity and smoke and ash, with something bitter beneath it all. It is hard to separate the two, Anders and Justice so closely entwined with one another, but she thinks that she can feel Justice more strongly here.
He is a creature of dreams, and it would make sense that he is stronger within his own domain.
It is the temptation of being able to speak with him here, in the place where he is most whole, the most like himself, that draws her forward, little threads of magic pulling her through the Fade, slipping into the dream as easily as drawing breath.
There is a vibrancy within this dream, some colors so bright that they seem wrong. Blues and reds and green, flowers that spread out across a carpet of grass, the flash of a girl's dress and the yellow of a young boy's hair. But other colors are muted, the sky seeming nothing more than a grey canvas spreading out above her, and the faces of the figure that dart through the grass are indistinct, impossible to see.
She sees him, sitting in the middle of the field. It is strange, seeing him there - he, too, has a certain indistinctness to him, as though there are two images there, one overlapping the other. She sees him as a simple man, in a white shirt and pants, his feet bare as he sits on the ground. And over that, she see a figure clad in armor, sharp lines of armor and leather, plates and straps and metal. And yet it is Anders' face on both figures, with blue light spilling from cracks.
“Hawke.”
She steps towards him, the phantom figures of the dream darting past once more, echoes of laughter caught in the air. “Hello, Justice.”
He looks up at her, and even though she expects it, it is still strange to see blue light where Anders' brown eyes should be. “You are within this dream.”
“Yes, I am.” She drops to the ground before him, crushing the vibrant green grass and the yellow flowers that are spread around them. “But you're not dreaming me up, if that's what you are wondering.”
“I know it is you. When Anders dreams of you, it is never so...vivid.”
“Ah, so Anders does dream of me?”
“On occasion,” the spirit says. “But I do not wish to discuss that.”
“Of course.” She hears the laughter again, turns her head to see the figures run across the grass. “Is this a dream or a memory?” she asks, for she is curious. Perhaps this is why her father had told her not to step through another's dreams; it is too tempting to pry into the why of the dream that she sees.
But Justice does not seem to mind answering, though she thinks he looks distant, and for a moment there is more of the simply dressed man instead of the armored warrior sitting before her.
“It is both,” he says, his voice that low rumble of his, and she can just hear the sound of Anders' own voice, the barest echo to the words. “A memory...and a wish. It is him before magic came to him, and a wish for a future where someone like himself could live with that magic and not lose all they hold dear.”
There is the sense of magic in the air - not real magic, but the way that a dream conjures up things and makes one believe they are real.
“Is this your dream, as well?” she asks him, and he turns his gaze back to her.
“My dreams are Anders'. We do not exist separate from one another.”
“And yet you are separate. I am talking to you, Justice, and not to Anders. You are not the same being.”
He turns his head to the side, regarding her with those light-filled eyes. “We are the same, and yet not. Two individuals who are not separate.” He pauses for a moment as though a thought has come to him. “Do you wish to speak to Anders?”
“I came here to speak to you,” she tells him, and that is the truth. “I can speak to Anders in the waking world, but not you. And I do wish to speak with you.”
There is surprise written on his face, as though he still cannot comprehend that she might care for him as well as for the man who's body he resides within. She is not certain what it will take to make him understand that.
“What do you wish to speak of?” he finally says. She gives a small laugh, one that is caught by the dream and pulled away from her.
“Everything. Nothing. I wished to see you, Justice, and so I am here.”
He is silent for a long moment, looking at her. Around them, the dream has become muted, the figures fading away, dissolving into nothing. Laughter lingers in the air until it becomes indistinguishable from the silence.
She reaches out then, setting her hands upon his knees, and there is both the sensation of touching something and touching nothing at all. A dream, intangible and yet real within the mind of the dreamer.
“I...have wished to see you, as well,” he says, and his words are quieter. They do not fill the spaces of this world as she has heard them do before, though there is no less depth to them.
His hand touch hers, and he slowly draws her to him. It is tentative, uncertain, and she feels almost weightless as she is pulled forward. There is such ease to things within a dream, gravity imagined and yet forgotten in the space of a moment. It is almost like reality, but not quite.
His mouth touches hers, so light, and she feels the dream narrow down to them, only them. If she bothered to look, she is certain that the grass they still sit upon will begin to turn to grey and vanish.
There is so much of a dream that is not there, the mind filling in the gaps, making sense of a senseless world. It is less senseless to a mage, but she is not walking the Fade as she has done before, she is caught within a dream that is not her own.
Justice brings her hands to his chest, pressing them against the armor that has become the dominant of the images she sees. “I...had not thought to see you within the Fade again,” he admits, mouth inches from her own.
“How could I stay away?” It is meant to be said teasingly, but comes out too soft, too much like an admission that she did not want to slip free. But she loves Anders as he is, and Justice is part of him. And here, within the Fade, there is none of the anger, none of the hate that corrupts the two into that creature of vengeance that she cares nothing for.
Within a dream, transitions can become lost. Things melt from one to the next as a thought can turn into another, and as she draws her hands down his chest the armor dissolves as though it had never been there at all.
She hears Justice's breath catch, though there is no true need to breathe within a dream. “Hawke...”
She catches at his hands them, her turn to draw him to her, allowing him to touch her. He is so uncertain, the slightest tremble in his body. He does not know what to do, she thinks, does not know how to apply any memory or thought of this that he might have from Anders - or, perhaps, he is afraid to even look into that part of Anders. He is a spirit, after all, a thought, an idea given form, spun of dreams and magic.
But this dream is constructed from reality, and she knows reality. She leans forward and his hands slip to her sides, and she curls her legs around his hips, threads her fingers through his hair, and presses soft kisses to his lips, his jaw, his neck. For all that they might look similar, this is not Anders, and she cannot treat him as such.
His hands catch at her, hold her, and she feels magic spark along her skin. It is not Anders' magic, and she smells ash and smoke and something terribly sweet, none of the tang of electricity that is the scent she associates with the mage. But she feels it race through her, the dream telling her what to feel, and she tips her head back with a gasp, pressing closer to him.
“I do not know what to do,” Justice tells her, but he is doing something, and her skin feels light, incandescent, the dream running through her, and every point of contact between them feeling like bright color given form. It is like something she could never describe outside of a dream, nonsensical and yet perfect within this realm.
“You're doing fine so far,” she says, and there is a breathless quality to her voice that she does not think he misses. His hands move down her back to her hips, tracing over the contours of her bones, to the soft skin of her legs. There is the hum of that magic as his fingers slide across skin and she gasps at the sensation, hips moving forward, against him, and she hears her gasp echoed in him. His fingers spasm against her, slide down and around her, pulling her tight to him.
“I...I don't...Anders has such memories of this, and I do not know -”
She cups his face in her hands, presses a kiss to the tip of his nose. “This is not about Anders,” she tells him. “This is you and me, and you have done nothing wrong. Don't worry, Justice.”
His arms slide around her back once more, pulling her tight to his chest, and she feels the breath that he draws in. The hum of magic is like a heartbeat between them, one that echoes through the dream until it fills her ears.
“There is...something that I would try, but I-”
“Do no worry. If it is not all right, I will tell you.”
He nods, releases her slightly so that there is some space between them, then allows one of his hands to slip between them, lightly skimming her skin until he reaches her legs, and he first touches the soft skin of her inner thigh before pressing his fingers lightly to her.
And it is such a light touch, and yet there is that spark of dream-magic once more, and she inhales shakily, mouth opening wordlessly. And his movements are so small and light that she can barely stand it. She presses her hips forward, seeking pressure, and Justice gives a start.
“What did I-”
“Nothing's wrong. Just -” He moves his fingers slightly and she cannot finish her sentence. She wonders, briefly, if he is drawing from some memory or thought of Anders, and then decides that, if he is, it is a good thing. The feel of his fingers as they slip within her, and the way that the dream clings to her, some things sharp and vivid, others like half-remembered thoughts. He tips her back and she tumbles to what is the ground here, the bright green of the grass around her, and the yellow flowers that smell so sweet. She feels light, like the world is changing around her, and the only thing constant is the feel of him against and within her and the grass and flowers.
But she reaches and takes hold of his hand and he stills instantly, but she hooks her legs around his hips and pulls him to her.
“Are you -”
“I'm fine,” she says, and her voice seems to breathy, so distant. “Please, just-” Again, her words break away from her as he presses a kiss to the hollow of her neck and she feels warmth spread through her, leaving her skin feeling so sensitive, like she will break at a single touch.
For a moment, she wonders, worries, if he knows what to do, but he does - again, she wonders if it is something of Anders that he is drawing upon - and he slides into her. Slowly, so slowly, and she shuts her eyes against the dream as it sparks around her, her body still as she allows Justice to figure this out. She wonders if it is him manipulating something with the Fade, if he is why she feels so very much like she could fly to pieces at a touch. One of her hands catches in his hair, the other falls to the ground, clutching at the grass and flowers as though to anchor herself. But within a dream, there is nothing outside of herself of self to anchor her, and she smells the sweet scent of the flowers mix within the smoke and ash and magic, and she thinks that it is that same sweet tinge as the magic that clings to Justice.
She cannot help the way her body shakes as he moves against her, how her breath catches and goes ragged, and she feels like she will dissolve into the dream, utterly and completely. She claws at the ground and her fingers grip his hair, and she feels the way his body goes tense, the hot spill of his breath over her skin, and it's still all too slow, too sweet, too little and too much. Her breath hitches and wordless sounds fall from her lips, and she crushes the yellow flowers between her fingers until the scent overpowers her, and the whole dream seems to tip.
She is used to Anders' magic, but this - it's the whole dream, everything around her. It slides along her skin, surrounds her completely, and she tries to hold to whatever she can. She doesn't dare open her eyes, and now she holds to Justice with both hands, holding to his shoulders, to whatever she can reach. He presses a kiss to the base of her neck and she feels magic spread white-hot through her.
And when she finally opens her eyes it is to see Justice, there, looking at her with an expression she cannot fully grasp, and she pushes herself up from the ground as best she can and kisses him.
But there is no time for words, the dream beginning to dissolve, and even as she tries to keep hold of him, he fades.
She wakes, heart pounding, still breathless, with Anders' arms caught tightly around her. Already, the memory of the dream is dimming, feeling less real and more like the imagining of a sleeping mind. She shuts her eyes and tries to hold to it before it slips away.